Dead Tomb is a game that can spark your interest before you even start playing it. It’s based on a lost media game, Temporel Inc. Its progenitor was released on the Videoway content delivery system, which means it just disappeared when the service shut down.

Being the most complex game on Videoway, it had its fans, and they went to work remaking it by reverse engineering a recorded playthrough of it. I don’t have any firsthand insight on the Videoway, so I’ll again direct you to Hardcore Gaming 101’s write-up. Fans first recreated Temporel Inc. in Flash, and then Collectorvision created an NES port, which was released a few years ago on a cartridge by Limited Run Games under the name of Dead Tomb.

Now, 8-Bit Legit has released it on modern consoles, which makes the game much more accessible, as it should be.

Dead Tomb (Switch [reviewed], Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, NES)
Developer: Collectorvision
Publisher: 8-Bit Legit
Released: January 26, 2023
MSRP: $4.99

Dead Tomb is a verb-drive adventure game, which is sort of a halfway point between a point-and-click and a text adventure. To interact with an object, you pick a verb from a list. It’s a style of game most famous in Lucasart’s SCUMM titles, such as Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. 

You play as a time traveler from the future, who gets waylaid on a trip back in time and finds themself in ancient Egypt. You’re captured by Pharaoh Seti I's soldiers, robbed, and dumped in a pyramid. Your goal is to try and find a diamond used to power your time machine and escape.

It’s probably important to set your expectations with Dead Tomb. Maniac Mansion, this is not. It’s a much simpler and more linear experience. It’s not necessarily shorter (though it is quite short), but there is less chance that you’re going to become stuck or have to start over. There’s also far less backtracking involved, so it’s a bit more comfortable than Maniac Mansion, but also less complex.

That’s not entirely a bad thing. In fact, it’s a big part of Dead Tomb’s charm. Depending on your aptitude (and a bit of luck), you might still find yourself wandering in circles, occasionally trying to figure out what verb you need to use on a noun, but there’s usually a feeling of forward movement. Again, that’s going to depend on your adventure game literacy, but I definitely felt some momentum.

Where Dead Tomb can get a bit vexing is figuring out how it wants you to interact with the environment. You build up an inventory, but learning how to use it can be tricky, especially in the beginning. It’s not a matter of going into your pockets, pressing “use,” and rubbing it on something in the environment. Often, once it’s in your pocket, you need to approach something in the environment and select the right verb, at which point it says, “Pour ranch dressing on cheesecake.” It feels kind of backward and unintuitive. Then, by the time you get used to it, you’re done with the game.

While Dead Tomb is not terribly cryptic, there are spots that go against common logic. Early on, there’s a nail driven into the wall. If you try to take it, the descriptive text says it barely moves. You have to try and take it three or so times before it finally lands in your pocket. I don’t think this is the only time I’ve seen such a mechanic (and it only happens once in the game), but it's always interesting to me when a game requires you to fail in exactly the same way repeatedly before you meet with success. Video games have instilled in me the principle that if something doesn’t work on the first attempt, I need to try something else.

On the other hand, you don’t have to worry about death. I mean, you can die in sometimes hilarious ways, but then the game just prompts you to continue, and you start back where you were. It contributes to Dead Tomb being such a brief experience, but I think I prefer it to just repeating puzzle solutions until I get back to where I was.

It also allows you to test out obviously bad ideas just to see your character die.

I keep mentioning this, but it’s the brevity that bothers me most about Dead Tomb. As I said previously, you can complete Maniac Mansion in roughly the same timeframe, but that game has multiple solutions and gives you a variety of characters to put together a team from. Dead Tomb is linear. There’s only one way to solve it. There may have been a secret ending I missed, but I’m doubtful.

It’s certainly a fun game while it lasts. The breeziness of the puzzles and charming but unremarkable soundtrack make it a comfortable experience. I really enjoyed playing Dead Tomb, I’m not sure I’m going to remember the game will stand in my memory quite as much as the history behind it. At least the price for the digital version makes that kind of experience absolutely worth the recommendation.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Dead Tomb appeared first on Destructoid.

The Famicom can be perceived as the birthplace of kusoge. While bad games have existed since the creation of the medium, the origin of the term itself is murky but generally is believed to have been coined in reference to a Famicom game.

Hoshi wo Miru Hito, translating roughly as Stargazer, was one such game that rose to the rank of kusoge no densetsu (crap game of legend). It’s easy to see why. RPGs blew up in Japan following the release of Dragon Quest in 1986, and here is a game that was quick to capitalize on that with one set in a sci-fi environment. It even predated Phantasy Star by roughly two months, but not Ultima, which had been doing sci-fi since 1982. Nonetheless, Hoshi wo Miru Hito wasn’t short on inventive ideas for the genre.

It’s just too bad they're buried beneath indescribable suffering.

Aaaargh!

This look comes with the help of the fan translation started by KingMike and finished by brandnewscooby. If it adds any glitches that weren’t present in the original unpatched version, I really wouldn’t be able to tell.

You are dropped, without explanation, in a forest. Having no initial context is hardly exclusive to Hoshi wo Miru Hito, but it’s the sort of situation where your Dragon Quest experience really pays off. You’ll know that your first order of business will be to find the closest town. That town is actually one square to the West, but you’d have no idea just by looking at the screen. It’s invisible. It doesn’t show on the world map. If you didn’t immediately go West, you wouldn’t know it’s there.

This game is about space psychics maybe Hot-B thought you might be psychic too!

There is someone who states that the town is hidden by the combined psychic power of its citizens, and I don’t know if that’s an excuse or if someone actually thought it was a good idea to have an invisible starting city. It’s honestly hard to tell with Hoshi wo Miru Hito, because there are already a tonne of design choices that leave you wondering if it comes down to laziness, poor programming, or just baffling intention.

The hardest part of starting out isn’t even finding the first city. It’s actually surviving the first few battles in order to level up. There are, depending on your definition, three overworld areas, and each one has its own individual shuffle of enemies. In the first area, whether you face off against a foe that your underpowered protagonist can actually take on or a team of three more powerful bullies ready to pound you into the mud is completely random.

In a normal RPG, you’d just be able to run from battles where you were overpowered, but fleeing in Hoshi wo Miru Hito is a skill (Teleport) that you don’t learn until you reach level six or find the second party character. You also need to be cautious, because Teleport is used on each character individually, and it’s possible to leave behind the party members who can’t Teleport.

Aiiiieeee!

If you go to the Northern town of Deus, you learn some nonsense, but one helpful piece of information is that your first party member is far to the south. This is where it really sinks in that Hoshi wo Miru Hito isn’t merely an RPG; it’s also an excruciating ordeal.

This begins the moment you leave the second town. Instead of appearing in a tile adjacent to Deus, you find yourself back where you started the game, one tile east of the Mamus, the starting town. You loop back around, then begin your travel South, at which point you’ll invariably fall down a hole into a small dungeon. However, you don’t need to traverse the dungeon. You can just turn around and go directly back out the door. You then find yourself… back at Mamus.

That little trap-door dungeon appears randomly throughout the forest in your path to the southern reaches of the overworld. It’s extremely difficult to avoid it, so you’re constantly just sent back to the beginning to start the journey over. If you’re astute, you might notice that your protagonist learns to jump as they level up. This basically means that if you walk them into an obstacle (what kind of obstacle is seemingly arbitrary), they’ll leap over it for a set number of spaces. In the beginning, this allows you to take a shortcut over the water next to you, which is some sweet relief, however minor.

This doesn’t let you pass the pitfalls, though. I learned to get by them by going slightly north, then moving all the way to the East coast before heading south. There seems to be a shorter path where the trap doors happen.

N-Nooooo!

You go South, and eventually find another dungeon. Within that dungeon, you finally get the second party member, Shiba, who can jump higher than your original party member, Minami. However, I’m a bit confused about how the doors work in that dungeon. If you exit the door you enter from, you emerge from the other side of a wall. If you then go back into the dungeon, you enter from a different door, and exiting from that puts you back where you started. I think that someone got the spawn points wrong, and then never fixed them.

So, that’s the first part of the game. In the second part, you start fighting more difficult enemies, and that kind of takes you back to square one, where you sometimes get into combat against enemies you can easily take, and other times you’re extremely outmatched. Plus, some of them can paralyze your characters, which you can’t heal until far later in the game. If you manage to win with your remaining party member, you can return to a healer, but they take damage for every step along the way and might die. In order to resurrect them, you need to brew a potion, take it to a different healer, and they’ll bring them back. Ugh, I feel frustrated just trying to explain it.

In the second area of the game, you quickly get your third party member, but you’re not done until you get the fourth. To do that, you have to talk to a few very specific people, and they’re all behind locked doors. The locked doors are just kind of incredible. You need a keycard to go through them, but that doesn’t just unlock the door. The keycard is immediately used up, so to pass through it again, you need another. If you’re just carrying one key and you enter an enclosed area, you become perpetually trapped. You have to save and load your game.

And that’s where I wouldn’t want to be playing Hoshi wo Miru Hito on original hardware. Saving just generates a password. That’s not out of line with how the original Japanese version of Dragon Quest saved. However, it starts you off with only a rough approximation of the gold and XP you saved and sends you back to Mamus. Not being able to easily save before going through a locked door would drive me insane. I would just straight up eat the cartridge before too long.

Ugggghhhh...

Not that my sanity was entirely safe. To get the keycards to just test a door, you have to buy them, and their prices are completely insane. You’re going to be hammering the save state button just so you don’t waste these precious cards. Even then, you’re still going to have to grind like a stripper for the money you need.

To give you a sense of how much grinding is in Hoshi wo Miru Hito, I initially planned on having this write-up done last week, but I needed more time so I could do more grinding.

It would take me a very long time to explain all the ways that combat is an excruciating chore. From the absolutely atrocious balancing, to the mess of a UI, I feel physically nauseous when I think back to playing it. It… it hurts.

If you can believe it, I actually played Hoshi wo Miru Hito to completion. After endless grinding and talking to random people for a while, you eventually go to the third area. There are, thankfully, a few tricks in this area that enable you to get through it a lot quicker.

You go into space, which is depicted as a few pieces of floating debris against a starry backdrop. But weirdly, you can just walk through empty space. I don’t mean jump, like you can over certain barriers and bodies of water. Your characters just straight up walk normally through the starfield. You can then bypass a lot of combat by walking on walls, and then it’s just a matter of trekking across Hell’s half-acre to talk to some porpoises.

Hrmph!

Don’t worry about not being leveled up enough for some grand end-game encounter because there isn’t one. The finale of Hoshi wo Miru Hito gives you dialogue with three options, and then you’re just given an ending based on your selection. You literally just choose your ending.

There’s a lot more that can be said about Hoshi wo Miru Hito and just how horrendously awful it is, but this write-up is already a lot longer than I usually aim for. It’s just… incredible. The best thing I can say about the game is that the music didn’t make my ears bleed.

This is quite possibly the worst game I have ever played, and I’ve been writing a column on bad games for nearly three years. I own Action 52 on the NES, and while that collection of games is equally – if not more – inept, at least the pain is relatively short-lived. Ganso Saiyuuki Super Monkey Daibouken, Japan’s kyuukyoku no kusoge (ultimate crappy game), is at least compellingly terrible. Playing Hoshi wo Miru Hito was a mistake. It’s not just terrible; it’s designed to prolong your suffering. Any merit it may have is drowned out by the screams of its victims. I think it might violate international law.

It was recently ported and re-released on Switch, but only in Japan. Hopefully, we’ll get a localized version in the West, but for now, we can torture ourselves with the fan translation.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Hoshi wo Miru Hito on Famicom is the ruthless King of Crap Mountain appeared first on Destructoid.

8BitLegit has announced that Dead Tomb, a new NES game based on an old lost game, is soon to be released for Switch, Xbox, and the actual NES.

While Dead Tomb is a new NES game built from the ground up, it’s actually based on a game called Temporel Inc., which was a game for the Videoway, a very unique subscription-based content delivery system based out of Quebec, Canada. Among its features was the ability to play 8-bit games, which would be loaded into the system’s RAM, which, obviously, emptied once you were done.

Because no one actually owned the games that they were playing, and the service eventually shut down, there are no known copies of Temporel Inc. remaining. However, there was a recorded playthrough of the entire game, so fans were able to reverse-engineer and recreate it, first as a flash game and now as the NES remake, Dead Tomb. If you want more than a quick summation, Hardcore Gaming 101 has a fantastic write-up that covers everything in more detail.

It’s a pretty cool story, and it looks like a pretty cool game. It has you stranded in ancient Egypt, trying to escape from a pyramid. Its verb-based adventure style harkens back to the glory days of the LucasArts SCUMM Engine. It’s been developed by homebrew veterans Collectorvision (which owns the Acclaim brand).

Dead Tomb is coming to Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and NES. It will be available for preorder on all platforms on January 19, 2024. The modern console version will be released on January 26. The NES version is scheduled to ship in Q3 2024 but is limited to 300 copies.

The post Dead Tomb is a verb-driven NES adventure based on a lost game appeared first on Destructoid.

When navigating the squalid wastelands of video games, I often must turn to reputation to figure out where to stick my fingers. In the West, few games have a reputation for being awful quite like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This is entirely because of the Angry Video Game Nerd, who I respect but isn’t always the best source since he’s primarily aimed at providing entertainment through a schtick. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been singled out by him as one of the darkest spots in the NES library. I have to disagree.

Oh, it’s definitely awful. Don’t assume that I’m here to defend it. It’s as boring as a lecture on the history of terrycloth (did you know it dates back to before 4000 BCE?) and as tedious as chewing through a concrete brick. However, what you might not expect is that, when examined through autopsy, a lot of it feels very deliberate, even if many of the decisions seem misguided. A game that tries to blaze its own trail and fails is a lot more interesting than one that just ineptly follows in another’s footsteps.

Blazing its own trail

Immersive frustration

The damage of everyday life

Cut out all the good parts

The post Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for NES demonstrates the duality of bad and worse appeared first on Destructoid.

I have really been looking forward to Retro-Bit’s NES reissue of 1991’s Hammerin’ Harry. However, in retrospect, this is partially due to me getting it confused with Don Doko Don, a 1989 arcade game in Taito’s single-screen format. If I knew what I was thinking about, I’d be even more excited.

Hammerin’ Harry is a port of Irem’s 1990 arcade game, which was called Daiku no Gen-san: Beranme-chō Sōdōki in Japan. While Irem is perhaps best remembered for their R-Type series, their back catalog is built from an extremely colorful mix of titles on both arcade and consoles. There are a lot of underappreciated greats like Undercover Cops and Gekisha Boy which, to be fair, are largely unknown in the West because they were never localized.

Hammerin’ Harry was, technically, localized, but it was only released in the tumultuous NES PAL region. Because of its late release in a limited market, it tends to resell for an extremely high price. However, Retro-Bit has sent me a copy of their recent retro re-issues to try out. It is both a meaty morsel to sink our teeth into and something simultaneously insubstantial.

The nail that pops up

If you’re unfamiliar with the arcade version, there’s not much to say. It’s a sidescroller where you play as a beefy carpenter dude who wields a big mallet. A rival construction company tears down his house for no reason, and he heads out to file a complaint with their boss. 

It’s a pretty routine affair where you travel the six levels while bopping enemies. You can also (sometimes) deflect projectiles back at them, bash the ground to stun enemies, and bop upwards. Then there are boxes and other objects in the environments that you can send flying at enemies, as well as power-ups that give you a bigger mallet or protect you from an additional hit. In the arcade version, you’re dead if you even brush elbows with an enemy.

Stop! Hammer time!

The 1991 NES version is reasonably faithful. The levels and bosses have been changed a lot to accommodate the more limited hardware to the point where they're all essentially brand new. There are only five levels instead of the arcade version’s six, but one of them is completely new. Rather than die in a single hit, Harry has a health bar. There are now bonus rounds between levels where you smack as many enemies as possible, kind of like whack-a-mole.

However, it’s the same where it really counts. Harry has all the moves and power-ups he does in the arcade, but more importantly, the graphics are still extremely detailed and expressive. Obviously, the NES can’t match the arcade game, but it’s not a lazy facsimile. The art is overall very impressive, even for a 1991 title.

I’m not sure how you feel about me spoiling a 30-year-old game, but the ending is the best part of the NES version. While the arcade has Harry climbing the evil construction company’s headquarters and bashing the boss until he changes his ways, the console version has that same boss flee the fight. In his place, his receptionist bursts in, transforms into, like, the Ultimate Warrior, and tries to take you down. You then follow the boss to his house, which is the completely new level.

H’MM’RNHRY

Surprisingly, the console version of Hammerin’ Harry preserves the voice clips of the arcade version. Each time you begin a level or continue after a death, Harry shouts, “Let’s get busy!” When he dies, he exclaims, “Ouch!” When you complete a level, someone shrieks, “H’MM’RNHRY!” It’s surprisingly clear, even if it still sounds like a drive-thru speaker.

One place where it should have deviated from the arcade title is in its length. While it makes sense to keep a game short in the arcade, since people are usually standing to play, it leads to really short console games. In all, Hammerin’ Harry took me around 45 minutes to complete, and this was my first time playing it. I died plenty of times, but there is no limit on continues, so there’s nothing to stop you from brute-forcing your way through it.

Hammerin’ Harry is far from the shortest game of the era. Off the top of my head, The Little Mermaid on NES and Kirby’s Dreamland on Game Boy are roughly the same runtime. However, that’s hardly a compliment. It feels insubstantial, especially if you don’t have the Japan-only sequel to move on to.

What's in the box?

Thankfully, I do have the sequel to segway into. Retro-bit sent me the Concrete Collection which comes with their reissue of Hammerin’ Harry, and their localization of Daiku no Gen-san 2: Akage no Dan no Gyakushō, which has been translated to Hammerin’ Harry 2: Dan the Red Strikes Back.

For Hammerin’ Harry, Retro-Bit got creative with the cartridge. It’s encased in a wood-grained textured plastic. The feel of the cartridge is a bit smoother than an official NES game, but the construction is solid. I took it apart, and there’s a clean-looking PCB solidly fixed in there. These are the first NES games I’ve received from them, and it’s nice to see they get the same treatment as their Genesis titles. They feel like quality in your hands, but there’s no way anyone would mistake them as an original production.

Tenderized

On the other hand, it gives me an excuse to talk about some obscure titles, which fits neatly with the intentions of this article. I appreciate Retro-Bit’s efforts in giving new attention to rare and unlocalized games through its re-issues.

Hammerin’ Harry was an exceptionally fun one to visit. As I said at the start, it’s been on my radar for quite a while. Beyond just being a short but enjoyable platformer, it’s also an infectiously lively game with terrific art design packed with humorous flourishes. It might not be the console's best sidescroller, but it’s definitely not boring.

While there was only one Hammerin’ Harry arcade game, the series stretched on across many platformers throughout its lifespan. Only the arcade title reached North America, but the Game Boy game, 1992’s Hammerin' Harry: Ghost Building Company, did get a release in Europe. That is until the 2008 PSP title, Hammerin’ Harry finally crossed the globe. It makes sense since the games are steeped in the culture of Japan. It’s just a shame that it’s taken until now for us to get an official release over here.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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The original Doom recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, making me feel quite old. As well as being an early blueprint for the FPS genre, id Software's iconic shooter is also a popular modding playground. Sometimes, these mods harken back to even older gaming days.

Modders Gokuma and Kontra Kommando have crafted a love letter to an absolute classic '80s slasher film. Specifically, they've turned Doom into Friday the 13th. More specifically still, they've based it on the NES adaptation, turning the 1989 side-scrolling game into a first-person shooter.

Set in Camp Crystal Lake – as you would expect – the mod brings back Jason Voorhees to "slaughter all those that would dare to step foot" into the camp. It's up to Doomguy to stop him, presumably. Currently, there's no full release date, but you can download the current beta from ModDB to try it out.

Life before Doom

It's interesting to see this kind of mod. While it could have been just set in the Friday the 13th universe in any respect, the creators chose to breathe new life (resurrect, if you will) into a game that's even older than Doom.

A lot has certainly changed over the decades for the plucky FPS. Thirty years is a long time in any form of media, but to see id Software's legendary 1993 release keep coming back for more is a strong testament to just how important the game has been to the industry.

There are so many Doom mods out there, some of which change up the formula immensely, not to mention the countless ways of porting the game. There's not really anything else like it in the video game world, so hats off to the studio for bringing it to us.

The post Doom meets Camp Crystal Lake in this Friday the 13th mod appeared first on Destructoid.

Money is really depressing to me. Not only have recent events left me with a deep anxiety about finances, it seems that a lot of people are struggling, and the best you can hope for is to struggle less. I don’t want to discuss this on a deeper level, so instead, let’s talk about Wall Street Kid.

Wall Street Kid is actually known as The Money Game II: Kabutochou no Kiseki in Japan, meaning that, yes, it’s the second in a series, with the first game never seeing a release outside of Japan. You could also look at the games as a spin-off of another Sofel series, Casino Kid, but they’re not actually related aside from sharing a developer.

I want to note off the top that I wouldn’t consider Wall Street Kid to be kusoge. It’s really not that bad, and Sofel did a great job localizing it by basically rebuilding everything to be more Western-friendly. It’s just such a bizarre game that I didn’t see myself covering it any other way, and it fits best in this column. I’m mad with power.

The game looks easy, that's why it sells

Wall Street Kid places you in the leather wingtips of the eponymous protagonist as he’s informed of the death of a family member. Apparently, your distant uncle has passed and left you his absurdly colossal fortune, but only if you prove that you’re already privileged enough to deserve it. Uncle Benedict has some pretty specific demands that you carry on the family name with undeserved dignity.

You’re given $500,000 of seed money, and you need to play the stock market to build up your life. You need to buy a house, get married, honeymoon on a yacht, and then re-obtain the family castle. For some reason, you need to do this in four months. Otherwise, the $600 Billion (wtf!?) in assets goes to… I don’t know, probably some greedy charity or something.

Those are some pretty incredible demands from a dead guy with too much money and no children.

Essentially, it means that you have to have enough money to pass certain milestones. At the end of the first month (April), you need to buy a $1 million home. That’s pretty funny nowadays with an out-of-control, overpriced housing market. 

Kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy

What’s funnier is that, at the start of the game, Mr. Kid already has a fiancée, and you’re now obligated to keep her happy in order to receive your absurdly massive inheritance. That means she’ll keep coming to you wanting you to buy her expensive things and will leave you if you don’t. Ah, true love.

She must know about the inheritance because this is practically extortion. She can demand anything she wants because if you don’t give in, she can just leave, and you can kiss that money goodbye. It’s a hilariously effective and cynical approach to a relationship. Every time the phone would ring, I’d find myself chanting, “Please don’t be my girlfriend,” before advancing the text. Video games have always been great at teaching children about adult relationships.

To be fair to the fiancée, you can say no to some of her demands and still succeed. It’s just if you don’t give in occasionally or ignore her outright that you lose.

Failing upwards

Games that simulate the stock exchange weren’t uncommon, even when Wall Street Kid hit the market. The concept is already pretty abstract and rooted in mathematics, so it’s a perfect fit for a video conversion. As such, there were attempts at stock exchange simulations before video games even left mainframe computers.

The milestones you have to reach are perhaps the only thing that really makes Wall Street Kid stand out. The day-by-day task of betting on stock is pretty boring. You get the newspaper in the morning that tells you what stocks are doing well, and the best way to succeed is to just put your money into one of the day’s top performers. I never had one severely crash out on me, but for that matter, I never lucked out and won big on something. It’s a rather predictable market.

Actually, I’m not sure if there’s even much room for skill here. The best strategy seems to be buying as much high-performing stock as you can at the time. When it stops performing, you just sell your stocks and trade over to something else. Whether or not that stock continues at that rate or not is kind of just random. Sometimes, not much of anything would rise in the market for me, so it wouldn’t matter what I picked. Realistic? I don’t know. I’m not an investor.

Since there’s a newspaper, I would have expected that it would cover events that impact certain stocks. Something like a worldwide telecom outage that affects the prices of ATNT or a war breaking out that boosts steel prices. There’s none of that. Categories of stocks just do well some days, and that’s about it.

Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew

At the end of June, you get to bid on the Benedict family castle, and by the end of July, you need to have enough money to pay it off. My playthrough video of Wall Street Kid is clocked at over 2 hours, but I accidentally said “yes” to something I shouldn’t have in my first attempt and lost in the first month and had to start over. Really, you could probably put a bow on it in an hour if your wheeling is up to par with your dealing. And you don’t accidentally select the wrong dialogue option.

I failed at the end, falling a hair short of affording the castle.

So, I guess I don’t “earn” the astronomical inheritance. How heartbreaking. I guess I’m just going to have to live the rest of my life as a failure with my wife, dog, million-dollar house, yacht, and $2.5 million in assets. All that hard work for nothing. Why must I suffer?

But I'll start over, and this time, I will have that inheritance that I deserve. Then, I will rub elbows with the other elite of this world. The champions who reign above average humans. And then I will gradually lose touch with the common person and form a spiritual hole where my humanity used to be. I will try to fill it, and when that doesn’t work, I’ll just hide it behind dead eyes, an empty smile, and a passionless relationship. I’d obscure it by establishing a charity for some popular cause. I'd show it to those beneath the heel of my boot that I still have a soul – some sort of compassion – while at the same time using it to dodge taxes and funnel money into my other corporate endeavors before it lands right back into my pockets. Not one drop of my money should be touched by the disgusting sorts of people who seek charity. What have they done to deserve it?

Not like me. I earned every dime. I played Wall Street Kid.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Wall Street Kid for NES makes capitalists of us all appeared first on Destructoid.

I mentioned this once before, but after the launch of the Super Nintendo in 1991 (1990 for Japan), Konami went through this weird period of producing licensed games that were way better than you’d expect. I’ve covered Bucky O’Hare, but there’s also Zen: The Intergalactic Ninja, and this one: Monster in My Pocket.

Monster in My Pocket is more than just a cheeky euphemism, it was this media franchise in the age when everyone wanted a media franchise. Well, it was an attempt at one. It was based around a series of tiny figures produced by Matchbox, but they also pushed a cartoon special and a comic that only made it through four issues. It was pretty short-lived.

The Monster in My Pocket NES game came out in 1992. Among the short list of staff who worked on the game is Etsunobu Ebisu, who would become a major figure in the Ganbare Goemon series. I mean that literally. The character of Ebisumaru is based on the guy. Now, he’s the president of Good-Feel. The other staff members are hardly slouches, either, but Ebisu is the one who’s still relevant today.

So, yeah. It’s more attention than you’d expect from a licensed game. Especially when you consider that licensed games at the time were typically dredged up from swamps.

I will keep my analogies holstered

Circling back to what Monster in My Pocket actually is; they were tiny little rubber figurines of, obviously, monsters. They were pretty cheap, and you could buy packs of them to fill your pockets with.

There’s a lot you can do when you just mash a bunch of monsters together, but the narrative of Monster in my Pocket is that Guile from Street Fighter II is evil, and he wants to… Uh, do evil, I guess. Vampire and (Frankenstein’s) Monster set out to stop him. To do so, they have to wade through all his various underlings.

Also, all the monsters are tiny. That’s important.

The plot might be pretty limited, but the really cool part of playing the game is seeing all the various toys you might have in your collection brought to life. Personally, I didn’t ever get into the toys. I would have been three or four when they first came out, so I probably would have just stuck them up my nose or whatever kids that age normally do. However, I could totally see the appeal of trying to identify all the various toys.

Shatter-pocket

As a game, Monster in My Pocket is a pretty standard side-scroller with a shade of brawler. You run along and punch everything in your way, trying not to get hit in the process. Sometimes, you can pick up objects from the environment and throw them, but this is pretty rare and not all that useful. There are places where there’s a bit of branching in the environments, but it’s mostly just a “high road, low road” kind of situation. Speaking of which, it isn’t immediately obvious, but you can double jump.

In a way, the brawler-sidescroller mix feels a bit like Shatterhand, but don’t get your expectations too high; this is a really basic game. At least it has two-player simultaneous co-op.

What really brings its quality up is its use of various effects and technical trickery that the NES doesn’t typically do well. This includes quickly scrolling backgrounds, four-way scrolling, and fake parallax effects. This was the sort of thing that Bucky O’Hare also did, as well as Zen: Intergalactic Ninja, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

Pocketful of pugilists

The downside is that the enemies tend to heap up on the ground of these levels, and it causes a lot of flicker, especially when you’re punching your way through them. 

This leads me to a question for other people who play a lot of NES: have you also just gotten used to sprite flicker? I’m not trying to diminish the limitation. It’s really distracting and doesn’t help the aesthetic whatsoever. However, when playing this, I realized that I don’t even notice anymore. I wonder if this is how children were able to tolerate it.

Anyway, the levels take you through a house, into a kitchen, out onto the streets, over a construction site, into Japan (weirdly), and then to a monster castle. Six stages. It’s a very short game, but there are limited continues, so it may take you a few attempts to get through it. Even with that, the first time I played it, I had it done with before the afternoon was over.

There is some variety to the levels, but not a whole lot. The bosses are really where it’s at. I kind of wish I knew who these toys are. I think the first boss is Mad Scientist, and the fifth boss is Banshee (who was apparently never released). The bosses are pretty simple, but they take some pattern memorization to take down without dumping a few lives.

Evil-Guile's revenge

The music is pretty pleasing, as well. The track for the fifth level, Oriental Illusion (I know), sounds like it could have been from one of the Ganbare Goemon games. I don’t think there was really much of an existing soundtrack to base the game’s music on, so it’s basically just top-shelf NES noodling.

I think the point I’m trying to land here is that Monster in My Pocket is way better than it should be, but not all that special aside from some technical delights. It has an advantage over Bucky O’hare in that it isn’t especially frustrating. Plus, there’s two-player co-op, if you can handle the extra flicker.

However, that’s what makes games like Monster in My Pocket more fascinating. It doesn’t feel like it should exist. Why not a Sega Genesis or SNES game instead? That seems like it would be easier. The fact that it was released on a console that was at the end of its lifespan, I would have expected it to be phoned in. But it’s not. It’s a completely competent game. Inoffensive at its very worst. Developers who were well beyond what the project called for still gave an impressive effort. You’ve got to hand it to them.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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Licensed games have tried their damnedest to nail the original theme songs and other aspects of film scores. Horror games are no different, and we've seen plenty of successful examples over the years. 

Going as far back as the tinny notes of Halloween on Atari 2600, there's something about the limitations that make these soundtracks even creepier. Without access to orchestration or even proper synths, retro horror games have held on to a unique kind of spookiness. They're equal parts charming and, in some cases, manage to nail the vibe of their source material without carrying over every single note. In honor of those unusual, haunting melodies, we'll take a moment to touch on a handful of them.

The game where HE comes home

Wizard Video published Halloween for Atari 2600 in October 1983, a full five years after John Carpenter's seminal slasher hit theaters. Tim Martin and Robert Barber's rudimentary efforts featured pretty much zilch from the film, outside of the box art. It did manage to technically be gorier, though, and they put in the work to include Carpenter's unforgettable theme. Its simplicity is one of the reasons it's been such a bone-chilling earworm for over four decades, so it doesn't take much to keep its vibes intact.

Are you ready for Freddy? 

It would be a wild understatement to say A Nightmare on Elm Street made an awkward leap to Nintendo's console in 1990. The side-scroller may have swapped out Wes Craven's specific dream scenarios for bats, rats, and spiders, but the soundtrack has its own charms. The game itself was published by LJN and developed by Rare, which meant we got a David Wise score that hit both the creepy and catchy ends of the spectrum. 

Chiptunes make me feel good!

When it comes to Ghostbusters games you have a few choices of extremely varying quality. For bobble-headed 16-bit action you can pop in the Genesis game, for instance. If you don't feel like having fun, you can take Ecto-1 for a spin in Ghostbusters on NES. The latter keeps a reasonable facsimile of Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song running throughout. Seriously, it plays the entire time. Oddly enough, considering their famous lawsuit against the song, it's about as successful a take as the Huey Lewis tunes in LJN's Back to the Future NES game. The important thing is you know you're playing Ghostbusters, even if you're not likely to recommend it to anyone else.

Besides, you'll always be better off playing New Ghostbusters II. 

Vampire Hunter

Annie Lennox and Wojciech Kilar's soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula is full of sweeping orchestration. The 1993 video games — which made their way to everything from NES to Game Gear, SNES, Genesis, Amiga, and beyond — are not. Many of the versions are wildly different from one another, with the Game Boy take playing out like a traditional platformer and the Sega CD port including FMV scenes from the film. There was even a first-person DOS game! 

As disparate as some of these attempts may be, there are some soundtracks in the lot that successfully evoke the mood of the source material. Bram Stoker's Dracula on SNES has a lot of memorably fitting tracks. Some are pure mood pieces, while others push forward with a more action-oriented, Castlevania momentum. 

Sunsoft strikes back

Giving any company especially high praise for their music during a generation known for its enduring video game soundtracks is saying something. Sunsoft almost always managed to drop some dynamite, even when the games themselves didn't live up to their tunes. Gremlins 2: The New Batch landed somewhere in the middle when it launched on NES and Game Boy in 1990. Composers Naoki Kodaka and Nobuyuki Hara have stacked résumés that include the likes of Batman, Blaster Master, and U-four-ia: The Saga. 

Sunsoft's Gremlins 2 score conveys the playful, mischievous spirit of Joe Dante's fourth-wall-shattering sequel with style. It's particularly crunchy, making you want to play it loud before Play It Loud! was a thing.  

Ah, ah, ah, choo, choo, choo

If ever there was an example of a game that managed to be scary while only taking the bare essentials from its inspiration, it's Friday the 13th on NES. Kids of the late '80s found themselves scared and confused in equal measure as they attempted to explore the campgrounds and survive sudden cabin-bound fights against Jason. Composer Hirohiko Takayama (The Karate Kid, Xexyz) crafted a theme just as spooky as the Ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah found throughout the slasher series Sean S. Cunningham kicked off back in 1980. 

Exploring Camp Crystal Lake isn't all doom and gloom. Some upbeat tracks made its somewhat esoteric design tolerable, too. The type of musical dichotomy you may find in old-school horror games like this are emblematic of the genre itself. Horror films can be scary as hell, but they can also be goofy and fun, whether it's intentional or not. If a horror game soundtrack manages to capture even a modicum of that magic, it will always be worth revisiting in some form. 

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I technically never stopped playing retro games. When I had my Gamecube, I was still playing games on my SNES. However, around that time, I also bought an NES. The games I got with it – games like Total Recall and Kid Icarus – had me convinced that I just hated games on the NES. It wasn’t until I was introduced to a couple of games on this list, that retro gaming truly opened up to me.

I do believe that games age, but mostly on a technical level. Poor framerates and blurry graphics can make it difficult to return to an early 3D game. Their design, on the other hand, is rarely completely superseded. Video game development really just goes through trends. Right now, there’s a particular style of game that is favored by gamers, but this was different 10 years ago, which was different 10 years before that.

As such, it’s more of a matter of acclimating to the design climate of the time period, which can be difficult if you don’t know where to look. Maybe I can help. The following is a list of games that may provide you with a gateway into retro gaming. These aren’t necessarily what I consider to be the “best” games in general, but they’re ones that, if you’re reluctant but curious to try older games, might be a good place to start.

Ms. Pac-Man (1982, Arcade)

Have you not played Pac-Man? Games of the golden era of video games (before the 1983 crash) can be a little dry for newcomers since they are more about competition through repetition. Whether you’re playing by yourself or challenging others, you’re still doing the same thing repeatedly, building skills, and trying for the best outcome. They tend to lack the progression that helps keep you glued to more modern titles.

Pac-Man is one of the retro arcade titles that are still easy to enjoy today, and that’s partially because, on a surface level, it’s more dynamic and harder to predict. Instead of simply learning patterns and strategies, you’re also decoding the personalities of the four ghosts that chase you.

Ms. Pac-Man is an improvement over the first game in just about every way. There are more mazes, more dynamic ghosts, and a more attractive protagonist. Yum. It’s just too bad it was made without Namco’s permission. Now, because of various rights issues, Namco prefers to pretend it never happened. But we know better. And if you’re able to get your hands on a port of it, it’s a great jumping point for getting into the earliest days of gaming.

Punch-Out!! (1987, NES)

The gameplay in the NES port of Nintendo’s 1984 boxing game is so refined and so unique that it’s timeless. Outwardly, you might be expecting a competitive boxing title, but Punch-Out!! is actually a much simpler game of pattern recognition and reflexes. It’s a series of battles where you must memorize the tells and movements of a progression of stereotypes until you come out on top. Or probably not. I’ve been playing the game for years and haven’t been able to beat it.

If you’re hesitant, there is a less old 2009 version of Punch-Out!! for the Wii. The kicker is that they barely had to change anything aside from the graphics. However, it might give you a taste of what you’re in for.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988, NES)

The Super Mario series has long been considered a great entry point for newcomers, not just for the genre but for video games in general. As such, it’s hard to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 when it comes to easing into the bygone generation of platformers.

Quite simply, it hasn’t aged like other platformers of the ‘80s. Nintendo pulled out all the stops when it came to working around the limitations of the NES, which allowed them to become a lot more creative with the level design. There’s an endless amount of variety across the worlds, and while the later stages of the game can get pretty difficult, by then, Super Mario Bros. 3 will probably have its hooks in you.

If I have one reservation, it’s that Super Mario Bros. 3 will only superficially help you get into retro games. Mario 3 is sort of in a league of its own. There’s no real way to gracefully go from this to, say, Castlevania, because, while I consider that to be a better, meatier game, it’s a completely different ballgame.

River City Ransom (1989, NES)

Beat-’em-ups or brawlers are often a safe bet, as the core gameplay of the genre hasn’t really changed much since the beginning. The same is generally true about River City Ransom, as much of the gameplay is largely just throwing fists and feet at your opponents.

The big difference is that River City Ransom puts you in an explorable city and has you level up by eating food. The only real punishment that comes with death is that you lose half of your money and are sent back to the last shopping area. If you’re having trouble in any specific fight, you can always grind out a few coins and improve your stats before trying again.

I often say that River City Ransom is as much about shopping as it is about fighting, and in that way, it’s something of a precursor to the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series.

The Secret of Monkey Island (1990, PC)

The point-and-click adventure genre had its heyday in the ‘90s, died in the early ‘00s, was resurrected a few years later, and now has fallen to the side while more narrative and choice-driven adventure titles take the wheel. One of the best pockets of retro titles you can delve into is the Lucasarts SCUMM adventures of the ‘90s. I’m speaking on anecdotal evidence, but I feel like these games are a sort of pilgrimage for anyone stepping into retro gaming.

The best place to start with these is 1990’s The Secret of Monkey Island. Technically it’s a follow-up to games like Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken, but here is where I feel they hit their stride. The Secret of Monkey Island is funny, surprising, and doesn’t lean too heavily on cryptic puzzles. As a warning, these sorts of games can be extremely overwhelming when you first drop in and find yourself inundated with all kinds of interactive distractions. However, if you stick with it for just a little while, you’ll most likely grow comfortable.

Street Fighter II (1991, Arcade)

Fighting games changed forever after the arrival of 1991’s Street Fighter II, and they really haven’t changed all that much since then. Because of this, Street Fighter II plays just as well today as it did in the ‘90s.

I’d say it’s impressive that any game got its formula so perfect on the first attempt, but it really didn’t. The original 1987 title relied too heavily on an arcade gimmick where the strength of your attacks relied on how hard you pressed the buttons. As a result, it was really inaccurate and not all that much fun to play. Street Fighter II, on the other hand, made incredible use of its six buttons, giving its handful of characters a varied array of moves. 

Street Fighter II was so popular it kicked off a boom in both arcade titles and fighting games in general. The marketplace was quickly swamped with pretenders trying to live up to this game, and admittedly, some did. But while there are flashier, better-looking, and more advanced fighting games to play, it’s hard to deny that the best place to start is with the Godfather of them all, Street Fighter II.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991, SNES)

It’s hard to do wrong when picking up a Legend of Zelda game (though, I’d at least recommend you stay away from Adventure of Link), but The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is arguably the entry that is most timeless. The NES titles tend to be unfriendly to newcomers, while the N64 games have the early 3D barrier. Link to the Past, on the other hand, contains everything that makes the series great without compromise.

Moreover, it contains colorful graphics, joyful controls, and one of the best soundtracks of the era. Its presentation is downright legendary. There’s very little to complain about with Link to the Past, which makes it the best way to get into the series.

Mega Man X (1993, SNES)

The NES Mega Man series is the gold standard of platformers, but they can still be a bit intimidating if you’re new to the series. So, instead of jumping into Mega Man 2 (which isn’t a bad choice, honestly), Mega Man X on the SNES is your best bet for not only getting into the greater series but for this particular flavor of platformers in general.

Mega Man X took the hop-and-shoot gameplay of the classic series and made slight tweaks that had significant repercussions. The simple addition of more verticality in stages changes the flow of the game entirely, and the Blue Bomber’s new dash ability makes everything faster.

But, more importantly, it’s less difficult than most of the classic series. This isn’t simply because the bosses are easier or that there’s less instant death; it’s because there are more options for you to get out of trouble. You have more ways to recover from small mistakes. As such, it’s a great way to ease your way into the platforming genre in general.

Banjo-Kazooie (1998, N64)

The early 3D era of video games is arguably the hardest one to get into. While there was a great deal of experimentation as the industry adjusted to the new dimension, it also came with a lot of missteps, technical issues, and intrusive jank. There are some great experiences in that era that don’t get the spotlight very often, so learning to adapt to the shortcomings of the time period can be extremely rewarding.

Banjo-Kazooie is one of the few games of its genre that doesn’t suffer from a lot of control and camera issues. Well, truthfully, the camera isn’t great in the original N64 release, but it isn’t bad. It’s fixed in the Xbox 360 HD remaster, so that might be something to consider.

Rare built Banjo-Kazooie on the foundation laid by Super Mario 64. A lot of the eponymous bird and bear’s techniques are almost exactly copied from Nintendo’s exploratory work. However, for their title, the developers simplified and refined the controls. The result is an extremely beginner-friendly 3D platformer. It’s not without its frustrations, but it’s a good starting point for newcomers.

Metal Slug (1996, Arcade)

The run-and-gun sub-genre of sidescrolling games is notoriously brutal. They typically require fast reflexes and keen pattern recognition skills. In a lot of ways, Metal Slug is no different. Originally developed for the Neo Geo MVS arcade platform, part of its design is based around eating quarters. As such, there’s instant death, relentless enemies, and tricky boss encounters.

However, this is eased in a lot of console ports. Usually, there’s an option for unlimited continues, which removes much of the punishment for death. In this way, it’s easier to appreciate some of the best pixel art to ever hit a CRT screen.

It’s hard to go wrong with choosing a Metal Slug game to start with. My suggestion is to at least play the first, X, and 3. They’re generally 45 minute to an hour-and-a-half to complete, so you can burn through all three in an afternoon.

The post Best 10 games to help you get into retro appeared first on Destructoid.

8-Bit Legit has announced they'll be handling the publishing duties for Project Blue, an NES-style cyberpunk sidescroller by ToggleSwitch/FrankenGraphics that is coming to modern consoles with a physical release on NES.

Writing about new NES games never gets old. Project Blue casts you as Blue, a child trying to escape a research laboratory in Neo Hong Kong. The trailer advertises Perfect Blue as being built from 256 screens, which kind of makes it look like the underappreciated Legacy of the Wizard. In fact, a lot of the game looks like a futuristic Legacy of the Wizard, which I am totally down for. The publisher also says that there will be three difficulty levels that will modify the game’s layout, which is pretty spiffy.

It’s worth noting that you can already grab Project Blue on PC over on Itch. 8-Bit Legit is the publishing arm of Retrotainment Games and Mega Cat Studios, and is just handling publishing on consoles. I know Retrotainment from Garbage Pail Kids, which was a pretty terrific NES release.

I’m always on board for a new NES game. We’ve come a long way from the early days of homebrew titles. Now, we’ve got boutique publishers who handle all the curation and quality control. It’s nice to have the option to play it on modern consoles, but given the option, give me that plastic rectangle and let me slot it into my computer-toaster.

Project Blue is currently available on PC. The console version will be available for pre-order starting on September 29, 2023, and the retail release will follow on October 6, 2023.

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The Nintendo Family Computer (more commonly known as the Famicom) launched in 1983 in Japan, a full two years before its Western analog, the NES, debuted in North America. This was right as the video game market underwent a temporary implosion in other parts of the world and was strangely the best time possible for Nintendo to break into the home market. 

Collecting for a Japanese console can cause some hesitation for an Anglophone. The fear is that the best games will remain in their native language, and you’ll be left with piles of RPGs where you can't even navigate the menus. That can certainly be a problem as you get into later generations of consoles, but with the Famicom, there are a lot of great games that don’t require much reading comprehension.

To make things more tantalizing, the Famicom is a relatively cheap console to collect for. While the price of NES games have been climbing to upsetting levels over the past few years, the Japanese collector’s market hasn’t really moved much. Most titles in the system’s library don’t exceed $50, and many of them have a higher price tag because they’re regional variations of expensive NES titles.

Because of its accessibility and affordability, the Famicom has remained my favorite console to import for, so I’m going to share some of that knowledge with you.

The Games

The Famicom is a lot more than just the Japanese NES. While you can get nearly identical versions of popular titles like Super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda on both platforms, the Famicom offers a whole world beyond that. If you love the NES but feel you’ve plumbed the depths of its library for all the gems it has to offer, then the Famicom is where you should go next.

When I started out with the Famicom, I mostly targeted three main groups: Nintendo, Kunio-Kun, and Konami.

There are very few Nintendo games that stayed exclusively in Japan. Of these, most are on the Famicom Disk System and are visual novel titles that are impossible to play unless you speak the language. But two of them stand out: Joy Mecha Fight and Devil’s World. The former is a fighting game in the vein of Street Fighter II, while the latter is a weird maze game (like Pac-Man) designed by Shigeru Miyamoto.

A great deal of the Kunio-Kun/Nekketsu/Downtown games stayed in Japan. You might know these games better as one of their localized titles: River City Ransom or Crash ‘N’ the Boys. Since they’re all part of one series, you might expect that there would only be a small number of titles, but there’s actually just short of a dozen. My personal favorites are Ike! Ike! Nekketsu Hockey-bu and Nekketsu Street Basket: Ganbare Dunk Heroes. Note that you can now get all of these titles as part of the Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle.

Finally, there are the titles Konami never localized, and there's a lot of them. Over here, we knew the company mainly for titles like Contra or Castlevania, but in Japan, they offered a whole lot more. There are the Ganbare Goemon games (including two RPGS), a port of Parodius Da, Crisis Force, and several hidden gems. Then there are the two Wai Wai World crossover games. I spend a lot of time extolling the greatness of Konami’s Japan-only library, and that isn’t about to stop.

The Hardware

The most common version of the Famicom is the original beige and red model. It’s a little uncomfortable for modern gamers for a few reasons. The first concern is over the console's extremely short controller cables hardwired into the system. The idea is that you’ll pull it off the shelf and play it on the floor, but that’s not a very Western thing to do. The easiest way about it might be to just use a long AV and power cable so you can pull the whole console over to where you sit.

If you’re crafty, you can modify the controller cables to give you more length. However, another option is to use the extension port on the side. There’s a variety of third-party controllers that you can buy, as well as extension cables and wireless controllers that can be used through that port. Be careful, though. A controller is wired either as a first player or second player. A player two controller plugged into the extension port will only act as a player two controller. So, if you're playing alone, you need to make sure you have a player one controller.

The other downside is that the original Famicom model only supports RF out. This looks terrible on modern TVs and can be rather grainy on CRT. You’ll need to modify the console if you want better output.

The one I use is a Sharp Famicom Twin model. These are unique because they have the Famicom Disk System built in. They also support composite out, which provides a better video signal than RF. However, remember that these two have hardwired controllers with short cords.

The last common Famicom model is the “New Famicom,” sometimes called the “AV Famicom.” This one is visibly similar to the “New-Style NES” (or top-loader), with a few differences. Most importantly, the controllers aren’t hardwired, and it has a composite video output. It’s generally a bit more expensive than the standard Famicom, but it’s much cheaper than the Sharp Twin models.

You might also consider just using a Famicom adapter for your NES. This essentially just changes the Famicom’s 60-pin configuration to the NES’ 72-pin and allows you to play Famicom games on your NES with some caveats. First, Famicom game cartridges aren’t standardized, so some are much taller than others and won’t fit in an NES. Second, games that use specialized chips for additional audio channels will work, but you won’t get the boosted soundtrack. For example, Akumajou Densetsu, which is the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 won’t have its deeper soundtrack.

Since my NES is RGB modified while my Famicom isn’t, I’ll often use my NES to get a better picture through an upscaler. However, I love hooking the Famicom up to an old CRT for that authentic feel.

Finally, there are plenty of clone Famicoms available. While a lot of these are rather inconsistent in quality, there are enthusiast consoles like the RetroUSB AVS and the Analogue NT Mini. They can be useful if you want a simple, all-in-one solution without the need for tinkering.

The Famicom Disk System

If you’re feeling even more adventurous, it’s worth getting into the Famicom Disk System. This expansion to the console allows you to play a subset of games that were released on what are essentially recognized as floppy disks. This is where you’ll find games like Nintendo’s own Famicom Grand Prix 2: 3D Hot Rally and Nazo no Murasame-Jou.

Like standard Famicom games, these are generally cheap and easy to come by, with some standout titles being a bit more expensive. Nothing like some games in the NES library, however.

Getting the Famicom Disk System itself isn’t too expensive either. There’s one thing to note, however. The FDS console’s drive belt is prone to, er, melting. It’s an almost unavoidable flaw of the system, and chances are, if you have an FDS, it either has a broken belt or one you've already replaced. Replacing the belt isn’t as easy as it sounds, either. Putting a new one in is simple enough, but disassembling, recalibrating, and reassembling is a bit more difficult.

Likewise, the disks have the same issue as normal floppy disks: they are prone to degaussing. That is to say, they can lose the data written to them. Of all the FDS games I’ve handled, I’ve only found one that doesn’t read. Most sellers will test the games first, ensuring they're still functional.

The disks are rewritable, too. So, that's led to some fancy hardware hacks allowing for the restoration of degaussed games. This isn’t easy or accessible, but in the future, there may be more options when it comes to restoring the data on these disks.

Where to get a Famicom supplies

This one is a bit trickier. The absolute best way would be actually going to Japan and visiting one of their many fantastic retro game stores. Doing this will allow you to choose the condition of the games more easily. Likewise, it will give you access to a lot of games that still have their boxes and manuals. For some reason, Japanese gamers were in the habit of keeping their packaging, which is pretty cool.

However, that’s not a very realistic option. Unless you have a particularly well-stocked retro game store near you, you’re probably going to have to order online. Personally, I still use eBay, but there are non-auction websites you can go through. In the wake of COVID, there are a lot more stores that have turned to selling internationally on eBay, which is a benefit to importers. There are a tonne of well-stocked and reputable stores you can browse through.

Shipping can be an issue, especially if you’re buying consoles. Many sellers allow for combined shipping, and since many Famicom games reside in the $20 and below range, it's easy to score a big care package of games. Shipping from Japan is often very quick unless you go with seamail. Seamail can take weeks, while I’ve had packages shipped by air arrive in a few short days.

Why you should get a Famicom

I’m not sure if I’ve said this enough, but the Famicom is more than simply a Japanese NES. It has an ecosystem of its own, with tons of quality titles unreleased in the West. Furthermore, there are unique experiences that we missed over here, like secret-heavy titles such as Atlantis no Nazo or fascinating kusoge like Spelunker II. Even while the NES has a well-rounded library of its own, the Famicom provides even more depth.

If you need recommendations, you can check out my old Famicom Friday column. However, I feel like part of the fun is diving into the unknown and seeing what you turn up. It’s still a bit of a frontier for a lot of video game hobbyists, so there’s a lot to discover on your own. And that’s what’s so exciting about the Famicom. There’s a lot of stuff that you just don’t hear about in the West, and, personally, my favorite games are the ones I haven’t played before.

The post Destructoid’s guide to collecting for Famicom appeared first on Destructoid.

Soda Drinker Pro is an odd one. Created by Will Brierly a hog's age ago, it eventually made its way to Steam and Xbox One. I was turned onto it back in the day by the relentless enthusiasm of Destructoid grizzled veteran Jonathan "Grizzled Veteran" Holmes. With Unity making an impressive attempt to implode a massive section of the indie development community, Will Brierly has decided it's time to stick the needle in and get sucking as much cash out of enthusiastic soda drinkers as possible.

Via the Soda Drinker Pro website, Will Brierly has announced that beginning January 1, 2024, a diabolical new monetization scheme will be implemented.

Historically, Soda Drinker Pro functioned on a one-time purchase model. However, after an exhaustive analysis of our revenue streams and the game's mechanics, which merely simulate the act of sipping a digital beverage, we have determined that a per-sip fee optimally aligns with our business objectives. Each sip activates a specific segment of our proprietary code, thereby justifying the incremental charge.

You can view the full details of just how out-of-pocket you will be here on the Soda Drinker Pro webzone.

Just kidding

The whole Unity price structure is a big upsetting situation. Considering all the indie devs I follow on Twitter, my entire feed has been taken up by the outcry against it. And for good reason. It's the sort of greed I expected when John Riccitiello took the position of CEO in 2014. I'm mostly surprised it took them this long to switch into host-murdering parasite mode.

The upside to this is that, by wading into the conversation, Will Brierly has notified me that Soda Drinker Pro is coming to the NES. The trailer went live August 25, and I somehow missed it. The shame I feel right now should really spice up my self-flagellation routine later tonight.

More information is coming soon, but Brierly has stated that Snowrunner and Limited Run Games assisted with the production. I'm assuming that means it will be distributed by Limited Run Games, but we'll have to wait and see. We'll also have to be patient to find out if secret game Vivian Clark will also be getting an 8-bit upgrade.

Soda Drinker Pro is currently available on PC and Xbox One.

The post This awful Unity business led to me learning of Soda Drinker Pro’s upcoming NES port appeared first on Destructoid.

I was first introduced to Bucky O’Hare through the NES game. This was back in 2010, long after the cartoon was off the air. It’s an interesting game, which I’ll get to in a bit. However, I quickly grabbed the cartoon to watch and maybe gave up after two episodes. I know that two episodes is a pretty brief amount of time to try and form an opinion on a show, but I couldn’t stand it. It was a horrible maelstrom of bad attempts at wordplay and nauseating self-righteousness.

The ship that the eponymous Bucky pilots is called the Righteous Indignation, which really tells you all you need to know about the show’s tonality.

The cartoon was based on a comic from the late ‘70s, but it’s one of those shows that were pretty obvious in their intention to sell toys. However, it did wind up with a couple of video games by Konami, one for the arcade and the other for the NES. Fortunately, both are a lot more tolerable to me than the cartoon. So let’s look at the NES version.

[caption id="attachment_401226" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Terrible wordplay and furry appeal

The Super Famicom was released in 1990 in Japan, followed by the 1991 SNES release in North America. Publishers were quickly abandoning the NES and Famicom in favor of the new platform, but there was still a number of quality games that were released before the last official NES title dropped in 1994.

During the waning years of the NES, Konami, in particular, did a number of mostly licensed titles that were of unusual quality. These were games like Monster in My Pocket, Zen: Intergalactic Ninja, and Bucky O’Hare. None of these were particularly great licenses. None of them really survived the ‘90s. But if you were expecting a crap game to go alongside them, you’re in for a surprise.

I’m not saying that any of these games are great. It’s just they’re a lot better than you’d probably expect. While they do seem somewhat rushed, they all display a level of technique that you don’t find in the era’s licensed games. It’s like an extremely talented development team decided to phone it in.

In the case of 1992’s Bucky O’Hare, that’s exactly what it is. Its director was Masato Maegawa, who went on to found the legendary development studio Treasure.

[caption id="attachment_401228" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Quantum kidnapping

If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of Bucky O’Hare, it’s essentially Star Wars with furries. It takes place in an alternate reality nauseatingly called the “Aniverse” because everyone in it is an anthropomorphic animal. The Toad Empire is making life hell for anyone with warm blood. Bucky and his crew are rebels, fighting to free all the mammals from beneath the slimy heel of the Toad Empire. Also, there’s a child insert character who gets transported to this parallel dimension because nothing cements a fantasy in a child’s mind quite like quantum kidnapping.

The game is largely similar to the platforming in the Mega Man series. The crew of the Righteous Indignation is captured by the Toad Empire. Starting out as bucky, you choose from four planets, each with a different member to save. Don’t pick the ice planet, though. You’ll be stuck. You first need to save Blinky from the Green Planet, since he’s the only one who can break ice blocks.

You can sort of see the Treasure DNA in Bucky O’Hare. Each planet has a traditional twist that makes it different (fire, ice, yellow, etc.), but things get changed up pretty frequently in each level. The Yellow Planet, for example, has you riding on meteors one moment before later riding on a cart at processor-meltingly high speeds.

Similar to Zen Intergalactic Ninja and Monster in My Pocket, there’s a lot of programming magic pushing the NES to its limits. Parallax scrolling, huge objects that make clever use of the background layer, gadgets that are made to look like they rotate. There was cooler stuff happening on other platforms at the time, but Bucky O’Hare is a good place to see all the trickery that could be pulled off on the NES.

[caption id="attachment_401229" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Croak toads

The downside to this is that the game isn’t great. It’s not bad, and in a lot of ways, it’s better than your typical licensed game. It just isn’t fabulous. I wasn’t that far into Bucky O’Hare before I started wondering why I wasn’t playing Little Samson instead, as that game has a lot of the same concepts but with better execution.

For starters, the characters are very uneven. You can trade them out at any time, but it’s best to just use Bucky unless someone else’s skill is needed for a situation. Everyone has their typical weapon and special ability, but they’re rarely useful. Jenny, for example, has a laser that doesn’t do as much damage as Bucky’s normal shot, but she can also summon an energy sphere that I could never land on a target. The developers probably could have just gotten away with making every character interchangeable so you could play as your favorite, but they went with a half-measure that doesn’t work well.

But the biggest problem is that there’s just so much instant death in the game. There are too many instances where you just touch certain parts of the environment, and your character drops dead. I once momentarily slipped off a log going across some water, and while my character stayed on the raft, they collapsed on the ground because their toe got wet.

The only real punishment for dying is losing any built-up health you have whenever you need to continue, but extending your life bar isn’t that important. You’re most likely going to die from one of the insta-kill hazards, so it doesn’t matter how much life you have. As a result, losing all your lives is just an inconvenience because it sends you back to the beginning of the act you were on.

[caption id="attachment_401230" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A buried treasure

The music is at least terrific. It was apparently composed by Tomoko Sumiyama, but I’m not entirely certain about that. They were credited as a sound designer on Laser Invasion and Rampart (the Famicom version), and then I can’t find them having composed anything after 1992. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable little bop that fits in with Konami’s other stellar soundtracks.

As a whole, Bucky O’Hare isn’t a great title, but it’s a lot better than you might expect from a licensed title. Especially a license that isn’t that well remembered. I can only assume Konami was hoping that they were scooping up a license that would let them repeat the success of their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. That plainly wasn’t the case.

For that matter, it also doesn’t feel like a lost Treasure title. While you can see some of the flourishes that would help define Treasure’s later games, it’s overwhelmed by how much it lifts from the Mega Man formula. If you’re already a fan of both Treasure and Mega Man, you might still be let down by how loose and uneven the whole thing is. Instead, go in with the expectations you’d have for an obscure licensed game, and you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Bucky O’Hare for NES is a Saturday morning treasure appeared first on Destructoid.

The best menu screens in games can be articulated in many ways, just like the sheer amount of options you can get from the feature itself. In my mind, they're determined by the music, the visuals, and how unique they can be. You don't want to see a bland introduction to a magnificent game. Here are the top 10 best main menu screens in games, ranked.

Before we start, I have some honorable mentions. While it's too soon to rank this alongside long-standing greats, Sea of Stars' main menu screen is an impressive introduction to its world. The flickering of the flames reflecting on the pixel-based characters, and the gorgeous backdrop is absolutely stunning. Additionally, Rayman 2: The Great Escape's menu features strange, yet enticing music with a view of the world we're about to explore. There's also a cute teensie on the left side, welcoming you to the game with its hat.

[caption id="attachment_400167" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

10. Super Metroid

During the SNES era, gamers weren't anticipating a cinematic introduction to the game. However, Super Metroid features tense music and neat transitions of scenes that feature the creepy sci-fi world of the game. It then reveals a Metroid trapped within a pipe with the machinery flickering in green light. It's genuinely creepy to see fallen bodies next to the machine as well. It's a perfect introduction to this game.

[caption id="attachment_399796" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

9. Psychonauts

Double Fine is a developer known for its wild worlds, game concepts, and characters. This menu follows that same idea. One of the strangest (and coolest) is in Psychonauts, in which you're Raz running around a brain. The concept of the game is that you're trying to fix the issues of a person by infiltrating their mind. It's a clever main menu concept for a game like this and is certainly unique. I also love Double Fine's record-based main menu design in Brutal Legend, but Psychonauts just edges it out.

[caption id="attachment_399797" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

8. L.A. Noire

This may be a controversial pick, but L.A. Noire has a unique menu design that complements the subject matter. You get the old-fashioned black-and-white styling mixed in with a shadowy figure of the text. The light shone from the car gives a wonderful effect on the brick wall, adding to the atmosphere of the scene. While it can be annoying to have a gentleman walking in and out of the menu, it's certainly an interesting take on this classic gaming feature that we haven't seen before.

https://youtu.be/cHGF302fBZk

7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Yes, this is a simplistic menu for such a huge RPG like Starfield, but it more than makes up for it with the theme alone. You hear a majestic choir and triumphant orchestra calling to you. It gets you pumped for the adventure you're about to have. The logo also looks iconic amongst the white mist and the black background.

https://youtu.be/njoPUWILwpo

6. Pokemon Red & Blue

Despite the limited power of the Game Boy, Pokemon Red & Blue still had amazing intros and menus. You see two Pokemon fighting it out in the intro underscored by a memorable theme song. It then constantly switches between the different Pocket Monsters you'll find in the game like Snorlax, Mankey, and Ditto. It's simple but "super effective"at introducing us to the world of Pokemon. 

https://youtu.be/DRgLR-cPMls

5. Xenoblade Chronicles

The Xenoblade Chronicles title screen is super simple. You see the Monado sword stuck in the ground all by itself. However, the beauty of the world surrounds us as day turns to night. You also see the shine of the metal blade against the sunlight, which is a nice touch. The Monado also glows in the dark as the stars shine brightly above. The emotional music is engrossing as you simply stare at this stunning scene. This is one of the best main menu screens just from how stunning it is.

https://youtu.be/kAwwQ7dTjRY

4. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I know, many say that Ocarina of Time's menu screen is better, but the one from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess holds more prestige for me. You see Link riding Epona valiantly across the Bridge of Eldin and the wilderness of Hyrule. In the background is a somewhat creepy choir singing the main theme of the game. Then, the intro transitions to Wolf Link who howls to a strange golden wall in the distance.

You also have a hint of the "Midna's Theme" from the music, hinting at how prevalent your partner will be in the plot and gameplay. You're then left with a feeling of dread as you only have the sound of wind to keep you company. It's a brilliant main menu that pulls you into the intended darker atmosphere of the game.

https://youtu.be/IM-r2hxtO8g

3. Kingdom Hearts 2

Possibly with the prettiest main menu theme ever "Dearly Beloved," Kingdom Hearts 2 has one of the best intros in gaming history. The credits roll and the music begins to build up. As you begin to see Sora emerge into the title screen, you hear the harp play and the bass strings refer to the protagonist.

It sounds like an orchestra prepping to play before a concert occurs. It then calms down for a brief second until the full menu appears. Then, the piano begins to play the main melody, and each wonderful instrument of the piece blends together in a truly "beloved" way.

Seeped with the sound of waves from Sora's home world Destiny Islands, you remember where the end goal lies. The blue streak to the right also has a wave-like gradient to it. I just noticed this as I was writing, but the color of the streak goes from navy to turquoise to yellow like a beach. Neat!

[caption id="attachment_399816" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

2. Persona 5

Persona 5 has so much style behind its UI and graphical ingenuity. However, the main menu stands out as well. The introduction of the train pop art and then the Phantom Thieves at a stop is fantastic. I love the striking red and white style as you see the trains beside them rush on either side.

The music gives you the depiction that this is going to be a cool, suave adventure. When Futaba gets off her seat, you'll see a graffiti mark on her seat. It also shows Haru in the back, showing her more shy side.

Personally, I prefer the calmer nature of this scene to the more energetic Persona 5 Royal's, but it's a personal taste, for sure. It gives a more underground feel that matches the Phantom Thieves better.

https://youtu.be/ZT9DST_M_g8

1. Mega Man 2

Admittedly, I haven't grown up during the NES era, but my goodness, this is one of the greatest main menu screens in a game, bar none. You start with an overview of the city with a brief summary of the story. The music begins slow and pleasant, but as the camera moves up the skyscraper, the music gets faster until you get one of the most badass menu themes ever. You can't help but get hyped.

You see Megaman's hair waving in the air as he readies himself for his tough adventure. When you choose a selection, he then teleports away. Despite having better technology today, this main menu still stands as one of the most epic. Let's set out and defeat each of the bosses (or at least hope we can). This is one of the best main menu screens ever just due to the excitement I get every time I boot it up.

The post Top 10 best menu screens in games, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Trash Can Children

The Garbage Pail Kids are a bit out of my wheelhouse. I don’t particularly like gross-out humor. Even some of the stuff in Ren & Stimpy is too much for me. I respect gross-out humor. I think it’s probably healthy to find amusement in bodily functions that we all experience but, for some reason, choose to demonize. That doesn’t change things, though. It doesn’t tickle the atrophied humor muscle in my brain.

Except for butts. Butts are forever funny.

However, the NES is part of my domain. So when Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum arrived, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to pick up a physical copy of it for NES. To be clear, I bought this myself. When I covered Blazing Rangers back in February, First Press Games had offered me a copy of it. I’m not sure Iam8bit even has my contact information, and I’m too polite and shy to actually ask for anyone for review copies.

[caption id="attachment_390217" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum (NES, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC)
Developer: Retrotainment Games, Digital Eclipse
Publisher: iam8bit
Released: October 25, 2022
MSRP: $9.99 (Digital), $79.99 (NES)

If you’re unfamiliar with the Garbage Pail Kids, it was an attempt to take the Cabbage Patch Kids and turn it into the most unwholesome, disgusting mutation possible. They were chiefly a series of trading cards, but they eventually spun off into a movie that has been described as “the worst ever” and a cartoon series that got canceled before it even hit the air. My husband says the cartoon is “interesting” but that I “definitely wouldn’t like it.”

Garbage Pail Kids went away for the ‘90s but came back in the ‘00s, as you can’t keep a good property down. They’re the perfect storm of parents hating them and kids loving them that made them memorable.

There was never a video game spin-off of the property, but there probably should have been, so Retrotainment Games got the license and went straight to correcting history. They created Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum for the NES hardware. Iam8bit picked it up as publisher, and last year it hit consoles and PC with the help of Digital Eclipse. Now, it’s been pressed to an NES cartridge, which feels absolutely poetic.

https://youtu.be/E4lcgpH6V88

Butts are forever funny

Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is a platformer that feels like a mash-up of a lot of different games while also being its own thing. You can swap between four characters at any time, which feels sort of like Little Samson or Bucky O’Hare. However, the levels, while linear, have some exploration elements to them, which prevents the game from just feeling like a clone. It still feels like a license-focused platformer but in a more favorable sense. Like Duck Tales.

Also, like Duck Tales, you get to select the order of levels. There are six in total that cover a range of locations and time periods. Your team of grotesque children doesn’t earn any new skills as they progress, so the order you tackle them is completely up to you.

The children themselves are diverse. They provide the skills of melee, jumping, projectiles, and also projectiles, but these projectiles arc downward. They each have their own health bar, but the different characters are one of the low-points of Garbage Pail Kids’ design.

Leaky Lindsay is easily the most useful, having a direct projectile attack that keeps you out of the way of enemy attacks. Mike is okay for dealing damage to bosses. Patty Putty is exclusively used for jumping, as Garbage Pail Kids doesn’t make for a good hop-and-bop. However, as each kid has their own health bar, they can also die individually. This means you might have to use Leaky Lindsay sparingly, and being stuck with only Patty Putty left alive is just a drag. As you lose children, the experience just gets worse and worse.

[caption id="attachment_390218" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Top of the trash heap

Otherwise, Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is a pretty solid NES title. Some of the levels drag a bit, but on the whole, they’re diverse and interesting. The sprite work is solid, the music pops, and there’s a well-stocked buffet of bosses to take on. It doesn’t really feel like a homebrew game. You could easily mistake it as a title that came out in maybe ‘91 or ‘92 during the twilight days of the NES.

They even managed to work in trading and collecting cards. You pick them up from knocked-over trash cans and can swap them with NPCs scattered throughout the levels. Some of them help you out by resurrecting kids or nuking the screen, but others are just to collect. If you have them all at the end, you get a little certificate telling you that you managed to get them all. It’s fun stuff.

Of course, it’s also really gross. You could probably guess that by the fact that one of the children is perpetually caked in slime and shoots boogers as a projectile. It didn’t disgust me beyond my tolerance, but the gross-out humor is definitely still here.

[caption id="attachment_390221" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image by Destructoid[/caption]

The grossest gang of goofs ever

The cartridges were done by NESInfiniteLives. Some early images showed the two colors of cartridge, blue and pink, as being opaque. It seems like the production cartridges are transparent, as that’s what I got, which I’m not as much of a fan of. It’s still a quality product, though. They’re just not going to fool anyone into believing these are authentic. The game also doesn’t come with a dust cover, but the boxes are sealed and have stickers on them that look like price tags but really just denote the size of the production run.

Most importantly, though, it works in my NES. The manual it comes with is also very informative and includes a foreword by one of the developers. Iam8bit doesn’t seem obsessive about nailing the authenticity of the product, but they definitely get the job done. Although, it might be a bit more expensive than it should be.

Buying the physical copy also nets you the Steam version of the game if you don’t have it already. The PC version comes with bonus videos and filters that obviously can’t fit on the NES hardware, so it’s nice that you don’t have to miss out on the special features just because you want it on a cartridge.

[caption id="attachment_390219" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Better than the movie (probably)

Really, though, Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum is just a decent game. It’s top shelf for the console, but maybe not tippy-top. Like, it’s not a top 10 game, or a top 20. Top 50 is a bit more believable, but at the very least, it’s a top 100. It’s comparable to, say, Vice: Project Doom’s level of quality. Like Shatterhand or S.C.A.T. Not quite great, but better than good, you know?

In a lot of ways, Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum demonstrates how far the homebrew market has come. Here we have a licensed game released nearly 30 years after the end of the NES lifespan. It contains all the graphical trickery and polished gameplay of a latter-day title, and you could almost believe that it really is a lost prototype brought back to life. It may be gross, but if you’re a fan of the console or the Garbage Pail Kids, you should definitely find some way to rub it all over yourself.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}

The post Review: Garbage Pail Kids: Mad Mike and the Quest for Stale Gum appeared first on Destructoid.

Pocket Plumbing

As previously announced, Nintendo has brought three classics of the Game Boy Advance era to the Nintendo Switch Online archives. As of today, Expansion Pack subscribers can revisit the Super Mario Advance trilogy, consisting of Super Mario Advance (2001), Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (2001) and Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2002).

For those yet to experience these pint-sized classics, they are essentially revamped editions of some classic Super Mario Bros. titles, namely Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario World, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. They feature all of the worlds, stages, and shenanigans of their original releases, complete with additional features, characters, and secrets. Upon launch, they were the first-ever official portable option for these classic adventures, and as such were incredibly popular GBA releases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRyFVwRqUKI&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.videogameschronicle.com%2Fnews%2Fthe-whole-super-mario-advance-series-is-now-available-on-switch-online%2F&feature=emb_title

The fourth title in the series, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, is already available as part of the Nintendo Switch Online archives, having arrived alongside the service's debut back in the fall of 2018. All four titles are most assuredly worth a revisit, and it's cool to have the quartet of classics available to hand as some of the most timeless releases in platform gaming history.

The Super Mario Advance series is now available to play for all Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers.

The post Super Mario Advance series joins Nintendo Switch Online appeared first on Destructoid.

Test your Bible skills

I may be one of the few people in the world who can be upsold on Kusoge (crap game). I was minding my own business, spending all my money at the local game store. The clerk there, perfectly aware of my infamous lack of taste, pulled out a boxed copy of King of Kings: The Early Years. Usually, I don’t collect boxed NES titles, but the price was right, and he made a convincing argument. I did need another subject for my column. I also could probably use more Jesus in my life.

Perhaps this was God speaking through my friendly neighborhood game dispenser. He led me to the promised kusoge, and it was my sacred duty to play it. I lasted about an hour because, while God may provide, He has no guarantees on quality.

[caption id="attachment_380890" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Jesus' lawyers

King of Kings: The Early Years was part of Wisdom Tree’s infamous run of games based on the Bible. Back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Nintendo had a lot of (very illegal and anti-competitive) rules that it placed on retailers and publishers. If you wanted to sell Nintendo games, you couldn’t also sell unlicensed cartridges. Color Dreams figured out a way around it: Jesus. They rebranded to a Christian-themed company and began developing games based on the Bible.

Christian bookstores didn’t have to worry about Nintendo for a few reasons. First, they didn’t typically carry video games, so they didn’t need to worry about Nintendo withholding anything from them. Secondly, both they and Wisdom Tree didn’t need to worry about getting sued, because Nintendo wouldn’t want to be known as the company that brought the hammer down on Jesus. Also, if they did, Jesus has great lawyers.

King of Kings released in 1991, the same years as Bible Adventures and Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land hit consecrated shelves. It shares the most in common with Bible Adventures in the way that it features three unique games. So, we’ll go through all of them.

[caption id="attachment_380891" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The Wise Men

When Jesus was born, a bright star lit up the sky, and these three guys are told to follow it. You play as the Wise Men, who travel on the backs of camels to lavish baby Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The camel spits, which is appropriate, because that’s what camels do aside from just retaining water. Their spit is laced with a deadly venom that is only effective against certain animals. Which animals? I don’t know. The only classification I can give you is that it’s effective against the animals that are weak to spit. It’s otherwise completely arbitrary. Porcupines? Impervious to hork. Birds? Saliva is deadly against them.

For the animals who aren’t impressed by your steed’s expectorations, you can use fruit. Scattered around some of the stages are various fruits like grapes, pears, or apples. Your camel can eat these, then puke them out with a press of the select button. If an animal or obstacle endures your camel's spit, you can bet that it hates fruit.

However, it doesn’t matter how much of the wildlife your camel kills, The Wise Men is still excruciating. Wisdom Tree obviously developed King of Kings with the goal of Bible plus video games, and everything beyond that just wasn’t a priority. The game uses no invincibility frames after you take damage, and enemies tend to pop up in spots to exploit this. You’ll often find them at the edge of platforms or beside walls where you can get stuck. It doesn’t help that the camel won’t jump unless conditions are perfect, so it’s completely possible that you’ll latch onto an enemy and just have your health drained.

I struggled through level three. After I finally toppled level five, I checked the manual to see how much pain I was in for. Fifteen levels? Fuck that. Jesus can have a crappy birthday for all I care.

[caption id="attachment_380892" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Flight to Egypt

In the next game, Mary and Joseph are taking baby Jesus to… Egypt, I guess. My Bible camp days are failing me here. I absolutely do not know this story.

This is a good place to note that you restore health in King of Kings by stepping on scrolls. The scrolls will give you a quiz on various parts of the Bible, which I’m always bad at. Thankfully, there aren’t that many questions, so I had most of the answers memorized after suffering through The Wise Men. Even still, I definitely have not learned anything about the Bible, since these questions completely lack context. This might be educational if you’re, like, trying to memorize the Bible, but not if you’re just trying to learn from it.

Mary and Joseph are climbing mountains with the assistance of their ass. Their ass is stout and mighty, capable of a kick that is a lot more reliable than camel spit. Flight to Egypt is actually not all that horrible, but it’s still painful enough. The mountain starts getting all these slopes, and the ass doesn’t have great traction. You have to hop repeatedly up certain inclines, which King of Kings doesn’t seem to understand makes dodging obstacles next to impossible, so it happily drops boulders and enemies on you while you attempt to get up these slopes.

I made it to level eight this time. My greatest frustration was constantly having my ass kicked off the edge of a waterfall by a duck. After enough mallard abuse, I checked the manual to see how many levels were in this game. Twelve of them? Fuck that.

[caption id="attachment_380895" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Jesus and the Temple

This is another story I don’t know. Apparently, Mary and Joseph are returning from Passover and they “noticed” that 12-year-old Jesus has gone missing. I’m sure there’s actually something to this story, but the description just makes it sound like someone losing their child in the supermarket.

I was struggling through the first level when I gave up. There are apparently eight levels in this one, but my willpower has been whittled down to a useless nub. God has tested me, and I have failed.

To be fair, Jesus and the Temple had no chance of being the secretly good part of King of Kings. The first level has you jump into a river and swept downstream. The water always terminates in a bottomless pit, but the jumping controls don’t like it when your character is being pushed, and King of Kings continues its habit of putting enemies right next to pits. So not only are you mashing the jump button, trying to get Joseph to leap over a pit, but there’s also an enemy there waiting to stun-lock you to your doom.

That's to say nothing of the music. It's been extremely bad and very repetitive throughout all of the included games, but it's the worst in Jesus and the Temple.

So, fuck that.

[caption id="attachment_380896" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Amen

King of Kings has some weird technical prowess behind it. The pixel art really isn’t that bad, and it uses effects like pseudo-parallax scrolling. Someone knew how to get the best out of the NES, while another someone didn’t care to apply it in any competent way. I say “someone” because the entire development team decided to take an Alan Smithee on this one, and there are no credits.

It’s also amusing to me that King of Kings is one of the few Wisdom Tree titles not to get ported to any other system. A number of their NES titles quickly moved over to the Sega Genesis and DOS. Not King of Kings, though. Maybe that’s related to sales or something technical that I can’t glean from just playing the game. However, it’s worth noting that Bible Adventures and Spiritual Warfare do have some redeeming qualities, and King of Kings is just awful. Maybe not sacrilegious, but definitely a test of faith.

I lasted just over an hour with King of Kings. I normally aim to actually complete the kusoge that I tackle, but there was just no chance here. I’d like to point out that I spent double this time on Mary-Kate and Ashley: Winner’s Circle just recently and actually finished it. So, what I’m saying is, between Mary-Kate and Ashley and Jesus, Mary-Kate and Ashley deserve your worship.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post King of Kings: The Early Years on NES is holy crap appeared first on Destructoid.

Buda-bep-bud-du-bep... Boop!

The National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) has announced that Koji Kondo's iconic Super Mario Bros. theme is to be inducted for preservation in the U.S. Library of Congress. The instantly recognizable ditty will be the first piece of video game music ever to join the NRPB's catalog of significant compositions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTa6Xbzfq1U&ab_channel=ultragamemusic

Each year, the NRPB selects 25 pieces of music that it deems "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, and/or informs or reflects life in the United States". I like to think that the Super Mario Bros. Theme falls into the latter category. Kondo's simple but endlessly entering tune — officially known upon conception as simply "Ground Theme" made its debut in World 1-1 of 1985 NES release Super Mario Bros. It has since been remixed and used endless times for various Nintendo titles, TV shows, and commercials.

Joining Mario in the library this year will also be guitar shop nightmare "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, Madonna's censor bothering "Like a Virgin", Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", John Lennon's "Imagine" and, from the goddess of winter herself, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You". For all you midwestern dads, Jimmy Buffet is getting representation via his 1977 hit "Margaritaville".

Sadly, there is no sign of my personal favorite Super Mario Bros. tune, "Take on Me" by a-ha.

The post Super Mario Bros. theme to be the first game music inducted to Library of Congress appeared first on Destructoid.

Fire in the disco!

Homebrew games have come a long way, and it’s looking like they might actually be a viable, albeit limited, business model. Boutique publishers have been testing the waters for a while, and we’ve gotten some good ones that play on their intended hardware. It’s an exciting time for someone as affectionate towards old consoles as I am. Though perhaps not for someone as financially strained as I am.

First Press Games was willing to help out and actually sent me a physical copy of one of their NES titles, Blazing Rangers. I know what you’re thinking, but on the plus side, not only do I get to tell you about the game itself, but I can also let you in on the quality of First Press Games’ products. I’m excited. Are you excited?

[caption id="attachment_361043" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Blazing Ranger (NES)
Developer: Karu_gamo
Publisher: First Press Games
Released: Late 2021
MSRP: $12.99 (Digital), 54.99€ (Physical)

I want to talk about the game itself because it’s particularly interesting to an NES nerd like myself. Blazing Rangers is designed by Karu_gamo, who has worked with Yuzo Kushiro’s company Ancient on games like Gotta Protectors. Working on games that already were in the Famicom aesthetic inspired them to actually learn the hardware, which lead to Blazing Rangers.

Not only is Blazing Rangers developed for Nintendo’s 8-bit hardware, but Karu_gamo took on the extra limitation of developing it for NROM restrictions, giving it 32k PRG space and 8k for CHR. This was one of the earliest mapper chips on the console, used for games like Super Mario Bros. and Balloon Fight. So rather than Metroid, which used MMC1, you’re looking more at the early arcade conversions like Donkey Kong.

Blazing Rangers fits that image perfectly, being a single-screen set-up that casts you as a firefighter. The screen gradually fills with flame, and your goal is to rescue the children scattered around, preferably before they get too crispy. You’re equipped with a spray gun and a length of hose. While connected to the hose, you spread more fire-quenching water, but your movement is slowed. You also only have a certain length of hose, which can be expanded by picking up items in the environment. While you’re off your leash, you have a limited supply of water, but can pump it back up.

A lot of strategy is created through these simple mechanics. You can’t put the fire out entirely, but by carefully managing it, you can make getting around much easier. That’s not always the best option, however, as enemies wander about the blaze. Sometimes your best bet is to just clear a direct path and try to get back to safety as quickly as possible. Be careful, however, as you’re slowed down depending on how many children you’re carrying on your back. Make sure to remember to head back to the start to drop them off safely.

[embed]https://youtu.be/q-neB6Er3Ww[/embed]

NROM Restrictions

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Blazing Rangers. Not that I expected it to suck, but I have a difficult relationship with arcade-style titles. I prefer progression to chasing score. Not only that, but I’m not a newcomer to the homebrew scene, and I’m accustomed to games that are clearly a developer’s first project and contain all the usual missteps and mistakes. Blazing Rangers demonstrates none of that and has a level of polish that sets it above a lot of the early Famicom titles that inspired it.

Beyond that, however, it’s extremely fun to play, and its concept is both unique and effective. With a modern-day mindset, single-screen games are something of a challenge to come up with concepts for. Despite what seems like an easy framework, it’s actually simpler to create new beat-’em-ups, shoot-’em-ups, or platformers. Blazing Rangers pulls it off admirably. There are 32 levels (with an end screen), a limited number of continuous, and a two-player co-op mode. If it came out in the early days of the Famicom, it would easily stand shoulder-to-shoulder with games like Devil World and Balloon Fight.

There are some downsides to the self-imposed limitations, however. Particularly, there isn’t much visual variance. The sterile brickwork and black backgrounds that you see on the first stage are carried all the way throughout. Likewise, while the impressive soundtrack is handled by Hydden, it is repeated for the entire runtime. Again, these are drawbacks directly linked to its use of the NROM mapper, but they should be kept in mind.

[caption id="attachment_361045" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image by Destructoid[/caption]

Famicom Fire Police

As for the physical product itself, a lot of effort has gone into making it look and feel like an official release. While the lack of official markings make it clear that the cartridge is a reproduction, the look and feel of it are extremely close to the authentic product. Even the box and manual follow the standard format, right down to including a chunk of styrofoam beneath the cartridge itself. It’s obviously not meant to fool anybody, but fans of the hardware will no doubt appreciate the effort that has gone into the small details.

You can purchase Blazing Rangers in two NES versions and a Famicom one. The NES carts come in North American and European flavors, mimicking the look of early Capcom and “Bienengräber” artwork, respectively. Meanwhile, the Famicom version is specifically modeled after Konami’s distinct approach to packaging and cartridge design. The Famicom version was extremely tempting, as it’s perhaps the most visually appealing, but I went for the North American one in the end.

Likewise, there is a selection of collector’s editions. All of these are available in limited quantities, which I’m not a fan of, but that tends to be how this market works. If you’re not interested in a physical copy, you can grab the ROM off itch.io.

[caption id="attachment_361044" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

What's new is old

The whole “new games on old hardware” scene is extremely exciting to me, and Blazing Rangers is the embodiment of how it can be done well. While the concept is new, the limitations it uses and the influences it's taken allow it to fit in with the era it mimics. It’s certainly not the only example of it, but it’s definitely a great demonstration of it. I can only hope that it helps stoke the flames of this niche market.

Blazing Rangers itself is both fun and addicting; traits that are important to a game of its style. Unfortunately, it hasn’t fully broken me of my aversion to the more arcade-style formulas of yesteryear, but it did manage to captivate me in short bursts. I’m also more likely to pull it off my shelf compared to say, Clu Clu Land or Ice Climbers. I’m hoping Karu_gamo follows through to another classic-hardware game because they have shown off some impressive chops with this one.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Blazing Rangers appeared first on Destructoid.

8-bit aural delights

No sound chip is as ubiquitous as the Ricoh 2AO3 found in the NES and Famicom consoles. 5-channels wide (usually only four were used), the sounds of this 8-bit microprocessor were cemented into the brains of anyone who was in the room with it. Some of the most enduring songs ever produced in video games got their start on that unassuming slab of plastic and silicon. Today, when someone wants to make a video game soundtrack sound vintage, they parrot the tones of the Ricoh 2A03.

I remember being in a discussion with someone long ago who made the observation that early video game music is like outsider art. Music in video games was still a relatively new concept during the 8-bit era of consoles, so there was no precedent for how it should sound. Because chiptunes couldn’t really emulate the sound of analog instruments, you couldn’t base the songs on human standards. It was a new frontier. Perhaps that’s why there are so many memorable soundtracks from the period. We had never really heard anything like it before or since.

The NES had far more than 10 great soundtracks in its library, which makes it difficult to narrow down. Therefore, I’m going to add in a few restrictions to make sure this remains varied, and not just a list of Kouji Kondou contributions. Therefore, I’m restricting each composer to only one entry. I’m also only including NTSC games, and omitting those from Famicom and the Famicom Disk System, as those would be completely different lists. Even still, there were many eligible games that got left by the wayside. Feel free to chirp in with your favorite set of tunes.

[caption id="attachment_356788" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

10. Bucky O’Hare (1992, Music By: Tomoko Sumiyama)

Bucky O’Hare was a pretty decent Mega Man substitute that came out during that period after the SNES was released, but before the NES had expired. Konami was doing some interesting things with the aging hardware, and Bucky O’Hare was one of their results. Personally, I couldn’t stand to watch the cartoon, but the game was a pleasant surprise when I first started exploring the NES library.

Tomoko Sumiyama didn’t have a particularly long career in video game music, but you certainly wouldn’t guess it by this soundtrack. From start to finish, it’s audio sugar. Featuring a warm mix of fast-paced and light-hearted, it’s the best part of an already enjoyable game.

[caption id="attachment_356789" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

9. Kirby’s Adventure (1993, Music By: Hirokazu Ando, Jun Ishikawa)

While Kirby’s Dreamland set the series’ tone and Kirby’s Super Star would see it at its apogee, there’s really no knocking the sounds of Kirby’s Adventure. While whimsy was a common theme for NES platformers, none matched the uncollared optimism of Kirby’s Adventure. I commonly say that I enjoy the soundtracks to the Kirby series more than I enjoy the actual games, and Kirby’s Adventure is no exception.

[caption id="attachment_356790" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

8. Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (1990, Music By: Jun Funahashi, Yoshinori Sasaki, Yukie Morimoto)

I’ll always have a strong fondness for the soundtrack of the original Castlevania, but it’s hard to deny the grandeur of the third game in the series. While Castlevania had some tunes that drove you forward, Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse has a tonne of variety that sets different moods depending on what obstacles you were encountering. The theme of its first stage is as good as anything else put forth by the series, but the rest of the songs provide a great foundation for the excellent gameplay on top. More than just a great soundtrack; it’s a great compliment.

On the Famicom, Konami incorporated their special VRC6 mapper chip into the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 that allowed them to make use of additional sound channels. While I find that it sounds better with the additional depth offered by the fancier hardware, there's no denying the NES version sounds great on its own.

[caption id="attachment_356772" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

7. Contra (1988, Music by: Kazuki Muraoka, Hidenori Maezawa, Kiyohiro Sada)

The soundtrack for Contra on the NES is largely just a remix of the one it had on the arcade. That might sound obvious, but that’s not always how it went when things got ported to consoles. I bring this up because Hidenori Maezawa and Kiyohiro Sada are credited in the NES version, but it was Kazuki Muraoka who actually created the tracks. That’s not to say that the former didn’t put in the work to make it sound right on 8-bit hardware, but just that they didn’t actually compose the tracks.

Nonetheless, getting crammed into the NES’ 4-channel sound processor is a good fit for Contra. The warbly depth of the arcade board is fine, but I feel like the bluntness of the NES squarewave channel makes its percussiveness really stand out. It’s a driving soundtrack, and its stage 1 song really sets things off on the right track.

[caption id="attachment_356791" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

6. Dr. Mario (1990, Music By: Hirozaka Tanaka)

It’s tempting to place Metroid as the best soundtrack by Hirozaka Tanaka. It’s certainly a complex set of songs that are inextricably attached to the series as a whole. However, if I’m sitting down to just listen to music, Dr. Mario’s fantastic duo of Fever and Chill are what I tend to reach for. Dr. Mario’s soundtrack isn’t particularly robust, but the two central songs are both unique and varied listening experiences that have lived on through the various entries of the series, but have never been topped. Personally, I prefer Chill when I’m dropping pills, but Fever is definitely not without its charms.

[caption id="attachment_356792" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

5. Super Mario Bros. 2 USA (1988, Music By: Kouji Kondou)

I said I was only going to include one game per composer, and after much soul-searching, this is what I chose from Kouji Kondou. Considering how many ubiquitous and classic themes he’s responsible for, it was no easy task. Certainly, many people would have chosen Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda for this place, but for me, there’s nothing like the upbeat jazzy sounds of the Super Mario Bros. 2 soundtrack.

Technically, the music wasn’t even written for a Super Mario Bros. title, as the game was originally known as Yume Kojou: Doki Doki Panic. However, when it was brought to North America and rebranded as Super Mario Bros. 2, the soundtrack was given some loving attention and touched up. The result is a playful, varied, and well-composed handful of songs that, despite their origin, are as memorable as anything else designed for the series.

[caption id="attachment_356771" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

4. Mega Man 2 (1988, Music By: Takashi Tateishi, Manami Masumae, Yoshihiro Sakaguchi)

The opening theme to Mega Man 3 is one of my favourite 8-bit tunes ever chirped off a circuit board. However, when it comes to consistency across all its tracks, I give the edge to Mega Man 2. Not only does each robot master get its own theme to be proud of, but its opening theme and Wily’s Castle tracks do a great job of bookending the entire experience. Out of all the soundtracks on this list, Mega Man 2 probably has the best quantity and quality. Except for the password screen music. That one sounds like having an entire straw broom jammed into your ear canal.

[caption id="attachment_356793" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

3. Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest (1988, Music by: Kenichi Matsubara, Satoe Terashima)

Say what you will about Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest (thanks I will: I hated it), one thing you can’t knock it for is its outstanding soundtrack. The daylight track that became known as Bloody Tears is so great that it’s one of the best-known songs from across the series, and has been remixed about a bajillion times. Castlevania was a tough act to follow, which explains why the gameplay is so lackluster. The soundtrack, on the other hand? Get in my ears.

[caption id="attachment_356794" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

2. Journey to Silius (1990, Music by: Naoka Kodaka, Manabu Sakota, Naohisa Morota, Shinichi Seya, Nobuyuki Hara)

It’s really difficult to pick just one game from Sunsoft’s dreamteam to highlight here. Games like Batman and Blaster Master deserve mention for their outstanding compositions, but I feel like Journey to Silius tops it all. I think it’s telling that many people refer fondly to Journey to Silius, even though it was a fairly middling platformer past its opening stage. However, the soundtrack is so overwhelmingly good that it makes it exceedingly difficult to dismiss it entirely.

[caption id="attachment_356796" align="alignnone" width="2880"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

1. Silver Surfer (1990, Music by: Tim Follin, Geoff Follin)

While there isn’t really any consensus on whether or not it’s a good or bad game, one thing that is agreed upon is that Silver Surfer is inappropriately punishing. Playing Silver Surfer is a frustrating way to spend your weekend, but listening to it is a great way to show your ears some appreciation for all their hard work. It’s the aural equivalent of a thermonuclear bath bomb, and while it has its standout tracks, it never lets up. Tim and Geoff Follin put together some of the best soundtracks to go alongside the worst games in the NES library, but Silver Surfer is definitely the zenith of their underappreciated efforts. It’s stunning that anything so enjoyable can be blasted from the depths of an 8-bit microprocessor.

The post 10 best NES soundtracks of all time, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Yippe ki yay, monster trucker

Licensed video games have always been like the interior of an abandoned barn. Sometimes you might find a long-abandoned car that is in dire need of restoration, but more likely, it’s just full of spiders. Die Hard on NES is neither of those things. It’s more like finding a long-abandoned lunar lander in an old barn. You wonder how it got there and if it’s a good idea to try it out.

It’s an absolutely bizarre game that transcends the discussion of whether it’s good or crap. It’s fascinating. The design is something that isn’t exactly without comparison, but the way it functions is out of this world.

Haaaaans!

I’d recommend watching Die Hard before playing this game. While knowing the movie is rarely needed for playing the licensed game, it’s practically required for Die Hard. There is some setup – terrorists have taken over Nakatomi Plaza and are breaking through locks to get at money – but it doesn’t really go into depth as to what your goals are or how to accomplish them. It doesn’t explain the existence of a “foot” meter, only viewable in the pause menu. Likewise, you won’t be prepared when the game intentionally tricks you at the end.

It will also help if you read the manual. It goes over all the rules that aren’t otherwise explained. Like, if you go into the vents, you’ll drop your machine gun. There’s nothing within the game that indicates that you will. You aren’t asked if you want to drop your weapon. You’ll just emerge from the vents and realize that you’ve been stripped to your pistol.

It’s a strangely literal interpretation of the movie. There is a set number of “crooks” dwelling within Nakatomi Plaza, and pretty much the only solid objective in Die Hard is to take them all out. In order to take on Hans Gruber, you need to kill all the enemies before he’ll unlock the door. However, there are various ways to make it easy on yourself, such as taking out the computer on the 4th floor to delay the terrorists. Everything aside from removing the terrorists is optional.

The monkey in the wrench

Die Hard plays in real-time. Upon beginning, the terrorists start working their way through the locks in the vault, and you’re fighting the clock to take as many out before then. Once the vault is broken, everyone moves onto the 30th floor, meaning the more that are left, the more you’re going to have to fight there and then before you’ll be able to take on Hans. There’s a counter on the pause menu, letting you know how many are left. Don’t take too long, or Hans will escape.

In a lot of ways, Die Hard on NES is an extremely early example of an immersive sim. You’re dropped into a world with a bunch of rules and little scripting beyond those rules, and it’s up to you to figure it all out. The only thing linear about Die Hard is the march of time and the related placement of events.

It also uses systems such as “fog of war” which obscures areas that your character cannot see at that moment. Terrorists hidden behind corners are obscured in darkness. The aiming system takes some getting used to, as it isn’t simply four or eight-directional but works a bit like a dial. If you can’t get a handle on it, spraying and praying is a reasonable strategy. There are also multiple ways to get around the floors, including stairs, an elevator, and the vents. The terrorists will respond to your disruptions, with Hans telling them to check floors where you’ve created a ruckus. This allows you to avoid or ambush as you see fit.

Welcome to the party, pal

What is going to frustrate many players is the fact that Die Hard is obviously designed to take multiple attempts to complete. It’s not a very long game, but it is an unforgiving one. It’s entirely possible for you to make a minor miscalculation at the very end of the game and have to start over completely. This wasn’t too uncommon at the time – Contra was similarly brutal about making you start over – but it’s something that hasn’t aged well.

What makes the repetition a little harder to swallow is that Die Hard is a rather small game in general. Consisting of the small handful of floors in Nakatomi Plaza and the few dozen thugs that live there, it sort of feels like it needs two more movies worth of content to call it a complete package. That’s a bit understandable when you consider there’s only one person in the credits listed under a creative role: Tony Van. Almost certainly, he wasn’t the only developer working on Die Hard. He’s not listed as a programmer anywhere else. However, if we choose to believe this was a solo dev effort, that’s damned impressive!

With no disrespect to Tony Van (he did have a hand in my beloved Shadowrun for Genesis), it’s most likely more of a case that Activision didn’t credit people, or they simply didn’t want to be associated. Junichi Saito has, at the very least, been identified as the composer. Oh, hey! He did the music to Predator on the NES! The only decent part of that game!

Now I have a machine gun, Ho-Ho-Ho

As I said so long ago, I don’t really care to wonder if Die Hard is truly kusoge. Its design is just out of this world. It feels like something we wouldn’t truly get until years later. It may be short, perhaps it relies too much on outside sources to actually understand it, and it might have been better suited to a more advanced console, but that’s not the point. Die Hard pushes 8-bit design. It’s art born from its constraints.

Unfortunately, being a licensed game, it’s not likely to be ported. An NES cartridge with Die Hard living on it will run you well north of a hundo. That’s possibly due to it being a late release for the console in 1991. This year, give the gift of Die Hard on the NES. Watch the light in the eyes of people who discover this non-linear proto-immersive sim for the first time. After all, that’s what Christmas is all about.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Die Hard on NES might be considered an early immersive sim appeared first on Destructoid.

The maximum utmost

The NES library has north of 700 games on it. That’s a lot, but in terms of successful consoles, it’s kind of in the mid-range. It still makes it difficult to choose any number of the best games. That’s probably why no one has been brave enough to make a Top X NES games list. I’m not saying I’m the bravest person in the world, but I am saying I have no shame.

One thing to note is that while I’ve played a staggeringly wide range of the NES library, I haven’t played everything. For example, I haven’t played Bases Loaded 3, and I’m open to the possibility that it’s the apogee of the NES library. This also isn’t about which games were most popular or influential. That’s another topic. These ones are the best for a myriad of other reasons.

I’m also not including Famicom exclusives, though I’d love to. If I was, just know that Metal Max would be stomping all over these games. That and Kunio-Kun. But, alas, here are the top 10 NTSC NES games.

10. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)

This is going to be the top pick for a lot of people, and it’s here because I do love Super Mario Bros. 3; it just doesn’t get my thighs grinding. There’s a lot to love about it, though. For one thing, it plays like something that belongs to another console generation, effortlessly pulling off 4-way scrolling and fast movement. The level of variety on hand is insane, the level design is practically in a class of its own, and there’s a tonne of extras and secrets tucked away. Decades later, it still stands as one of the plumber’s best house calls. The fact that there’s such a night and day difference between Super Mario Bros. 3 and the first Super Mario Bros. while them both belonging to the same console is impressive.

9. Dragon Warrior (1986)

You can feel free to substitute your personal favorite Dragon Warrior (or Dragon Quest) game, but the original still feels the best to me. I prefer its simplicity and open design. Final Fantasy and the three subsequent games in the Dragon Warrior series take the formula in interesting directions, but if this list tells you anything, it’s that I value focus and polish over scale.

I love the twists Dragon Warrior throws at you, and I’m happy it can be completed in, like, ten hours. Its cheerful design makes it a bit more inviting than CRPGs at the time, and its simplicity makes it a great fit for consoles. Really, I love the complete NES run of Dragon Warrior games, but if I had to pick just one, it’s the original.

8. Contra (1988)

In arcades, Contra was a merciless quarter-muncher. It was difficult to see even a fraction of it without giving up most of your allowance. In its home 8-bit form, it’s still extremely brutal, but at least it took all your money upfront. Contra on the NES is the seminal run-and-gun shooter, and it made a home for the series on console. It’s smooth, easily readable, varied, and nicely polished. Plus, its soundtrack is pretty kicking on top of it.

Contra would be followed up by Super C, which is fine but not quite as excellent as the first. This would lead to console-exclusive titles in the series, like Contra 3: The Alien Wars and Contra: Hard Corps. None of those are as good as Metal Slug, but we had to start somewhere.

7. Batman (1989)

Batman: The Video Game has very little to do with Batman the 1989 movie. It has more to do with Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania, but you play as purple Batman and spend most of your time in sewers fighting robots.

The thing about Batman is that it’s like Ninja Gaiden if it was better designed. There’s wall jumping and gadget throwing, but it never resorts to simply spamming enemies at you and completely changing the rules just to screw you over. It’s one of the most difficult games I’ve completed, but I feel like I earned it. Learning to time those jumps in the clock tower, mastering everything on the utility belt, and somehow toppling Joker made for a satisfying conquest.

6. Mega Man 2 (1988)

The first Mega Man title sold in North America about as well as a box of live wasps. Thankfully, Capcom reluctantly green-lit a sequel, and even more thankfully, they tried it again over here. With an easier difficulty and uglier box art. Look, Mega Man 2 is already one of the breezier of the original 8-bit titles, but if you’re playing on “Normal” difficulty, it’s stripped of all challenge. The inappropriately named “difficult” is the way the Elder Gods intended, and I’m not just saying that as a flex. It’s actually equivalent to the Famicom version’s setup.

When you’re on the proper difficulty, Mega Man 2 has it all. Great soundtrack, solid level design, and memorable boss battles. A lot of people prefer Mega Man 3 to this title, but I think that’s bupkiss. Mega Man 3 is too long, and I find it has the visual flavor of wallpaper paste. Awesome opening song, though.

5. Punch-Out!! (1987)

I respect Punch-Out!! because I feel it’s a solid idea perfectly executed. Technically, it’s a port of a game that was released in arcades years earlier, but the mere fact that it was refocused to not just being a quarter-munching monster makes it a lot more enjoyable on console. As long as you’re on a setup without horrendous input lag, the visual cues and timing all make for a perfect challenge. Well, until you get into the top tier of boxers. I still can’t actually topple Mike Tyson, because when my attention span faces off against consistently getting my ass kicked, my attention span never makes it three rounds.

4. The Legend of Zelda (1986)

I often associate the original Legend of Zelda as the game that got me into gaming. I was extremely young at the time, but watching my father play through it gripped my mind. However, there are a lot of formative games from my youth that I rarely return to, and Legend of Zelda isn’t one of them. For whatever reason, I’ve developed a habit of returning to it almost annually for another playthrough.

Zelda had a massive impact on the direction of game development, but, as I’ve stated, this list isn’t about influence. Stripped of that, The Legend of Zelda is an open game that respects your abilities as an inquisitive human. Maybe a bit too much, but somehow I was able to figure out which bushes to burn, and that’s my mind isn’t letting that go.

3. River City Ransom (1989)

With the severe graphical memory limitations of the NES, beat-’em-ups were a tricky genre to pull off. However, we did get a few gems, including some of the most ubiquitous ports of the Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Those are fine, but I think Technos’ weird experiment in the Kunio-Kun series stands as the best.

Upgrading your character through food and items, River City Ransom has as much to do with shopping as it does with fighting. When fists go up, it becomes a ridiculous brawl, taking full advantage of its expressive art style. It’s one of the few games I can name that allows you to use the second player as a weapon.

I would include more Nekketsu/Kunio-Kun games on this list if they weren’t Famicom exclusive. Check out the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun: Retro Brawler Bundle if you’d like a taste of what we missed in the west.

2. Gun*Nac (1990)

The NES had some great shoot-’em-ups in its library, though many of them were ports of arcade titles, and many more didn’t even make the journey to our front-loaders. Gun*Nac is a major exception, and it’s easily the best on the console.

Featuring amazingly fast scrolling and near-flicker-free graphics, it’s a technical masterpiece. To add to that is an unending variety of enemies and a slew of weapons and bombs to clear the screen. Gun*Nac is unbelievably robust, especially considering its 8-bit trappings. If you haven’t tried it or even heard of it, you’re missing out.

1. Castlevania (1986)

There’s no question in my mind that Castlevania is the best game on the NES. From both an aesthetic and design standpoint, it’s flawless. Featuring tightly refined controls, perfect enemy placement and behavior, a stiff but fair challenge, and a surprising amount of variety, I still consider it to be the best in the series and on the system. Considering the Castlevania series already has enough banger titles to fill its own highly subjective top 10 list, I think that says it all.

Don’t think this is an off-the-cuff decision, either. When my NES library explorations finally reached Castlevania, I knew I had reached the peak. Now that I’ve dug even further, I’m even more certain of it. Castlevania is what 8-bit perfection looks like.

The post Top 10 best NES games of all time, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

C'mon! Let's go!

With every year that goes by, I am in worse shape than the year before. Not that I’ve ever been the picture of health, but I do fine. I walk (ten steps) to work. My diet is well-balanced (pizza). I get plenty (an excess) of sleep. However, after getting on anti-anxiety medication a few years back, I gained a few (40) pounds and haven’t been able to shed a single one of them.

I’ve tried all the hottest exercises: Wii Fit, Ring Fit, uh… walking my dog, getting out of bed, making tea. However, they all tire me out and take time out of my busy napping schedule. So, I thought, “what would get me to commit to a workout?” Obviously, that’s going to be if it’s part of an 8-bit retro game. That’s something that can definitely get me to commit (for maybe an hour.)

The controller that lets you slap the floor

Dance Aerobics was originally released in 1987 in Japan as Family Trainer: Aerobics Studio before reaching North America in 1989. Family Trainer sounds hilarious to me. It’s like a class you’d take your uncouth family to in order to teach them the proper use of a salad fork.

It was made for use with the Power Pad, which was originally designed and released by Bandai. Nintendo brought it to North America and published all the games under their name. The Power Pad is a plastic-y mat that you spread out on the floor. There are two sides, and Dance Aerobics uses side B, which presents you with a four-by-four grid of buttons to step on. If you’re thinking of those Dance Dance Revolution mats for console, you’re extremely close.

If you’re unfamiliar with aerobics, it’s a type of exercise where you move. I don’t know how to describe it otherwise. As the name implies, dance aerobics ties dancing into it, but not in a fun way. It works! It was popular in the ‘80s and is still around in different forms. I mean, it was even in Wii Fit, and I was great at it.

Jump up, jump up, and get down

I’m not so great at Dance Aerobics, but I found it difficult to figure out what the pad wanted from me. It shows what buttons are being detected, but the only demonstration of where the instructor is stepping is in the ghost of the pixellated ‘80s that moves on screen. They’re on a mat, as well, but it’s upside down, and the numbers are really low resolution. This may not seem like a huge problem, but it screwed me up a few times.

It also expects you to jump, jump, jump around, and the mat is really picky about when your feet are on and off the mat. Listen, Power Pad, I don’t have a frame where I just hang in the air. Cut me some slack if I’m off by a beat. I have to watch where my feet are landing because there’s no texture to the mat. I don’t even know why it’s judging me like this. I’m just trying to work out. Why do I get a game over if I “miss” too often? That’s not very supportive.

May you never dance another aerobic again

I could get to the fourth routine before the Power Pad’s judgment became too much for me. Technically, I could just skip ahead by hitting select on the controller, but cheating in exercise is just cheating yourself. Also, Dance Aerobics suggests that you only play for one hour per session. I made it about 45 minutes, which is the same thing as an hour, just with my self-mandated 15-minute break.

There are other modes to Dance Aerobics besides just working out. There’s a subheading for pad antics which is just depressing. One of them lets you play music on the power pad, while another asks you to play along with “tunes.” You can fail at music, too, just in case you thought you could get non-judgmental gameplay out of Dance Aerobics.

Finally, there is aerobics studios mode, which is sort of what you graduate to after you complete the normal routines. Here, you just select how long you want to work out for and follow along as best you can. You can fail this mode too, but it’s slightly more lenient. I don’t know what crawled into the normal mode’s protein drink, but I don’t work out to be judged. I work out because I’ve been judged.

Like a pot roast in church

So, after 45 minutes, I was sweating like a pot roast in church. I’m not sure whether this says more about the effectiveness of Dance Aerobics or my current physical condition, but I’m leaning towards the latter. I write about video games. I only need strong finger muscles and carpal tunnels made of steel.

Really, though, Dance Aerobics isn’t that bad. I just don’t know why they let you fail. Imagine getting kicked out of a yoga class because your tree pose looks like crap. It’s hard to work out when you keep getting sent to the game-over screen. Sorry I landed my jump out of time. I have yet to master gravity.

Of course, nowadays you have a lot better options if you’re going to work out at home. But do any of them use the Power Pad? Actually, since we’re on the topic of Power Pad, I have Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix around here somewhere, and it’s probably both more fun and more effective at making me sweaty and tired.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Dance Aerobics is a good excuse to break out your leg warmers appeared first on Destructoid.

Three rounds, that's all I ask

Punch-Out!! was one of the games I played for the first time, later in my life, that saved retro gaming for me. I still haven’t beaten it. I’ve reached Super Macho Man, I think. Progress is just so slow at that point that I eventually get distracted and move on to something else.

That has nothing to do with Beam Software’s Power Punch II. Well, not nothing. You would have to be blind to not look at it and see it as having lifted Punch-Out!!’s formula. That’s nothing new for the industry, though. Power Punch II just happens to have been catapulted to notoriety due to a rumor and its uncanny resemblance. It’s a rather strange game, but it’s one where the ability to judge it by its own merits has been lost.

I could wallop you all day with this surgical 2x4

The pervasive story about Power Punch II is that it started life as an intended sequel to Punch-Out!!. According to the tale, Nintendo commissioned the game as a follow-up but dropped it once the scandals around Mike Tyson broke out (and also because of the quality of the game, as some tell it). This never made sense to me, and hear me out: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was reissued as Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream in 1990 after Nintendo lost the license to use Tyson’s likeness, so they obviously didn't have any interest in maintaining it. Power Punch II was released in mid-1992. Super Punch-Out!! was released in 1994, and while that leaves time for development to stop on one title and start on another, the actual bears the name of the arcade game from 1984, as one would expect.

Now, the boot screen does say that Nintendo owns the trademark to Power Punch II and that it was licensed to American Softworks. Strange. So, for clarity, I reached out and asked Power Punch II’s programmer and character designer, Andrew Bailey (now at Relic). He replied:

“I don't remember it being commissioned by Nintendo. We were working for LJN (from memory) a small US publisher. Of course, Nintendo needed to approve every game, and they would have probably not liked [Mike Tyson’s] involvement once the issues came out.”

That response has a bit of ambiguity to it (the publisher was American Softworks, not LJN, but I think that’s a reasonable mix-up), so you can believe what you want. However, I find it doubtful that someone from Beam would forget working with Nintendo and the drama around the project being dropped. Also, the Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch prototype does not mention Nintendo’s ownership of the title. It is very strange that it’s called Power Punch II when there wasn’t a Power Punch One, but that probably had more to do with American Softworks.

Given the fact that there is no citation on the original claims of the game’s source, I think the legends are questionable at best and most likely untrue. Regardless of how they’ve been accepted by the internet.

He's going to die on his feet

The game itself, however, is obviously inspired by Punch-Out!!. You control Mike Tyson — or, sorry, Mark Tyler — from behind the back as you throw down against cartoonish aliens. The biggest difference is that you can move Mark left and right, whereas those buttons were instead used to dodge in Punch-Out!!. You can also throw body blows by holding down on the D-Pad, whereas Punch-Out!! had only jabs and uppercuts.

Then there are also the training ships, which is kind of the first place where Power Punch II goes wrong. You need to train in between each circuit of boxers in order to raise your stats. The problem is if you’re going to get good at any facet of Power Punch II, make it the training. Heightened stats can mean the difference between victory and defeat. It’s not the only factor, but it’s a damned important one.

The next problem that Power Punch II has is that its decision to go with movement instead of just dodges affects the strategy of the game. Punch-Out!! was all about reflexes, pattern recognition, memory, and a bit of anticipation. Power Punch II is maybe a bit of that, but you can get really far by just leading your opponent to the edges of the screen and counterpunching them. Their AI just can’t fight and move at the same time, and it’s really easy to take advantage of this in early fights and just win by decision. It’s like that Charlie Chaplin routine where he just hides behind the ref.

To the shores of Fistiana

If you want to actually get KOs, you not only have to train well, but you also need to gain power punches. You get these in a similar way to Punch-Out!!, you just have to hit an opponent the right way at the right time. It can be hard to tell what the right way or the right time is, but if you want to do more than just chip away at their health, you need these punches.

The enemies are maybe not as memorable as the ones in Punch-Out!!, but they’re also not based on stereotypes. They’re a collection of aliens, and they do their job. They’re colorful, big, and rather detailed. They don’t telegraph their attacks, which, again, carries Power Punch II further from Punch-Out!!’s majesty, but… I don’t have a follow-up to that. It sucks.

The music is done by Marshall Parker who also did one of my favorite soundtracks: the SNES version of Shadowrun. His talent doesn’t really shine here. The soundtrack is decent, but I’m not about to add it to my playlist.

Punching isn't your thing, but that's okay.

As much as I don’t think Power Punch II is a terrible game, writing this article has made me realize what it means to try and measure up to a perfect game. It seems like the only way you can be favorably compared to Punch-Out!! Is to do everything the exact same. I doubt most developers at the time would be willing to so blatantly carbon copy a Nintendo game. In fact, how many have even attempted it since? Mega Cat Studio’s Creepy Brawlers is the only one that comes to mind.

But again, Power Punch II isn’t as bad as its reputation. It just fails to answer the question of why you aren’t playing Punch-Out!! or any of its sequels. What is it the kids say these days? “We have Punch-Out!!  at home?” Yeah, this fits that meme like a mouthguard.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post No. Power Punch II wasn’t going to be a sequel to Punch-Out!! appeared first on Destructoid.

You make me wish I had three hands

I have a history with Total Recall on NES. Not only has it been frequently trashed by everyone I’ve ever looked up to, but it also soured my early retro gaming experience. We had an NES growing up, but my family sold it for an SNES while I was still too young to care. I reacquired one when I was a teenager and it came with potentially the worst assortment of games I could have started with: Kid Icarus, Castlevania 2, and Total Recall. It would be years later that Punch-Out!! and River City Ransom would teach me that not every game on the system would make me feel like peeling my skin off.

I’m not very familiar with the movie, Total Recall. I’ve seen glimpses of it, but mostly I just know that there’s a woman in it with three tits. The fact that I know this and still haven’t watched it makes me question my priorities.

Like many NES games, the 8-bit adaptation of Total Recall has no bare tits. It’s entirely deficient in tits. You may think I don’t have a point here, but I do: the developers had the opportunity to make Total Recall essential playing, but they didn’t take it. Instead, we’re left wandering a wasteland bereft of tits. They could have also maybe had good gameplay, but alas.

I can say with confidence that Total Recall is without nipples because I went to the effort of actually beating it. I would appreciate your admiration for this, but otherwise, I accept your pity. I had never seen past the Subway level. It’s not that Total Recall is difficult, it just requires a certain amount of willpower to put up with it. It constantly finds new and effective ways to frustrate, and since there are no continues, that makes the prospect of starting over enough times to learn the game about as enticing as a pillowcase made of headlice.

Get Your Ass To Mars

You play as Arnold Schwarzenegger who is a… guy. Suddenly people are after him and he needs to fight them off with the slowest punch imaginable. I told you, I haven’t seen the movie, and that’s really how the NES game presents it. Here is a dude. These other dudes want him dead. To win, don’t die.

That’s pretty difficult. The enemies are extraordinarily stupid, and usually just a matter of figuring out how to take advantage of that deficiency. However, Total Recall has a habit of presenting you with new hazards and giving you absolutely no chance in discerning them before you die. Then you die a couple more times and it’s back to the start of the game. At this point, you’d put it down if you have any sense. I don’t, evidently.

The second(ish) level, for example, has a guy burst in with a machine gun if you take too long to kill an enemy. This machine gun ends you in one hit, and there’s no way to know this is going to happen until he pops his head in the doorway and mows you down. Then later, you have to fight a homeless man in a trenchcoat who hurls his hat at you like a boomerang. He seemed impossible at first until I found a gun. Then I found out that, even though you could punch him anywhere from too-close range, the gun only works on his face. So I had to play this awful game of skip rope, landing the odd shot to his mug until it ended.

It doesn’t help that there’s actual variety to the levels so you never know what to expect. Each one brings new enemies and hazards that you have no time to prepare for. It’s like Battletoads except without the personality to back up its cruel design. One moment you’re gunning down the homeless in a derelict building, the next you’re driving a car that handles as well as a crokinole disc. It would be a great way to keep a player’s attention if it wasn’t actively trying to drive them away.

Then the game gives you a level-skip code so you can continue from the halfway point, but before you get too excited, it only works once you’ve reached that point. So, if you turn off Total Recall expecting to come back to it later, the code just doesn’t work. Total Recall is a master of passive-aggressive design.

Consider That A Divorce

The good news is that most of Total Recall’s pain is front-loaded. Don’t get me wrong, it never gets any good, nor does it get easier, but the first few levels are easily the most vexing. Towards the end, it actually plays like a video game, rather than just an instrument of torture. Does Arnold fight skeletons in the movie? Just asking. The second half is also more forgettable than the first, skeletons aside. I almost get the feeling that they didn’t expect anyone to make it.

This experience has given me a bit of peace of mind. I now know that, as bad as Total Recall is, it isn’t as putrid as Predator. There are some aspects to it that remind me that humans made it and maybe they didn’t want it to be made fun of for the next three decades and counting. Does it do anything new and interesting? No. Unless you count the X-Ray section.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a game worth playing. What would have improved it? A lot of things. Better combat for starters. Level design that doesn’t focus mainly on its horrible combat. Gameplay that doesn’t require you to be clairvoyant to enjoy. Heck, unlimited continues would have made things a lot less painful.

Instead, it’s just another bad licensed game brought to us by Acclaim: the most prolific purveyors of bad movie games. I’m just not exactly sure why this has gotten all the ire when Predator is even more egregious. I guess it’s not necessarily the damage that you do, it’s the size of the crater you leave behind.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Total Recall isn’t the worst NES game despite its efforts appeared first on Destructoid.

Also Rival Turf and Pinball

The SNES Nintendo Switch Online offerings just got a little more lively this week, as Nintendo just did a customary late-night content drop that involves three more retro games (two SNES, one NES). There are no Expansion Pack offerings (Genesis/N64) this week.

Following a maintenance announcement that most certainly tipped folks off that more games would be coming, Nintendo unleashed three new games into the mix:

• Congo's Caper (SNES)
• Rival Turf (SNES)
• Pinball (NES)

Pinball will likely trigger some nostalgia, but it's been far surpassed in the arena — despite being one of the first home console pinball games in 1984 (just five years later we'd get Pinball Quest). Rival Turf is a serviceable beat 'em up that's part of the Rushing Beat saga, and joins the already existing Brawl Brothers on the Switch Online service.

But Congo's Caper is the real star here of the weekly SNES Switch Online drops, at least for me. I remember renting it because of a gaming magazine feature, and I couldn't be happier. As one of many "dinosaur/prehistoric"-angled games of that era (and the preceding NES generation), it had a vibrant visual style that still sticks out; a wild plotline involving demon kidnappers; and a protagonist that evolves and devolves from a monkey to a boy as part of the gameplay (similar to Ghosts'N Goblins).

Alongside of a good platforming foundation, the stark aesthetic style and goofy premise will still hold up today for a lot of people: give it a shot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_-LqmGv7ig

The post Underrated SNES game Congo’s Caper comes to Switch Online appeared first on Destructoid.

Double Trouble, Double Trouble, Double Double, Trouble Trouble...

Publisher Retro-Bit Gaming has lifted the lid on its recent Battletoads teaser to reveal that it is partnering with several retailers to produce a full NES reprint of Battletoads & Double Dragon.

Released to multiple platforms way back in 1993, the Rare-developed beat-'em-up saw the scaly team of Rash, Pimple, and Zitz team up with Double Dragon heroes Billy and Jimmy Lee to thwart another dastardly scheme from the voluptuous Dark Queen. The quintet of heroes jets off toward the ominous spaceship Colossos on a fist-flinging adventure set in the far reaches of the galaxy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcrUVOR5R-8

Much like the previous Battletoads releases, Battletoads & Double Dragon features non-stop face-smashing action, as well as a slightly more forgiving difficulty setting. Villains from both series put in an appearance, and the title sports a roster of five distinct characters, loaded for bear with body-breaking strikes, throws, and specials. I mean, it's not Streets of Rage 2, but it was a fun time for NES fans.

Retro-Bit Gaming's new edition of Battletoads & Double Dragon includes a fully-working NES cart in an exclusive transparent jade casing. The cart is housed in a hardcover box and comes with a full-color instruction manual as well as an acrylic stand with which owners can display the cartridge in all of its 8-bit glory. Battletoads & Double Dragon retails for $59.99 USD, not including shipping.

Pre-orders for the new NES cart are now live over at selected North American and European outlets, simply visit the official Retro-Bit Gaming website and follow the path to your retailer of choice. The pre-order window will close on May 22, 2022, so be sure to get your name on the list before this date.

The post Battletoads & Double Dragon is getting a NES re-release appeared first on Destructoid.

It's been a while!

Nintendo Switch Online is closing out March 2022 with a trio of retro games — Earthworm Jim 2 on the Super Nintendo front, Mappy-Land and Dig Dug II on the NES side — plus a pair of SP versions for eternal SNES favorites Super Punch-Out!! and Super Mario World.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCWwjJ_gxAc

With this Nintendo Switch Online drop, a lot of Earthworm Jim 2 takes are flying around, and it's definitely not the same game I remember renting multiple times in the '90s.

I really prefer the sequel — I find the first game to be needlessly frustrating to play more often than not, and Earthworm Jim 2 to be a little more entertaining with (admittedly still stressful) levels like Lorenzen's Soil and Puppy Love. The series felt "big" back in the day, and my childhood friend group even watched the cartoon, but it feels very of its era.

As for Dug Dug II, the overhead view never clicked with me as much as the original game's presentation — heck, Dig Dug is still one of my favorite high-score chasers to this day — but I want to give it more of a chance. Mappy-Land is much less of a known quantity in my household. I jumped in fresh and immediately died, which I dig. This is the sort of curiosity-driven punishment I'm looking for when I boot up the Switch Online NES app.

Subscribers gained access to these NES and SNES games last night, as is Nintendo's way with the Switch Online retro libraries. I wouldn't have bothered to check in right away, but CJ nudged me about the "special" versions, which are usually worth a peek.

[caption id="attachment_314344" align="alignnone" width="1280"] _{Super Mario World SP.}[/caption]

In both of these SP versions, you're basically getting immediate access to a lot of content.

In the case of Super Mario World SP, that means starting with 99 lives in an opened-up overworld with the Fall theme active, while Super Punch-Out!! SP lets you face the fearsome Special Circuit right off the bat without needing to grind out prior circuits.

Anything of interest here, or are you sticking with EarthBound? My recent playthrough fizzled out shortly after Mondo Mole, unfortunately. It still lives in my heart rent-free.

The post Nintendo Switch Online adds Earthworm Jim 2, Super Mario World SP, and more appeared first on Destructoid.

The adventure of Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo — or whatever you name 'em

Shigesato Itoi was not trolling on Twitter. Nintendo has decided that now's the time to bring EarthBound back on Nintendo Switch. It's official!

Granted, this isn't a localized-for-the-West Mother 3 Hail Mary play or anything — the Nintendo Switch Online service is adding EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings to its SNES and NES library later today, after the Nintendo Direct dust has fully settled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KqnZBXEdQw

EarthBound is a humble, subversive, laugh-out-loud funny RPG that people who like — or dislike! — RPGs can share together. I never played it on Super Nintendo as a kid, but circling back to it as an adult was a treat. Doubly so with the ability to create save states that can help sand down some potentially frustrating moments in battles and exploration.

EarthBound Beginnings is actually Mother — the first game in the series — by another name. It's great to have this localized game for posterity, but it's a bit of a harder sell today. If you're on the fence about which game to jump into as someone who wonders "what the big deal is with EarthBound," I wouldn't force it. You can always go back.

As cool and crazy as it would be to have Mother 3 find its way onto Switch, I'm stoked about this shadow drop. The music unearthed something deep inside me.

Considering the sentiment surrounding the pricier Expansion Pack tier, it's worth noting that you can play EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings with the basic Nintendo Switch Online membership. Save those N64 (and Sega Genesis) games for a rainy day.

The post At last, Nintendo is bringing EarthBound back on Nintendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.