Archives
May 2008

While many retro gamers may be underwhelmed with getting just one new game, following the update-packed, import-rich, hanabi festival, I'm quite content with this new game. All I ask is that each update include at least one great game, and this week Europeans, Australians, and New Zealanders are treated to one of the best titles ever released for the Commodore 64.

Paradroid is often simply described as a shoot 'em up, but the gameplay is so much richer than the typical blow-everything-away-on-the-screen gameplay you'd expect. You pilot a robot known as the "Influence Device" and your mission is to clear out the decks of spaceships that are infested with robots whose programming has gone awry. As you wander the spaceship corridors, every robot you encounter presents you with two paths to success. You can blast it to smithereens, or you can take control of it—a special ability of the otherwise whimpy Influence Device. Choosing the latter launches a time-limited puzzle, where you try to complete a circuit to harness more power than the opposing robot can. If you win, you gain control of the other robot for a limited time, including its weaponry and circuits.

The levels have a maze-like layout, and each robot has a three-digit number that roughly corresponds to its power—higher being stronger. So when you start out as unit 001, you know exactly where you stand. The stronger robots make be able to absorb multiple laser blasts, and they are harder to take control of. Even when you do manage to takeover a strong robot, you can't control is for as long as the weaker ones. Once your time runs out with a "stolen" robot, it's destroyed and you revert to Unit 001 again. In short, this is not only one of the most famous C64 titles, it's also one of the deepest and creative shoot 'em ups I've ever encountered.

Break In is a billiards simulation game for the TurboGrafx-16. While back in the day it may have been decent, the ball physics can be a bit clumsy, plus the interface and gameplay overall really show their age, especially now that we're spoiled with gyroscopes. And honestly, has a great pool game ever been created for any console?

Gynoug (aka Wings of Wor in North America) is a competent—if unimpressive—shoot 'em up. While the graphics and music are rather good, there's shockingly little variety to the sound effects and the weapon/power-up system is rather straightforward and uninteresting. Making matters more difficult for our winged hero is that there are already so many awesome shoot 'em ups available on the VC. This one is merely good.

The final update is Fatal Fury 2. If someone said "new Neo Geo fighter" without including the title, you'd assume that its a great game, given the Neo Geo's tremendous offerings in the genre. Unfortunately, Fatal Fury 2 joins the list of unrefined and primitive versions of fighters clogging the Neo Geo VC library. So save your Wii points for the likes of Samurai Shodown, Last Blade, and Garou: Mark of the Wolves.

This website, is the product of my own passion of classic console games, and it's also an inspirational reponse to the websites that I admire for their fantastic coverage of retro gaming. There are many sites I'd like to recognize for pointing me in the right direction, educating me, and providing artistic fuel for the the fire, but today I feel a particular need to recognize racketBOY.

One of racketBOY's regular features is "Together Retro," where he invites his audience to play a classic game and share experiences in the forums. This installment, racketBOY's game of choice is Lunar: The Silver Star.

As you know from one of my earlier postings, when I mentioned some of my top Sega CD games ever, I have a soft spot for Lunar, and so should everyone else. At a time when Square dominated the RPG genre, the SNES started to pull ahead of the Sega Genesis, and the Sega CD became one of the great console peripheral "failures," Working Designs localised some of the best RPGs of the era. However, due to the Sega CD's poor sales, many a RPG fan missed this incredible RPG series (the sequel was Lunar: Eternal Blue, and it came out two years later for the Sega CD). Working Designs also produced updated versions of both Lunars for the Sony Playstation, so keep in mind those opportunities to acquire this amazing classic RPG, especially if you don't own the Sega CD hardware.

Personally, I'm sticking with my classic Sega CD discs. It's hard to justify the duckets that I'd have to throw down to pick up the Playstation updates. Plus, I'm old school. Can better graphics really improve that much on Lunar's brilliant story?

As an aside, my brother basically hates Final Fantasy games. Whatever. I loved them. The funny thing, though, is that he loved the Lunar games. Yes, they're that good, capable of transcending almost any RPG bias. Anyway...

I highly encourage you to join in the Together Retro discussion, and if I manage to find the time to play through Lunar again—I'm either all in or nothing with this awesome game!—I'll join you there, in the forums.

After three weeks of watching European, Australian, and Kiwi games get some sweet Japanese imports for the VC, I was expecting an awesome week for us North Americans. And the BIG N totally disappointed. We got Sky Kid for the NES. Just look at that screenshot. It's a little underwhelming, right? OK, there are definitely worse games out there for the VC, but this title only stands out because it is one step up from rock bottom. Whoopee!

On a much happier note, American gamers picked up two new additions to Wiiware. Hudson Soft offers the shoot 'em up Star Soldier R, and Konami delivers Critter Round-Up. I'm still getting a handle on the Wiiware games, but even the worst of them are much better than Sky Kid. I think that my first downloads will be LostWInds, Defend Your Castle, and Star Soldier R.

Europe also received its launch of WiiWare today, which included the following titles:

The trailers for Toki Tori have me pretty pumped. It looks like a sweet puzzle game that draws on platformer and action game elements while also putting the Wii remote's pointing ability to excellent use. All that for 900 bones seems like a pretty sweet deal. Plus Toki Tori is just pretty damn cute.

I also have a very good feeling about LostWinds, based screenshots, gameplay design, initial reviews, and an interview with the developer. Yeah, I know. I should just download the damn game, play it, and give you a real opinion, but hell I only have so much time in the day outside my real job and what passes as a social life.

Despite shoot 'em ups and RPGs begin two of my all-time favorite genres, I'm feeling very luke-warm towards Star Soldier R and FFMLAK. The former appears too limited in scope compared to the seminal and less expensive Solider Blade, while the latter sounds pricey (especially with addtional downloadable content) and constrictive, depriving you of one of the greatest aspects of the genre: exploration.

My fondest 16-bit memories always end up drifting towards the TurboDuo. After much research, game playing, and solving of technical difficulties, I can finally present the official top TG-CD list complete with titles shots.

Maybe my nostagia for this console stems from the memorable day that I picked up a brand new TurboDuo at Toys R Us for $99 on a clearance sale. (GamePro's glowing reviews of Gate of Thunder and Loom were fundamental in convincing me to scrape together that $99, which at the time seemed astonomically expensive. Of course, I now realize that I should have bought a few backups Duos, left them unopened, and sold them today on eBay for a fortune).

But there are so many more reasons to love the Duo than merely acquiring one for a bargain. Technologically, I believe that it was the most precocious console ever. Not only did it usher in ther era of 16-bit graphics, it also pioneered the CD-ROM format. Even when the "superior" Genesis and SNES were later released, many TurboGrafx ports held their own and even exceeded the versions released on the "true" 16-bit consoles.

I grew up with Gate of Thunder and Ys Book I and II, but since then I've discovered numerous awesome imports. Back in the day, I had no idea how spoiled Japanese games were.

It is, indeed, true that the TG-CD featured some astonishingly excellent shoot 'em ups. Far fewer people realize, however, that there are also excellent titles in the fighting, platformer, RPG, and strategy genres.

The second Hanabi festival ends on an appropriately Japanese note: Even more shoot 'em ups, plus a crappy TurboGrafx-16 game thrown in for not-so-good measure. Star Parodier for the TurboGrafx-CD is clearly the must-download game this update. While the TG-16 has always been known for its shooters, a lesser-known fact is that within that genre the cute 'em ups are usually even better than the traditional space ship style shooter. Star Parodier is one of the best examples. Had it not been for some technical difficulties, I'd be featuring Star Parodier screenshots below. Imagine vivid and bright colors, tight gameplay, vertically-scrolling levels, a whimsical red book audio soundtrack, and piloting zany characters like Bomberman and even a PC-Engine. Star Parodier has always been known as one of the greatest TG-CD games ever, and it remains one of the greatest cute 'em ups, period.

Gley Lancer for the Sega Genesis is another great shoot 'em up import. It's also one of the most rare and expensive games for the console, so scoring it as a Virtual Console download is a hell of a bargain. That said, Gleylancer is clearly outclassed in graphics and sound by Star Parodier. Nevertheless, it features a very compelling weapon selection system, the gameplay is tight, and it looks and sounds quite good given the limitations of the original hardware. The color pallet is a bit drab, and the sound effects lack the quality of the soundtrack, but Gley Lancer is still one of the best shoot 'em ups for the Genesis. If you like the genre at all, you should definitely give this game a shot, after you download Star Parodier.

Finally, there is Digital Champ: Battle Boxing for the TG-16. Don't go there. Just don't. The gameplay is sloppy and lacks depth. It looks and plays similarly to Mike Tyson's Punch Out, but Nintendo's game is better in every possible way, even though the hardware was much less powerful than that of the TG-16.

Bubble Bobble offers a much different, though also excellent, take on the platformer genre. Levels are single-screen and the maze-like layout gives them more of a puzzle feel. Bottom line: this is an excellent arcade conversion of Tatio's classic. If the bizarre monkey-boy didn't appeal to you, chances are that you won't be able to resist these twin bubble dragons.

The cheerful, bouncy music can get repetitive and annoying, and you aren't going to see any amazing graphical feats in Bubble Bobble, but the gameplay is still rock solid, blending hop and bop elements with a touch of run 'n gun.

Martial Champion is one of the many PC-Engine titles you've no doubt never heard of. One of the greatest secrets of this console is that it actually featured some excellent fighting games. The Street Fighter II port is phenomenal, and the SNK Neo Geo ports (Fatal Fury Special, Art of Fighting, and World Heroes) in the Arcade CD-ROM format are also very impressive.

To be honest, I haven't actually had the opportunity to play Martial Champions yet, but since Konami is responsible for this one, and since I have a pro-PC-Engine bias, I'm going to make the rash assumption that this game is good. Yeah, I'm professional like that.

Four new games for the Europeans, including three never-before-released-in-the-region titles. At the beginning of the New Year, people wondered if the Virtual Console had a future at all. Now those concerns seem ridiculous.

Metal Slug (for the Neo Geo), is the only non-import this update, and it's a member of the most amazing run and gun franchise ever created. That the original Metal Slug stands out, even in comparison to its brethren, only makes it even more desirable.

Cho Aniki represents yet another TG-CD shooter. To its credit, the game is quite distinctive and unique. Frankly, it has a homo-erotic approach to graphics. That doesn't change the fact that it's a good shoot 'em up, though.

Puyo Puyo 2: Tsuu may be little more than a souped up Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, yet it is remains one of the best puzzle games you can download on the VC. There's nothing revolutionary here, but both the 1-player and 2-player games are quite very good.

Of all the Japnese TG-16 games that I imagines would appear as an import, Break In is not one of them. I'm a huge fan of pool, but this billiards simulator, while perhaps admired back in the day, has been ravaged by the passage of time. In this age of full-motion Wii controls, aiming with the game pad is particularly clumsy and painful. Think of the potential for a next-gen version of billiards, not that any game developer will rise to the occasion and engage this niche market...

I'm a huge fan of the TurboGrafx-16, but I'll admit that Hudson Soft's approach to designing games has not been exactly...exemplary. The most embarrassing example is Neutopia as an "answer" to The Legend of Zelda. The former may be one of the better action-adventure games for the TG-16, but no one can deny that it's an absolutely shameless rip-off of Zelda.

Comparatively, Hudson Soft's Star Parodier clearly drew its inspiration from Konami's Parodius, but it took the best themes of Parodius and applied them in an original way. Star Parodier makes fun of Hudson Soft (i.e. the Soldier Series, Bomberman, and even the console itself), but sticks with vertically scrolling brilliance and a more traditional approach to power-ups instead of stealing from the Gradius/Life Force series. Consequently, Star Parodier is one of the best shoot 'em ups available on a console that covered this genre better than any other in the history of video games.

All that and there are still three other VC updates left. Well, Axelay is an excellent shooter, but I must admit that the mode 7 parallax graphics never really hooked me. They just seemed a little weird. Maybe I'm just too old school.

Then we have Super Fantasy Zone. As you might have guessed, it's a 16-bit upgrade to the Sega Master System original. What do you really gain, though? Well, better graphics and sound, but very minor advancements in gameplay. Therefore, I can't rate this any higher than the original Fantasy Zone.

Wrapping up this four-game update is Burning Fight. I saved the worst for last. There's a reason that the Neo Geo dominated the 16-bit fighting genre while it eschewed beat 'em up games. Simply, Burning Fight is a disaster. Mediocre graphics and sound, lousy collision detection, virtually no imagination, and the game doesn't even have an ending. Save your Wii points for a better, probably more shoot 'em up friendly, title.

Gaining an additional N64 game is always worth of celebration, and the arrival of Pokémon Puzzle League is no different. Most genres are well represented in the N64's library, but this one is the first title that falls under the puzzle genre. It's definitely one of the best puzzle games available on the VC, but how does it stack up in terms of price?

Well, take Tetris Attack (aka Panel de Pon), brand it with the Pokémon universe, throw in some cute cut scenes and voice acting, along with an overworld view for navigating different game options, and voilà. So this is basically, an upgrade of the SNES original, but an important catch is that Tetris Attack isn't available on the Virtual Console, although the Japanese have received Panel do Pon. So with that in mind, I find myself bestowing yet another two thumbs up rating to this new N64 title.

The other new game this week is Renegade (aka Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun) for the NES. While I'm a big fan of Technos and their River City Ransom remains a masterpiece to this day, Renegade is the first game in the Kunio-kun series, and—frankly—it shows. The graphics are not nearly as detailed or expressive as River City Ransom, and the gameplay is also quite loose. Having buttons mapped to a specific direction (left, right) rather than a specific move (punch, kick) is quite awkward.

So that's why there's another Pokémon Puzzle League screenshot to the left rather than one of Renegade. If you like beat 'em ups or Kunio-kun games you should be downloading River City Ransom instead. Not convinced yet? Well, how about this? Despite it's humble 8-bit origins, River City Ransom is still one of the greatest console beat 'em ups ever created.