EPISODE 58

Sorry this one took a while. I was just enjoying playing the game too much!

I wonder if there's anyone out there who'd disagree that Chrono Trigger has stood the test of time...

Surely not... By the way... What the freak is with the box-art? There's only two instances where the heroes go to the snow, and I don't remember any monsters that look like that. Meanwhile, Marle is shooting fire out of her finger. But Marle has nothing to do with fire, that's Lucca's speciality. If Marle was shooting anything out of her finger, it would be ice. The balance of the picture seems off, there's way too much white... It's just a really strange choice for box art. Anyway...

There are a few games that are worth playing over and over again. This is one of them. Anyone else going to play Mega Man 7 and/or Yoshi's Island with me this week?

LOOK WHAT I GOT TODAY!

Ironic that it's called "The Last Story," because it will likely be the last Wii game I ever buy. Or perhaps Nintendo will pull something completely unexpected at E3, who knows? Doubtful.

I've only played the first chapter, and I really have no idea what's going on with the gameplay (I think I won...) I'm amazed at how jarring I'm finding the 480p graphics though... I've never claimed to be a graphics snob, but the last game I finished was Uncharted 3. And now to play The Last Story seems like I just jumped 10 years back into the past.

It's not like it's impossible to make good-looking Wii games. Look at Skyward Sword, that looked brilliant, thanks to the wonderful art direction and colour. Anyway, we'll see how much I like The Last Story. Poor Xenoblade is still sitting unplayed after 25 hours of questing. That's a really great game, but I need to wait until I've got the time to properly invest in it.

Speaking of which... Probably about half-way through Chrono Trigger. I'm kinda amazed at how easy I'm finding everything. I haven't really done much grinding - hardly any at all - and yet I'm just breezing through the game. I can remember finding it challenging back-in-the-day... Maybe I've just become a better person...

Happy gaming!

EPISODE 57

The countdown is on! Three actiony games this week, and the longest episode EVER! (Sorry!)

Any memories to share of these three games? I find it amazing how quietly Starfox 2 just disappeared. I've been looking through the Super Play magazines of the time, and there was no big official announcement that the game had been scrapped, just rumours that perhaps it had been put on the shelf, and nothing more. Amazing.

Only two more Mega Man games to go! Apologies if you're not a fan of the blue bomber and you've had to put up with my excessive ramblings. Let's just say I'm a bit of a fan and leave it at that, 'kay? ^_^

SUPER PLAY CORNER: JUNE - AUGUST 1995

Hey all.

First of all, a bit of a heads-up. I started working on the next video tonight, and it's going to easily be the longest one yet. Good thing YouTube lets me upload movies longer than 10 minutes now! (I'm anticipating about 13 mins for this one) What can I say, I've just got a lot to waffle about!

So now on to the...

Tonight I shall be drawing from the following two sources:

So here we go... (Remember to click on the pictures and then save them first, if you want to view them full-size)

The Ultra64 officially unveiled. (But not the controller) It says here that the design wasn't finalised, but from where I'm standing, that was exactly the machine we got, minus the logo. I know the 3D "N" logo was kinda cool, but I really dig this Art-Deco-style Ultra64 logo. 'Scool.

Pffff. Handheld? It was a poor man's gaming back then. Imagine if we could go 17 years into the past and show these guys a PlayStationVita! I find it baffling that in one of those pictures someone is playing the GameBoy version of Street Fighter on the Super GameBoy. Why would anyone do that? Why?? Just play the real thing instead!!

And this, dear friends, is why Nintendo made so much money. Wow, they were rip-off merchants! It's crazy to think that £16 of every game sold went straight into Nintendo's pockets, even if they had nothing to do with the game's development! I wonder how much their royalty fees are now.

E3 1995. Super Play mentions no news about Final Fantasy V. They forgot to mention that Starfox 2 had dropped completely off the radar at this point, about the time it was due to be released! More about that later this week!

Some info about the creation of Seiken Densetsu 3. Amazing that Kikuta-san didn't go on compose more soundtracks. His Mana music is wonderful! Love how this article says "an American translation is inevidible." It sure is, but not a translation by Square!!

I wonder what ended up getting sacrificed for Cinder to make the cut on Super N.E.S... perhaps some frames of animation...?

I reckon the N64 controller did raise a fair few eyebrows when it was eventually revealed. What a weird beast it was. I reckon eyebrows were raised even higher at the Wii controller's reveal though. I'm pretty sure I saw the first picture, gave an enormously loud "HA!" followed by, "No way. No waaaaay!"

Hit or Miss? I'm afraid it was just a big massive miss. I reckon once I return from my round-the-world holiday later this year I might see if I can import one though. Just for collectors' sake, and to see what it actually looks like inside those goggles. If the blog's still going, I'll post impressions. It won't be anytime soon though.

Stay cool folks!

EPISODE 56

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are my impressions of EarthBound, aka Mother 2. Enjoy!

Were you lucky enough (ie. American) to play EarthBound back in the day? Do you reckon it holds up 17 years later?

I do! ^_^

SUPER PLAY CORNER: APRIL - JUNE 1995

I've come to a decision. I'm going to play EarthBound until Thursday and then, no matter where I'm up to, I'm going to stop and make the video. The game is huge, and if I keep playing it (as much as I'm enjoying it) it's going to take me all year! In the meantime...

Just remember that Blogspot likes to resize the larger images, so if the text looks too small, save the image first and then view it outside of the browser. There's a lot to read today, so break out the popcorn and set yourself up for a trip down memory lane. First up, let's check out Issue 31...

It's pretty crazy to think of how much control Nintendo had on the market back then. I suppose it was the Nintendo64 that gave them a wake-up call. The industry had grown to such a size, they couldn't possibly maintain the stranglehold anymore.

It's pretty laughable now. There's no way the Nintendo64 delivered on all of those promises. Around the time this was published, I was imagining video games that looked as good as the special effects in Terminator 2. Look at a N64 game now... nup, not quite...

Did the Akira game ever actually get released? Sounds awful! (It was THQ after all, I think "awful" was all they knew how to do...)

No Veebies Until Summer... Or At All...

HEY LOOK, it's teh interwebz!! Remember when web sites were basic text pages like these? And they took about 5 minutes to load on a 14.4k modem? (sigh) Oh, how far we have come! I can still remember the first time I entered a chat room. My mind was blown that night. Talking to someone ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET! *kaboom*

Next up we're checking out Issue 32.

Here we have the start of a wonderful relationship: Nintendo and Rare.

On a related note, I read this really interesting article over at EuroGamer about "What Went Wrong" with Rare and where they stand today. Good read.

Ahhhh, the Street Fighter movie. I can remember feelings of absolute confusion coming out of that film. It was Street Fighter, so I supposed I enjoyed it. I saw all the characters, however warped they appeared. And I mean... Cammy was played by Kylie!!

But... I also felt like the movie was... well, kinda terrible. In all honesty, I haven't watched it at all since that day in the cinemas. It might come under the "So Bad It's Awesome" category now, I don't know.

Interesting 3-page interview with Shiggy. Don't you love how the world's top game designer isn't really a gamer himself? His favourite video game is freakin' Pac Man! On the one hand, that's awesome since he can look at things from a completely fresh angle. On the other hand, he can sometimes completely misjudge where the industry is at and where it's headed. (Hello, Wii Music!)

Lucky last, a quick article about Akihabara. Every month Super Play would have the "Live From Hell City" segment, talking about Japan and the culture there. I'm most excited about it because I'm going to (finally!!) see Tokyo with my own eyes in June this year. I can't wait to experience Akihabara and its insanity!!

Hope you found that all entertaining! Catch ya!!

LOOK ABOVE!

Woke up this morning to see that I've reached 10,000 hits! Bwaaaaahhh!!!
Thanks for visiting! :-)

EPISODE 55

I've now put 13 of my videos on to GameTrailers. And I tell you what... it's a good thing I've got a pretty thick skin! Over the past year I've got lots of positive feedback from people on the blog, on ScrewAttack and on my YouTube pages, people who really appreciate the work it takes to make these videos, and share my love of revisiting classic games. Over at GameTrailers... Wow, they're brutal! Super, super critical. I'm the first the admit the first 6 or 7 episodes weren't that great, but man, people seem to want to rip me to shreds for having an opinion or for daring to make videos of old games! Amazing. Anyways, I don't make videos for nasty critical people like that, so I really don't care if they enjoy them or not.

Having said that... Here's Episode 55 and The Illusion of Gaia / Time / Whatever! :-)

I did consider for quite a while whether or not this game "stood" the test of time. It's certainly not as good as Mana, Final Fantasy or many other 16-bit RPGs. But at the end of the day, despite its faults, I still enjoyed playing it, even a bit more so than Soul Blazer, and I said that it stood.

12 episodes to go!!

SUPER PLAY CORNER: FEBRUARY - APRIL 1995

Hi again! Time for some more...

Two issues in the 'Corner tonight.

As usual, you'll need to view the pictures in their original size to read them properly. You know what to do by now.

 

Amazing that Starfox 2 was being shown to the masses with its own official booth. This game was never released. Sounds like the Virtual Boy was making as much an impression as ever.

This is just really strange. This is the first confirmation of Rare making a Goldeneye 007 game, but I never realised that it was originally going to be a Super NES game! This report says that the game would be ready for Christmas '95, but it didn't actually eventuate until August '97. Ahhh, Rare and their delays. Remember those days...?

The Satallaview was a hugely ambitious device, one that really took Nintendo as a company in a whole new direction. A lot of people talk about modern gaming as companies offering a "service," more than just physical media. Well that's kind of what the Satellaview was. There were episodic Zelda games on it amongst other things, and all you had to do was tune in at the right time each week. This concept surely wouldn't fly in today's "information NOW" era, but wow, what an experiment! I can see how it would have been far too much hassle to release it outside of Japan though.

Retrospect is a wonderful thing. Nintendo severely underestimated the power of the PlayStation. At this point though, who would have thought it would become the juggernaut it eventually was? Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and Tomb Raider were still a long way off, and the launch was pretty darn weak. I think that, in Japan at least, the 32-bit era was started too early. It took a long time to really take off. (ironically, it wasn't until the Nintendo64 came on to the scene that the PlayStation really took off)

... And speaking of underestimating... The fact that Nintendo went with cartridges over CDs is one of the biggest facepalm moments in gaming history. Granted, the '64 didn't have a fraction of the piracy problems that the PlayStation did. But man, the amount of A-grade companies and franchises that Nintendo lost over this issue (Square being the biggest, but Capcom and Konami as well) solidifies it as an EPIC FAIL.

... And, the story so far, as of April 1995.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. And as a little added extra... I'm only about a year late in discovering this (oops!) but I just watched it and think it's insanely cool. I love almost everything Brentalfloss does, his lyrics are often very funny. This one has no lyrics though, just the Super Mario Land theme and some kick-arse jazz chords. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

See you soon.