Gamer’s Playlist – The Advantage Tear into Kraid’s Lair…Do They Survive?

Yes, I do love The Advantage (any chance you guys can reunite and do more of this stuff?). I spotlighted them a couple of months ago, but I finally got to check out Elf-Titled from my library and found it clock-full of excellence. One of those splendid tracks is Kraid’s Lair from Metroid. There’s a darkness in this track many others omit, and I personally think it’s among the better remixes of the classic tune. Enjoy!

Kraid’s Lair – The Advantage (NES, Metroid, Nintendo, Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka)

Pictures of my Gaming Collection – Summer 2012 Edition

Hey folks, I’ve decided to redo my collection shots! Why? Well, I’ve gotten new things, I’m in the process of getting rid of several games, and for some reason I really liked doing this last time. I think it allows me to see what exactly I have and …gloat or something? Anyway, you can compare these shots to last December’s if you’d like. And as before, the pics are after the jump. There’s a little more reconstruction to do, and some of these may change in a week or two.

Wildcat’s 11 Most Wanted NES Games

Despite having over 200 games or so, there’s some gems out there that I’m sure I haven’t found. The hunt for those wonderful games is one of the pleasures of being a collector. So, here’s a wishlist of the NES games I’d like to find one day. More consoles will appear down the road.

Power Blade (Taito/Natsume)

Man, this is by far the NES game I want the most. It’s stupidly hard for me to find, and I do have some fond memories of playing it in my youth. I don’t think it’s rare or anything, but the moment I see it is the moment I snag it (if I have the funds, and I’ll cry if I don’t).

The Guardian Legend (Broderbund/Compile)

I’ve always been intrigued by this one. A shooter/action hybrid? A strong heroine and wacky creature design? I’d love to be able to try out something from the company’s long line of games, and this seems to be a good starting place.

The Goonies II (Konami)

Here’s one I’ve never seen! Ever. The Metroid comparisons are interesting to me; as a fan of exploration, I would love to see an early take on the concept (and hope it’s a little less confusing than Metroid’s sprawl).

The Magic of Scheherazade (Cultural Brain)

Another game I’ve never laid eyes on. This Zelda-like title with a stronger RPG slant sounds like it would be a lot of fun. I hope it pans out that way whenever I find it.

Home Alone (THQ/Bethesda)

A surprisingly good licensed game from the oddest source. Bethesda got their hands dirty with this licensed title, but it’s well-made and reminds me a little of their later Elder Scrolls titles (must be picking up all the random house crap :p ). I’d love to try this out again and finally beat it.

Crystalis (SNK)

I played this ever so briefly as a kid, but I wouldn’t mind revisiting it now. The Game Boy Color game was adequate, but many folks have harped on it rather harshly, so I’d like to see how it fairs with me now.

Ducktales 2 (Capcom)

I love the original quite a bit, so why wouldn’t I want to see how well the sequel stands up? Alas, I’ve yet to see this. At all. *sigh*

Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf (SNK)

Odd names aside, I liked this as a kid more than the other golfing titles on the NES, and I’d like to see if that’s still true.

Conquest of the Crystal Palace (Asmik/Quest)

I have enjoyed Quest’s work on Ogre Battle, so I’m curious to discover their roots, and this is about as far back as I can get without a Famicom.

Journey to Silius (Sunsoft)

This is the last of the Sunsoft trifecta released in America, the others being Blaster Master and Batman, of course. I’ve never played it, so I’d like to see how it holds up to the other titles.

Gargoyle’s Quest 2 (Capcom)

Lastly, here’s Capcom’s NES remake of the Game Boy Gargoyle’s Quest. I like Firebrand a lot as a character design, and now that I own Demon’s Crest, I’d be quite happy owning both of his games.

Something else I should keep an eye out for? Feel free to drop me a line in the comments!

Virtual Console No-Shows: Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf (NES)

101. Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf (NES, SNK)

Brief Synopsis – Despite the aggressive title, SNK’s “Fighting Golf” is devoid of any fisticuffs. In reality it’s a fairly rudimentary but well-programmed golf game for the NES, sponsored by one of the bigger names in the sport at the time, Lee Trevino, aka Supermex. In my opinion, which is based completely on memory :p , this is the best golfing title for the console.

Why is it Missing? – SNK Playmore have only gone so far as their NeoGeo software on the Virtual Console, and have completely ignored their NES output.  PSN has gotten several arcade ports, but I don’t think the arcade Fighting Golf is among them.  They could strip out Trevino and his likeness if they ever wanted to re-release the game, but if Crystalis, by far their best-hailed NES game, continues to be absent, I suspect a more curious title like this one will never see a second coming.

Other (Legal) Options – NES cartridge and old arcade boards, anyone?  Those are your only options.

Gamer’s Playlist – Spring Break Game Remixfest 2012 Final Day

The final day of our remixfest is at hand.  At this exact moment, I’m getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist. XD  Anyway, here’s two “official” remixes for you to round out our remix marathon.

Fumigation Refuge – Michiru Yamane (Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, DS, Konami, Michiru Yamane)

Mr. X Stages (Special) – Yuko Takehara (Mega Man 6, NES, Capcom, Yuko Takehara)

Gamer’s Playlist: Spring Break Game Remixfest 2012 Day 4

Let’s rock out a little today, shall we?  Snappleman/virt will deliver a Zelda: Wind Waker medley of epic proportions, while The Advantage put their own spin on a Castlevania classic, Bloody Tears.

Full Mast – Snappleman and Virt (Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Gamecube, Nintendo, Koji Kondo, Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi)

Woods (aka Bloody Tears) – The Advantage (Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, NES, Konami, Kenichi Matsubara)

Virtual Console No-Shows: The Goonies II (NES)

Hm, America is apparently taking a significant break from the VC…again. XD  Onward, with another game that’s worthy of consideration!

98. The Goonies II (NES, Konami)

Brief Synopsis – Loosely based on the movie The Goonies (note – Americans only saw a NES release for the sequel to the original Famicom game, thus the inexplicable “II” in the title.  The first did see limited release in Nintendo’s Vs. System or Play Choice-10 arcade cabinets), you play as Mikey, who must rescue the rest of the Goonies and a randomly determined mermaid (wha?) from a small-time criminal family, the Fratellis.  You play the game in two perspectives, side-scrolling and first person, and the game has a Metroid-esque feel in how it progresses, with Mikey able to improve his skills to access new areas previously blocked off from him.  I haven’t had the good fortune to play it, but it’s supposedly very good.

Why is it Missing? – Two major reasons here: one is that it is a licensed game based on a movie, and two, we haven’t seen anything from Konami come west in a long time.  I suspect that Konami isn’t too keen on continuing to support the Wii VC, and especially not too keen on re-licensing this game no matter how good it is.  Let’s hope the NA/PAL 3DS Virtual Console will see some of their Game Boy games they’ve released in Japan recently, so I don’t have to write posts on those. XD

Other (Legal) Options – The NES is the lone console for you here.

Gamer’s Playlist – Spring Break Game Remixfest 2012 – Day 3

Today is a RPG-focused set.  Famicom Guitar shreds some Dragon Quest, Darangen rips some Final Fantasy, and we all win!

Love Song 探して*, Famicom Guitar (Dragon Quest II, NES, Square-Enix, Koichi Sugiyama)

Warriors of Light, Darangen (Final Fantasy, NES, Square-Enix, Nobuo Uematsu)

*= Famicom Guitar’s site is in Japanese, but I can tell you it’s Disc 3, Track 9 for this particular song if you’d like to have it for yourself.

Song Highlights – Heroes of Might and Magic IV, Final Fantasy, Blast Corps, Street Fighter II

Terrain Swamp, Heroes of Might and Magic IV (PC, 3DO/New World Computing, Paul Romero, Rob King, Steve Baca, Paul James)

Man, I forgot how lovely the Heroes music was until I was listening to a few of the songs recently.  This is among one of my favorites from the game.  I love the overall ambiance of the instrumentation and vocals.  Great song.

Temple of Fiends, Final Fantasy (NES, Square-Enix, Nobuo Uematsu)

I heard a remix of this Darangen did (I’ll put it up later on this week as part of the Spring Break Remixfest) and was reminded of how great the original Final Fantasy music actually is (apparently, this is a “something reminded me” type of post. XD ).  Anyway, this is menacing and well-tempoed.  A good way to build the tension on the way to Chaos.

Angel City, Blast Corps (N64, Nintendo/Rare, Graeme Norgate)

Surprisingly rocking stuff on the N64 soundchip.  Rare was no stranger to making that thing rock, but this is one of the better examples of a hard-hitting tune.

Chun Li’s Theme, Street Fighter II (Arcade, Capcom, Yoshihiro Sakaguchi, Yoko Shimomura, & Tetsuya Nishimura)

Another piece from the SF2 STK, this time the theme to Chun Li’s stage.  I like the distinctly Chinese sound this song eludes.

Cultural Anxiety: Conquest of the Crystal Palace/Matendouji (NES/Famicom)

Study 22 – Conquest of the Crystal Palace/Matendouji (Asmik/Quest, NES/Famicom)

The studio that would eventually create Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre began in 1998 under a different moniker of Bothtec. This company released one game, The Scheme, for NEC’s PC-8801. After a name change to Quest, the company began working with the NES hardware. Matendouji was the first to be localized for overseas audiences, transformed into Conquest of the Crystal Palace.  Later on, Quest focused on their aforementioned Ogre series, which would earn its rightful place as one of the finer strategy RPG franchises on the market. Their work would inspire the creation of Final Fantasy Tactics, thanks to three major members of Quest, Yasumi Matsuno, Hiroshi Minagawa, and Akihiko Yoshida, all joining Square and being a big part of FFT’s creation.  Quest themselves would also become a part of the Square-Enix behemoth following the release of the GBA Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, and would lose their company identity entirely.

Asmik Corp, which is now known as Asmik Ace Entertainment, began in 1985 and produced their own games on top of localizing games from other companies.  Their best known titles are the Game Boy Catrap (available on the 3DS Virtual Console!) and Boomer’s Adventures in ASMIK World for the NES.  As of late they’ve been quiet on the gaming front, but the company still exists and continues to be a part of the Japanese entertainment industry.

Matendouji/Conquest stars a young man named Farron, who is actually a prince of the Crystal Palace. Along with his talking dog Zap, Farron marches off to reclaim his throne from the villain Zaras.

With that brief bit of exposition, let’s get into the meat of this post.

Matendouji’s Famicom box is a little busy, but full of excellent anime designs and motifs.  I wonder if Akihiko Yoshida was involved…this doesn’t resemble his present style.  At any rate, it’s a fine introduction to Farron’s world.

Asmik’s spin on the box loses a lot of its Japanese anime roots, despite the Samurai armor adorning the big bad (Zaras?) villain Farron and Zap are facing off against.  There’s not much resemblance of Farron’s Japanese design.  He looks much more European in style.  Zap is still decked out in some sort of armor, but it has a futuristic look to it over the more traditional Japanese armor he donned on the Famicom box.  The composition isn’t terrible, and the shattering of the edges of the scene are clever…but it doesn’t do much for me, personally.

Screenshots ahoy!  Japanese on the left, American on the right.

Quest’s title screen features chibi heads of the main cast, and some huge kanji representing the title.  However, there’s something really wonderful about the approach Asmik ran with for the American title screen.  I like the mood it creates.  Definitely one of the nicer ones of the era.

The key difference here is that the Japanese version uses “lives” while the American uses “rest” to signify extra lives.  Not sure why!

Asmik removed some of the more controversial elements of the game, including these skeletal babies that crawl around on the ground.  Slugs replace them for America.

And then there’s this.  This area is RADICALLY altered for America.  The foreground titles are disturbingly fat baby heads.  The background is full of freaky zombie faces.  And the enemies are ghastly fetuses.  In America, all of these were toned way down.  The foreground is now standard cavern fare.  The background are still creepy face-like things, but it’s not as drastic as before.  And the enemies are now spiders and some weird fairy-esque thing I can’t quite make out.  Massively different.

From here on in, I’ve only got American screens.  I salute Asmik for their mostly hands-off approach to localization here, leaving much of the Japanese cultural roots intact for Conquest.

For example, the heaven kanji under Zap.  Farron looks like a fairly typical anime hero, too, with a Japanese flair to him that wasn’t lost in translation.

The use of a scroll, with kanji, and Japanese imagery and artwork.  That’s great spritework, I must say.

Here’s the store.  Owner Kim has a nice anime look to her, doesn’t she?  I love how this game embraces so much of its Japanese heritage, and how Asmik left it alone!  It’s a wonderful thing.  Even the box art features minute elements, although it was completely reworked into a more American style.  On the whole, though, Conquest of the Crystal Palace managed to escape Japan relatively unscathed, and if Nintendo was not as strict with their NES censorship, it may have come with all of the freaky bits from the cave intact, too.

Sources:

Hardcore Gaming 101 Article on Conquest – http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/crystalpalace/crystalpalace.htm

Joystiq’s Virtually Overlooked on Conquest – http://www.joystiq.com/2008/05/22/virtually-overlooked-conquest-of-the-crystal-palace/

MobyGames Page for Conquest Images – http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/conquest-of-the-crystal-palace/screenshots

Spil:Musset Museum page for Matendouji – http://www.spilmuseet.dk/infotitel.php?id=39640