tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-264987392024-03-13T13:31:56.588-07:00Kid FenrisIt's about games and other unfortunate things.Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07679999989552548709noreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-52023168458257065712024-02-29T20:26:00.000-08:002024-03-01T21:27:22.789-08:00Important Freeon-Leon NewsThis coming month looks to be a busy one for nerds of my stripe, what with <b>Unicorn Overlord</b>, <b>Princess Peach: Showtime!</b>, a new <b>Contra</b>, and the bulk of <b>Final Fantasy VII Rebirth</b> looming over all. Yet the most important release is <b>Ufouria: The Saga 2</b>, in my opinion. That’s because it brings back Freeon-Leon. <div><br /></div><div>I discussed the first <b>Ufouria: The Saga</b> and its enduring appeal in my previous post. It’s cute, complex, cleverly designed, and largely unweathered by several decades of advances in video games. My favorite part of it is Freeon-Leon, the orange dinosaur hero who trots around with an expression of perpetual astoundment. </div><div><br /></div><div>
</div><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouriafreeon2.png" title="The bird shares Freeon-Leon's look of wide-eyed horror and perhaps too his comprehension of the horrific burden of the universe. The green blob doesn't care." /></center><p>
I especially like it when, instead of ducking in a traditional manner, Freeon-Leon flops on his back and stares upwards, as though comprehending the weight of all existence. And then, realizing the necessity of enduring the day as it stands, he scoots along the ground. </p><div><br /></div><div>Freeon-Leon was crafted for the Western release of <b>Ufouria</b>, however. The Japanese version has a cat-suited girl named O-Chan instead, and Sunsoft carried her over to the <b>Hebereke</b> series that grew out of <b>Ufouria </b>(and seldom saw any releases outside of Japan). When <b>Ufouria: The Saga 2</b> rolled around, it seemed to forget all about Freeon-Leon as well as Bop-Louie, the snowman-like revamp of series protagonist Hebe. </div><div><br /></div><div>
</div><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouriafreeon3.png" title="You'll also see Sukezaemon lose his shades and Jennifer just fall off. Game's great." /></center><p>
Well, Sunsoft didn’t forget! <b>Ufouria 2 </b>has Hebe and O-Chan as playable characters, but you’ll see both Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon on rare occasions. At the end of each stage is a Bobodori bird that flies the heroes back home, and that return trip occasionally shows Freeon-Leon or Bop-Louie instead of O-Chan or Hebe. </p><div><br /></div><div>This appears to be the limit of their cameos, as even after buying all of the game’s items I can’t find a way to unlock them as playable characters. Making them mere alternate skins for the existing cast might even mess with the game’s dialogue. O-Chan seems a little more braggadocious than Freeon-Leon’s boggled stare would imply, though Bop-Louie likely could share a lot of Hebe’s lines. I naturally would prefer that they be entirely separate characters, fitting with the game’s self-aware sense of humor. </div><div><br /></div><div>I will continue my investigation, but even this small cameo is a wonderful surprise. It’s also a good example of <b>Ufouria 2</b>’s winning attention to detail and heritage. I praised all of that in a forthcoming review, and I really hope that the game doesn’t get buried under the weight of more prominent titles this year. Sunsoft is planning an enhanced reissue of the original <b>Hebereke</b> as well, so there’s another chance for a<b> Ufouria</b> re-release and more of Freeon-Leon.</div>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-40047129212608713282024-01-30T05:18:00.000-08:002024-01-30T09:43:13.158-08:00Ufouria: Bring Back Freeon-Leon<p>A look through this site reveals that I enjoy going on and on about minor concerns. Yet I assure you that this entry involves no trivial complaints over logos or labels or <b>Zed Blade</b>. This is serious. I’m here to talk about the upcoming <b>Ufouria: The Saga 2</b> and how it seems to ignore my favorite part of the original game. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouriacover.png" title="They're just perfect for some educational stop-motion animated show that feels constantly, bizarrely ominous even though nothing bad ever really happens." /></center><p>
Sunsoft’s <b>Ufouria: The Saga</b> is a delight from the last years of the NES empire. It’s a sprawling adventure with four payable characters, solid side-scrolling mechanics, and a vast world to explore in backtracking Metroid fashion. Propelled by charming graphics and one of those marvelous Naoki Kadoka soundtracks, it’s altogether enjoyable even in the face of modern games that expertly evoke NES aesthetics and offer larger quests. It even accomplishes a rare feat for a maze-driven game: losing dumps you back at the very beginning, but thanks to <b>Ufouria</b>’s breezy pace and clever layout, I never really minded that setback. </p><p>Like a lot of impressive late-period NES games, <b>Ufouria</b> wasn’t justly appreciated in its time. It was released in Japan and Europe with little traction, and the North American version was canceled outright (though the Wii’s Virtual Console brought it there in 2010). In Japan the characters continued on in their Hebereke series, though this was primarily in puzzle and sports titles, never returning to the adventurous tones of <b>Ufouria</b>.</p><p><b>Ufouria</b> stars four goofy creatures in a quest to escape a strange alien world, including the protagonist Bop-Louie, the sure-footed Freeon-Leon*, the spectral Shades, and the aquatic Gil. As was frequently the case in this era, changes were made to the original Japanese game’s cast. Shades and Gil merely had their names changed (from Sukezaemon and Jennifer, amusingly enough) but Bop-Louie and Freeon-Leon also look different from their Hebereke counterparts. Hebe is a penguin while Bop-Louie is an alien-eyed snowman. O-Chan appears to be a person in a cat suit, but Freeon-Leon is a big-eyed dinosaur with a single horn.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouria2.png" title="GARFIELD, YOU LAZY CAT" /></center><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouria1.png" title="You found me freon? Good, the fridge is broken." /></center><p>
Freeon-Leon instantly became my favorite of the bunch. In NES games with regional changes I often lean toward the Japanese releases and their cuter designs, but that’s not the case with <b>Ufouria</b>. For one thing, I like Bop-Louie’s unique extraterrestrial Frosty design over Hebe’s precious but fairly pedestrian penguin form. </p><p>And while there’s nothing wrong with O-Chan, I find Freeon-Leon just about perfect. I love how he waddles around with an expression of utterly stupefied wonder. I love how the character selection screen has him making a panicked faced when you select him. And I love how his look of neutral awe changes to a confident smirk when he stomps enemies or a determined glare when he swims across a watery surface.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouria3.png" title="FINE, JUST IGNORE ME. Stupid floating platform..." /></center><p>
This brings me to <b>Ufouria 2</b>, Sunsoft’s upcoming sequel to the original game. Its plush-toy look is enticing and the gameplay appears to expand a good deal on its predecessor’s sound ground, but everything shown of it features the original Hebereke characters. There’s no beady-eyed Bop Louie and, worse yet, no unidinosaur Freeon-Leon. Like its Sunsoft contemporary <b>Mr. Gimmick</b>,<b> Ufouria</b> has characters clearly designed for more than just games. They were potential mascots for company logos, cameos, and prize crane machines. It’s a shame that any of them should be ignored.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ufouria2cover.png" title="Whoa. I guess Space Brothers got a little weird in its later story arcs." /></center><p>
<b>Ufouria </b>has perhaps only a cult following outside of Japan, of course, and there’s a much greater history to the Hebereke series. Yet I’ll miss Freeon-Leon. I’m not suggesting that Sunsoft delay the game to add optional characters for the sake of just one nutty Freeon-Leon fan, but perhaps we’d see some DLC if, say, several thousand Freeon-Leon fans took up the cause. That’s a hint. </p><p>To turn this more realistic, I hope that <b>Ufouria 2</b> will include the original game as a bonus in both its Japanese and European/American iterations. With the Wii U and 3DS shops closed to new purchases, there’s no place for newcomers to legally acquire the first <b>Ufouria</b> right now. I think it’s terribly unfair to deny modern civilization easy and honorable access to Freeon-Leon and all he embodies. </p><p>*<b>Ufouria</b>’s in-game text spells his name “Freeon-Leeon” when he’s introduced, but the manual spells it “Freeon-Leon” and that seems to be the more popular interpretation anyway.</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-42417466962005902292023-12-29T20:48:00.000-08:002023-12-29T20:48:13.224-08:00Vegas Dream, Analyzed<p>
I mentioned my fascination with casino games a while ago. While they’re often cast aside as cheap distractions, many gambling-themed titles hide cool little details and charming splashes of character beneath their typical spreads of blackjack and poker. At the time I discussed <b>Casino Kid</b> and <b>Casino Games</b>, and yet I think my favorite overall might be <b>Vegas Dream</b> for the NES. </p><p>At a glance <b>Vegas Dream</b> is a respectable yet unadventurous casino crawl from HAL Laboratory, the creators of <b>Lolo, Trax</b>, and, in good time, the Kirby series. You’ll enter your name as a Mr. or Ms. and then gamble away your money at blackjack, keno, the roulette wheel, or a slot machine. It’s what happens in between that makes <b>Vegas Dream</b> a delight.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/vegasdream1.png" title="I'm not just gonna gamble it away, I swear. I'm gonna buy a sealed NES game, then get it graded, and then..." /></center><p>
As you play you’re interrupted by all sorts of casino-goers: waitstaff, fellow gamblers, fast-talking weirdos, hard-luck cases, potential dates, drinking buddies, insider traders, and more. Each of them has a little story to tell and a little wager for you to make. Is that tipster letting you in on a hot stock deal, or is it a dud? Does that young woman really have a sick mother whose illness has led the family to sell a valuable watch, or is it all a scam? Will that cocktail waitress swipe your wallet when she spills a drink on your coat and takes it away for cleaning, or will she be honest and let the casino comp you a few bucks for the trouble? Will that phone call be from a lawyer telling you about a big inheritance, or will you trip on the way to answering it and get stuck with a huge hospital bill? </p><p>Not every meeting is as simple as a coin flip. Strangers challenge you to gambling duels, and a reoccurring Ms. Sophie or Mr. James will go on just a few dates with you before proposing marriage. And then you’ll find out if it’s true love, with a nice wedding gift from the casino, or if you’re just another victim of the nationwide epidemic of marriage fraud.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/vegasdream3.png" title="'And then, this woman...well, I think it was a woman...she, uh, married me.'" /></center><p>
It all livens up the straightforward tone and repetition of <b>Vegas Dream</b>’s casino diversions and soundtrack. The random encounters also repeat themselves, of course, but each time it’s a toss up as to whether you’ll profit or lose money. Seeing the same people over and over is amusing, since there’s no limit on how often you’ll meet any given character. </p><p>Nor is there a rule against you marrying Sophie or James as many times as they propose, as though you’re caught in a bizarre and troubled relationship with them, never knowing if this time they’ll wed you in earnest or just steal your cash. And it all goes on while the same bartender looks on grimly, having seen this depressing charade so many times before. At least the HAL Palace is only too happy to give you money for the publicity over and over. </p><p>The amount you might lose also seems to stay consistent no matter how much cash you have, so a duplicitous paramour might go through the trouble of marrying you and your $381,900 casino account just to steal two hundred bucks. It’s also nice that many of these events make the Las Vegas News, which apparently airs a nightly feature chronicling the windfalls and embarrassments of one particular casino patron.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/vegasdream4.png" title="Look, just bump all those stories about murders and corruption. Some guy at the HAL Palace bought a stolen watch by mistake." /></center><p>
<b>Vegas Dream</b> looks fairly simple in its routine attractions, but HAL put a surprising amount of work into the clientele. While they might not impress by modern standards, those familiar with the restrictions of NES-era graphics might note the small touches, such as each dancer in a show at the hotel (where you might win a prize or get injured) having a different face. Even the smaller portraits are appealing, and they mix anime stylings with ‘80s fashion and the occasional celebrity lookalike. <br /></p><p>HAL put the same ideas to work in <b>Vegas Stakes</b> for the Game Boy and Super NES. You’ll see more locations, enjoy more casino games, and bring a friend along (or several in the Super NES title), but again you’ll be accosted by gamblers, hustlers, crooks, stockbrokers, racing insiders, unfortunates, and weirdos.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/vegasstakes1.png" title="No, I need it in case I get married to a random gambler five times over." /></center><p>
Both versions of <b>Vegas Stakes </b>are more elaborate and refined games than <b>Vegas Dream</b>, and yet there’s something absent. Even with the sequels' more animated characters, I prefer the cartoonish look of the <b>Vegas Dream</b> cast to the more realistic style of <b>Vegas Stakes</b>. Nor do these follow-ups seem to have as many cutaways or as much newscaster narration as <b>Vegas Dream</b>. And after hours of playing <b>Vegas Stakes</b>, I haven’t run into anyone trying to marry me. </p><p>One more good thing about <b>Vegas Dream </b>and <b>Vegas Stakes</b>: they’re cheap. All of them. Collectors will grumble about the ever-rising prices of old video games, and they’ll be right most of the time, but for under ten bucks you can nab <b>Vegas Dream</b> or one of its successors. That’s a steal for such an unexpectedly entertaining title from the lesser-known NES ranks. It’s also strangely fitting for a game that encourages you to take risks with your money. </p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-4862671603226882672023-11-30T20:07:00.000-08:002024-01-08T07:46:38.924-08:00Five Notable Unused Enemies<p>I don’t hesitate to recommend <a href="https://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor" target="_blank">The Cutting Room Floor</a> for many purposes, from in-depth research to the casual offing of an hour or two. The site details all manner of things deleted or changed in video games, with particular emphasis on localization choices or unused material still lurking in the code. That cut content might be entire stages, snippets of extraneous text, background graphics replaced in the final, or perhaps enemies that were excised for one reason or another. </p><p>It's those fully designed yet never-seen foes that often intrigue me the most. It seems a little unfair, after all: a complete and finished opponent, ready to take its place alongside legions of other enemy ships or entirely too cute woodland creatures, was denied even a brief appearance. Older games sometimes wanted for variety in enemies, and any new threat would be a challenge and a novelty. </p><p>With that in mind, here’s a rundown of five intriguing unused enemies from the TCRF files. </p><p><b>MONSTER PARTY’S CAR WOLF </b><br /><b>Monster Party</b> is a relentlessly weird and fascinating creation, a side-scroller that plunges a baseball-playing kid named Mark into a hellish world of bizarre monsters. The final game has no shortage of oddities, with the first stage alone featuring human-faced dogs and corpse legs kicking out of the ground, but earlier versions of the game were even more gruesome and daring. The original title screen oozed blood everywhere, and most of the bosses were direct parodies of classic horror and science fiction like <b>Planet of the Apes</b> and <b>The Thing</b>.
It was perhaps a little too much. Most of the game’s blatant homages were changed for the Western release, and <b>Monster Party </b>never even came out in Japan (perhaps due to the media frenzy around a serial killer). A few enemies that went unutilized for less obvious reasons.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenmonster1.png" title="He's off and howling as he guns the car around the track! He's marking territory like he's never coming back!" /></center><p>
My favorite is this wolf in a racecar. There’s nothing nightmarish or legally objectionable about him (or her) just wearing shades and speeding around with a grimly businesslike expression. It’s easy to see this thing zipping back and forth in just about any <b>Monster Party </b>stage, waiting to be dodged or dispatched with some whacks of Mark’s bat—or lasers fired from the form Mark takes when he fuses with his otherworldly bird-dragon ally Bert. I told you that <b>Monster Party</b> was weird. </p><p>Every bit of <b>Monster Party</b>, including its clumsy controls, nicely evokes the sort of awkward demi-nightmare a kid might have after an evening of junk food and horror flicks, and the wolfish racer falls into that dreamlike insecurity. It’s not scary or grotesque. It’s just a wolf in a racecar, and you have no idea why it’s there.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenmonster2.png" title="Sewer alligators are believed to be largely an urban myth. Fish with legs, however, are totally real." /></center><p>
Perhaps racer wolf here was cut for not being strange enough for Monster Party, but I like him. This wolf deserved a spot in the game and perhaps even a dreadful pun of a name in the manual, like Wolfspeed or Caniner or Wolfgang Amadeus Motorcart. Or just Car Wolf. Like <b>Star Wolf</b>? You know, the Edmond Hamilton novels that inspired a tokusatsu TV series that Sandy Frank released here as <b>Fugitive Alien</b> and Mystery Science Theater 3000 mocked? </p><p>I doubt we’ll see Monster Party revived in any capacity, but it would be a marvel if Bandai decided, against all sense of profit, to restore it with the censored bosses and other material. This would include Car Wolf, of course. I’m sticking with that name. </p><p><b>PHELIOS’ PILLBUGS </b><br /><b>Phelios</b> is a pretty good arcade shooter from Namco. It’s also a source of minor irritation. I usually like it when video games play fast and loose with mythology, but I’m always annoyed at <b>Phelios </b>repurposing Artemis, a proud goddess of the hunt, as a suggestively imperiled princess. Really, Namco, couldn’t you just go with Aphrodite or Persephone or maybe one of the many, many actual princesses in Greek myth who needed saving? How about Andromeda, since you’re already playing off Clash of the Titans by having the protagonist Apollo ride Pegasus and everything? The Artemis of ancient myth hung around in the woods, requiring neither men nor rescue, and she’s probably the least appropriate choice for a helpless, chained-up captive woman
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenphelios3.png" title="Instead of wine, marinate your turkey in Purplesaurus Rex." /></center><p>
Uh, anyway. <b>Phelios</b> has several enemies cut from the final game. The most perplexing is this oddity, which resembles some sort of grape-flavored rotisserie chicken. Perhaps it’s a piece of a larger, unfinished monster, but we can always envision a level where the player faced wave upon wave of flying ill-advised food products.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenphelios1.png" title="I mean, the ohmu wrecked a whole city and killed a lot of people so maybe they're not entirely nice, but the movie and manga sorta wave that aside." /></center><p>
My favorite absent <b>Phelios</b> creature, however, is a familiar little pillbug that curls up and rolls around. Namco is, of course, not fooling anyone who’s seen <b>Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. </b>That’s an Ohmu from Hayao Miyazaki’s landmark manga and film. They’re among the most frequently imitated of Miyazaki’s creations, as you’ll see tributes to them in <b>Crystalis, Riot, Ghouls ‘N Ghosts</b>, and plenty of other places. And yes, turning them into any sort of enemy contravenes the whole point of Nausicaa’s story, which was that these giant toxic creatures were benevolent and misunderstood. </p><p>These discount-store Ohmu probably got the axe for some logistical reason, but one can conjecture that some designer realized the thematic impropriety of including them. As to what philosophical violations prompted the purple chicken’s removal, I cannot even guess. </p><p><b>MEGA MAN 4’S ROBO SEAL </b><br />I was a little unfair to <b>Mega Man 4 </b>when I was a kid. For me it was the moment that the series started to feel formulaic and perhaps even bland. The master robots weren’t as striking as prior lineups, the stages were less memorable, and even the music wasn’t as crisp. Today, though, I can at least appreciate <b>Mega Man 4</b> for its nice environmental effects and impressively large mid-level bosses.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenmegaseal3.png" title="Also deleted: the secret room buried beneath the sphinx that contains the ancient prophecies of...uh, Capcom bringing back Mega Man Legends 3. Yeah, let's go with that." /></center><p>
At least one of those bosses didn’t make the cut. A massive Sphinx originally appeared in the thick of Pharaoh Man’s desert lair, but the final game removed it. Early footage of <b>Mega Man 4</b> suggests that the Sphinx took up too much of the screen and made things too tough on the player, but it’s absence definitely leaves Pharaoh Man’s stage lacking. And while there's a similar foe in <b>Mega Man V</b> for the Game Boy, it's much smaller.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenmegaseal1.png" title="ARF ARF ARF." /></center><p>
My favorite deleted enemy from Mega Man 4 isn’t the Sphinx, though. It’s a robot seal presumably intended for Dive Man’s level. The seal’s entire sprite is still in the game’s files, making it easy to see how the critter would have floated on its back and lobbed a spherical bomb at Mega Man.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenmegaseal2.png" title="A jumping fish and a...uh, boring buzzsaw." /></center><p>
Robo-Seal was possibly cut because there wasn’t room in Dive Man’s level, which admittedly gets a little crowded. Or was Capcom concerned about the player shooting a seal? Probably not, since Mega Man zaps all sorts of cybernetic animals, but then Nintendo changed the Topi enemies in Ice Climber into yeti for international audiences who might object to anything that smacked of seal hunting. </p><p>Whatever the reason, I count it as a loss that this cute little pinniped was removed. Many enemies in <b>Mega Man 4</b> are faceless machines, so a googly-eyed Robo-Seal would have added further cartoonish charm—and maybe improved my younger self’s opinion of the game. </p><b>STRIDER’S FIRE NINJA </b><br />It’s not surprising that <b>Strider </b>has unseen material lurking in its code. The game is a messy experience, though unlike some other awkward Capcom releases (such as those miserable Micronics ports) <b>Strider </b>has the excuse of ambition. It attempts a vibrant action manga in NES form, offering stages that scroll in all directions, large sprites that swamp the screen, and locales all across the globe. That helps make it one of my favorite NES games, truth be told. It’s choppy and jarring but also stylish, far-reaching, complex, and in the end pleasantly depressing.
<p></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenstrider1.png" title="This was made by BMF from the Lost Levels Forums." /></center><p>
<b>Strider</b>’s most intriguing unused character is a ninja-like boss who wields fireballs, surrounding himself with them and tossing flames at our protagonist, Hiryu. He’s roughly present in a prototype version of the game, appearing as one of many bosses at the Red Dragon Headquarters. The final game sticks a cyborg samurai there instead. </p><p>
Admittedly, a boss that wields flames is pretty low on <b>Strider</b>’s selection of oddities, which include a robot shark, a whirling tornado of a swordsman, and giant demon-mutant trees. And they have names like Flash Blade, Kodiak, and Badger. The fire ninja doesn’t even have that. He’s just a fire ninja.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseenstrider2.png" title="You look pretty laid back for a flying cyborg gunner-ninja, buddy." /></center><p>
I don’t think the TCRF has a full page for the NES version of <b>Strider</b>, but there’s a nice rundown of all the differences between the prototype and the final game. It’s doubly interesting since <b>Strider </b>was developed in Japan and had its own manga series there, but Capcom released it only in North America. It wasn’t uncommon for games to be refined and expanded in other territories after their American releases (ask me about <b>Trouble Shooter</b>, because I am honor-bound to discuss it at least once a year), so perhaps the fire ninja would have found his way back into the game if Capcom had polished it up for Japan, Europe, or another territory. </p><p><b>SPLATTERHOUSE’S NUN </b><br />The unused enemies of <b>Splatterhouse</b> are a touch disappointing. It’s a savagely gruesome arcade game, after all, so you might expect the never-used foes to be graphic horrors too hideous or objectionable for public display.
</p><p></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseensplatterhouse1.png" title="Taken from a planned but swiftly canceled crossover between Splatterhouse and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit." /></center><p>
There are indeed some decapitated zombies and seeping ghouls in <b>Splatterhouse</b>’s unseen files, but none of them seems particularly more offensive than the monsters that Rick routinely faces in the actual game. In fact, the most interesting one for me is this simple image of a nun.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/unseensplatterhouse2.png" title="I can handle zombies and monsters but NOT A CHAIR." /></center><p>
This was apparently intended as part of the second stage’s boss battle, in which a poltergeist hurls furniture and other assorted household objects at Rick. One of those items could’ve been a portrait of a nun. Or perhaps a complete VHS collection of The Flying Nun. Presumably there was some irony at work there, but it never made the final cut of <b>Splatterhouse</b>. </p><p>And I wonder why. Did someone think that involving a nun’s picture in a horror game was potentially offensive—or perhaps just cliché? Like the other entries here, the mystery isn’t so much what was cut as to why these ninja bosses and Miyazaki bugs and determined Car Wolves somehow weren’t good enough to appear in their respective games. Well, they’re good enough for me.
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-76183202916842329662023-10-31T20:20:00.000-07:002023-10-31T20:20:55.390-07:00Final Fantasy VI's Jump ScareOctober usually brings up spooky things, but I’ll resist any discussion of <b>Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Siren, Resident Evil, Power Piggs of the Dark Age</b>, and other openly frightening games. Instead I’ll talk about the first game that really scared me: <b>Final Fantasy VI</b>. </p><p><b>Final Fantasy VI</b>, then known as <b>Final Fantasy III</b>, might have been the last game I played completely fresh. I grabbed it on the day of release back in 1994 and plunged into it before any of my friends had it, before Nintendo Power properly featured it, and well before the Internet could spoil it. Everything that unfolded was new and fascinating—and even unsettling at one point. </p><p>Halfway through the game, the heroes head to an imperial stronghold near the mysterious Sealed Gate. It’s clear they’re being duped by the empire, but I nonetheless awaited the mechanics of the trap. Were the unstable Kefka and the conventionally evil Emperor Gestahl the main villains, or would there be a less human monstrosity behind it all? And what of the renegade general Celes, who’d joined our cause for a while? With many questions in mind, I marched Terra, Locke, and the rest of the misfit revolutionaries into the fortress.
</p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ffviglitch2.png" title="Later in the game Terra will overcome her insecurites and find meaning in protecting orphans and realizing that she is, in fact, the size of an average human mother." /></center><p>
At first things proceeded as normal: the group entered, everyone noticed that the base was deserted, and Terra seemed almost resigned to the empire’s inevitable machinations.
Then it happened. Terra suddenly jumped around the screen like a cave cricket. The other members of the party vanished. Then Terra skipped out of sight completely and the game froze. </p><p>I was stunned. I had seen video games glitch out before. I had witnessed countless NES games with garbled graphics that required a now-inadvisable cartridge-blowing. I knew that computer games would jam if you pulled out the disk at the wrong time. I had even personally kicked an arcade cabinet so hard that the game rebooted. But I had never seen something like this. </p><p>I tried to make sense of it. Maybe it was supposed to happen. <b>Final Fantasy VI</b>’s visual effects went well beyond other RPGs of its day, and Terra’s "Let's get this over with" even hinted that she was planning some revelation. Hours prior she had unexpectedly morphed into a wild-haired Esper and soared across half the world, so bounding all over the place was mundane by comparison. </p><p>I waited for the game to right itself. It stayed frozen. Shock spread through me. The game had broken through no fault of mine. It had stepped outside the boundaries of fiction and violated some unspoken decree of verisimilitude. Perhaps it had even wrecked my save file and destroyed all the hours that I’d put into this quest. Perhaps the actual game cartridge was irredeemably damaged right down to the circuits. For the first time in my life a video game was messing with my head. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ffviglitch1.png" title="Sorry, but when you booked the hotel you should have ASKED if the entire building was smaller than you." /></center><p>
Of course, everything was fine. I reset the game, pulled up my most recent save file, and sent Terra and her compatriots into the fortress and beyond without incident. And yet that strange scene was never far from my mind, and for the rest of the game I half-expected acrobatic chaos and lockups whenever the characters broke into conversation or entered a new region. My faith was shaken. </p><p>I had good cause for that. <b>Final Fantasy VI</b> is littered with notorious and well-documented glitches, including the many odd side effects of Relm’s “Sketch” command. That’s to say nothing of such deliberately unsettling sights as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se_LWNmGL2s" target="_blank">Shadow’s dreams</a> and the final battle’s grotesque Boschean vision. </p><p>Yet nothing in the game rattled me like Terra’s bizarre, game-freezing gymnastics, partly because they seemed unique. Other kids knew all about Relm’s glitches, and everyone who played the game enough would see Shadow’s nightmares. I never met another player who’d encountered a leaping Terra at the imperial fortress. </p><p>Even today I can’t find the glitch listed among <b>Final Fantasy VI</b>’s many known technical hiccups and exploitable programming. And I’ve never been able to recreate Terra’s antics in any subsequent play-through. I might be the only person who ever saw it, and that makes it just a little creepy even today.
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-63017654879483623892023-09-30T16:37:00.002-07:002023-09-30T20:55:28.449-07:00NES Games We Hated<p>I try not to buy physical copies of games these days. It’s a promise easily kept thanks to old games being expensive and new games being just installation discs in otherwise empty cases, but I have a weakness for cheap NES cartridges. </p><p>You can chalk up some of that to the merciless grip that Nintendo held on American children for the latter half of the 1980s, and yet I genuinely appreciate their aesthetics. I like the design of the cartridges, the work of a company intent on differentiating their games from the smaller, simpler plastic casings of the Atari era. I like how the labels are large enough to show the package illustrations well. I like how they look when stacked or arranged on a shelf, how they can tell a story or follow a theme. </p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstack1.png" title="No, I didn't clean them. That dust on Dragon Warrior speaks volumes." /></center><p>
For this latest pile of authentically worn NES cartridges, the theme is “Games That Kids Hated.” </p><p>That’s not to say these games were all that bad. Some were just misunderstood or mistimed. Yet each of them caught some resentment from the young citizens of the NES Empire (AD1985-1991) and I can tell you why. </p><p><b>DRAGON WARRIOR </b></p><p><b>Hated By: </b>Kids Expecting A Zelda Game </p><p>Nintendo’s marketers bent over backwards to sell Americans on <b>Dragon Warrior</b>. Nintendo Power carefully explained the mechanics of an RPG and devoted ample magazine space to an extensive guide. Yet it didn’t do the numbers that Nintendo had hoped; <b>Dragon Quest </b>was a monstrous success in Japan, but in America the re-titled <b>Dragon Warrior</b> had enough leftover stock that Nintendo Power gave away the game to subscribers.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackdw1.png" title="Depends. Does the slime believe that the Nanjing Massacre was faked?" /></center><p>
And that was bound to disappoint some kids. A free game was a free game, but more than a few Nintendo Power readers jumped on the offer without any idea of what an RPG entailed. They expected something like <b>The Legend of Zelda</b>, with direct combat between the hero and monsters. <b>Dragon Warrior</b>’s menu-driven battles and slower pace could’ve been a good introduction to the genre, but let’s be realistic: a lot of kids probably got bored and gave up after a few slimes drew near. </p><p>Of course, the biggest problem with Nintendo releasing <b>Dragon Warrior </b>was the indirect funding of series composer Koichi Sugiyama’s revisionist history, but that was likely beyond the sphere of American fifth-graders pitching their parents on getting them a magazine subscription and a new game all at once. </p><p><b>METAL GEAR </b></p><p><b>Hated By: </b>Kids Expecting Straightforward Action </p><p>No one has the wrong idea about Metal Gear games today. They’re so rampantly popular that even the casual observer knows about their stealthy approach to action, their long-winded cutscenes, and their issues with women. Things weren’t so clear in the late 1980s, when NES owners had to rely on magazine spreads, print ads, and cover artwork. So it was easy to assume that <b>Metal Gear </b>was a full-bore action game in the bullet-spraying tradition of <b>Contra</b> and <b>Commando</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackmg1.png" title="Guten Tag! Zigaretten?" /></center><p>
We didn’t realize that the game emphasizes subterfuge and strategy over pure reflex-driven shooting. We didn't expect that taking a direct action-game approach would get us spotted by guards and offed in short order. And we didn't know that the game starts protagonist Solid Snake with only a pack of cigarettes instead of the massive arsenal pictured in ads for <b>Metal Gear.
</b></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackmg2.png" title="Not pictured: NES version screenshots. ." /></center><p>
Of course, that’s what set the game apart and made it enjoyable: gradually collecting new items and experimenting with them. That was, however, not what many players expected. Kids who just wanted to be Rambo would bounce hard off of <b>Metal Gear</b>—and the actual NES <b>Rambo </b>game too, but that’s another story. </p><p>I saw this first-hand with a neighbor kid who hated <b>Metal Gear</b> so much that he refused to even pop it into his NES so I could see what the game was like. It wasn’t until years later that I checked it out myself and enjoyed it, and even then I had to admit that my younger incarnation would have given up after strategically walking right up to rifle-toting guards and trying to punch them. </p><p><b>THE ADVENTURES OF BAYOU BILLY </b></p><p><b>Hated By:</b> Kids Who Played It </p><p>Sheer oversaturation may have doomed <b>The Adventures of Bayou Billy</b>. It had TV commercials, an episode of the Captain N cartoon, ads in comics, a short comic of its own (illustrated by Amanda Conner, even), and ample space in Nintendo Power. And why wouldn’t Konami promote it? It looked like three games in one, as the eponymous Billy battles thugs across side-scrolling stages, driving scenes, and shooting levels that use the NES Zapper.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackbb2.png" title="So basically we alligators survived mass extinctions over millions of years because we can go months without eating. But look at me, talking up a storm while you're trying to rescue your girlfriend." /></center><p>
Yet <b>The Adventures of Bayou Billy</b> was a too-perfect case of an NES game difficult in both design and controls. The side-view stages are brawls similar to <b>Double Dragon</b>, with an awkward jumpkick and without any useful tricks. The driving and shooting stages demand a lot, and there’s nothing to the story beyond Billy rescuing his girlfriend Annabelle from the clutches of a demented swamp gangster.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackbb1.png" title="Really, couldn't they give him some stereotypical cajun accent, all saying MON AMI and AH GAR-RAUN-TEE?" /></center><p>
On that note, <b>The Adventures of Bayou Billy</b> might have drawn resentment from another camp: Concerned Parents of the 1980s who assumed video games were G-rated fare—and who did not approve of Annabelle’s low-cut attire or of Billy exclaiming “OH GOD!” at her abduction in the opening sequence. But they needn’t have worried about kids witnessing further filth, because they’d never get past the first level. </p><p><b>MILON’S SECRET CASTLE </b></p><p><b>Hated By:</b> Kids Who Didn’t Have the Manual </p><p>I have a personal vendetta here. The base exchange was the only place to buy American NES games when my family lived in Germany, and their supply was always weird. They’d fill shelves with lower-tier NES releases like <b>The Adventures of Lolo</b> or <b>Defender of the Crown</b>, with only a single copy of <b>Zelda II</b> or some other game people actually wanted. This meant that every kid at school had certain NES games, and <b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b> was one of them. So if, like me, you had a game that everyone wanted to borrow (<b>Mega Man 2</b>, in this case) you got used to kids lending you <b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b> in exchange. </p><p>Some NES games are perfectly playable if you go in cold. <b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b> is not one of them. The game is inscrutable from the start, with no hints as to how you’re meant to scour rooms for hidden items, break walls with Milon’s bubble weapon, and eventually unlock the first boss. The manual sheds a little light on things, but I was left to navigate <b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b> with only my limited intuition. It didn’t help that Milon runs, jumps, fires bubbles, and does just about everything in that slightly awkward manner favored by mid-1980s NES platformers. His castle could stay secret for all I cared.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackmsc1.png" title="What do you mean you don't know what to do, Milon? It's YOUR freakin' castle!" /></center><p>
<b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b> is now a curiosity in the evolution of Metroidvania titles, or “search action” games. Or just “maze games” as I called them back then. We were roughly acquainted with the idea through <b>Metroid, Rygar</b>, and other early NES releases, but Milon’s adventure was threadbare by comparison and still is. My favorite thing about it these days is that, as a Hudson Soft release, it’s contractually obligated to have the Hudson Bee. </p><p><b>STREET FIGHTER 2010: THE FINAL FIGHT </b></p><p><b>Hated By:</b> Kids Who Wanted <b>Street Fighter II </b></p><p>It’s 1992. Everyone at school is obsessed with <b>Street Fighter II</b> on the Super NES. And you, for whatever reason, still have just the regular old NES. But what’s this in the rows of clearance-priced NES games at Toys R Us? It’s Street Fighter! Well, it's <b>Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight</b>, but surely its the same as that Street Fighter game your friends can’t stop playing. And now you can play it too! On your NES!
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstacksf1.png" title="Hey, it controls better than Astyanax, another star of the 1992 NES clearance racks." /></center><p>
<b>Street Fighter 2010 </b>was harmless when it appeared in 1990. It’s a futuristic take on the original Street Fighter arcade game: instead of traveling the world, you warp across the galaxy and fight a variety of aliens. It’s an interesting yet very difficult game in Capcom’s NES oeuvre, a little better than <b>Yo Noid</b> and <b>Adventures in the Magic Kingdom</b> but not quite <b>Mega Man 2 </b>or <b>Bionic Commando</b>--or <b>Strider</b>, which I think is still excessively maligned. </p><p>Yet after <b>Street Fighter II</b> arrived and became a pop-culture phenomenon,<b> Street Fighter 2010</b> was a landmine of disappointment for any kids who didn’t examine the box closely enough or wonder why this particular Street Fighter game was only $9.97 while the Super NES <b>Street Fighter II </b>cost seven times as much. Others would experience this through no fault of their own. They’d ask for <b>Street Fighter II</b> that Christmas and then unwrap <b>Street Fighter 2010 </b>before their beaming, thrifty, and completely unsuspecting parents. </p><p><b>TETRIS </b></p><p><b>Hated By:</b> Kids Whose Parents Loved It </p><p>On the subject of parents and the NES, many a child spent the Nintendo Empire’s height wishing that mom or dad liked video games just a little more. Then they wouldn’t complain that you spent so much time playing video games. They’d finally understand and appreciate all the time and effort you sank into beating <b>Golgo 13 </b>or <b>Mickey Mousecapades</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nesstackt1.png" title="But DAAAAAAAD I have to play Rad Racer AND TETRIS to train for the Nintendo World Championships!" /></center><p>
Well, that monkey’s paw curled up when Nintendo released<b> Tetris</b> and no one could avoid it. Parents across the nation would now tie up the NES to play<b> Tetris</b>, cutting down on their kids’ Nintendo time in the most effective way possible. Nintendo’s official version of <b>Tetris</b> didn’t have a two-player mode, either, so you couldn’t even join the game. At least that would change when <b>Dr. Mario</b> arrived next year. </p><p>Your only hope was to somehow convince your parents to get a Game Boy, which came with Tetris and would draw them away from the NES. And then you couldn’t play the Game Boy. Oh well. Maybe they’d make it up to you by renting <b>Milon’s Secret Castle</b>.
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-29623411235338609002023-08-31T10:45:00.005-07:002023-10-24T06:31:08.013-07:00My Five Favorite Game Company Logos<p>Game companies may need a lot of things to survive in the industry, but in my book they need only one thing to be memorable: a good logo. The majority of developers and publishers use professional, clean designs that showcase their name, and that’s just fine for business purposes. Yet I hold special regard for those logos that went beyond the norm and gave us creative little sights to accompany title screens and copyrights.
</p><p><b>THINKING RABBIT </b><br />
Thinking Rabbit’s resume is largely unknown in the West, but it’s an intriguing one. They arguably started the block-shoving puzzle genre with their Sokoban series, known by such delightful alternate titles as <b>Boxxle</b>, <b>Boxyboy</b>, and, best of all, <b>Shove It</b>! They also developed a lot of murder-mystery games for home computers, plus the Super Famicom RPG <b>Maten Densetsu: Senritsu no Ooparts</b>. Outside of Japan, their most intriguing release might be <b>8 Eyes</b>, an NES action-adventure about a boy and his falcon.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logorabbit1.png" title="A cunning rabbit, full of tricks." /></center><p>
Of course, Thinking Rabbit could have made not a single game and I’ll still adore them just because of their logo: a cuddly lagomorphic blob. It’s a simple but very engaging design, and putting “soft office” next to the rabbit makes it even cuter. I want to pet that rabbit. I want to protect that rabbit from all predators. I want to build that rabbit a safe enclosure and find it a friend, because rabbits do well in pairs. I want to get that rabbit regular checkups. I want to feed that rabbit a heathy diet of hay with the occasional banana snippet as a treat. I want plush toys and keychains and other needless merchandise featuring this rabbit. And of course I want a video game about that thoughtful rabbit.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logorabbit2.png" title="The best video-game rabbit next to Don from Don'T Pull. And Robbit from Jumping Flash. And the Rabio Lepus bun-bot. Okay, this is a list in itself." /></center><p>
Sorry about that. Such is the power of a good logo. It certainly made me want to read this <a href="https://shmuplations.com/thinkingrabbit/">interview</a> that covers Thinking Rabbit’s history creative processes. Most interestingly, it mentions that company founder Hiroyuki Imabayashi considered a spin-off label called Hopping Rabbit. I cannot begin to imagine how precious its logo might have been. </p><p><b>TREASURE </b><br />I am a Treasure fan. No, I’m not going to dilute that statement by adding “except for <b>Buster’s Bad Dream</b>” or “<b>Stretch Panic</b> excepted” or some other nonsense. Even Treasure’s lesser games are interesting and enjoyable in some way, and they’re still so far from the mainstream that raving to excess about them is entirely acceptable. The only thing about Treasure that I don’t like? They stopped making new games. </p><p>Treasure crafted such extraordinary and acclaimed titles as <b>Radiant Silvergun</b>, <b>Guardian Heroes</b>, and <b>Bangai-O</b>, and a deeper look into their work reveals many lesser-known and fascinating finds, from the odd but inventive <b>Light Crusader</b> to the widely, greatly, and relentlessly misunderstood gem that is <b>Advance Guardian Heroes</b>. Their catalog has its ups and downs, but one can reasonably say that Treasure is one of history’s finest small-scale game developers. Go on, say it. You’ll either score points with the Treasure faithful or annoy people who possibly deserve it.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logotreasure1.png" title="Yes, even the unreleased Tiny Toons PS2 game is pretty good." /></center><p>
Naturally, I like Treasure’s original logo. It’s three rhombi and two triangles, all artfully arranged and even animated in many of their earlier games. It's immediately striking yet built with care, as Treasure games so often are.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logotreasure2.png" title="And EVEN SILPHEED: THE LOST PLANET." /></center><p>
Treasure changed their logo to a more generic fiery background, adding “video games” to apparently prevent confusion with companies like Treasure Financial or Treasure Beach Supplies. Understandable, but now that Treasure has seemingly receded to founder Masato Maegawa overseeing ports of a cherished older title or two, it just makes you long for the days of the purple box. </p><p><b>QUEST </b><br />Here’s another developer I like: Quest, makers of the fantastic and often depressing <b>Ogre Battle </b>and <b>Tactics Ogre</b> series. Quest was the starting ground for Ogre-verse creator Yasumi Matsuno, who’d later give us <b>Final Fantasy Tactics</b>, <b>Vagrant Story</b>, and a lot of <b>Final Fantasy XII</b>—and who, I firmly maintain, will one day return to the big leagues and make the best video games the world has ever seen. Woe to all disbelievers. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logoquest2.png" title="It'll be a nice day if it doesn't rain." /></center><p>
Quest was more than just Matsuno, of course. Their older titles, <b>Magical Chase</b> and <b>Conquest of the Crystal Palace</b> among them, merit more than just a glance, and even without Matsuno’s direct oversight Quest crafted the excellent <b>Ogre Battle 64</b> and <b>Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logoquest1.png" title="It's a broadway show about the greatest Final Fantasy character: Quina, Quina, Quina!" /></center><p>
Quest’s later logo is just fine, with its Q cleverly formed by three circles. Yet it's the earlier logo that catches the eye by having three Qs instead of just one. Was it just a design flourish, or do those letters stand for something? I’d guess “Queen Quote Quotient” considering Matsuno's musical tastes. The first two Ogre games are subtitled “The March of the Black Queen” and “Let Us Cling Together,” after all. <br /></p><p><b>Y’SK </b><br />Want to make your game company stand out? Give it a unique logo and a very odd name. That’s what Y’sK did when founder Hozumi Yoshida got together with some other former Data East staffers around 2003. Y’sK, apparently pronounced “Wees-kay” had a short career doing programming and graphical support alongside other developers for Growlanser and Kenka Banchou titles, and the company appears not to have lasted the decade.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logoysk1.png" title="Got your nose in the air, Y'sK dog? What's the matter, too good to co-developer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up with Game Arts?" /></center><p>
Y’sK had a great logo, though. A green dog in a diving pose is a bold design choice, and I really like how the animal’s ear forms part of the Y. Maybe it doesn’t make for the most typographically correct Y, but I applaud Y’sK all the same. I suppose that the only downside is a possible association with the Sega Genesis game <b>Greendog</b>, but no one remembers <b>Greendog</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logozex1.png" title="Zex, the new Gex reboot for Generation Z." /></center><p>
A number of Y’sK employees went on to work at a developer called Zex, which had a hand in some Phantasy Star and Ace Attorney games. And they have a logo that looks like a 1980s detergent brand, so I think they’re doing all right for themselves. </p><p><b>WOLFTEAM </b><br />Ah, Wolfteam, makers of <b>El Viento</b>, <b>Arcus Odyssey</b>, <b>Granada</b>, <b>Final Zone</b>, and loads of other games that magnificently evoked the aesthetics of late 1980s anime OVAs. They were a workhorse of a developer, and between them and their parent company Telenet they helped make the Sega Genesis and PC Engine a bastion of slick cartoon stylings and solid enough action games.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logowolf2.png" title="No, Wolfteam didn't develop Socket, but I can understand the confusion." /></center><p>
Wolfteam’s most frequently used logo doesn’t really embody that. It’s just a lightning bolt and the company name, with occasionally a CD-based voice saying “game creative staff.” Where are the hulking combat mechs? Where are the laser-spewing spaceships? Where are the plucky Peruvian heroines fighting Cthulhu spawn and hang-gliding 1920s gangsters while riding a dolphin? Man, <b>El Viento</b> is great.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/logowolf1.png" title="Hey, this logo is flipping us off!" /></center><p>
I find the earlier Wolfteam logo more notable and puzzling. It could be two thunderbolt slashes, similar to the red-and-gray symbol, but it also looks like two heavily distorted Ws or perhaps the profiles of large-crested birds. The more compact variant seen in some games even looks like a robot head similar to the rabbit-eared mechs of Patlabor. Perhaps such confusion was Wolfteam’s reason for changing it. Either way, it’s no Thinking Rabbit.
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-28388548836675497192023-07-29T22:01:00.003-07:002023-08-14T10:23:15.931-07:00Little Things: Archon<p>I wonder why <b>Archon: The Light and the Dark</b> wasn’t a bigger deal. It was a success on home computers in the mid-1980s, of course, but it invited much more with its version of fantasy combat chess. Perhaps the less-esteemed sequel was just that disappointing. Or perhaps the video game market wasn’t yet a place where every modest hit might become action figures, tie-in novels, syndicated cartoons, beach towels, or the board games that <b>Archon</b> in a sense already was. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/archon2.png" title="This needs a secret code that lets you accidentally knock over the board and then argue about where each piece should go until your opponent gets exasperated and gives up." /></center><p>
<b>Archon </b>remains interesting no matter its limited reputation. It’s a chess playfield broadened considerably: the two sides vie to occupy power points, half the squares shift auras with each turn to favor the light or the dark, and the non-pawn pieces all have unique attacks and gimmicks. Most importantly, confrontations are decided by two characters battling to the death in an arena whenever they meet on the same square. It beats the staid parameters and unfounded aggrandizement of traditional chess, and I maintain that society would only improve if Deep Blue and similar computers devoted themselves to besting human opponents at <b>Archon</b>. </p><p>The characters in <b>Archon</b>’s world also help. They don’t have names, but they capture traditional fantasy icons in their simple sprites and sounds: the amorphous shapeshifters, the galloping unicorns, the slinking basilisks, the soaring Valkyries, and the exploding, re-forming phoenixes. They’re led by a wizard on the light side and a sorceress on the dark one. While I wouldn’t immediately ascribe that design choice to sexism, I note that <b>Archon II</b> cast its new factions under the Master of Order and the Mistress of Chaos.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/archon3.png" title="The unicorns passed down all the roads long ago, and the 8-bit dragon sprite ran close behind them." /></center><p>
I played <b>Archon</b> in various incarnations from the Commodore 64 onward, but my favorite version is for the NES. And it’s not because of the lingering blind loyalty of a Nintendo-fed childhood. It’s because of the goblins. </p><p>The goblins are the pawns of the darkness, mere minions with little attack range and little value beyond occupying power points. They’re rendered as squat, pointy-eared gremlins wielding clubs, and in the Commodore 64 version their cudgels look a little like giant hotdogs. In the NES port, however, the spritework makes the goblins look like they’re holding mirrors.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/archongoblin1.png" title="Oh heavens, my filth is just a fright!" /></center><p>
That’s what I see, anyway. These goblins, disposable grunts in this brutal war between good and evil, are hefting large hand mirrors and primping themselves before they march out into the gruesome fray. It makes the whole battle just a little more amusing, as though the front lines of the host of darkness are all just Vanity Smurf.</p><p><b>Archon </b>wasn’t entirely forgotten. It had some remakes over the years, and it was no doubt an influence on a lot of later games that mixed strategy and arena dueling (such as <b>The Unholy War</b>). Its latest revival was planned for the disastrous Intellivision Amico, though it’s likely as doomed as the rest of the console. I can't even find screenshots of this alleged new <b>Archon</b>, and so I may never know what sort of household objects the goblins might wield this time around.
</p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-15950971226155976382023-06-30T20:26:00.039-07:002023-07-02T11:02:39.312-07:00El Viento Returns, Sorta<p><b>El Viento</b> remains a fascinating artifact from a facinating era. Like many early 1990s games heavy on anime style and resolute heroines, <b>El Viento</b> is cut from the same manic energy as anime OVAs of the decade prior. Yet it steps beyond the typical fantasy or science fiction milieu of the time, and it’s all the more enticing for that. </p><p>Our story is technically about a green-haired Peruvian woman named Annet who wields wind magic and well-trained boomerangs as she fights mobsters, cultists, and vaguely Lovecraftian nightmares in 1928. That alone makes it stand out among side-scrolling action games of this vintage, but it doesn’t even cover the giant pixelated octopuses, the dolphin-riding, the skyscraper full of pteruges-wearing lizardmen, the Mount Rushmore totem-pole robots, or the speakeasy somehow full of ice dragons, sunglasses-sporting rats, and bartenders who look like mohawked versions of the Butterball cenobite.</p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/elvientocomeback4.png" title="Pause the game and press Up, Left, Right, Down, and B to invest heavily in the stock market at just the right time." /></center><p>
In her journey Annet brilliantly embodies the allure of an entire era's anime OVAs and action games, both of which thrived on embracing weird sights and not caring one iota for how much sense it all might have made. Yes, <b>El Viento</b> has the usual cliches and the rough edges that typified even Wolfteam’s best games (of which <b>El Viento</b> is one), but it’s such an energetic and inventive journey that it’s hard not to emerge satisfied, endeared, or just sympathetic toward poor Annet at the downbeat conclusion. </p><p>Physical copies of <b>El Viento</b> are expensive these days, as is the case with just about every decent Genesis and Super NES game that isn’t <b>Pac-Man 2</b>. Fortunately, <b>El Viento</b> isn’t trapped in some frustrating legal miasma like some other cult-favorite Genesis games that I definitely don’t talk about too much and definitely aren’t called <b>Trouble Shooter</b>. <b>El Viento</b> is legally available on the Evercade system already, but the recently announced Retro-Bit <a href="https://retro-bit.com/el-viento/" target="_blank">reissue</a> of the game tries to come close to the original Genesis case and cartridge. </p><p>Retro-Bit’s done a few reissues like this in recent years, offering Genesis cartridges with packaging that includes both the Japanese and international covers, plus a full-color manual and some other extra. And their <b>El Viento</b> re-release, announced alonside <b>Sol-Deace</b>, looks sharp in its recreation of the original Kazutoshi Yamane cover and the Renovation cover that I wrote about who knows how many years ago.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/elvientocomeback2.png" title="Look, I'll probably buy this anyway, but I still want to complain." /></center><p>
One thing bothers me: the cartridge itself. I’m not fond of translucent plastic in general, and pink is a strange color choice for <b>El Viento</b>. Yet what really jumps out at me is the label itself. The manga artwork, taken from ads and Yamane’s own <b>El Viento</b> comic in Beep! MegaDrive magazine, just doesn’t look right on a cartridge label, particularly when it’s cropped so awkwardly, and combined with the color choice it looks like someone cut out a manga panel and stuck it on a Jolly Rancher. </p><p>It's almost enough to put me off buying Retro-Bit’s version of <b>El Viento</b>—or at least enough to take it from something I’ll instantly purchase, squawking like a trained parrot all the while, to much vaguer status. </p><p>Am I being too picky? Shouldn’t I be glad that <b>El Viento</b> is available for less than a family of three’s monthly food budget? Should I really count it a deal-breaker just because I don’t want to look at that neon lollipop of a cartridge in my Genesis and reflexively think it’s a bootleg? Shouldn’t I get this in the hopes that we’ll see reissues of more Genesis rarities and perhaps the other two decidedly lesser games in the <b>El Viento</b> trilogy, <b>Earnest Evans</b> and <b>Annet Again</b>? </p><p>Really, why do I care so much about this trivial detail? Perhaps I should look to <b>El Viento </b>for the answer.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/elvientocomeback3.png" title="This was going to be Annet's catch phrase in the sitcom Annet Again and Again but it never got past a pilot script." /></center><p>
Ah, yes. Now it all makes sense. </p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-91400337658919823272023-05-30T20:16:00.002-07:002023-05-30T20:16:45.251-07:00Bounty Arms: Going Data WestUh-oh. I haven’t written about <b>Bounty Arm</b>s in over a year! That’s perhaps understandable, since an unreleased PlayStation action game from 1995 doesn’t exactly make daily tabloid headlines (like BANNED BOUNTY BABES BOUND BACK). Yet I, as the president and sole member of the Bounty Arms Preservation Society, remain dedicated to chronicling every new mention and detail about this intriguing and still partially lost game. </p><p>The standard introduction applies: <b>Bounty Arms </b>is a canceled action game from the first year of the PlayStation, and it combined familiar genre staples as mecha enemies and stylish anime heroines with a unique multifunctional Relic Arm weapon. It looked neat and got as far as a bare-bones demo (which you can find here), but publisher Data West delayed and eventually canceled it, leaving <b>Bounty Arms</b> yet another intriguing and likely unfinished title. </p><p>Data West intrigues me as well. They were yet another technology company that dipped into game development and pulled out when it stopped making them money, and they’re still around today. Their website offers some of their old games for sale, though only for Japan. That may reflect the fact that Data West’s games were seldom known on an international scale. Even today, a lot of people assume you’re talking about Data East. </p><p>That brings me to the catalyst for this update: a nice <a href="https://youtu.be/Eii9Pw28_hw" target="_blank">YouTube video</a> from F_T_B, discussing Data West’s history with an eye on their adventure games. It’s a reminder of just how much of Japan’s game industry remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking world. Series like <b>The 4th Unit </b>and <b>Psychic Detective</b> had strong followings in Japan yet no recognition in the West outside of some scattered and astute importers. And again, even today people might assume you’re talking about the unrelated Electronic Arts FMV game that was also called <b>Psychic Detective</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bountyarmsdata1.png" title="Could Bounty Arms be a spin-off of The 4th Unit? I gotta play all 329 hours of the series to find out!" /></center><p>
The video refers to <b>Bounty Arms</b> as a shooter, however, and that is incorrect. As you can see from the <a href="http://kidfenris.com/bountydemo.rar">demo itself</a>, the game allows heroines Chris and Rei to wield their telescoping cyber-arms like whips, grappling hooks, bullet-deflectors, and spinning flamethrowers—but never firearms. That’s part of what fascinates me about <b>Bounty Arms</b>. </p><p>That aside, the video does a great job of covering Data West’s catalog beyond <b>Brave Prove</b> and the <b>Rayxanber</b> series. It makes one realize how graphic adventures like <b>The 4th Unit </b>were the company’s most abundant creations, and it makes the cogent point that Data West often backed the wrong horses when it came to putting their games on consoles like the LaserActive. </p><p>In fact, that makes <b>Bounty Arms</b> all the more tantalizing. For once Data West was on a winning team, getting in at the ground floor of the PlayStation’s first year and, according to an interview with Yasuhito Saito, getting Sony’s earnest support for the game. By the time they canceled <b>Bounty Arms</b> and published<b> Brave Prove</b> in 1999, the PlayStation scene was far more crowded. </p><p>So would <b>Bounty Arms</b> have succeeded back in 1995? It might have been overshadowed by other action games like <b>Gunners Heaven</b>, but there certainly wasn’t anything like <b>Bounty Arms</b>’ 2-D overhead approach and Relic Arm mechanics in the PlayStation’s early lineup. Would fans of arcade-style action games and traditional hand-drawn graphics have rallied around it, or would <b>Bounty Arms </b>have been seen as archaic and limited by critics who dismissed traditional games while feverishly lionizing many mediocre games with new 3-D visuals that would age as well as sour cream on the summer pavement? Could <b>Bounty Arms</b> have made it in a world where a magazine might fawn over the embarrassment of <b>Toshinden</b> while fobbing off such hand-drawn brilliance as <b>Darkstalkers 3</b> and <b>Guardian Heroes</b> with banal three-out-of-five-star reviews? No, I’m not still bitter over that.
Not me.</p><p>These are the things we might discuss at regular meetings of the Bounty Arms Preservation Society. Joining is free and confers nothing, but since the society has no vice president, treasurer, press secretary, minutes-taker, research assistant, or caterer, all of those positions are open to the first applicants. They’ll look sharp on your CV or resume.
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-51250509770669514582023-04-29T20:48:00.002-07:002023-05-08T20:26:56.580-07:00Mechanized Attack: The Mystery of Maiko<p>Anyone who praises the innocence and honesty of children has never heard them discuss video games and invariably lie. This was especially common during the height of Nintendo’s popularity in the late 1980s, when millions of homes had the Nintendo Entertainment System and millions of children had excuses to make up all sorts of nonsense about it. </p><p>The most daring falsehoods often involved nudity. Finish <b>Metroid</b> five times and Samus Aran will be naked. Beat <b>Super Mario Bros.</b> in two minutes and both Mario and Peach (known then in the West by the superior title of Toadstool) will be naked. Input a special code at <b>Double Dragon</b>’s title screen and everyone will be naked in every way imaginable.</p><p>These were lies, of course, and such filth was not hiding in any NES game. Except one.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/mechanized1.png" title="Copyright by the Saudi crown prince who owns 96 percent of SNK and orchestrated the murder of Jamal Khashoggi." /></center><p>
<b>Mechanized Attack</b> is an obscure game no matter where you look. Even the <b>SNK 40th Anniversary Collection</b> didn’t bother with either the arcade original or the NES port. And yet that NES version is unique, for it makes those bawdy playground myths come true. <br /></p><p>A special code, documented by <a href="https://tcrf.net/Mechanized_Attack_(NES)" target="_blank">The Cutting Room Floor</a>, unlocks a "System Construction Figure" menu that lets players skip levels, adjust their arsenals, and so on. A blue-haired woman in a dress and sweater navigates the options, and certain selections cause her to gradually lose her clothing to the point where she becomes completely naked.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/mechanized2.png" title="HEY MOM LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THAT GAME WE JUST RENTED FROM SCHNUCK'S" /></center><p>
Going beyond that removes our hostess entirely and replaces her with a hexagram, as though the programmer who created this was intent on featuring everything Nintendo wouldn’t allow in the North American market (and <b>Mechanized Attack</b> was only released there). The game already has rampant violence, so why not add nudity and a potentially religious symbol? </p><p>This secret menu is, we remind you, accessible in the standard cartridge release of <b>Mechanized Attack</b>. There’s no ROM hacking needed. Every impressionable child and concerned parent in America could see this just by holding down the right buttons at the title screen. </p><p>A small mystery is hidden in the game’s code, however. The words “Maiko’s Special Mode” lie unused in the data files and definitely refer to this debug menu. It has a nicer ring than System Construction Figure, at least.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/mechanized3.png" title="Uh, Maiko's inside the ship. Yeah, that's it. Case closed." /></center><p>
But who’s Maiko? No character with that name appears in <b>Mechanized Attack</b>. As far as I can tell, the game has no story scenes of note and no cast beyond its largely unseen Terminator-inspired protagonists. Its ultimate villain is a giant computer-encased brain (as in <b>Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo</b> and a hundred other works) instead of a human terrorist ringleader, and the ending simply shows the enemy base exploding and thereby restoring world peace. There’s no blue-tressed woman to sell the heroes weapons, scamper across the battlefield, or await rescue at the game’s conclusion. </p><p>Maiko could be from a different SNK title, but I find no leads there. It’s also possible she was a singer, actress, or some other real-life celebrity who caught a programmer’s fancy. And it’s not out of the question that Maiko was the actual programmer—or perhaps some SNK employee who the <b>Mechanized Attack</b> staff exploited with a hidden menu. That would fit with artist Hiroko Yokoyama‘s <a href="https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2018-08-09/artist-hiroko-yokoyama-discusses-sexism-in-japan-90s-game-industry/.135184" target="_blank">stories</a> of SNK’s chauvinistic work climate in the 1980s. </p><p>The most likely and reassuring theory is that Maiko is just an original character devised entirely for this menu, with no links to the real world or other games. Her purpose was merely to guide players through a debug lineup and, many years later, to exonerate those misguided youth who concocted stories about video games hiding all sorts of lascivious depths. </p><p>Of course, those kids are only off the hook if they were discussing <b>Mechanized Attack</b>. The rest of them proved themselves vile little distortionists with their risque conjectures about Mario and Zelda and dozens of other games. Given Nintendo’s recent legal pursuits, they're lucky that the statute of limitations on slander has expired.
</p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-51861903435904661232023-03-22T21:22:00.002-07:002023-03-23T07:16:03.771-07:00News: Full-Motion-Video Classics Become the Next Great Game Adaptations<p>(Hollywood, California) No longer the beeps and bloops of Pac-Man, video games are growing up. Cable and streaming services, emboldened by HBO’s critically lauded <b>The Last of Us</b>, are hoping to find similar success by adapting games that already mix in the magic of movies and TV: they're the full-motion-video masterpieces of the 1990s. </p><p>"With its harrowing vision of everyday people struggling to survive in the face of a devastating apocalypse, <b>The Last of Us</b> represents a new apex for video games and great original stories in general," said Gregor Madison, a pop-culture critic who also believes that <b>The Walking Dead </b>invented zombies and that <b>Harry Potter </b>was the first ever fiction about a wizard school. “Audiences want to see more of that, so studios are seeking out the finest games to adapt for TV.”
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/nighttrap1.png" title="Night Trap! Watch out behind you! Night Trap!" /></center><p>A second season of <b>The Last of Us</b> is already on the way, but HBO hopes to deliver another game-inspired and binge-worthy series while fans wait: <b>Night Trap</b>, based on Sega’s 1992 FMV adventure game, premieres this summer. The series explores a house full of young women menaced by vampire-like creatures called Augurs, with Scarlett Johansson starring as agent Kelli Medd and Daniel Day-Lewis emerging from retirement just to take on the role of Commander Simms. </p><p>“You usually don’t think of video games as having actual stories,” said Randy Evans, lead writer for the <b>Night Trap </b>series. "Most of them are just dots on the screen. But there was a whole variety of these amazing full motion games in the 1990s that brought together movies and video games in amazing ways.” </p><p><b>Night Trap </b>is only the first of several Sega FMV games optioned by studios and streaming services. Apple TV recently announced a <b>Sewer Shark</b> limited series starring John C. McGinley as Ghost, while Hulu is currently developing an original movie based on the zombie-filled <b>Corpse Killer</b>. </p><p>Not to be outdone, Netflix revealed plans to adapt a number of FMV games, including the cyberpunk thriller <b>Burn Cycle</b>, the monster-themed horror tale <b>It Came From the Desert</b>, and the surreal action saga <b>Duelin’ Firemen</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/firemen1.png" title="The Burning Rangers have nothing to hide so as they fight they stand side by side." /></center><p>
If audiences like what they see, there’s plenty to feed future series. The FMV genre enjoyed its heyday on consoles like the Sega CD and Panasonic 3DO during the mid-1990s, when developers used the then-new CD format to create entire games with footage of live actors. Though some derided these games for their crude production values and limited interactivity, many in the entertainment world now see them as the ancestors of modern high-budget titles like <b>The Last of Us</b>—and perhaps their successors as well. </p><p>“This forward-looking full-motion-video stuff was the closest that video games ever got to quality television until <b>The Last of Us</b> came along,” explained Netflix producer Terry Stein. “My daughter told me about this game called <b>Undertale </b>that seems to be popular with a lot of kids. But when you look at it, there's nothing to work with. The graphics are all just these pixels. Nothing looks real. The main character, you know, the hero of the story, doesn't even have a name."</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/plumbers1.png" title="At last, a game with Chickens' Crazed Yuppies!" /></center><p>Stein instead decided to adapt a standout of the FMV era: the rollicking and risqué comedy <b>Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties</b>. Netflix has already renewed it for a second season. </p><p>Indeed, a popular video game doesn’t necessarily make for good TV. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy series was long known for its cinematic sequences, but when Starz producer Jayden Morgen dove deep into the company’s catalog, the pick of the litter was obvious: the 1997 adventure game <b>Another Mind</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/anothermind1.png" title="Square will probably give this a handsome remake in 2028." /></center><p>
“Final Fantasy might work as a video game,” Morgen said, “But we wanted something that could deliver the impact of truly good television, with real actors that rise above that whole cartoony kiddie pool of most games.” </p><p>Other studios are willing to take a few risks when it comes to adapting full-motion-video games. Amazon Prime has optioned several 1980s FMV games that employ animated footage instead of real-life actors: the mystic fantasy <b>Strahl</b>, the post-apocalyptic revenge tale <b>Road Avenger</b>, and the whimsical sci-fi adventure <b>Time Gal</b>.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/timegaldino1.png" title="Time Gal would RULE as a TV show and don't tell me otherwise." /></center><p>
"It might be hard to adapt a video game that doesn't slavishly reproduce the atmosphere of a routine prestige television series or an Oscar-bait film," admitted Crystal Meyer, director of the <b>Time Gal</b> series. "But I think we can pull it off with a great cast, great storytelling, and the appropriate level of contempt for the source material." </p><p>Even so, the current trend of studios sifting out the best and brightest of video games has some hiccups—or glitches, perhaps. Netflix recently canceled plans for a series based on<b> </b>the 2018 cinematic adventure game<b> Detroit: Become Human</b> due to what an anonymous source describes as "the amateurish source material."
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-16500569962744164352023-02-25T15:56:00.006-08:002023-03-04T05:51:43.311-08:00Journey to the Center of Wurm<p>Those of cynical mindset could deem <b>Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth</b> a messy game, but they’d be wrong. At the very least it’s several messy games combined into one, a multi-genre hybrid that delivers shooting stages, side-scroller levels, unique first-person boss battles, and through it all the story of a spirited lady protagonist named Moby. </p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm16.png" title="G-13's name is a reference to Golgo 13, so be prepared for him to shoot people and stoically pleasure countless female robots." /></center><p>
Well, that’s what the manual calls her. See? There’s something charmingly odd about the low-key chauvinism of labeling her a “lady protagonist,” perhaps in testament to how few games in the Nintendo Entertainment System's library actually have women in lead roles. However, there’s more to Moby and <b>Wurm</b> itself. </p><p>
For starters, they’re both ambitious. Our green-haired heroine captains a tunneling craft called the VZR-5, drilling deep into the earth in a search for previous VZR expeditions—and, in particular, her boyfriend Ziggy (possibly named after the David Bowie album and probably not the bulbous-nosed comic character). She stumbles into a complicated subterranean war between the remnants of ancient kingdoms who somehow combine every major mythic lost civilization into a single tale. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm1.png" title="Don't ask me! I'm just a short-lived company mascot named Boomer!" /></center><p>
And <b>Wurm</b> winds her journey across four types of levels. The VZR flies through caverns in horizontal stages as well as vertically scrolling ones, while Moby ventures out of the ship to wander ruins and tunnels sparsely populated by beasts. Each chapter showcases a clash between the VZR and a large monster, which requires Moby to talk to the crew for hints and “possibility” points while dodging and shooting down the creature’s attacks. And there’s a little tedium in every format: the VZR shooter levels are simple, the on-foot stages have little variety in their enemies, and the boss battles involve a lot of seemingly pointless chatter and awkward aiming. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm5.png" title="We're going DOWN, DOWN into the Earth!" /></center><p>
Yet it’s a fascinating game in full, as each piece of Wurm has its layers. The shooter levels may not be very complex in their design, but they let the VZR transform into different forms that gain new weapons, abilities, or just better fuel rates. A depleting energy meter keeps Moby’s crew from being too cautious, and a regenerating energy shield makes their ship vulnerable only when it takes damage rapidly. That balancing act lifts the stages beyond the typical NES shooter. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm4.png" title="Her life meter's almost out and she must be terribly cold in that oufit, but Moby is as chipper as ever." /></center><p>
Moby’s side-scrolling forays are simpler in their demands: she explores, she jumps, she kicks, and she wields a handgun with a limited ammo supply. Yet the stages she wanders are intriguing sights, with their random backdrops of ancient ruins and empty caverns, and the subtle colors mix well with a soundtrack that’s bubbly, sharp, and just a little haunting. </p><p><br /></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm15.png" title="Wait until the Possibility is at 100 percent before you toss your Pokeball at it." /></center><p>
And the first-person battles with massive creatures? True, Moby spends a lot of time chatting repetitively with crew members who try to puzzle out a creature’s weakness and raise that possibility percentage to a hundred, at which point a single shot brings down your foe. However, there’s some personality in the conversations (including a Helen Keller reference you might not expect) and a share of twists along the way as the boss lineup expands to an organic-mechanical creation and a face-off with Moby's own ship. <b>Wurm</b>’s plot twists aren’t elaborate, but they’re plentiful for a title from 1991. If there’s ever a dull point in the story or the gameplay, there’s always something new right ahead. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm14.png" title="But the truth is...I'm more of a Family Circus fan." /></center><p>
Moby herself shows the same variety. She’s seemingly pulled straight from an outlandish 1980s anime OVA, sashaying through hostile terrain in epaulets and a battle leotard while the rest of her crew wears sensible jumpsuits, but she’s a surprisingly resolute main character for an NES game. <b>Wurm </b>lets her face trepidations, grieve her losses, marvel over discoveries, brim with vengeful fury, and, even taunt arrogant underworld rulers. It’s no competition for our modern array of complex heroes showing us all that games are serious entertainment (and don’t you forget it), but for an era when video games had threadbare premises and silent heroes, Moby certainly gets her moments. The best ones come when she’s sassing monstrous thugs who, apparently shocked at the idea of NES-era protagonists with actual personalities, can only muster retorts of “Whaat!” </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm10.png" title="EVERY song on Play was licensed for something! EVERY song! You'll be hearing Bodyrock and Southside in commercials and movies for ETERNITY!" /></center><p>
<b>Wurm</b> stands alone, though it bears more than a faint resemblance to Vic Tokai’s original <b>Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode</b>. Moby doesn’t seduce secret agents in hotels or snipe Hitler’s pickled brain, but her sprite has a similar soft-edged look, and her game has similar diversity (though she moves much faster and smoother than Duke Togo). That’s no accident, as designer Shouichi “Angela” Yoshikawa was the driving force behind both games. Together with producer Hiroshi Kazama and developer Cyclone System, Yoshikawa drew inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs, <b>Lost in Space</b>, and <b>Cyborg 009</b>, casting a web wide enough that <b>Wurm</b> never feels bluntly derivative of one particular source</p><p>
Yoshikawa even maintained a website all about <b>Wurm</b>. It’s apparently lost now, but there’s still a great in-depth interview at the <a href="https://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:Shouichi_Yoshikawa" target="_blank">GDRI</a>. Even without the creator’s site, <b>Wurm</b> has steadily gained a better reputation, evolving from a possible “kusoge” to an expensive Famicom title and, I hope, a genuine cult favorite. Is it just the plucky lady protagonist? Perhaps that’s part of it, but <b>Wurm</b> offers more than that. There’s a vision behind it, an inspired tone that comes from a creator believing in their creation and overseeing it every step of the way. Heck, Yoshikawa even did the localization! </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/wurm2.png" title="I mean, why else would I be dressed like this?" /></center><p>
I was harsh toward <b>Wurm</b> when I wrote about it for GameSetWatch many years ago, citing its jumbled approach and frequently empty stages. Yet I’ve come around, and now I count it among my favorite NES titles. The gameplay mixture is enticing, the vacant side-scrolling levels evoke mystery in ways I never noticed before, and Moby sticks around in memory after most protagonists (gentleman or lady) fade away. I had yet to realize that it doesn’t matter if games are critically, objectively good, if such a thing even exists. All that matters is whether they’re interesting or not. And <b>Wurm</b> is.<br /></p><p>
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-49486790400661559592023-01-27T22:05:00.003-08:002023-02-25T15:05:31.801-08:00Bunny Girls Interrupted<p>The Playboy bunny girl costume is an unavoidable fixture of sexist pop culture—and a persistent one in video games. Showing women in rabbit ears and scant corsets isn’t just for pandering fighting games like <b>Dead or Alive</b> and <b>Variable Geo</b>; the practices arises in <b>Emerald Dragon, Lunar: Eternal Blue, Super Robot Wars Original Generation</b>, several <b>Dragon Quests</b>, and so forth. And in that warren of rabbit-girl getups there’s an equally varied history of how publishers censored them. </p><p>One example lies in <b>Heavyweight Championship Boxing</b>, an early Game Boy outing from Tonkin House and the furtively prolific developer Tose. It’s an ambitious but clumsy game with only a few dabs of personality; there’s a nice soundtrack to bounce everything along, and I salute the Tose graphic designer who put extra effort into making the obligatory ring girl a vision of ‘80s anime style. </p><p>
</p><center><img a="" border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/boxinggirl1.png" title="Check out my new songs, 'My Boyfriend is a Pilot' and 'Misa is a Boring Cow.'" /></center><p>
There’s even a hint of Haruhiko Mikimoto about her, as though Minmay from <b>Macross </b>is working boxing matches after her experimental prog-industrial album failed to chart or to pacify a fleet of grouchy alien giants. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/boxinggirl2.png" title="Hey, it's the year of the rabbit! Gosh, I hope no one else has made that joke yet." /></center><p>
The original Japanese game, titled <b>Boxing</b> with the refreshing directness of an early Game Boy release, had a few more details. The ring girl sports rabbit ears and stand-alone shirt cuffs, and there’s a <a href="https://tcrf.net/Heavyweight_Championship_Boxing" target="_blank">bonus code</a> that lets players confirm that she’s also wearing the fishnets typical of a woman promoting Playboy-brand objectification. Activision took these details out of the game’s North American release, presumably for the same precautions that led the publishers to rename characters like “Mai Taison.” </p><p>Most North American game publishers of the era, however, were not so skittish. If some games removed bunny girl depictions they were expunged entirely, presumably more for their suggestive nature than legal concerns. Other games showed no concern. For example, the waitresses of <b>Casino Kid</b> still sport their bunny ears, albeit only in portraits that would draw neither lawyers nor complaints of risqué content. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/barkertrixie1.png" title="Working Title: William S. Burroughs' Trick Shooting." /></center><p>
<b>Barker Bill’s Trick Shooting</b>, a light-game from Nintendo themselves, goes further when depicting shooting-gallery hostess Trixie in a bunny girl outfit throughout the game. This wasn’t a case of the Japanese release’s design choices slipping through, either, since <b>Barker Bill</b> was released only in North America and Europe.</p><p>Then there’s the most prominent bunny girl in video games: Rami from the <b>Keio Flying Squadron</b> series. She goes through two games thwarting the monstrous forces of a tanuki despot (a raccoon if you’re playing the localized Sega CD game), all while wearing a distinct Playboy bunny outfit. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/keiocover1.png" title="Good on JVC for not renaming it DRAGONFIRE CONQUEST or something like that." /></center><p>
JVC changed nothing about Rami’s outfit for <b>Keio Flying Squadron</b>’s North American release. Indeed, magazine spots even play it up, encouraging the reader to “strap on your bunny ears and save the world.” The Sega Saturn sequel skipped the Western hemisphere, but the European version of <b>Keio Flying Squadron 2</b> features Rami and her bunny attire on the cover, as though in open defiance of any Playboy attorneys who might spot it. </p><p>It seems that bunny girl outfits aren’t much of a legal hurdle after all. They appear in anime from <b>FLCL</b> to <b>The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya</b> to something called <b>Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai</b>, and no one seems to mind in the international market. Gainax’s original Daicon IV convention promo has a famous depiction of a bunny girl heroine who flies through undisguised depictions of everything from <b>Golden Bat </b>villains to Star Wars ships. And there she’s probably the least of the short film’s gleeful copyright infringements. </p><p>
Playboy-style bunny costumes, as far as they appear in Japanese media, are such a cliché that any legal challenges would be closing the barn door well after the cows left. Or shutting the pen after the rabbits hopped out. Or changing Playboy club standards after the waitresses all quit in protest over the outfits they had to wear.</p><p>
Yet Activision and Tose might not have been entirely overcautious in excising the ring girl’s bunny garb in <b>Heavyweight Championship Boxin</b>g. In 2020 Playboy <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/playboy-fashion-nova-bunny-costume-lawsuit/" target="_blank">sued</a> costume manufacturer Fashion Nova for “disregarding trademark protections” with a line of bunny outfits. One can only hope they won’t go after Nintendo, or else we might never see a revival of <b>Barker Bill’s Trick Shooting</b>.</p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-10506530861850954002022-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:002022-12-31T08:00:03.862-08:00Notes for the Gravity Rush Movie<p><b>Gravity Rush</b> is getting a movie, if you remember. It was<a href="https://www.polygon.com/23316652/gravity-rush-movie-adaptation-playstation-vita" target="_blank"> announced</a> four months ago, so that’s plenty of time for us to forget all about it or file it away with <b>Metroid, Spy Hunter, Rollercoaster Tycoon</b>, and other game-based film projects never to be made. </p><p>
You must forgive my jaundiced view of this. When I covered anime industry news for a living, each month brought some new announcement of an anime, manga, video game, or related property optioned for Hollywood treatment, whether it was a<b> Robotech</b> film with Tobey Maguire attached, Tim Burton’s <b>Mai the Psychic Girl </b>musical, or ADV Films’ long-discussed (and apparently scripted) <b>Evangelion</b> movie. And most of them vanished without a trace. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/gravitymovie1.png" title="Stop Kitten around and see Gravity Rush in theaters! You see, Kat's name in the Japanese version was Kitten and since everyone everywhere likes Gravity Rush they'll know that and appreciate the reference." /></center><p>
Yet perhaps I should hope that this <b>Gravity Rush</b> movie will go into production. I pretty much gave up on seeing more of the series once <b>Gravity Rush 2</b> wrapped up almost everything, and a movie has the potential to further explore the games’ fascinating world, dizzying aerial acrobatic combat, and charming characters. I’ll be optimistic enough to deliver some suggestions as to what a <b>Gravity Rush</b> movie should entail. </p><p>
-Kat, our gravity-controlling heroine, should see a thing happening and then say "Well, that just happened." This will convey to audiences that she is a sarcastic and astute observer of events that transpire within her field of perception. </p><p>
-Dusty, as her cat companion, should deliver quips such as "Don’t ask me! I’m just here for the free mice!" and "Flying is easy! I always land on my feet!” </p><p>
-The movie should feature the Superjesus song “Gravity,” because no one buys movie tickets more than fans of underappreciated Australian alternative bands. </p><p>
-A character should make a joke about the word "pussy" and its varied meanings with regard to Dusty and Kat. Perhaps Kevin Smith could guest-write this gag. </p><p>
-The credits should contain no less than 26 stingers for other possible films in the PlayStation Cinematic Universe, including but not limited t<b>o Horizon, Infamous, Shadow of the Colossus, Knack, Tokyo Jungle, Journey, MediEvil, Tiny Tank, Elemental Gearbolt, Wild Arms, Project: Horned Owl, Arc the Lad, Motor Toon Grand Prix, Gunners Heaven, Crime Crackers</b>, and the <b>Legend of Polygon Man</b>. </p><p>
-All characters should speak in the fictional, vaguely French language invented for Gravity Rush, with no subtitles present throughout the entire movie.* </p><p>
-In her efforts to protect the people of Hekseville, Kat should run afoul of a newspaper editor who declares her a “menace” while unwittingly buying photographs she takes of herself. Kat should also run up against a Kat clone who later reveals that she is the original Kat and that the Kat the audience knows is actually the clone. This plot twist will be dismissed in the sequel due to everyone hating it. </p><p>
-Any possible lesbian subtext between any characters should be limited to scenes that can be easily edited out by cowards and/or bigots. </p><p>
-Kat should be played by a snowy white actress, a terrible decision that the production staff will defend in numerous ill-advised and covertly racist ways. This will all work out in the end because there’s no such thing as bad publicity. </p><p>
-When the <b>Gravity Rush</b> movie is nearing its debut, all press materials should say "Gravity Rush drops into theaters on [date here]." </p><p>
And that’s just what I’m giving away for free! I have hundreds of completely original ideas for the <b>Gravity Rush</b> movie, available to any producer who wants to hire me as a creative consultant. I assume that would entail me playing <b>Gravity Rush</b> games all day and occasionally suggesting that Kat or Dusty should make jokes about barfing up hairballs. </p><p>
*I actually like this idea. </p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-82956528234961628312022-11-30T16:21:00.002-08:002022-11-30T16:25:01.411-08:00Super Mario Bros. 2: Pity Poor Pidgit<p>There’s a lot to enjoy in Super Mario Bros. 2. It took all things Mario from a revolutionary but straightforward action game to an endearing cartoon adventure, imbuing the simple characters with the seeds of personality that turn a mere video game into a pop-culture smash. To this day, even the best Mario creations feel a touch lacking if they don’t let you control Luigi, Princess Peach, and some version of Toad alongside Mario himself. </p><p>One thing I always enjoyed about Super Mario Bros. 2 was comparatively pacifist approach to enemies. You can jump atop them and harmlessly ride them, and if you pick them up and toss them, they’ll suffer damage only when they collide with each other or some hazard. Throw them on the ground, and most of the Super Mario Bros. 2 foes will just trudge off, sent thoughtfully on their way with perhaps just a little more wariness about meddling with plumbers and royalty. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/pidgit2.png" title="I guess he could be a pigeon instead of a crow, but then pigeons arent flightless either." /></center><p>
Not every enemy is so lucky. Consider Pidgit, a crow-like creature that appears riding a magic carpet. I describe him only as crow-like because unlike real-world corvids, he cannot fly. The game’s manual explains that chief evildoer Wart gave Pidgit these carpets to compensate for their stubby wings and so that they may fly around bringing bad dreams to all. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/pidgit3.png" title="ProTip: Don't fidget with Pidgit, ya idgit." /></center><p>
First appearing in the second stage, the common Pidgit floats above the players and darts down. The idea is to leap upon him, pick him up, and steal his carpet to cross a large chasm. You can chuck Pidgit at enemies or just throw him into space, but what if you want to spare him and set him down unhurt upon solid ground? </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/pidgit4.png" title="Is it possible to cross the gap without using the flying carpet, thus sparing Pidgit entirely? Speedrunners, take note." /></center><p>
Well, you can’t. If you lob Pidgit at any surface, he’ll pass right through and presumably fall into oblivion. The designers of Super Mario Bros. 2 either neglected to code any environmental collision detection into Pidgit or just deemed him unfit for the player’s clemency. </p><p>
That’s enough to make me feel a little sorry for Pidgit. I’m sure that, like Opus in Bloom Country, Pidgit long envied birds capable of flight and was overjoyed at getting his own flying carpet. Just look at how happy he looks atop his little aerial conveyance. <br /></p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/pidgit1.png" title="An intelligent creature, the crow has been observed using tools such as rocks, sticks, and flying carpets." /></center><p>And you, the player, took that from him. Perhaps he plummets through the
ground of his own accord, choosing a quick demise over life without
flying. <br /></p><p>So what if he’s there to deliver bad dreams? Even nightmares have their purposes, and I’m sure there’s some quote from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman to illustrate that only through bad dreams can we appreciate good ones. </p><p>
At least Pidgit was not left behind among Mario enemies. Unlike Ostro, Flurry, or the vastly underappreciated Porcupo, Pidgit followed up his Super Mario Bros. 2 appearance with spots in Super Mario World’s secret mode, Wario’s Woods, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and other game. Even if he can’t survive the game without that flying carpet, the unfortunate Pidgit bounced back in other ways. </p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-51776205943868037872022-10-30T22:13:00.007-07:002023-02-10T13:46:30.573-08:00Phantasy Star IV Disarmed<p>It recently came to light that Rieko “Phoenix Rie” Kodama passed away in May of this year. Kodama was a pioneer among women in the game industry as well as an incredibly talented designer, artist, and director. Just about all of her games, from early Sega arcade titles to the more recent <b>7th Drago</b>n series, are well work playing. If you’re unfamiliar with her work and want to start at the pinnacle, however, I’ll point to <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> as the best game that involved Kodama—and perhaps Sega itself. </p><p><b>Phantasy Star IV</b> is a sci-fantasy RPG of rich of constant spectacle, a quest that spans a star system and rarely lacks for some cool new discovery. There are spaceships, sandworms, mutant conspiracies, tragic deaths, monstrous forces lurking behind other monstrous forces, and vast tributes to the previous Phantasy Stars. An even if you go in completely unfamiliar with the series, it’s easy to get caught up in the well-paced storyline and the case of bounty hunters, androids, aliens, sorcerers, and other oddities for the player to recruit.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/phantasyarmfrontcover1.png" title="It was the FIRST NEW CENTURY. In ONE HUNDRED YEARS. And when I felt like I should CRY..." /></center><p>
One standout party member is Rika, a genetically engineered bestial Numan with an upbeat, mostly innocent worldview and big pointy ears. She’s also the subject of a little false advertising.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/phantasyarmbackcover1.png" title="That outfit looks incredibly uncomfortable, even without the giant arm." /></center><p>
The back cover of <b>Phantasy Star IV</b>’s Japanese release shows Rika front and center with a giant mechanical arm. It’s something that would fit right into the game’s particular vision of space opera, where wizards and swordfighters could easily join up with a beast-girl armed with an unwieldy bionic appendage. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p>Rika’s mecha-limb also appears prominently in the game’s brief commercial for Japanese television. </p><p></p><center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9GjkvujEWDs" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> </center><p>It appears to be a practical effect, meaning that someone put an incredible amount of work into building all the wires, flanges, and fingers for a prop arm that’s visible on screen for about two milliseconds. That’s some dedication for a sight that the average TV viewer would miss simply by taking a sip of Mountain Dew or Pocari Sweat.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/phantasyarm3.png" title="I'm here to kick ass, provide occasional comedy relief, and serve as an elaborate apology to those fans still traumatized by what happened to Nei in Phantasy Star II!" /></center><p>And here's the surprise: Rika doesn’t actually have that huge metal arm in the game. She gains a ninja’s share of quick attacks and equips “claws,” but they’re mere pointy gloves instead of a massive mechanical gauntlet nearly larger than she is. The device doesn’t appear in any other character art that I can find, so I can assume it was embellished by cover artist Hitoshi Yoneda and adopted by the commercial’s production team. </p><p>I wonder if purchasers of <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> in Japan came away just a little disappointed with Rika’s in-game weapons. We’re all used to cover art blatantly lying about a game, but given how accurate the rest of <b>Phantasy Star IV</b>’s cover is, it’s understandable if someone expected Rika to lug around an impractically large cyber-claw.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/phantasyarmfrontcover2.png" title="Arguably the least sexualized cover Vallejo ever drew for Sega." /></center><p>
<b>Phantasy Star IV</b>’s American buyers faced no such deceit. Boris Vallejo’s cover art ditched any big robotic attachments for Rika, although it suggests she’s now a Romulan. And that Chaz, our sword-wielding hero, now has a more substantial batch. </p><p>Rika’s oversized mecha-hand is the sort of thing that could appear in a remake or even a sequel, but <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> seems unlikely to get either. It doesn't need them. The original game stands proud, and its finale is such an all-encompassing farewell to the series that any follow-up would be an unnecessary burden. Kodama and her fellow Sega staffers realized this, and for all that’s been done with the Phantasy Star name in the decades since, they never exploited <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> for extra mileage.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/phantasyarm2.png" title="Yes, I know Chaz and Rika's names were Rudy and Fal in the Japanese version but that's what they're called in the translation and while Chaz is possibly worse than Rudy I will debate to the last breath that Rika is a better name than Fal." /></center><p>
The closest thing to a sequel was purely speculative sketchwork by character designer Toru Yoshida, who imagined an older Rika and the son she had with Chaz (who’s apparently deceased in this hypothetical scenario). In simpler times a few Western fans mistook these for actual <b>Phantasy Star V </b>production art, but now we know better. </p><p>You know, I stand firm in the belief that <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> doesn’t need any continuation. But an RPG about a single bounty-hunter mom hopping across a star system with her kids in tow, perhaps hoping to find out if their father is still alive? That’s a great hook. </p><p>Anyway, if you’ve never played <b>Phantasy Star IV</b> it’s waiting in many forms, including the first Sega Genesis Mini, the Switch Online service, and too many Genesis game compilations to count. Even if there aren't any cumbersome but cool cybernetic arms, you won't be disappointed in the rest of the game.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-57453024577211231732022-09-29T08:53:00.013-07:002023-07-18T16:58:16.273-07:00The Mystery of The Missing My Little Pony Music<p>I am always intrigued by deleted scenes, especially when they’re presumed lost to time. It ties into my fascination with unreleased media in general and the innate appeal of uncovering a secret. Whether it’s the spider pit horrors in the original <b>King Kong</b>, a gruesome death scene from Disney’s <b>The Black Cauldron</b>, or just a short and meaningless clip excised to trim down running time, there’s a certain thrill in encountering something that you, the audience, were never meant to see. </p><p>That might be why I went through the trouble of seeking out a deleted musical number from the 1980s My Little Pony cartoon. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ponysong3.png" title="Hopelessly lost and facing starvation deep underground, the ponies and Megan consider which Bushwoolie to eat first. North Star is grimly resigned to it while Paradise is already dissociating." /></center><p>
I should explain my history with this show. After my family moved to Germany in the mid-1980s, my grandmother sent me and my sister tape after tape of cartoons she had recorded (even going so far as to edit out the commercials, bless her heart). These tapes had a variety of Looney Tunes shorts and semi-educational programs, but they were heaviest on episodes of <b>My Little Pony and Friends</b>. </p><p>I scoffed at the cartoon until my family moved off-base and loss access to the Armed Forces Network, and then I was grateful for any shred of American television. That’s why I have seen every episode of the 1980s My Little Pony series multiple times, and why I still can recall the personalities of every toy-shilling horse, from Wind Whistler the sesquipedalian pegasus (and, for the record, the best character) to Gusty, a grouchy unicorn voiced by Nancy Cartwright with the same voice she’d later use for Bart Simpson. </p><p>My sister and I were discussing this unavoidable childhood diet of My Little Pony not so long ago, and we learned something: the original broadcasts of the show’s “The Glass Princess” episodes featured a song called “Hurry” in the fourth and final part, but this song and the accompanying animation were removed for all subsequent airings. The rest of the episode was sped up slightly (meaning that the song wasn’t cut for time) and the missing footage has never reappeared, not on VHS or DVD or streaming services like Tubi. It was also nowhere to be found online. </p><p>I actually remembered seeing this musical number on the old tapes my grandmother sent us, and that made me all the more curious about why it was pulled from broadcast. My sister did all the work of digging up the old VHS tape and recording the screen, and you can thank her by checking out her <a href="https://faeryunderground.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">comic</a>. </p><p>Here’s the song sequence in full. Now everyone can find out what the My Little Pony cartoon deemed too shocking, too extreme for the airwaves of the 1980s. </p><p></p><center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QVKgvubKLJs" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></center> <p></p><p>As you can see, it’s a brief and anodyne little number that shows the ponies and their sentient tumbleweed friends, the Bushwoolies, making a quilt. Meanwhile their human allies, whose hands would presumably provide more dexterity than hooves, offer no assistance and merely look on with vacant smiles. There’s no hint of controversy in this “Hurry” song and no inappropriate detail in the animation. In fact, there’s nothing objectionable about this scene. </p><p>Or is there? Check out the Bushwoolie creatures around the 39-second mark and you’ll see them dashing around with a pair of scissors and wielding them perhaps a bit carelessly. That might’ve been enough to draw complaints and get the whole musical interlude yanked for fear that impressionable children would ignore that ancient wisdom about scissors and running.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/ponysong2.png" title="A shot from the never-aired My Little Pony and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory TV special." /></center><p>
It may seem odd that the show would delete the “Hurry” scene and leave much darker elements untouched in other episodes; for example, the very first My Little Pony cartoon features a demonic centaur king who kidnaps ponies and transforms them into giant helldragons. Then again, there’s far less chance of a child imitating that. </p><p> We can’t really wrap up the mystery until someone from the production team confirms that, yes, this My Little Pony cartoon generated complaints about improper scissors usage. Yet seeing the deleted song bit is enough to satisfy my curiosity—and to free it up so I may focus on other things lost to the ages, no matter how trivial they might be. A secret is a secret, after all. </p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-53424173065852739992022-08-31T20:24:00.005-07:002022-10-10T11:36:09.825-07:00Old Games and New Questions<p>There I was the other night, playing <b>Eco Fighters</b>
on the new Capcom Arcade 2<sup>nd</sup> Stadium collection. <b>Eco Fighters</b> is a
creative and unfairly overlooked 2-D shooter, and the Capcom Arcade Stadium
presents it well. Yet as I wove through flurries of enemy fire and blasted
construction vehicles into scrap in some dubious effort to save the
environment, one thought consumed me: how will future generations appreciate these
old games? </p><center></center><center></center><center></center><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/oldeco1.png" title="No, wait! Those mecha turtles are just heading to the mecha-beach to lay their mecha-eggs!" /></center><p>
It's perhaps not a pressing matter or even a serious one. There’s no lack of repackaged older games these days, whether they’re cheap digital reissues or lavish physical copies meant to sit on the shelf beside those decades-old original games without complicating the effect. Yet there’s a haunting reminder that a lot of these re-releases trade heavily on nostalgia—and that when this nostalgia runs dry there’ll be no appetite among the new generations for <b>Gaiares</b> or <b>Dragon View</b> or the original NES <b>Duck Tales</b>. </p><p>Nostalgia is an unreliable thing, after all. It can be the catalyst for personal reflection and historical analysis, and it can be an unchallenging refuge that lets us wallow in the past. Whatever the incarnation, nostalgia is an undeniable part of anything “retro,” to the point where the actual quality of the work might not matter so much as the memories it evokes. </p><p>How, then, does one make these games relevant and palatable for modern audiences with no compelling recollections of, say, unwrapping <b>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game </b>on some distant birthday?
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/oldcrystalis1.png" title="Uh-oh, he's about to GO SUPER SAIYAN" /></center><p>
One possible solution is to grant the player unprecedented freedom in playing the game. The<b> SNK 40th Anniversary Collection</b> introduced a feature that let players skip to any point in a pre-established playthrough, just as easily as they might advance to a certain scene in a film. Most of the games in the collection weren’t all that interesting regardless of where one might skip to, yet it was an inventive new way to experience them—particularly in the collection’s standout, the phenomenal action/RPG <b>Crystalis</b>. </p><p>Other re-issues dig into the games themselves, altering a few things to make them smoother or more interesting. Developer 2 seems to delight in rooting through the nuts and bolts of older games, especially those in the cruelly short-lived Sega Ages series, and adding a new feature or two that opens things up in new ways. <b>Phantasy Star</b> gets adjusted battle rates and experience levels that greatly improve its pacing. <b>Lightening Force</b> and <b>Gunstar Heroes</b> offer easier access to their arrays of weapons. It’s a great way to bring out a game’s best features and give those older fans a reason to pick up something they might've thoroughly explored already. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/oldforce1.png" title="Lightening Force is pretty good but I sure wish you could tell when your shots damage an enemy." /></center><p>
And what of the historical context of these games? Some retro-game reissues pattern themselves after the Criterion editions of movies, offering art galleries, interviews, and other extras that simultaneously entice hardcore fans and frame things for newcomers. </p><p>Even so, such enhancements are preaching to a very devout <b>High Seas Havoc</b> choir. If nostalgia-free players, spoiled for choice with modern games that often imitate and even exceed the older ones, don’t care about <b>Gunstar Heroes </b>in the first place, they're not likely to care about new options or an interview with its designers.<br /></p><p>It’s best to accept that these games will be forgotten by most. That’s the way of all entertainment or art: movies, television, books, theater, radio, postcards, billboards, backs of cereal boxes. The majority of it won’t be remembered at all by the majority of its audience. Why should video games dodge the inevitable?
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/oldaquario1.png" title="The best Westone-made arcade action game to feature a giant mechanical otter!" /></center><p>
</p><p>Westone’s <b>Clockwork Aquario</b> arrived on modern consoles last year, nearly three decades after the game’s original arcade release was canceled. Some people ignored it. Some played through it once and forgot about it. Some enjoyed it thoroughly. And a few adored it enough that they’re still playing it regularly even though it’s only 28 minutes long and I have dozens of other games howling for my attention. </p><p>Things would have been much the same had <b>Clockwork Aquario</b> actually come out in 1993: it would have been dismissed by some, briefly enjoyed by others, and dissected and venerated by an exacting few. Such is the life cycle of most video games. </p><p>And there’s the best answer we have: let these old games decide. Enhance them and remaster them and surround them with extras, but don’t be afraid to throw them on the mercy of new eyes without a hint of nostalgia. Let them be judged on their own merits. If they were ever good games in the first place, there’ll be some kind of audience for them. </p><p>I have no doubt that modern reappearances of the <b>Battle Mania</b>/<b>Trouble Shooter</b> games, as much as I adore them, would meet with little success beyond the Sega Genesis faithful and fans of hyperdestructive ‘80s anime heroines, but I’d also hope that at least one person with no great overriding affection for the 16-bit era still would find them charming and memorable. </p><p>That’s why it’s sometimes enough just to see an older game bundled in a collection, translated for new audience, emulated perfectly, or even rescued from the lost dimension of cancelled things. It has a chance, just as it would have had ten or twenty or thirty years ago, and even if great hordes of modern audiences fail to mass around it, don’t worry. Someone will care.<br /></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-20549198855122280552022-07-31T10:24:00.003-07:002023-03-12T21:55:18.891-07:00Voyage Into Darkstalkers<p>I usually can tell right away when I’ll like a game. It may take a little while to fully seep into place, but even then there's something that grabs my reptilian synapses right away: a striking title screen, a memorable piece of music, a first-stage appearance by a skeletal villain who calls himself the chief of governors. It's also rare for me to initially dislike a game and then come around to utterly adoring it. </p><p>Well, I didn’t like <b>Darkstalkers </b>at first glance. It was the winter of 1994, and I was still very much enamored with a hyperviolent arcade fighting game called <b>BloodStorm</b>. That’s a strange tale in itself, but the short of it is that I really liked <b>BloodStorm</b> and couldn’t understand why it had disappeared from every arcade in Ohio. I held out hope during a Christmas visit to my grandparents in New Orleans, where the arcades were better supplied and surely would maintain a <b>BloodStorm </b>cabinet for me and the fifteen other fans it had across the nation. </p><p>They didn't, of course. The New Orleans arcades had a plethora of new and interesting sights, but <b>BloodStorm</b> was long gone. One of the games that had taken its place was <b>Darkstalkers</b>, Capcom’s head-to-head fighter starring various classic monsters culled from myths and movies (it started off as a Universal monsters pitch, in fact). Its fluid animation and ornate designs were amusing and impressively detailed beyond any game of the era.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/darkstalkersfirst2.png" title="You know what this needs? A human kid who looks like a Mighty Max knockoff!" /></center><p>
I hated it. What was this weird new thing with a grotesque assortment of creatures? Who were these warped and cartoonish versions of boring old movie monsters? Where was the conventional and comprehensible gore of <b>BloodStorm</b> or <b>Mortal Kombat</b> <b>II</b>? And is that cat-woman <i>naked</i>? Can they actually <i>show</i> that? <br /></p><p><b>Darkstalkers</b> earned only one try from me. I picked the spindly fish-man Rikuo, made it a few matches in, and then walked away. I couldn’t wrap my head around the bizarre sights and the bright backgrounds and the animation that was somehow a hybrid of Disney-style smoothness and anime expressions. And though I was accustomed to just about every fighting game dressing its female characters in impractical attire, I wasn’t going to be seen playing something with a character like Felicia, who indeed wore nothing but suspiciously sparse fur. </p><p>So I shunned <b>Darkstalkers</b> and sulked over to the new <b>Killer Instinct</b> machine. Its robots and ninja warriors and off-brand velociraptors presented far more comfortable characters, and the game’s sole human woman only briefly turned into a cat and faced away from the player when she pulled open her top for a finishing move. It was nice to see things back to normal. </p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/darkstalkersfirst4.png" title="Technically, Rikuo is also naked. So is Sasquatch. Filth! FILTH EVERYWHERE" /></center><p>
Yet things changed over the next year or so. I started reading GameFan Magazine, where Nick Rox and Takuhi and other writers would lionize the wonders of Capcom’s hand-drawn animation while pish-poshing the “plastic rendered deathfest” of <b>Killer Instinct</b>. Several 1996 issues had lavish spreads about the upcoming PlayStation version of <b>Darkstalkers</b> and the Saturn version of its semi-sequel, <b>Night Warriors</b>. I spent far too much time examining all the screenshots and artwork, picking out the details in the characters and their oddball attacks. </p><p> I was ready to give <b>Darkstalkers</b> another chance, and after getting a PlayStation later that year I lucked into a heavily discounted copy of <b>Darkstalkers </b>at a store-closing Babbage’s sale. I now had time to enjoy the game at home and soak in it all. </p><p>And I loved it. Playing <b>Darkstalkers</b> outside of the arcade let me take everything: the colors, the animation, the background details from the swinging bar sign in London to the neon riot of the Las Vegas stage. Characters that I’d once written off as generic or silly now seemed remarkable. Jon Talbain wasn’t just a werewolf; he was a werewolf with nunchucks, a hilarious taunting pose, and a special move that sent him hurling like a fireball all over the screen. Morrigan wasn’t a mere standard-issue sexy vampire woman; she was a playful succubus with Elvira-like swagger. Sasquatch wasn’t just another bigfoot; he was an adorable goof from his giant teeth to his huffy frost breath. </p><p>As for Felicia, I was still uptight enough to dismiss her as a shameless piece of pandering. Then I saw the win pose where she turns into a regular cat and emits a pitch-perfect <i>meow</i>. At this point I grew convinced that she was the greatest character in the history of all artistic expression and that any who denied this should be exiled to a habitable yet remote island until they were willing to recant such heresy.
</p><center><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQYZ0gNsX1Q" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></center><p> </p><p><b>Darkstalkers</b> even made me want to be better at fighting games. Capcom’s entries in the genre had always seemed a little complex to me next to <b>Mortal Kombat </b>or <b>Killer Instinct</b>, but with <b>Darkstalkers</b> I had an incentive to learn every move, as they always resulted in some entertaining new sight. It was worth struggling with a stiff PlayStation controller to see Bishamon slice his foe into halves like some Looney Tunes gag. </p><p>All this grew from the less-than-perfect PlayStation port of <b>Darkstalkers</b>. It’s an impressive feat for what it is, but it has strange bouts of sluggishness and seems brutally hard. It took months for me to beat even the lowest difficulty setting. Yet it was a great introduction, and I was intrigued by the idea of a much better version. I can’t say that <b>Night Warriors</b> was my only reason for getting a Sega Saturn the next year, but it was the first game I picked up for the console. </p><p>I never drifted away from <b>Darkstalkers</b>. I was there to import the Saturn version of <b>Darkstalkers 3</b> and its RAM cart, there to buy <b>Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower</b> for the PSP a week before the actual system came out, and there to complain when the <b>Darkstalkers</b> collection for the PlayStation 2 never got translated and when no one bought <b>Darkstalkers Resurrection</b> years later. </p><p>The lesson? Don’t give up on something after a rough first impression. Especially not if you’re a teenager who likes <b>BloodStorm</b>—or even an adult who still likes it.
</p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-72057331472121719712022-06-12T20:53:00.004-07:002024-03-02T21:26:40.569-08:00Video Game Rental Stickers Tour: Part 2<p>I discussed my fascination with rental stickers a while ago, and I haven’t let go of it. As physical media grows scarcer and the last remaining rental stores vanish, it’s fun to look back on a lost era of game cartridges and discs that were covered in labels and warnings. So here’s another round of rental stickers found on eBay. And hey, you can buy them if you like! </p><p> </p><p><b>ART’S VIDEO CENTER’S KINGS OF THE BEACH </b><br />Seller: <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/164808680193" target="_blank">Corey7521</a> <br />This one has it all: a shiny and professionally printed sticker slapped right on top of the game’s label, a less professional sticker with an inventory number, and then, on the back, a marker-written reminder that this is Property of Art’s Video until the end of time. It even refers to the game cartridge as a “tape,” because sufficient numbers of parents still called them “Nintendo tapes” circa 1990 and it would cost a store good money to print up new labels just for the game rentals.
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentalkings1.png" title="When Super Spike V'Ball is already checked out, here's your game!" /></center><p></p><p>Unfortunately, Art’s Video Center seems to be so long and so far gone that I can’t find any record of it online: no placeholder Yelp pages, no vague directory listings, no ancient archived news stories about the store’s grand opening. This auction and my article might be the only record of this rental outlet existing, so I’m glad to spotlight it here. And unlike other games I’m covering, <b>Kings of the Beach </b>is dirt cheap, just in case you want to own a piece of Art’s Video Center. </p><p> </p><p>
<b>AN UNKNOWN STORE'S PRINCESS TOMATO IN THE SALAD KINGDOM </b><br />Seller: <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/353972054546" target="_blank">awfulwaffles76</a><br />Some rental stores used generic cases for their video games, but this <b>Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom </b>has a less common white housing that I particularly like. Why? Because it makes <b>Princess Tomato</b> look like a kids’ movie in one of those cushioned, oversized white VHS containers. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentaltomato1.png" title="Sorry, Boss! I pretty much hate you." /></center><p></p><p>
You can see it, right? A <b>Princess Tomato</b> cartoon, perhaps rendered in authentic Claymation or a reasonable facsimile, sitting right there next to the Disney films and Don Bluth movies and the censored, disguised anime imports in the children’s section of the video store? Perhaps some employee actually misfiled<b> Princess Tomato</b> there once or twice, either disappointing some poor kid who didn’t have an NES or delighting some fortunate kid who got a game rental for the price of a regular VHS checkout. </p><p>Of course, <b>Princess Tomato</b> is not an animated film. It’s a cute adventure game where you explore a world of talking vegetables and where a sidekick persimmon throws out your items without asking. Like most cult-favorite NES games, it’s now very expensive. Still, if I was paying for a copy of <b>Princess Tomato</b>, I’d want the white Disney box with it. </p><p> <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>
<b>VIDEO UPDATE’S PEAK PERFORMANCE </b><br />
Seller: <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/185350563123" target="_blank">blueflipjuice_ig</a> <br />
Video Update appears to be one of those extensive rental chains that I’ve never heard of before, but they were big enough to have over thirty stores in the Minneapolis area alone—and to promote them in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLvJ0b6c9nw" target="_blank">commercials</a>. The main Video Update company went under in 2000, but at least one store hung on for another twelve years, earning a eulogy from the local news upon closing. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentalpeak1.png" title="It's an Atlus game, so it MUST be collectible." /></center><p></p><p>
</p><p>There’s another reason I studied this copy of <b>Peak Performance</b>. Some rental shops put circular labels at the center of their game discs, but Video Update just slapped a rectangular sticker on this one. Would that put the disc off balance? Would it wear out some kid’s PlayStation faster? Would Video Update be liable for damages? Well, just don’t take the sticker off. It’s too worn to make out, but I’m sure the penalty for removing it is dire indeed. </p><p> </p><p>
<b>LEE’S VIDEO LIBRARY’S FINAL ZONE </b><br />Seller: <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/294944912489" target="_blank">michaelyoun-43</a><br />Renovation’s Sega Genesis titles made for great rentals. Full of anime characters and mecha, they were the video-game equivalent of similarly styled OVAs like <b>Outlanders</b> or <b>All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku</b>. Some were great and some weren’t, but they all fascinated us just because they were so different from the typical games and cartoons we had in the early 1990s. </p><p>Lee’s Video Library was clearly budget-conscious in labeling their games, Renovation-supplied or otherwise. The manual has a prominent, hand-lettered warning about how you’ll have to pay five bucks if you happen to lose the book. It’s really cautioning you against stealing it, but Lee will be unmoved if you claim you just lost it. Everyone needs to know how to play <b>Final Zone</b>. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentalzone1.png" title="Yes, there's a Final Zone II, just like there's a Final Fantasy XVI." /></center><p></p><p> </p><p>Unlike many other video-rental shops, Lee’s Video Library did not go under quietly. It got a nice sendoff when it closed in 2008, and a <a href="https://www.heraldbulletin.com/news/local_news/10-16-p-m-lee-s-video-closing-sign-of-times/article_859d2f79-0d5d-5d54-8d96-a2d1b8976e64.html" target="_blank">news article</a> covers the store’s 25-year history in the Anderson, Indiana area, with a few choice quotes from customers who didn’t like this new-fangled DVD format. There’s also a photo of a mural on the side of Lee’s Video, featuring a gallery of movie stars...and a Roger Rabbit apparently painted on at a later date. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentalslees1.png" title="Roger Rabbit dates this mural to about 1990, much like Roman coins can date an archeological excavation site." /></center><p></p><p>
But has Lee’s Video Library really closed? Their number listed online isn’t working, but a glance at Google Street shows that both the store sign and the mural are still on the building, with poor Roger Rabbit slowly melting into a negative dimension. </p><p> </p><p>
<b>VIDEO STATION’S PRIMAL RAGE</b> <br />Seller: <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/274644342668" target="_blank">paranoia_agent_k</a> <br />This ex-rental copy of <b>Primal Rage</b> appears a typical specimen, bearing the usual stickers and filing numbers. Surely it was checked out hundreds of times by kids, teenagers, and anyone else enamored with those stop-motion dinosaurs and their fighting game. For the price of a rental they could learn that the arcade game’s Harryhausen-esque animation wasn’t as impressive on home consoles and that the hold-and-release special moves were just as frustrating. </p><center></center><center></center><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/rentalrage1.png" title="Well, it could've been a coupon for Primal Rage 2, which never came out." /></center><p>Well, take a close look at the box. It offers a coupon for Six Flags, and I want to know what happened to that coupon. Some rental stores might stuff it back in the game’s box, ensuring that the offer would expire well before demand for <b>Primal Rage</b> cooled enough to land it in the clearance-sale bin. Or perhaps a store clerk just pocketed the coupon and saved a little at Six Flags that summer. </p><p>Or perhaps the store just tucked it into the manual, and whoever rented the game first got a little bonus. After all, the store only needs the manual back. Not any coupons. I’ll never know, of course, and not just because Video Station is long since closed and its location turned into an Armed Forces career center. </p><p>And that closes my second survey of video game rental stickers. I can’t help but think that this is a field of history soon to be exploited even more for nostalgia. Sellers might even start removing those stickers and selling them separately, so get your authentic Art’s Video Station ex-rentals while you can. </p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-41378684501951732772022-05-29T11:34:00.001-07:002023-12-04T06:16:03.732-08:00Unlimited Continues and Limited Enjoyment<p><b>Cotton Fantasy</b> arrived this month. It’s a cute, colorful, charming little shooter in all respects, and I said as much in my <a href="https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/game/playstation-4-nintendo-switch/cotton-fantasy/.185927" target="_blank">full review</a>. It has a creative power-up system, clever stage design, and a great variety of playable characters. There isn’t anything really wrong with the game apart from one glaring, grating, unfortunate design choice: it gives you unlimited, on-the-spot continues. </p><p>Upon losing all of their lives or energy, players are given the chance to continue. Some shooters boot the player back to the beginning of a level or an earlier point in that stage. But <b>Cotton Fantasy </b>lets players pick things right back up at the exact point where they perished, and the only penalty is the score resetting to zero. </p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/creditscotton1.png" title="Eagle Sam's had a hard time finding work since the 1984 Olympics." /></center><p></p><p>
This isn’t uncommon in shooters. It’s a feature born from arcade games, where continuing requires the player to stuff another credit in the cabinet. In that light, getting to carry on the game with no pushback or punishment seems fair—a lot of shooters or side-scrollers even dole out power-ups to reward the player’s money. </p><p>
It’s not as welcome a feature in a game developed for a home system or an arcade game ported there. You’ve paid your money up front, and now it falls to the game to challenge you. That doesn’t happen when you can continue on the spot as much as you like. </p><p>
Unlimited continues rarely provoke any criticism from the devoted contingent of 2-D shooter fans who play their favored genre for high scores and the accomplishment of beating a game on a single credit. They’ll argue that shooters are meant to be one-credited and played for score, though if this were true the game shouldn’t let you continue at all. </p><p>
Some developers work around this. Treasure’s home versions of <b>Radiant Silvergun</b> and <b>Ikaruga</b> instituted a clever rule: players got a few continues to start, and each hour of time spent with the game granted another continue. And it worked. By the time you’d played enough to unlock free-play mode or rack up enough credits, you had also played enough to learn the patterns, master the weapons, and hone your reflexes well enough that you could make it to the last boss and its “BE PRAYING” admonitions anyway. It’s a shame that more shooters don’t apply that structure. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/creditsinsector1.png" title="If you cannot finish Insector X on ONE CREDIT, you are a disgrace to the good name of Hot-B." /></center><p></p><p>
Were shooters always like this? No. A glance across the libraries of the Super NES, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine reveals a wealth of shooters and action games, both original creations and those titles based on arcade games. And I have trouble finding a single one, from <b>Axelay </b>to <b>Insector X</b> to <b>Spriggan</b> to <b>Zero Wing</b>, that allows the player the crutch of unlimited, penalty-free continues right off the bat. </p><p>
When did this change? I’m not entirely sure, but I remember the problem coming to light when
<b>Strider 2</b> arrived on the PlayStation in the summer of 2000. GameFan, by then well into its second generation and billing itself as The Last True Enthusiast Magazine, ran a <a href="https://archive.org/details/GamefanVolume8Issue06June2000/page/n49/mode/1up" target="_blank">fawning review</a> of the game, half of which was spent complaining about the Internet and sales figures instead of actually discussing the game in question. A month later, Electronic Gaming Monthly <a href="https://archive.org/details/ElectronicGamingMonthly_201902/Electronic%20Gaming%20Monthly%20Issue%20132%20%28July%202000%29/page/n146/mode/1up" target="_blank">reviewed</a> <b>Strider 2</b> in somewhat positive tones but knocked it for giving the player unlimited, on-the-spot continues that, in their view “destroy this game for a wider audience.” </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p>GameFan responded with an apoplectic <a href="https://archive.org/details/GamefanVolume8Issue10October2000/page/n7/mode/1up" target="_blank">editorial</a> against those so-called gamers who dared use unlimited continues and the critics who dared point out that perhaps those continues should be limited. The incoherent, strawman-focused diatribe accused these naysayers of being dateless, out-of-shape teenage porn addicts (a strange choice of epithet, considering that GameFan had been caught with its game-reviewer pants down), but nowhere did GameFan address the implicit question of why <b>Strider 2</b> should have such a continue system in the first place. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/creditsstrider1.png" title="Oh wait, if the Master defeats you, you can keep going just by hitting start. It lets you continue on the spot. How weird that they let you do that." /></center><p></p><p>
</p><p>
The most damning criticism of <b>Strider 2</b> was found in the original <b>Strider</b>, thoughtfully included as a bonus with its sequel. While it was an arcade game just like <b>Strider 2</b>, the first <b>Strider</b> sent players back to an earlier checkpoint in the stage with each life lost. It was clearly done not just to toughen up the game, but to make the player figure out how to defeat that cyber-centipede, escape that burning airship, or survive that plunge down a jungle ravine. Unlimited continues would just let the player brute-force past the problem or give up entirely and start the game over—which were the only options that<b> Strider 2</b> offered upon defeat. </p><p>
This <b>Strider 2</b> brouhaha had little long-term fallout, but it illustrated a growing divide among fans of action games and shooters: those who saw nothing wrong with unlimited continues, and those who felt they ruined any sense of balance for a game when it was taken out of the arcade and brought into the home. I’m squarely in the latter camp. </p><p>
In fact, I’ll go further: unlimited, on-the-spot continues are a bad design choice even in arcade games. </p><p>
I admit that I care less about high scores and one-credit runs than I do about enjoying a shooter or an action game for its design, its atmosphere, and its overall sense of intensity and reward. All of that is derailed when a game gives me two choices on continuing: carry on with zero setbacks, or start the whole game over. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/creditscotton2.png" title="Of course, the REAL problem with Cotton Fantasy is this blatant symbolism of the illuminati, making the game another instrument of reptoid hollow-moon mind control broadcast from the brain bank cities on planet Nibiru." /></center><p></p><p>
</p><p>
Neither is as appealing as a fair, sensible design choice used in games across other genres: knock the player back just far enough to create a good sense of challenge. This simply isn’t available in a game with unlimited credits from the get-go. It's common for a fighting game to start the match over if you lose, or for an action-adventure game to begin the stage over or pick up at a checkpoint if you’re killed. Why should a 2-D shooter be any different? </p><p>
And for players who want to one-credit a game, they’re not losing anything if that game adopts a measured rule for continues instead of a lazy choice between free play and famine. They can still play and replay until they can one-credit the game. That freedom is intact. </p><p>
Unlimited on-the-spot of continues are, strangely enough, limiting to those players who want a thoughtful, built-in challenge. Penalty-free continues are a lazy decision resulting from the fear that the player might stop playing if they’re not adequately compensated for their money. But isn’t it the point of game design that the player should want to keep going without such carrots and sticks? That the game’s good enough to be its own continue incentive? </p><p>
I don't see anything wrong with preserving unlimited credits in old arcade games, like those in Hamster's Arcade Archives series and other classic compilations. Those games should be presented exactly like they were decades ago, as historical pieces as much as actual games. But for a modern shooter like <b>Cotton Fantasy </b>to roll over and negate all challenge is just disappointing. Unlimited credits are an idea that stuck around just because not enough people questioned it, and that idea still arises now and then to damage to an otherwise enjoyable game. </p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-60558684710526835062022-04-30T14:23:00.006-07:002024-02-07T19:39:09.949-08:00Arcade of My Youth: Cap'n Bogey's Golf & Games<p>A woman knocked on our door one summer evening in 1992. She was circulating a petition against the planned construction of a huge arcade and mini-golf course not far from our neighborhood. As a Concerned Citizen, she felt that it would lower property values and promote delinquency in the delicate suburban environs of Beavercreek, Ohio. </p><p>I feel bad for that woman. Not only did my father, a man so cautious he balked at giving his credit card to Blockbuster, decline to put his name on the petition, but her visit guaranteed that arcade one more customer: I couldn’t wait to visit Cap’N Bogey’s Golf & Games. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeys1.png" title="Cap'n Bogey's operates under MARITIME LAW and therefore has no jurisdiction over sovereign citizens!" /></center><p></p><p>
Cap’n Bogey’s was close enough to our neighborhood to worry overprotective homeowners, and that meant it was within easy walking distance. Every weekend I’d hike there, usually early enough to avoid major crowds, and spend far too much time lost in a maze of arcade cabinets.
My sister would tag along, but I’d make her walk a good distance behind me. Because you needed to look as cool as possible when you arrived at Cap’n Bogey’s. </p><p>There were many arcades in the Dayton suburbs, but compared to the typical nook in a mall or the back room at a pizza joint, Cap’n Bogey’s wasn’t just an arcade. It was a kingdom. The main building surrounded itself with a golf course, bumper-boats, and batting cages. Inside, the first floor was devoted to a snack bar and redemption games, with everything decorated in white, blue, and occasionally pink. I usually walked past such juvenile distractions and made straight for the upper level and the genuine arcade games. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeys3.png" title="This UNRETOUCHED photo shows the staircase to the arcade bathed in a heavenly light, so we are recommending Cap'N Bogey's to the Vatican for sainthood." /></center><p></p><p>
This was the 1990s, and that put me right in the middle of the fighting-game craze. Street Fighter II had started it in 1991, Mortal Kombat had cemented it in 1992, and within a few years every arcade had a wealth of head-to-head fighters and the coin-op industry was bigger than it had been since the early 1980s.</p><p>
Cap’n Bogey’s arcade was stocked with every genre, including four sit-down Dayton USA cabinets, two <b>T-Mek</b> machines wired for versus play, the elaborate foot-pedal setup of <b>Time Crisis</b>, and the glorious driving-shooting hybrid of <b>Lucky & Wild</b>. Yet it was the fighting games that drew me. The gaming magazines of the day couldn’t stop hyping up the latest Street Fighter or Darkstalkers or Samurai Shodown or Virtua Fighter, and the first place to see them was the arcade. This was well before consoles were on par with arcade hardware, and unless your parents bought you a $600 Neo Geo home system, the arcade versions were always just a little bit better.</p><p>
Some of these games would vanish within a month, but the big names stayed and took me through the heights of an arcade renaissance and its whimper of an ending.</p><p>
<b>KILLER INSTINCT</b><br />
Is <b>Killer Instinct</b> the best fighting game of the 1990s? Hardly, but I think it’s the best example of a 1990s fighting game. Rare and Nintendo fashioned it with CG-rendered visuals that looked impressive in early 1995 but awkwardly plastic by that September. The game boasted every possible stereotype in its lineup: a Predator-like robot, a mystically powered ninja, a boxer, a velociraptor, a low-detail ice alien, an equally low-detail fire mutant, and, of course, a female character whose signature finishing move involved pulling open her top to give her opponent a heart attack. I'd say that the 1990s were a different time, but in this case I'm not sure that applies. <br /></p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeyski1.png" title="Eh, she's just flashing her Big Johnson shirt and horrifying him with crude double entendres." /></center><p></p><p>
I actually learned to play fighting games on <b>Killer Instinct</b>. I’d enjoyed <b>Street Fighter II</b> and <b>Mortal Kombat</b>, but I was never particularly good at them, rarely pulling off a special move more complicated than jamming a button really fast. <b>Killer Instinct </b>was approachable enough that I could pull off the special moves and even trigger the extended combo attacks that made the game’s announcer yell BLASTER or AWESOME. And when I went back to playing <b>Street Fighter Alpha</b> or <b>The King of Fighters ’95</b>, I actually understood what was happening. </p><p>
There’s a better reason I remember <b>Killer Instinc</b>t well. One Saturday, local radio station Z-93 set up a contest with a Super NES and the newly released port of <b>Killer Instinct</b>. The previously selected participants didn’t show, so the station held a quick lottery and drew names of five random arcade patrons. I threw my name in and, thanks to the relatively light crowd, I got picked. </p><p>
The contest wasn’t an actual tournament. Instead of facing each other, the five of us just played solo, using the ninja Jago, to see who could rack up the highest score in a single match. This was clearly planned by someone who still thought that video games were in the score-driven heyday of <b>Pac-Man </b>and<b> Space Invaders</b>, even though an actual fighter like <b>Killer Instinct </b>was all about beating an opponent and showing off an ULTRA combo. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeyski2.png" title="Doesn't this at least merit a HYPER COMBO, Mr. Announcer?" /></center><p></p><p>
And I won. I managed to perform a bunch of combos and Jago’s finishing move, which put me well ahead of the other participants. I got a nearly new Super NES and made a brief appearance on the radio. To this date it remains the nicest thing I’ve won in a contest, eclipsing the cake I got at a county fair when I was five and even the used DVD of <b>Steel Angel Kurumi Encore </b>that I received in a trivia challenge at Anime Central. </p><p>
In retrospect, spending all my time in the upper-level arcade of Cap’n Bogey’s wasn’t as practical as visiting the lower-level, where at the very least I could have played skee-ball, earned tickets, and exchanged them for prizes. Yet that day I walked out with a game system and the assurance that, for once, no one could tell me that I’d wasted my time at an arcade. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p>
<b>MORTAL KOMBAT 3</b><br />
The fighting game bubble was at its biggest, gaudiest, and most fleeting with <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b>. The original game earned a reputation with its digitized-actor looks and rampant, parent-horrifying violence and gore, and <b>Mortal Kombat II</b> was a marvelous expansion, adding more accomplished atmosphere and such delightful new characters as Baraka, the fang-mouthed mutant with retractable blades in his forearms. His death moves alone surely would’ve provoked another petition from the woman who’d knocked on our door. </p><p>
<b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> built up its release for months. Kids relished every new detail, speculated over the characters, welcomed the return of Kano and Sonya Blade, and wondered what had happened to Johnny Cage. It even managed to break through the pervasive cynicism at my school. From the seventh grade onwards it was a little embarrassing to get too excited about video games (or anything, for that matter), but I saw otherwise cool and confident classmates talking about <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b>. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeysmk2.png" title="Just wait until they add hot new characters like Ermac and Rain!" /></center><p></p><p>
Cap’n Bogey’s was not caught empty-handed when <b>Mortal Kombat 3 </b>arrived. Three machines stood there perpetually mobbed, and even when I couldn’t play for half an hour it was enough to watch the new characters and fatalities. Sub-Zero was unmasked! The new ninja characters were cyborgs! Sheeva was basically a playable and female version of Goro or Kintaro, the previous games' sub-bosses! There was a new Run button on the console! And a weird masked dude with hook swords! And, uh…a riot cop. Named Kurtis Stryker.</p><p>
It took a few weeks for us to realize that <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> was a letdown. The setting had moved from a gloomy and mystic <b>Enter the Dragon </b>stage to a blander post-apocalyptic Earth, the Run button added nothing, and the rest of the gameplay felt no different than<b> Mortal Kombat II</b>. Some of the new characters were okay, but we couldn’t look at Nightwolf or Stryker without wondering who the hell had decided to include a stereotypical Native American warrior and a doughy police officer in a jogging suit instead of favorites like Johnny Cage, Scorpion, or Kitana. Soon the arcade’s trio of cabinets dwindled to just one. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeysmk1.png" title="No Baraka or Kitana, folks, but we have STRYKER! Even he looks depressed about that." /></center><p></p><p>
Even so, <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> was briefly important for me. Its most intriguing secret was a dragon symbol at the center of the character-select screen. On rare occasions, it would slide away to reveal the mask of a third robo-ninja. No one knew how to unlock him for a good while, but one day a kid brought a new magazine with a special code inside. </p><p>
<b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> allowed players to enter a password at certain points, though the window of time was small and it was hard to make sense of the symbols. The kid with the magazine couldn’t put in the code by himself, so I stepped in to help, whether the kid wanted it or not. Each of us entered half of the symbols, and this appeared. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeysmk3.png" title="He has a fatality where he BLOWS UP THE PLANET, too. Smoke rules." /></center><p></p><p>
It was Smoke, a hidden character from <b>Mortal Kombat II</b>! He was a mecha-ninja now, and thanks in part to me, everyone at Cap’n Bogey’s could pick him in the game! </p><p>
Like <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> itself, this was a fleeting accomplishment for me. Yet it was a legitimately inventive secret for an arcade game at the time, and it enshrined cyber-Smoke as a favorite Mortal Kombat character. Whenever I’d wander past the <b>Mortal Kombat 3 </b>cabinet on my way to play a fighting game I liked better, I’d get the tiniest blip of pride if someone was using Smoke.</p><p>
<b>STREET FIGHTER III</b><br />
By all logic, <b>Street Fighter III</b> should have been the biggest fighting game of the 1990s. I’d been a fan of <b>Street Fighter II</b> since 1992, and even I though I had drifted away after the game’s numerous small upgrades (and I was hardly alone in this), I was lured back by the cartoonish overhaul and new characters of <b>Street Fighter Alpha 2</b>. And when <b>Street Fighter III</b> appeared in early 1997, I realized just how long I’d been waiting for it.</p><p>
GameFan ran a gorgeous preview of the game, revealing that the cast was mostly all-new characters. Only Ryu and Ken returned, and while I was outraged at this snubbing of Chun-Li and Blanka, I was fascinated by the new lineup, which included a weird electric mutant, a one-armed hermit, and a ninja—something Street Fighter II always needed. I couldn’t wait to see the game in action, and I assumed everyone else felt the same.</p><p>
I was old enough to have a license by this point, and when I heard <b>Street Fighter III</b> had arrived at Cap’N Bogey’s, it marked the rare occasion where I actually drove there instead of walking. I had to beat the crowds that would surely gather around every <b>Street Fighter III</b> cabinet and make it hard to even see the screen. I leapt from my hand-me-down Oldsmobile, bounded up the stairs, and looked for the throng of players. </p><p>
A single <b>Street Fighter III</b> cabinet sat by the stairway. No one was playing it. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeyssf1.png" title="Look at that cool rain effect! Why aren't you playing this! Put down that Area 51 gun, kids, and come play a REAL game!" /></center><p></p><p>
Baffled, I jumped right in. The game was impressive: gorgeous animation, fun new characters, and a system that let you select from different special moves for your character prior to each match. I tried out every character, picked out the Linn Kurosawa cameo in the hot-springs background, and just couldn’t understand why this game, this <b>Street Fighter III</b> that every kid had wanted more than world peace back in 1993, had no screaming masses surrounding it.</p><p>
A few other kids joined in, and they seemed to like the game as well. One of them kept repeating that it would be a “worthy purchase” when it came to a home system. </p><p>
That stuck with me. We had the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn, all of which could pull off decent versions of most arcade fighting games. And while <b>Street Fighter III </b>wouldn’t get a home port until the more powerful Dreamcast arrived, the lesson was clear: consoles had caught up to the arcade, at least as far as fighting games went, and most of us could afford to wait. </p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeyssf2.png" title="I'm not kidding. They'll make two more Street Fighter IIIs to offset the costs of our animation." /></center><p></p><p>
There were other reasons that <b>Street Fighter III</b> wasn’t as huge as I expected. The fighting game wave had crested, and while there would always be a devoted competitive following for the major titles, gone was the era when every game company from Irem to the makers of Golden Tee Golf tried their hand at a fighting game. </p><p>
Cap’n Bogeys kept going, of course. I went off to college, but I’d visit it sometimes when I was back in town, and I was delighted to find that they sometimes had obscure Capcom arcade games like <b>Tech Romancer</b> and <b>Rival Schools</b>. I was usually the only one playing, though. </p><p>
I’m not sure when Cap’n Bogey’s shut down. I remember it being there in 2002 with a sparse game selection that didn’t interest me beyond Capcom vs. SNK—which I’d already played on the Dreamcast. Arcades themselves were drying up by that point: the fighting game fervor was long over, and nothing had taken up the mantle. Patrons could enjoy elaborate racing-game cabinets or novelty plastic guns that they couldn’t find at home, but for the most part the kids who clogged up the arcade to play <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b> or <b>Killer Instinct </b>were now too busy with an Xbox or PlayStation 2.</p><p>
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bogeys2.png" title="Pictured Above: The Cap'n Bogey's Empire at its greatest extent." /></center><p></p><p>
I cannot say if the downturn in arcades killed Cap’n Bogey’s Golf & Games. The captain still had his mini-golf, his bumper boats, his batting cages, and his wealth of novelty games to spit out tickets for overexcited children. Yet the day came when I stopped by and found Cap’n Bogey’s locked and deserted, and not long after the building was demolished to make way for a Wendy’s. </p><p>
It's hard to find much information about Cap’n Bogey’s online: the photos here come from the <a href="https://www.beavercreekliving.com/book/item/146-book-onehundredthirtyone" target="_blank">D-X strip</a>, a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/capnbogeys/" target="_blank">Facebook page,</a> and some auctions. I regret that I never took any shots of the interior or the giant mustachioed mascot costume that an employee occasionally wore around the building. Like many childhood arcades, no one thought to document it until it was much too late. So if anyone reading this has particular memories or merchandise from this monument to mid-1990s arcades, feel free to share them. </p><p>
And if you’re that kid who had the Smoke-unlocking code in <b>Mortal Kombat 3</b>, I’m sorry that I stole some of your glory.</p><p>
</p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-30672515720156855112022-03-31T10:52:00.008-07:002022-04-01T10:20:22.669-07:00Valkyrie Elysium: The First Profile<p>Gosh, I really wish someone would make another <b>Valkyrie Profile</b> game. It's been over a year since <b>Valkyrie Anatomia</b> shut down, and that was a mobile game with all the expected baggage. It's gotten to the point where I'll latch on to any unrelated name with Valkyrie in the title, like Square Enix's newly announced <b>Valkyrie Elysium</b>. <br /></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/valkyrieelysium1.png" title="Norse myth vs Greek myth in a battle for the ages and the awkward titles." /></center><p></p><p>
Oh wait. <b>Elysium</b> actually IS a new <b>Valkyrie Profile</b>. It has the signature series silhouette in its logo, after all. <br /></p><p>
Yet the game's <a href="https://square-enix-games.com/en_GB/news/introducing-valkyrie-elysium" target="_blank">initial trailer</a> doesn't show much immediate connection with earlier <b>Valkyrie Profiles</b>. We're told that Odin has summoned a valkyrie to ferret out the reasons for the apparent ruin of the worlds both below and above. And as Valkyries are wont to do, she’ll roam the land and recruit the souls of brave and dead mortals to join her cause. </p><p><br />
It’s the same premise as the original <b>Valkyrie Profile,</b> but <b>Elysium</b> has an apparently new heroine and a new emphasis on combat. The first trailer shows off a 3-D action game in which the blonde heroine (who’s seemingly not Lenneth Valkyrie OR her sister Silmeria) leaps and slices and dashes around. Square Enix’s initial writeups promise that her einherjar recruits can join her in battle, though there’s only a flash or two of that in the trailer. <br />
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/valkyrieelysium2.png" title="You took my parking space! It was engraved upon my Nissan! Uh, AND my soul!" /></center><p></p><p>
As many have critically observed, Valkyrie Elysium doesn’t look so great. The scenery is sparse well beyond an intentionally bleak landscape, and the battle system doesn’t show enough to set it apart from any other brawler where you might juggle enemies for mid-air combos. It resembles a routine mid-level action game from the PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3 era. <br /></p><p>
And I'm looking forward to that. The rising budgets of the modern game industry eroded a lot of the middle ground over the past generation, bifurcating the market into indie creations and expensive triple-A blockbusters. In its primitive looks and apparently ambitious plot, <b>Valkyrie Elysium</b> hearkens back to an era where developers didn’t worry if their ideas were too big for their budgets—an era of <b>Bujingai, Gungrave Overdose, Red Ninja, Spy Fiction, Nano Breaker, Folklore</b>, and other 3-D action games with unique styles and compelling mechanics wrapped up loose and cheap, like a Christmas present from a younger sibling.</p><p><br />
</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/valkyrieelysium3.png" title="Is that Arngrim? Maybe, but I hope that the first cameo is EARNEST EVANS." /></center><p></p><p>
Developer Soleil Game Studios seems new and untested, but their catalog is awash in B-level action. Games like <b>Wanted: Dead</b> were once commonplace, and though they couldn't stand next to polished, lengthy, and balanced blockbusters, they could at least share a store shelf.<br /></p><p>
That’s why I’ll refrain from judging <b>Valkyrie Elysium </b>on appearances. It’s always the part of a game that interests me the least. I’m more intrigued by the prospect of <b>Valkyrie Profile’s</b> button-jabbing, combo friendly RPG battles morphing into a faster-pacer action game. I’m looking forward to seeing just what <b>Elysium</b> does with the whole concept of valkyries, a myth seldom explored fully by video games. If I were hung up on how nice a game looked or how smoothly it ran, I might have discarded <b>Nier</b>, <b>Pandora’s Tower</b>, <b>Advance Guardian Heroes</b>, <b>Drakengard 3</b>, or perhaps even dear <b>Gravity Rush</b>. How disturbing.</p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/valkyrieelysium4.png" title="PLATINAAAAAAAA" /></center><p></p><p>
Besides, <b>Valkyrie Profile</b> fans must admit that we weren't getting another game in any fancier packaging. <b>Valkyrie Anatomia</b> lasted four years but now seems largely forgotten. <b>Covenant of the Plume, the DS strategy-RPG</b>, earned far less of a following than it deserved. And even <b>Valkyrie Profile 2</b>, the last outing for consoles, didn’t catch on like the original. We're lucky to have a new Valkyrie game, opaque as it may be in referencing the original series. </p><p>Of course, there are links to be found. You’ll see the field of weeping lilies that figures prominently into Valkyrie Profile motifs, and the official art and the last shots of the trailer show a halberd-wielding, raven-tressed armored figure who's a dead ringer for Hrist. She's the grouchiest of the three<b> Valkyrie Profile</b> sisters--and the only one who didn't get her own game.</p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/valkyrieelysium5.png" title="Hrist, you didn't get a game because you're so MEAN. There, I said it." /></center><p></p><p>
The main illustration implies that she’s equal to the protagonist, though I'm afraid that 1980s cartoons like <b>G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, Beverly Hills Teens</b>, <b>Visionaries</b>, and <b>Lady Lovely Locks </b>conditioned me to assume that all fictional dark-haired women are innately evil. I'm not sure if I'm kidding.<br /></p><p>
And what about the new valkyrie heroine? My nutty suspicion is that she's related to the amalgam Valkyrie we saw at the end of <b>Valkyrie Profile 2,</b> when Hrist, Lenneth, Silmeria, and human princess Alicia all combined into one warrior like little Norse toy robots. That likely won't bear out in the game, but I should get it out there just in case I'm right and Square Enix owes me a payoff to keep me from suing. I'm pretty sure that's how spoilers work. </p><p><br />
I might never be able to fully hate anything that involves <b>Valkyrie Profile</b>, but I think there’s some valid anticipation here. <b>Valkyrie Elysium</b> looks like a potentially cool new take on a favorite series and the sort of mid-range action game I’d like to see more often. And hey, the music’s nice.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26498739.post-4459249770197691672022-02-28T15:39:00.002-08:002022-02-28T15:48:43.922-08:00Bounty Arms: The Hermie Hopperhead Connection<p>So what's new with <b>Bounty Arms</b>? Nothing major, as you might expect when it comes to a PlayStation action game canceled back in 1995. However, I made a Twitter post about how Data West’s <b>Bounty Arms</b> is chief among my video-game white whales, edging out <b>Mega Man Legends 3</b> and <b>Ultimate Journey</b> and even <b>Super Dog Booby</b>. </p>
<p> </p><center><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Geez, I don't know where to start. How about video games? I'd like to find the most complete version of Bounty Arms, an early PlayStation game supposedly 60 percent done when it was canceled. There's a one-stage demo out there, but I suspect they finished at least two levels. <a href="https://t.co/zyjuM9H19X">https://t.co/zyjuM9H19X</a> <a href="https://t.co/345eeMCMll">pic.twitter.com/345eeMCMll</a></p>— Todd Ciolek (@kidfenris) <a href="https://twitter.com/kidfenris/status/1493438846528278532?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 15, 2022</a></blockquote><p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></center>
It received a decent number of likes for a game that never got noticed much when it was viable and in development, and I'm grateful for all of the responses—even the one from somebody who wants to see Bounty Arms heroines Chris and Rei as muscular circus clowns. Sometimes the best way to keep an obscure video game alive is through equally obscure predilections. </p><p>So it's a good time to discuss <b>Bounty Arms</b>. In the absence of real news, I'll just speculate about the connection between Bounty Arms and Yuke's. </p><p>Yuke’s is best known these days for their extensive lineup of wrestling games, but they’ve tried all sorts of genres since Yukinori Taniguchi founded the company in 1993. Taniguchi figures tangentially into <b>Bounty Arms</b>’ history, as he worked on a number of Data West titles, including <b>Rayxanber III</b> and the LaserActive shooter <b>Vajra</b>. </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bountyarmshermie1.png" title="Well, it's better than Wonder Dog." /></center><p></p><p>The first Yuke’s game unrelated to wrestling was an early Japan-exclusive PlayStation action-platformer called <b>Hermie Hopperhead</b>. While perhaps not a genre trailblazer in its depictions of a red-haired kid jumping on enemies and hatching allies from eggs, <b>Hermie</b> charmed GameFan founder Dave Halverson so thoroughly that he vowed to put it in every issue of his magazine until a publisher brought it to North America. <br /></p><p>This did not come to pass, but before giving up, GameFan ran an <a href="https://archive.org/details/GamefanVolume4Issue05May1996/page/n95/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">extensive interview</a> with Taniguchi and Sony’s Tetsuji Yamamoto. They discuss a lot about the company’s history, and there’s one interesting detail for the <b>Bounty Arms</b> files. </p>
<center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bountyarmsyukes1.png" title="If made today, Hermie would either be a triple-A title that took three years to make or an indie release that took seven years." /></center><p></p><p>
Yamamoto mentions that Taniguchi was working on “some boring project” before they developed <b>Hermie Hopperhead</b>. Might this refer to <b>Bounty Arms</b>? </p><p>
I doubt that for two reasons. One: the timeline doesn’t quite add up, as Taniguchi had founded Yuke’s and apparently stopped working with Data West in 1993, years before <b>Bounty Arms</b> was announced or canceled. Two: I refuse to believe that anyone would find <b>Bounty Arms</b> boring, even in jest. </p><p>Yet there’s another connection. I’ve previously speculated about a former Data West staffer named Kenji Nakamura—and how he may be the same as Kazuhide Nakamura, who directed the first <b>Vajra</b> and designed or directed the three <b>Rayxanbers</b>. Even when sticking to separate credits, Nakamura directed <b>Vajra 2</b>, the last game Data West released before starting up <b>Bounty Arms</b>, and I suspect his departure was either a result of or the reason for Data West canceling it.
After leaving Data West, Nakamura joined Yuke’s. And what was his first game contribution there? </p><p> </p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bountyarmsyukes2.png" title="CONNECT THE DOTS, PEOPLE" /></center><p></p><p>
Yep. Nakamura was a designer on <b>Hermie Hopperhead</b>. And that brings more speculation from me. Did he leave Data West to work on a new game at Yuke’s? Was he lured away by the opportunity to make a side-scroller about a street-savvy tentacle-haired boy and his battle against garbage enemies? Did Hermie Hopperhead kill <b>Bounty Arms</b>? </p><p>
Probably not, but it’s still interesting to play <b>Hermie Hopperhead</b> and other Yuke’s games that involved Nakamura, looking for any common ground or residual influences of <b>Bounty Arms.</b> I’m particularly curious about <b>EOE: Eve of Extinction</b>, a PlayStation action game with Nakamura as scenario creator and lead designer. It’s fallen into such obscurity that I can’t even remember if I ever played it, but I’m still driven to investigate for the sake of the Bounty Arms Preservation Society. And because the English version has a nice lineup of then-ubiquitous voice talent. Cam Clarke! Kim Mai Guest! Jennifer Hale! </p><p></p><center><img border="1" src="https://kidfenris.com/bountyarmsyukes3.png" title="Next Week: the secret agenda of The Adventures of Little Ralph." /></center><p></p><p>
A few notes for those just learning about <b>Bounty Arms</b>: You can download the only known playable demo of the game <a href="http://kidfenris.com/bountydemo.rar">here</a>. And if you want to trick it into playing the entire first stage, check out <a href="https://humanofmicomage.tumblr.com/post/162489793679/hi-thank-you-so-much-for-finding-a-way-to-play" target="_blank">these directions</a>. And then you can devise nonsensical theories of your own! </p>
Kid Fenrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03852751584491929610noreply@blogger.com0