EPISODE 64

What a wonderful game! Ever played it?

In the lead-up to this week's video I was wondering if there was any truth to Square's official line about SD3 being "buggy," and not worth translating because of all the fixes it would need. I'd sure never seen any real glitches or bugs. So I went to someone I figured would probably know the game better than just about anyone... Neill Corlett, the guy who did the translation! Here's what he had to say...

"Thanks for your feedback. I've also heard the rumor that SD3 never
shipped in the US because of bugs, or because it would have been too
costly to clean up the code for NoA QA. Unfortunately, I don't know of
any specific bugs that would have caused this.

SD3's gameplay code is a bit convoluted. It runs on top of a bytecode
VM that I didn't study too deeply because it was unrelated to the
dialogue code (which runs on a different VM). This may explain why some
parts of the game feel laggy, especially compared to Secret of Mana, or
why messages sometimes don't appear right away. It wouldn't surprise me
if this VM caused some sort of race condition or other bug allowing for
sequence breaks in the game - but I don't know of any offhand.

Having worked in the game industry, I can say that projects get canceled
a lot, often for random reasons.

Glad you're enjoying the patch, and I look forward to checking out your
video.

Neill "

I'll also post up THIS LINK to an interview with Neill where he discusses the process of translating the game. A good read. And thank you Neill for allowing so many people to play this wonderful game.

Here's what should be no surprise to anyone...

(Just realised I forgot to put it in the video... Oops... Oh well, I guess the ranting speaks for itself)

IN OTHER RETRO NEWS... Mega Man 5 was released on the Wii Virtual Console this week! And Mega Man X came out last week! How strange that after months and months of neglect (read: abandonment) Capcom's come to the rescue. The main reason this is worth mentioning is that it marks the first time MM5 has ever been officially released for purchase in Australia. Huzzah for only being 20 years late!

The countdown continues! 3 weeks to go!!

P.S. Did you see this?? Mind... BLOWN!!

 

EPIOSDE 63

Four more videos to go after this one!! I've been developing quite a pile of "non-retro" games that are sitting, eagerly waiting to be played. I might have to post a photo in the next week or two. One in particular is Journey - I'm dying to play that, but I refuse to until I've finished with the blog. This week it's Super Return of the Jedi and Do-Re-Mi Fantasy. Enjoy! ^_^

I'm absolutely loving the pants off of Seiken 3! Hopefully it won't take me TOO long to play through it. Catch ya! ^_^

EPISODE 62

It's a surprisingly short little video, considering how long I spent playing Secret of Evermore!

The sad part is, I went into it all set to be Evermore's champion, the guy that says, "Hey, it's actually a great game, almost as good as Seiken Densetsu! Everyone should play it." But the simple fact is, it's not.

There's something about the game's pacing and delivery that just feels really off. It's certainly not the worst game I've played this year, but I wouldn't lose sleep if I never played it again.

Here's an interesting interview with Evermore's lead programmer. It's interesting to hear his take on the creation of the game, and what Square Japan's expectations were.

Only FIVE more "weeks" of gaming to go!!

SUPER PLAY CORNER: OCTOBER 1995 - JANUARY 1996

Here we are again, in between videos, and wondering what was happening in the world of gaming around the time that Earthworm Jim and Secret of Evermore were released. Well, wonder no more, for it's time for the...

We're looking at Issues 37, 38 and 39 this week.

Remember, click on the picture and save it to your computer if you want to see it in full size.

The rumour mill had begun. Could it actually be possible that Seiken Densetsu 3 might NOT be released in the West...?? (The answer, of course, is "yes.") I never did hear what these "bugs" were that Square didn't want to bother fixing. Does anyone know?

Ah, the Mortal Kombat movie. Obviously it's not what you'd call a masterpiece of cinema, but you've gotta admit, it was so much more faithful to its source material than the Mario or Street Fighter movies. I remember thinking it was actually fairly watchable.

Delays, delays, delays. The controller only got one more aesthetic alteration before launch. Can you see what it was? The controller slot was pretty much useless until the rumble pak came out. Sure, you could buy a controller pak to save games (as I did... live and learn, I suppose) but there were only a very small handful of games that even supported it, since most games were just saved to the cartridge.

... And here's pretty much the confirmation. Seiken 3 would stay in Japan. A good bit of detective work there to discover the details though.

I just included this ad because I thought it was funny. This was Nintendo a) trying to pump up its system which was still nowhere near release, and b) trying to desuade people from buying a PlayStation or a Saturn. It's even so bold as to claim that playing a game from a CD will give you an inferior experience. LOL.

A three-page article here on "the competition" that the '64 would face. It's interesting that even at this fairly early stage, the PlayStation had pretty much already written the Saturn off the books. (I didn't even realise the 3DO was still around at this stage... It felt like it only existed for about 3 or 4 months!)

At the same time, I think the press had largely bought into the hype that Nintendo had been spinning about the graphics of its new console. Yeah, it had some definite advantages over the PlayStation (anti-aliasing and more stable textures, for a start) but it wasn't like an entire generational gap. When PS1 graphics were programmed well (see Chrono Cross!) the 3D could look every bit as good as a Nintendo64 game. And when '64 graphics were programmed badly... *shudder*

And a bit of a quiz to finish things off. (How many did you get right?... I got three.)

EPISODE 61

The counter's gone crazy in the last couple of weeks! Heaps and heaps of visitors! Welcome, if this is the first time you've checked into my blog! The List (TM)  can be found to the upper right, and below it are all the previous posts, dating all the way back to late 2010. And now... (fanfare...) Episode 61! Enjoy!

While I was never much of a Sega fan back-in-the-day, I've come to appreciate some of the Mega Drive's strengths over the last few years. There's no doubt it housed some really great games. But for me it comes down to, Story of Thor is not as good as Zelda, Phantasy Star is not as good as Final Fantasy, Vectorman is not as good as Mega Man, and (gasp!) Sonic is not as good as Mario. There, I said it.   ;-p

The real winners, of course, were those rich kids who had both systems. I had a friend like that. I was so jealous. He even had a Mega CD!

Six episodes left to go! All downhill from here!

SO DARN EXCITED!!

Woke up this morning, clicked on to GameTrailers, and saw this...

I did a double-take and then went... "Wow! I made the front page!!"

I've only got 15 more videos to upload there before they're up-to-date with the rest of the world. But thank you, GameTrailers! You made my day!

EPISODE 60

Sixty! SIXTY!! Wowee! Here it is...

On the subject of Mortal Kombat 3, Dorkly put this one up this week, and I laughed out loud at the ending:

Hilarious. So here's this week's games:

The countdown's on! Seven episodes to go!

SUPER PLAY CORNER: AUGUST - OCTOBER 1995

Welcome back, one and all. Let's see what was headlining in the latter half of 1995...

Don't forget, if you want to view the bigger pictures full size, you'll want to click on them first and then save them to your hard-drive or something.

It seems almost laughable now that it was just "assumed" Final Fantasy would be on the '64. You've gotta wonder how things would have been different, had Square stuck with Nintendo. FF7 was the game that really sold the PlayStation by the gazillions, so if Nintendo had gone with CDs, would the PS1 be a distant memory now...?

What a bizarre concept! I don't quite understand how the system would have worked. So you'd download Super N.E.S. games on to your BT Set-Top-Box, but how would you play them? Anyway, I just thought tha last paragraph was great: "So is this the future of videogaming? Will we never need to go out and buy a cart again, instead choosing to play remotely from home? Frankly, we doubt it." Welcome to the future, people!!

Hilarious. Remember when websites used to look like that? For the record...

Futurenet.co.uk: Still exists!

Nintendo.com: (Obviously) still exists!

The Town of Final Fantasy no longer exists.

Square still has a website, but it's not the same as this old one.

Intelligent Gamer no longer exists.

Both the Super Nintendo and Ultra64 pages no longer exists. (not surprising really)

The Bomberman WWW Page no longer exists.

Aaaaand the Classic Video Games page no longer exists either. Awwww.

And now moving on into Issue 36...

Ah, the Final Fantasy Ultra64 demo! Here's the full thing... Love the Bahamut summon at the end!

 

Y'know, as dodgy as that "artist's impression" looks, it's not that far off the mark. In fact, it's pretty accurate!

Super Play had a regular segment called "Final Fantasy Forum," where they would discuss all things FF6. They never really ran out of things to talk about, and for poor PAL saps like me, it was awesome and tantilising at the same time, learning all about this amazing game that we'd never see.

Well, that's it for now. Next vid shouldn't be too far away. In the meantime... here's someone finishing Super Metroid in 12 minutes. (Totally glitchy at the end, but the wall jumping is super-impressive!)

EPISODE 59

Platforming paradise this week! Any memories to share of these games?

CONFESSION TIME!!

I received Yoshi's Island for Christmas 1995. But I went with my mum to buy it, just to make sure she got the right game. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the game was hidden in "the present cupboard." You know that cupboard, that parents think they can hide stuff in, but the kids know exactly where it is? Well, whenever I was home on my own I would sneak to the cupboard, grab the game out and play it. So by the time Christmas actually came, I was already up to World 4 of the game. Naughty, naughty Irvy! ;-p

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, with only 8 more "weeks" to go! I've got so many games waiting patiently to be played once I'm through with all this retro nonsense! ;-)

Catch ya on the flipside!