This Famicom port of Mugen Senshi Valis is a picture-perfect example of how fast and loose early ports could treat their subject matter, a pre-existing brand seen as a list of ideas more than it was a list of unbreakable rules. Released in 1987, a year after the PC-88, FM-7, and PC-98 versions of the first Valis … Continue reading Valisvania: Yuko’s Quest
Eldorado Gate Vol. 7, the final disc in Capcom's ambitious Dreamcast RPG saga, opens not with the usual fourth wall breaking intro from party leader/player host Bantross but a quick recap of the previous disc's finalé, Razin's tablet shattered into four pieces and scattered who knows where. With just two scenarios to go I was … Continue reading All good things…
What "What" is the easiest part: This is a ramble covering the topic mentioned in the title above - playing arcade games at home, specifically using real arcade hardware connected to an ordinary TV rather than bringing a cabinet into the living room. I will stress this is not a guide as such, more "practical … Continue reading The what, why, and how of playing arcade games at home
Hataraku Chocobo does something so incredible when you turn it on I'm almost reluctant to talk about it, because when typed out it sounds as if I've resorted to pathetic "My uncle at Nintendo said..." level lies. You see, Squaresoft's game was exclusively designed for and released on Bandai's WonderSwan - the original monochrome WonderSwan, the … Continue reading Feathered friends in new frontiers
The back of Parodius Da!'s box promises 1991's idea of gaming perfection - the arcade experience at home. This was always an eye-catching boast thirty years ago (if not necessarily as accurate as the excitable text implied), but it was even more so here as this particular release appeared on computer shop selves only about a … Continue reading A non-sense fantasy
There are just two scenarios contained within Eldorado Gate Vol.6's GD-ROM, and the first is short even by the series' already pleasantly zippy standards. The chapter title "Operation: Wipe out the Gabri tribe" wastes no time in establishing the threat to Eldorado Gates' cute and colourful mascot-type monster by those pesky holy knights first introduced a … Continue reading The beginning of the end
How could I possibly resist a Shin Megami Tensei themed SRPG, the happy combination of two of my favourite things - tiny people waiting to be ordered around a large map and demon-infested 90's cyberpunk? And oh, that soundtrack! Hidehito Aoki's work on Majin Tensei's soundtrack is just superb, a sort of dark industrial goth rock via the SNES' soft-sounding … Continue reading HUGE art… and really tiny scraps of strategy
The manual to 1989's Stunt Car Racer is an impressive forty-eight pages thick, and instead of opening with helpful tips on how to get this Amiga port of the game running (just so you know - it was an Atari ST game first) or a handy explanation of the controls it decides to go with a short … Continue reading Boingy bouncy racing
Look, I'll admit it - when Ys Seven was in its teasing pre-release advertising phase I didn't like what I saw at all. Why has the artwork been changed? What's this about a party system? And there's no PC version at all? Seriously?! Whatever this made-for-PSP Ys was going to be, it sure as heck wasn't going to … Continue reading The same in a different way
I am a lowly level one archer standing in the green fields just outside Prontera, whacking Porings and Rockers as I go while catching brief fragments of other people's conversations - so far, so Ragnarok Online. Only I'm not doing this within the scraggly remains of the official English service, nor a private server, but somewhere … Continue reading An MMO unplugged
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 