Retro Gaming – Page 32

In which a title is missing

I guess I messed up. And with only three days to go, it burns. Oh well. If you consider both a) this blog post and b) this article I wrote as entries, then I really only missed one day, and that’s not too bad.

The article in question is written entirely for my own sake, and I believe it even says so in the introduction, so don’t expect to get a whole lot from it. It’s also part one of I don’t know how many.

In other news, I woke up the morning wholly expecting this week’s Virtual Console lineup to be the kind of stuff dreams are made of. I was only somewhat disappointed. Blades of Steel, pictured to the left, is easily the winner this week, being my favourite hockey (sports?) game of all time. I bought Ice Hockey when it was released, but only because I never thought Blades would make it, but here it is, and here I am 500 Wii Points poorer. However, I now have Blades of Steel on my Wii, and that is totally worth the price of admission. Did I mention just how much I adore Blades of Steel?

Also released were Rolling Thunder 2 (which I’ve never played and have zero interest in) and Donkey Kong Country 3. I bought DKC3, even though now I realize that the world mostly hates it (and the entire series, really), and I actually still enjoy it. I poured more hours into DKC3 than most people would feel comfortable revealing, but I eventually found every secret there was. It was possibly my most glorious achievement, and still remains one of the most dedicated efforts of my life. Will I do it again? All signs point to no, but I’m still going to at least give a good amount of time to getting to the end of the game.

It’s not the cause for song and dance that I was hoping for, but Nintendo could still surprise us. They promised 200 games by year’s end, and with only 187 currently available, they need more than one three-game week to meet that lofty goal. I’m hoping there’s a huge Christmas VC blowout tomorrow to both make up for today’s lack of complete awesome and so that they aren’t liar liar pants on fires. Also, seeing some of the games on my wishlist show up would be nice. Hell, I’d sing Nintendo’s praises from mountaintops if one of those games made an appearance.

Remembering the Cottage: Part 1

My fondest memories can more or less be summed up in three categories: “Shopping at Toys ‘R’ Us”, “Holidays/Trips”, and “The Cottage”. The first two categories can still potentially be added to, but sadly, the third is now sealed away as only memories.

I’ve mentioned many a time on this website (most often in the blog) my many visits to my grandparents’ house, which just happened to be a sweet cottage out on the Winnipeg River. The thing is, I never described many events in detail, or took any pictures while I was out there. to nearly everyone, this mysterious cottage could have just as well been a well-constructed myth. To me though, it was very real, and it was the essence of my summers. I spent at least two weeks out there during the summer months for as long as I can remember, and there were quite often other trips out there for such events as Spring Break, Christmas, Thanksgiving, family reunions, long weekends, and many more. It was a great place, and while I may not have appreciated it quite as much in my older years, it was still a place I loved being very much.

Imagine my heartbreak when I first heard that my grandparents were thinking about selling. As if enough bad mojo wasn’t surrounding me in the year 2007, but now my beloved cottage was going to be taken away? Yeah, it sucks balls. The place was actually sold right at the end of August, and on my last weekend out there, I decided I would take a few pictures so I could put them on a webpage laced with wonderful stories of the time I’d spent there. This is that page, and it’s definitely more for my own sake than for anyone else to read, but feel free to sift through it. There are a lot of memories and strong emotions here, so don’t expect even an attempt at humour.

The TV Room

Overview: Ah, the TV room. I probably spent more hours here than anywhere else, but there are a couple catches that help to make that seem less like I was glued to the TV for all the time I was at the cottage. The most obvious one would be that for a couple years I used one of the couches as my bed, so that racks up the hours pretty quickly. If I regret anything in my lifetime, it’s that I didn’t spend nearly enough time out on the balcony that extends from this room. Don’t know why, but it just never seemed like the place I should be hanging out.

Atari: I guess the earliest thing I can remember this room for is that it’s where we had out Atari. Long before I got hooked on video games, my dad left his Atari system out here, only to be dug up many years later so he could show me the kind of games that were around before the NES. I spent many many hours playing Kangaroo, Pitfall, and Pac-Man. Even back when I was only but a wee lad, I could recognize that ET was the worst game ever made. The biggest mystery about the whole thing though, was that we had a manual for Donkey Kong, but there was nary a cartridge to go with it. Oh, how I burned to play Donkey Kong.

Simpsons & Bonding time: My younger cousin would often come in to visit at the same time we did in the summers, and it worked out well because he’s very much like me, so myself and The Youngest One would often spend a lot of time hanging out in here with him and playing whatever handheld game was in at the time. Or just whatever the most recent Pokémon game was. Those two are even more into Pokémon than I am, and I would always get into it when we came out to the cottage, because the young ones just wouldn’t shut up about it, and that would drag me into it. The Tall One and I were also deeply entrenched in the MegaMan Battle Network series, and it was pretty much a summertime tradition to buy the games just before we went out the cottage and simply play the Hell out of them while we were there. Both series of games brought me not only the regular pleasure of playing video games, but also a lot of valuable bonding time with my brothers and cousin. Sure, I can still play with them at home, but it’s just not the same. Also, my grandparents got satellite TV a few years back, and it seemed like that on any given evening that we were there, the Simpsons would always be on at least one channel, so we generally always had that on in the background. Good times, they were. Good times.

Movie night: Back in the day, my grandpa would often borrow a bunch of movies from a neighbour so we had something to watch while we were out there (this was before the satellite, and we were restricted to like three fuzzy channels). This is notable because it’s the first place I ever saw Kindergarten Cop, which remains my favourite Schwarzenegger film, and is near the top of my overall favourites. Many other times, while my grandparents were staying in the city, my family would come out for the weekend and basically binge on junk food and watch movies. Most of them were stinkers like RV and Epic Movie (to name some of the most recent), but it was still cherished time spent with my family and many, many cookies.

Random thoughts: It was a great place to hang out, and of course we often brought more in the way of video games than handhelds, as Atari was fun, but never quite enough. We fought over which console we would bring each time almost as much as we fought over who got to sit in that big reclining chair you can see in the second picture. I played a lot of Donkey Kong 64 out here, and that particular week at the cottage remains one of the most memorable for many reasons. I’ll always carry in my heart the memories of the first time I caught all the legendary birds in Pokémon Blue, as they were all while I was out at the cottage. I spent many subsequent trips out there playing through the game again and again, always reliving my triumphs over Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres with a smile on my face, often in the middle of the night when I should have been long asleep.

Guest Bedrooms

Overview: Only one is pictures, but there were actually two bedrooms upstairs. While I suppose they weren’t technically guest bedrooms, nobody used them but guests, so there you have it. Until the shed outside was turned into a mini-cottage of sorts (more on that later), we would often sleep in these rooms. For a handful of years I slept in the TV Room, as I mentioned before, but these were where we stayed the majority of the time.

Bedtime: The room you see pictured is actually the final phase of that room’s series of redecorations. Initially it had two huge beds lined against the window wall and the wall opposite the shelving. And when I say huge, I mean huge enough to play underneath with plenty of room to spare. I guess they were more high up than anything else, but while they were in there, I was still small enough to think they were gigantic. Until The Youngest One was born, the older two and I would sleep in this room together, a crib or mattress was placed in the empty floor when needed, and I moved onto the second bedroom room when The Youngest One came along and three beds weren’t enough to satisfy the four of us. But until that time, we spent many nights staying up “late” (back when 10:30 was late) and telling stories and jokes in the dark. Being all boys, there was plenty of roughhousing after bedtime too, and I really miss those times.

Bedtime 2: Eventually, when I moved onto the second upstairs bedroom, I was on my own and free to do whatever I pleased instead of sleeping. Obviously, I used that time alone to play GameBoy, listen to music, and read (most memorably the Final Fantasy VIII strategy guide, because that was another completely kickass summer) all through the night. Once the boys started sleeping outside (in the aforementioned shed) I took over the original room for myself again, and at that point it had been rearranged into the room you see in the picture above.

Comics: You can see the shelving in the picture, but hidden behind the pile of assorted sheets and whatnot is a huge collection of comics. They consisted mostly of Archie, Alf, Heathcliff, and Richie Rich. While those aren’t exactly my first choices in comics nowadays, I was pleased as punch to spend countless afternoons leafing through them. And though it took me a couple years to get the job done, I did eventually read through them all. Taking note of my love of comics, my grandpa started saving me the Sunday comics from the Free Press every week, and every time I went out to the cottage he’d always have a stack of funnies for me to peruse. He still saves them for me to this day, and I haven’t put any time aside to read through them for a while now, so I’ve got a rather large pile in my closet just waiting to be read or thrown out.

Horsin’ Around: Back when we were young, and the huge beds were still in the room, my brothers and I spent a lot of time playing in there, often concluding in someone being injured, however slightly. The number one game would be “Lava Monster”, which I know is not exclusive to us, because I’ve seen characters on TV playing it. But in case you have no idea, basically one person would be the Lava Monster and have to stay on the floor, and anyone else would be trying to stay on the beds while the Lava Monster tried to pull them down “into the lava”. The limited playfield may seem like an issue when I describe it, but it was more than enough when we were just lil’ guys. Plus, we’d always get any other visiting children to join in too, so sometimes the Lava Monsters would amount to more than one, depending on rules (either “Tag” or “Last Man Standing”).

Random Thoughts: Now that I think about it, I guess probably the thing I miss most about the cottage (and childhood in general) was playing with the older two of my brothers. While we still hang out and play video games together now and then, we don’t spend nearly as much time together as we did when we went to the cottage. Back when we were kids, we fought a lot (like, seriously, a lot) at home, but as soon as we got to the cottage, we were like best friends. It’s weird to say because I still see them every day, but I kinda miss my brothers. The Youngest One, I still find plenty of time to hang out with though, so at least I’ve got that. For now.

The Kitchen / Dining Room

Overview: Honestly, the living room, dining room, and kitchen are pretty much all the same room. But that’s hardly the point here. Being the glutton that I am, this area of the house holds just as many lovely memories for me as any other room. My grandma is a wonderful cook, and even the simplest dishes meant a lot, just because. I’ll certainly miss the couple weeks each year where I was guaranteed to have three square meals a day.

Breakfast time: Where to start? I suppose breakfast would be the obvious one. I’m not a big breakfast eater. I adore the meal, but very rarely to I have enough motivation or time to partake. The nice thing about the cottage is that breakfast was always a sure thing (with the exception of the later years where I would stay up too late and sleep right through breakfast time). Most of the time it would be a simple cereal/toast/fruit affair, but that was okay. My grandpa would always have the paper completely read by the time I got up, so when I was eating breakfast, he’d have the comics and puzzles pulled out and ready for me. Eating cereal is twice as awesome when you’ve got a crossword laid out for you and someone to chat with. On the best mornings, my grandma would make pancakes. Oh, those were mornings to really treasure. Until later on when grandma didn’t feel like making tons of them, my brothers and I would always compete to see who could scarf down the most. Good times were had by everyone, but our bellies were probably the happiest of all. Lazy mornings are probably my absolute most favourite thing in the world, and at the cottage, they were all that much better.

Lunch: I never looked quite as forward to lunch as much as I did breakfast, but I still like to revel in the nostalgia of noon-related meals. Most of all, would be when I was between eight and twelve or so, and we would often get the boat out and go fishing with my grandpa in the mornings. We’d always get bored pretty quickly and just resort to fooling around on the boat, but going home was a payoff in more than just getting back on dry land. My grandma would generally have lunch ready by that time, and it was awesome. Coming home to a big plate of sandwiches, veggies, cheese, cookies, and all sorts of etc was just superb after a long morning of fishing. Of course, lunch was great on other days, but those are the ones I remember the most. Looking back on this, I guess maybe it all sounds a bit mundane, but you really had to be there. Being pre-adolescent would help too.

Dinner: This is where grandma’s cooking really comes into play. You’re not going to do anything too fancy for lunch, but dinner is a different story. Grandpa often joked that he ate like a king whenever we were over, and I suppose maybe it’s not too far from the truth. I’m a notoriously picky eater, so I would often pick at some things, but most of the time I ate really well. Hams were especially common, and my family seems to be imbued with the power of making wicked awesome mashed potatoes. Going to the cottage on special occasions was great too, because that meant my grandma would make an extra huge and extra delicious dinner, which was always something to look forward to, even for one with as particular eating habits as me. In fact, I actually wrote about one particularly wonderful Easter dinner on the blog. Turns out it would be the last Easter diner we ever ate there….

Elsewhere…

Overview: While it’s true that being at the cottage was in itself the high point of going to the cottage, there were plenty of other cool places nearby to spend time. Most were great for adventuring while we were little, and some offered more than a simple thrill of an excursion into the unknown. All of them though, played a vital role in making trips to the cottage as memorable as the were.

Town: The cottage was about a five minute drive from the nearest town, Lac du Bonnet. I never cared too much for it while younger, but as I grew, I started to realize that it was more than just a grocery store and a beach. Annual Canada Day parades, while officially boring as Hell, would become an important family tradition, and the fireworks afterward only seem to get better each year. It was also home to the only dollar store where I’d ever seen the infamous Nintendo Surprise. It has since closed down and moved to a much larger building, and the goods within have become only slightly less magical. When Subway moved in, it was all we talked about for ages. The only chain restaurant that had been in the town until then was Chicken Chef, and that’s not the kind of place you just go on a whim. Nope, after Subway moved in, I don’t think there was one trip to the cottage where we didn’t partake.

Town 2: Pinawa is a little farther away, and we visited less often, but always for good reason. Firstly, I would like to mention that if it weren’t for my need to shop compulsively for various electronic media, this is exactly the kind of place I would like to live in. It’s small, but not tiny, and most if not all of the houses are quite nice. I’ve always entertained the thought of living in a small town, and Pinawa has always romanticized that idea. Anyhow, the main attraction here is The Burger Boat & Ice Cream Barge. It’s not the best ice cream place I’ve ever gone, but there’s something special about getting your ice cream from a boat. Always a special occasion, going to The Burger Boat was something to really get excited about. Seriously! On a boat! Turns out they even have their own web page. Neat!

The Boat Launch: A short hike away from the cottage, there’s a boat launch that I’ve never seen anyone use for boats. We’d go swimming or fishing off it, but never any boats. Probably because nearly everyone with a boat in the area has their own boat launch, but that’s besides the point. In any case, over the years, it became more of a point just for me to travel out to just to get some alone/thinking time. There were better spots for such things, but they were all farther away, and I’m lazy. The hike there was worth mentioning too, as there was always a bunch of stuff on the way. Mostly bodies of water to skip rocks in and bales of hay to climb on, but they meant a lot back in the day.

The Rocks: Along Tower Road was, that’s right, a tower. To this day I’m not sure exactly what kind of tower it was. Maybe a broadcasting tower of some sort? No idea, but that’s not what we ventured over there for. All around the mysterious tower were what seemed like endless miles of rocks perfectly fit for climbing. Heading out there at least once per summer, we’d make entire days of climbing around, searching for something, but not quite knowing what that something was. Maybe we were looking for anything at all? To me, it always seemed like the formations had changed, but I guess that’s dumb to say. I know they couldn’t have, but I guess my mental mapping skills weren’t entirely developed by then. We did, on occasion, find a small pile of rocks that signified that someone else had been wandering around there too, and we’d often set up our own little rock piles, with the intent of showing both other people and ourselves that we’d been there already. I haven’t been out there since I was about fifteen, and many times I’ve considered just making a trip out there to visit both Lac du Bonnet and Pinawa, and to spend the rest of the day climbing around on the rocks I so loved as a young’un. Maybe I’ll get around to it one of these summers.

More!: Yeah. There’s still more here. Hell, I could go on nearly forever with stories of my youth in any of these categories. It just so happens that the ones that take place outside sound infinitely less boring to everyone else. There were a lot of other places we’d head out to see what we could see, often against our wills. The Pinawa Dam was close enough that we didn’t mind going, but there still wasn’t much of interest. Point Du Bois was much farther away, and while it held a bunch of great memories for my grandparents and dad, there’s like nothing there that’s even remotely interesting to anyone who never lived/spent summers there. There were all sorts of other landmarks that my grandparents liked to take us to, like a big ol’ suspension bridge, and yet another dam. All were pretty boring and mosquito-filled, but in the end, I appreciate them taking us, because as lackluster as they are, they still count as good memories.

Woof. Considering that I haven’t tapped even half the pictures I took, this article could very well go on forever. We certainly don’t want that, now do we? No. So, keeping everyone’s best interest in mind, I’ll stop here for the moment and call it Part One. How many more will there be? Who knows! It’ll likely only be a two-parter, but if I’m as verbose with ther rest of the pictures as I’ve been with the ones I’ve posted so far, we’ll likely be seeing a Part Three as well. But that’ll be the absolute limit. Even if I tried, there’s no way I could justify doing this in a four-part series. I guess you can’t really put a limit on your memories, but the honest truth is that most of the events that I found significant and still dream happily about would be viewed as horribly mundane by pretty much anyone else. So keep an eye out for number two. Given how long it took me to finish this one, we should be seeing it by the second half of 2011.

It’s bringin’ me to my knees

When The Tall One turned 18, he got himself a new cell phone and one of them fancy-pants plans. That left his pay-as-you-go phone out in the cold. Over the next couple months money was passed under the table and blood was spilt, and phones changed hands all over the place. In the end, I ended up with a free cell phone. It’s a third-gen hand-me-down, but hey, it’s not like I ever planned to use the thing. I had no intent of getting a cell phone ever, but I accepted and it’s actually bailed me out of a couple sticky situations.

In any case, as I am wont to do, I quickly started browsing for games to play on the thing. Yeah, I know pretty much all mobile games except Bejeweled suck, but it was something I needed to see with my own eyes. And that’s why I have the mobile version of MegaMan 2.

Ya heard me. I downloaded MegaMan 2 for my cell phone. It was a horrible idea and overexpensive, but I stand by my decision, because really, it’s not as bad as you might assume.

Don’t get me wrong, shit doesn’t even match up to the legendary NES version, even though it’s almost exactly the same. The level layouts mimic the original perfectly, from each enemy to every power-up item. All the bosses are present, and they all follow the exact same patterns they did almost 20 years ago. In this respect, it’s a perfect port. Oh, except for the disappearing blocks. Those are all gone. But personally, I consider that a plus. I fucking hate the disappearing blocks.

However, there’s more than just content to worry about, most importanly being how the game plays. Maybe it works better on more powerful mobiles, but on my phone, MegaMan 2 runs at about half speed. This alone makes the game unabashedly easy. Remember how you could never get past QuickMan’s stage because of those Godforsaken lasers? Yeah, at half speed, they’re totally nerfed. I flew by the entire stage without even thinking about using the Time Stopper. Also, Mega jumps about 1.5 times his regualr jump height, and you can imagine that that makes things a lot easier too. If you put the game speed back to normal, the extra jumping power alone would be enough to see you through some of the most difficult parts of the game.

But there’s gotta be other downsides to the game besides being too easy, right? Oh totally. The original music is all there, and it’s decent quality too. The issue is that all the tracks are about half their original length, and do not loop well at all. For the first time in the history of ever, playing MegaMan 2 with the sound off is actually a good idea. Also, the stage backgrounds are missing, but that’s a problem that I can easily see past. I actually didn’t even notice they were gone until I got to FlashMan’s stage, so yeah.

Do I recommend MegaMan 2 mobile? Honestly, no. It’s playable, but it’s still a complete butchery of the best MegaMan game ever. I can say all the good things I want about it, but you just can’t match up to dusting off your NES and ricking the original. Capcom probably hasn’t made a MegaMan Powered Up! 2 because they know that no matter how much they improve it, MegaMan fans will likely shun it as a bastardization of their holy grail. I’d sure like it though. But don’t get the mobile one. Unless you totally suck at platformers and want to see the end. Even then you’re better off just trying to find a Game Genie.

Behind the lens

While we’re throwing out curveballs here, I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to talk about Pokémon Snap. Not the most popular game to grace the Nintendo 64, I was immediately drawn in by the game, mostly because at the time I was at the peak of my Poké-fandom. I played it a lot, actualy, which is odd, because I ended up thinking very little of the game. I guess I got a lot of entertainment out of it, but the conclusion I drew at the end was that it wasn’t a very good game.

I guess I must have missed something though. A while ago, I was listening to the Pokémon episode of Retronauts, and while they only briefly touched on it, I got the impression that the cast generally enjoyed the game. And then it was announced for Virtual Console a couple weeks ago, and bloggers everywhere rejoiced. I was curious as to what exactly was going on. Did the world outside me and my circle of friends like Pokémon Snap? Seems so, as a modicum of research has proven that the game received pretty respectable review scores back when it was originally released.

This entire story culminates in the game being released today on the Wii’s Virtual Console service. Swept up in the mania leading up to it’s release, I downloaded it myself, and played for about an hour tonight. Somewhat surprised, I actually got into the game again! Dunno how, but while Snap is short and doesn’t provide a ton of substance, it’s actually pretty interesting while it lasts. It isn’t one of the games I was really hoping for, but in the end, I’m of the opinion that this should have been on the VC long ago.

See, the thing about Pokémon Snap is that it is a textbook example of the kind of game Nintendo is trying to associate with the Wii. It’s a totally casual game about taking pictures. There’s virtually no pace at all, making it a pretty relaxing experience. You can take up the camera and play for a short while, but still walk away feeling like you’ve spent your time well, assuming you got some decent shots. People with literally no game-playing experience could pick it up and play so easily, becoming Poké-photography masters in little to no time. Again, it’s short, but technically so is Space Invaders, and people have been known to spend hours with that. Pokémon Snap is not about getting to the end or completing Oak’s Report, it’s about getting unique and high-scoring pictures. A beefed-up sequel would be an excellent Wii title.

All of this, and it heralds a new age for the Virtual Console as well! Pokémon Snap is the first Virtual Console game with added Wii functionality, something Nintendo commonly talked about when the Wii was still known as the Revolution. In the VC edition of Snap, players can choose one picture a day to export to their Wii message board and send to friends. It’s not much, but it’s a sign that Nintendo is finally adding things to their classics. Hopefully something a little more significant is in the works (Leaderboards? Online multiplayer?), but for now let’s rejoice that they’re actually working a little something new in here and there. This may be even better than when they started doling out import games, depending on where it leads.

In the end, buying Pokémon Snap again for $10 isn’t too bad. I think I’ll get my money’s worth from the game a second time, and possibly even moreso now that I can flood people’s Wii message boards with pictures of Bulbasaur. Again, I think a sequel would be a great idea. It could be essentially the exact same game, but with more levels and all four billion Pokémon. Hell, it could even make a decent WiiWare title once that service launches. Probably just a pipe dream, but I’m certain it would sell more than the hugely disappointing Pokémon Battle Revolution.

Inevitable schminevitable

For the longest time, I was pretty dead-set against the PSP. Neither it or the DS really took off right away, but the DS eventually became the hugest runaway success the video game world has ever seen. I often stop and laugh at people who said the DS would fail when I see them playing one, and I feel really good inside. On the other end though, I ended up feeling kind of sorry for the PSP. It’s really not a bad machine, I just place my main loyalties with Nintendo. So in the summer of ’06, I eventually decided to buy one. I’ve had some good times with it, but I can’t say it was a wholly justified purchase. At least it wasn’t until recently.

One of the main reasons I even bought the thing was because I heard the game pictured to the left of this paragraph was going to be made specifically for the handheld. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles is a remake of one of the very few Vania games never to see light in North America, Rondo of Blood. You can head to a handful of the sites I ahve links to on the navi bar there, and get the whole drawn-out story on Rondo, so I’m going to concentrate on what I think of the game.

There are actually three games in the Dracula X Chronicles; the Rondo of Blood remake, the original Rondo, and the Playstation classic Symphony of the Night. I already own the Xbox Live arcade version of Symphony, so for me it’s just nice to have a portable version, unlike for some people where its inclusion would be a deal-maker. Seems redundant, but you can never play through Symphony of the Night too many times.

The Rondo of Blood remake, which would be the feature title here (the other two need to be unlocked), is a great game. Decked out in superb new 3D visuals, it’s remake quality on par with the Gamecube’s version of Resident Evil. The game plays nearly identically, but there are minor adjustments and additions here and there that add so much more than the sum of their parts. For one, you can collect hidden music files and change the music of every level to your liking. This means, essentially, that you could put the BGM of every level to “Vampike Killer” should you so choose. The SotN music is available to choose from (once found) as well, so that adds a lot for people who are into the audio bit. And considering the Castlevania series’ penchant for beautiful scores, that should be everyone.

The 3D aspect of the game is mostly for visual goodness, but it also makes the game slightly easier. While all the bosses telegraph their moves in the original game, the 3D models have much more pronounced animation sequences than the sprite versions, so it’s a bit easier to see what’s coming. That doesn’t mean that the game is a cakewalk though. Old Castlevania games are tough as nails, and Rondo of Blood is no exception. Richter Belmont is a bit more agile than his ancestors, but that only helps so much. Maria Renard is newly unlockable in the remake, and she’s got some pretty cheap attacks, but taking down Dracula and his hordes of monsters is still no easy task.

I guess there’s probably some other stuff that I may have neglected to mention, but it all boils down to one thing: the game is fun. Maybe I’m a ‘Vania fanboy, but it’s the second most played PSP game I own next to Megaman Maverick Hunter X, and I own the FF Tactics remake. And now that I think of it, the PSP is becoming a haven for remakes. It’s not quite as bad as the GBA was with all the direct ports of SNES games, but the fact that its best content has all been seen before is almost as sad as how badly the DS is stomping it. Meh. I’m not complainaing. Portable versions of some of my favourite games are A-OK with me.

Top 7: Virtual Console Wishlist

It’s now nearing the end of November, and snow has finally hit the ground in ol’ Winnipeg, and that means that over here at Torrential Equilibrium, we’re starting to get into the Christmas mood. It’s always a wonderful time of year, filled with delicious feasts and candy, hours upon hours spent dreaming about gifts, and just generally hanging out with family and friends and having a good time.

During the last couple years, we’ve been on the fence about the whole secularization of Christmas deal, but spending two holiday seasons in retail has proven that while people talk an admirable game when it comes to what they think Christmas is all about, it’s really just about consumerism in the end. And to that end, we’ve decided just to accept it, as one little website can’t even hope to make even the slightest ripple of change. But it’s okay. Sometimes going along for the ride has its benefits. Like being able to write articles about stuff one hopes to acquire during the season.

This particular list has a very specific focus: what Virtual Console games we’d like to see by the end of the year. Last year, Christmas fell on a Monday, and Nintendo offered a delicious bounty of AAA titles (Super Mario Bros, Super Castlevania IV, Street Fighter II, ToeJam & Earl, and R-Type) for the Virtual Console. The odds that they can top that lineup in one week are slim, so rather than say it’s a list of games we want to see on Christmas Eve, we’re saying it’s a list of what we want by 2008.

Now that our mission is stated, we’ll take a second to explain a couple generalities of our picks. First off, we’ve picked three NES games and two games each from the Super NES and N64. Genesis, TG16 and NeoGeo were omitted because frankly, we haven’t played many – if any at all – games for those consoles outside what’s already been offered on the Virtual Console service. Secondly, they may not all be super high quality, but they’ve all got a certain flair that makes them appealing to us, at least. Sometimes it’s a franchise bias, sometimes it’s a company bias, but mostly it’s rosy nostalgia glasses. Lastly, we’re only choosing from games released in North America to help keep the list down to seven titles. If we were to delve into imports, this list could go on forever and a day.

GI JOE

GI Joe is a game that we spent many, many hours on in our youth. In fact, it’s probably within our top ten NES games where time played is the deciding factor. We still quite enjoy booting this one up in an emulator now and then, just to see if we can finally get past that stupid desert level. It hasn’t happened yet.

In any case, we still really enjoy this game, even though the difficulty level is particularly brutal. It’s usually pretty fair though, and cheap deaths aren’t as common as in, say, the Legend of Kage. GI Joe is a particularly solid platform shooter, and is one of the earliest games we can recall where your character choice makes a difference. There were five Joes to choose from, Duke, Rock ‘n Roll, Blizzard, Captain Grid-Iron, and Snake-Eyes. Each mission starts by selecting a team of three, but really, it was just a matter of which other two Joes you’d be teaming up with Snake-Eyes. Who wouldn’t pick Snake-Eyes?

Levels were pretty straightforward, generally consisting of getting the Joes from point A to point B, and then facing a soul-crushingly difficult boss. On occasion, there are a couple levels where there are a set number of bombs to find and diffuse before exiting the area to face the boss. These were often far more difficult than the regular stages, because the stages were huge, and littered with secret paths, some that had to be found to get to a bomb. Some may call it cheap, but if we recall correctly, the hidden paths that led to bombs were usually more obvious than the ones that just hid power-ups.

The last thing we feel we need to note is that the Joes can commandeer several Cobra vehicles. The Cobra Copter was found early in the game and obviously, provided the ability to fly and shoot the crap out of everything. The Cobra Buzz Boar was… a big buzzsaw. It rode along walls, and all we really remember it for is that one boss consisted of a battle against three of these mofos. It was a very common point of frustration. And then there was the cobra Pogo, which we frankly don’t remember using much. But it bounced real well and had a triple shot, so we suppose it was probably quite useful. Perhaps it’s just that we never got that far very often.

To say that GI Joe will definitely show up on the Virtual Console is a little premature. Whoever has the licensing rights to the new Sigma 6 cartoon obviously hates GI Joe (read: Sigma 6 is really bad), so it’s hard to say whether they’d let this quality NES game see the light of digital distribution. We can only hope, though, as we firmly believe that this game is still good, and it’s not just our fond memories for the title talking. We just hope Nintendo doesn’t shaft us with the comparably weaksauce Capcom title GI Joe: The Atlantis Factor.

Vice: Project Doom

Another one of the few NES games we spent many an hour on back in the day. Vice: Project Doom is a game that as far as we can tell, went largely unnoticed by the general public. We received it as a random gift, back in the days when we didn’t know which games to ask for so our parents just bought whichever ones caught their eye. There were a couple stinkers, but Vice was a huge winner.

First off, Vice: Project Doom is your standard side-scroller, very similar to Ninja Gaiden. The major difference in the side-scrolling gameplay is that you’ve got three weapons to choose from at any time; a sword, a gun and grenades. Oh, and also there are driving levels that play like a souped-up Spy Hunter. The game actually starts with one of these. And before we forget, there are a couple of first-person shooting levels. We never enjoyed these levels much, but the rest of the game is totally solid. There’s even cutscenes and a complicated story, though it’s not told very well, and we stopped trying to make sense of it after level two.

As opposed to GI Joe, it’s not an incredibly difficult game. There are some tough jumps (particularly in the jungle level), and the shooting levels are sometimes a little too full of enemies, but overall it’s very beatable. Which is sad because we’ve never actually gotten to the end. Made it to the last boss fight once recently, but couldn’t manage to win. We can’t quite remember if there are unlimited continues or not, but considering that fact that we usually made it pretty far into the game, and we remember dying a lot, there must have been. Games without unlimited continues are cruel.

So is there a chance of Vice showing up on the Virtual Console? We think sure, why not? In fact, Mark Bozon, an editor at IGN, also remembers and loves this game, and has been doing everything in his power to convince Sega and Nintendo to get it out there on the VC. We think that despite the fact that the last time we heard about the campaign (April), Nintendo wasn’t intending to bring it out, that it’s got a pretty good chance. It’s an excellent platformer, and highly competent Spy Hunter clone and shooter. There are certainly far more obscure titles on the service as we write this, so it’s not unlikely at all. As with pretty much any Virtual Console release, it’s just a matter of time.

Nightshade

While the rest of the world was enjoying the secret of Monkey Island, its sequel, and all sorts of other wonderful PC adventure games, this is the closest we got to the genre until we were introduced to Space Quest IV a couple years later. Nightshade isn’t exactly the greatest of adventure games (the lack of a mouse in a point-and-click being the most obvious issue), it was enough to get us into the genre, and by the time we started playing PC adventures, we had a pretty good idea what was going on.

Nightshade is the best and only adventure game we’ve played on the NES. Though given how much we still enjoy it, we’re tempted to say that it would still be our favourite even if we had played any others. The story is light, being about a crime boss taking over Metro City and one guy going out to stop him, but unlike other games in the genre, the story is actually the least interesting part of the game. Basic adventure gameplay rules apply, essentially checking stuff, finding items, and using those items on other things. The adventuring part is much like Sam & Max in that it’s only really difficult because the items are often used in places you’d never expect. There are timed puzzles too, like at the beginning of the game, Nightshade tied up in a chair with a bomb ticking at his feet, and these help to liven up the pace of the game.

The only part of that game that really hits a sour note is that there is combat. Combat that isn’t executed overly well. We can’t think of anything in particular to liken it to, but we’ve never found that the fighting system worked too well. Or maybe the developers just made the enemies too hard, we’re not sure. In any case, it’s probably the only reason we’ve never made it to the end of the game. There are plenty of enemies, though the bulk of them are avoidable, with the exception of the bosses, of course.

As with most great adventure games, or at least, every one we’ve ever enjoyed, Nightshade is full of humour. The story takes kind of a back seat, but the writing is still actually really impressive for a NES game. Most of the citizens have multiple lines of dialogue, and a lot of those lines are one-liners. Being that there aren’t a ton of people to converse with, Nightshade also spews out plenty of wit when examining objects or using things. Why any games strive to be serious when comedy is so enjoyable is far beyond out grasp.

Seeing Nightshade on the Virtual Console seems like all but a pipe dream. It was never popular, but again, obscurity shouldn’t be too much of a factor. More likely to impede its induction is that fact that it isn’t really a niche title either. Vice: Project Doom actually has a small following, but we don’t think anyone outside one guy we hung out with as a kid and the dude who wrote up the Wikipedia page even knows this game exists. Licensing issues shouldn’t be too bad, as Beam Software does still exist as Krome Studios Melboure. However, it’s probably not going to happen. If games like Shadowgate and Déjà Vu start showing up on the VC, then our hopes will be lifted, but until then, all we can do is emulate illegally.

Earthbound

Be honest now, who didn’t see this one coming? Obviously Earthbound is one of the games with huge demand of Virtual Console representation. The only problem with it? Nintendo of America hates Earthbound fans. We won’t complain too much though, because Nintendo of Europe hates Earthbound fans even more.

The original game in the series, Mother was released on the NES many ages ago, translated for North American release, but then scrapped at the last moment. Earthbound was eventually released over here, but sold far less than expected, and never made it to Europe. The most recent game in the series, Mother 3 (on the Game Boy Advance), hasn’t even been considered for release outside of Japan. Nintendo of America has even flat-out said “Nope, we ain’t doin’ it. Fuck you guys.” That may be paraphrased, but the idea is the same.

Anywho, there’s more to Earthbound than the fact that it’s the only game in a wonderful series we’ve ever gotten out of Nintendo. First off, it’s an RPG by Nintendo, which in itself is exceptionally rare. And while it may play exactly like Dragon Quest, it’s still got plenty of unique features to stand on. First off, it’s set in modern times instead of the usual bland medieval fantasy setting. This alone is refreshing enough, but it’s also got a thick coat of humour, and as we made clear when talking about Nightshade, we love humour. Everything about the game is charmingly oddball, and it’s just a shame we never got to see the rest of the Mother games.

From the blue-loving Happy Happy cultists to the fact that one of the main characters is named Poo, everything about Earthbound is wonderful. But as great as it is, it’s also a bit confusing at times. It’s one of those games where you actually have to pay attention to what people are saying. Yeah, one of those titles that was made before companies started highlighting the important words with different colours. To tat end, the game originally came packaged with the official Nintendo player’s guide. When we rented the game, Blockbuster courteously made sure to provide said guide as well, but that obviously won’t be so easy when it comes to the Virtual Console.

So what can Nintendo do? The Wii doesn’t currently have any multitasking abilities, so it’s not like they can put the guide on a separate channel. They could provide a digitized version instead of the half-assed manual they stick with every game, and since it’s accessible in-game, it’s totally possible. We don’t expect to see that level of devotion though. For any other game series, maybe, but to reiterate, Nintendo hates Earthbound fans. The game will be released on Virtual Console eventually though, that much is guaranteed. We just hope that NoA decides to put it on there before the year 2011.

Secret of Evermore

Secret of Evermore is a huge anomaly in the world of video games. Probably for the best though. It’s a game by Squaresoft that was never released in Japan. Yeah. totally nuts. But that part aside, we really enjoyed the game. Apparently a spin-off of the Secret of Mana series, the game play essentially the same, with a similar combat system, and Mana’s ring menus. The big differences between Evermore and Mana are in the settings and the magic system.

Most RPGS, traditional, action or otherwise, are set in similar worlds. They’re always placed in a kind of generic fantasy setting. Earthbound was a nice departure from that mold, and Secret of Evermore also changes things up a bit. The story is based on time travel, and since the opening sequence is specifically set in the USA, the game obviously draws its inspiration for locations from human history. In all, there are four time periods; a caveman world, a Rome-/Egypt-based world, a medieval world, and a future world. Not really the most unique locales, but they certainly add a level of variety you don’t often get in this kind of game.

The magic system is even better, possibly because it’s not magic at all. Instead of some mystical force with which your character uses to light enemies on fire and whatnot, you’re granted the power of alchemy. So instead of leveling up and learning new spells, the main chracter learns new alchemy recipes from people and books. Instead of a given number of magic points to use, he has to forage the landscape (with the help of his dog) for materials to use for each recipe. Some materials can also be bought from shops scattered throughout the lands. It all sounds a bit more complex than necessary, but in reality, it works very well and provides a great number of abilities and choices to the main character, as opposed to a meager list of less than a dozen spells.

Being a Secret of Mana clone, as far as basic gameplay goes, Secret of Evermore works really well. This was of course, back in the day when the Mana series didn’t get a little worse with each installment. The basic combat systems are very similar if not the exact same, and the only real step back is that it’s only a single player game. We’ve spent a lot of good time playing Secret of Mana with others, and it’s just a shame that the fun can’t really be shared in Evermore. The plot only calls for one main character though, so it is an understandable loss. A second player could conceivably control the boy’s dog, but the two must be used separately at times, and having to wait for another player to finish a solo part of the game could really kill the multiplayer energy. And having to sniff out everything for the other player would be tedious as Hell.

Square-Enix hasn’t put forth a lot of support for the Virtual Console yet, but the fact that their first game on the service was Actraiser and not a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest title really speaks to Evermore’s chances of being added. Actraiser was in the exact same boat: not extremely popular, but an undeniably solid game that has enough of a fanbase to make the company some money. We know Evermore doesn’t have the following of SE’s bigger franchises, but it’s still a high quality game and should not be overlooked.

Super Smash Bros

Super Smash Bros Brawl is wihtout a doubt the most anticipated Wii game there has been since its announcement. It will probably be the best selling game on the Wii, much like Melee is for the GameCube. Nintendo went and broke our hearts when they pushed the release date back from December 4th to February 10th. To make up for this injustice (besides making sure Brawl is the best game it can be), Nintendo should give us the original Smash Bros to make up for it.

By this point, everyone must have an idea of what Super Smash Bros is all about. It’s probably not quite as far-reaching as Guitar Hero, but it has most certainly garnered a gigantic fanbase. Very few gamers will deny the majesty that is the Smash Bros series, and the ones who do simply hate fun. Also they murder puppies.

For the few who don’t know what Smash is, it’s a fighting game that stars a handful of Nintendo’s most popular mascot characters, from Mario to Pikachu to Fox McCloud. The difference between Smash and other fighters is that Smash is totally accessible to anyone. Players don’t need to learn complex button combinations or figure out the best way to chain attack together. Combos are mostly nonexistent and special moves can all be performed with a single button. It’s this simplicity that draws in the casual crowd, and the fact that it’s incredibly fun that brings in the core gamers.

But with Melee in pretty much every home that has a Wii or GameCube and Brawl on the way, do people really want to play the bare-bones original? Why not? The game itself holds up very well, and being able to play it with a GC controller instead of the N64 monstrosity would brighten more than a few people’s days. Frankly, we’re looking forward to it because despite all the other additions, we vastly prefer the original stages to those in Melee. Don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is. Also, we feel that the first game’s version of the single-player “Classic Mode” is a little more satisfying than Melee’s.

Super Smash Bros is definitely going to show up on the Virtual Console soon. Ideally, we’ll see this on December 3rd to fill in for the delayed Super Smash Bros Brawl, but it’s more likely that Nintendo will hold onto it until the end of January to hype the release of Brawl. It’s coming either way, but here’s hoping that we get it sooner than later. If it were released now, we’d be playing it for two and a half months to come, but if they put it out right before Brawl, we’ll all forget about it come the new game’s release. But Nintendo doesn’t care, because either way, they’ll be making money hand over fist. We’re just saying it would make a nice Christmas gift is all.

Banjo-Kazooie

The last game on our list is probably the most controversial. The bulk of the other games that people wouldn’t ask for are that way because they’re obscure and most wouldn’t even know what they are. Banjo-Kazooie, on the other hand, has a very polarizing effect on people. Half the gaming population love it, finding it to be a fantastic adventure with plenty to do, a hilarious cast of characters, and a wonderful soundtrack. The other half see it as a dreadful collect-a-thon. The fact of the matter, is that both sides are right.

Banjo-Kazooie is the first in a long line of Super Mario 64 imitators, only instead of challenging, gameplay related objectives, the majority of the game revolves around collecting various widgets. Or, at least, that’s what the nay-sayers would tell you. They’re right, there is a lot of collecting, but most of it does require a bit of skill, and let’s not forget that it encourages exploring. Searching every corner or a map just to search every corner of the map is all well and good, but having something there to find, be it a major item or just some ammo, certainly makes the trip more worth it.

The nice thing about Banjo-Kazooie is that it’s not as bad as people say. Banjo-Tooie and spiritual sequel Donkey Kong 64 were both far more mini-game oriented as far as challenges go, but Banjo-Kazooie’s rewards are more dedicated to the explorers and the platformers. It features a lot more actual gameplay without substituting mini-games where the developers couldn’t think up any more level-based challenges. This isn’t to say that there isn’t the odd mini-game, but they’re far more spread out, and feel less tedious as a result.

Being a Rare game, there’s also a good amount of humour in Banjo-Kazooie. for the most part, it’s rather blunt, with characters blatantly making fun of each other, but there are a few points where the game can produce a LOL or two. Another attribute that was very common in Rare games at the time was that some female characters were, well, vigorously endowed. It’s not really a point that will make anyone sway either way, but while it’s not overly apparent in BK, in later titles it just gets shameless. All of that pretty much culminates into Conker’s Bad Fur Day, which is another game we’d like to see on the VC, but that’s just not going to happen.

Banjo-Kazooie itself is very questionable as far as whether it will ever be a Virtual Console club member. The obvious roadblock is that Microsoft now owns Rare, and most companies won’t help to make games available for the competition’s systems. The only reason we even suggest it is because despite this little issue, Rare has been and is continuing to support Nintendo’s handheld scene. If Banjo-Kazooie were to show up on Virtual Console, Rare would just be raking in free money, as there’s obviously not much work going into these releases other than the lame manuals and making sure the emulation works right. At $10 a pop, any of those minor costs would be recouped within a day’s time.

We carry on

Imagine, if you will, a play composed and performed by retarded monkeys. That would basically be your localization of Final Fantasy Tactics. The PSP port, The War of the Lions, on the other hand, is more akin to reading Shakespeare. No, really. I expected the story to be comprehensible this time around, but the thickness of the dialect they applied is astounding (in a good way). Let’s just say the improved loacalization alone is more than enough reason to play through the game. There. If you’re not sold on the fact that now you’ll be able to tell what in God’s name is going on, then read on.

I guess the only other real addition to the game I’ve seen yet (I’m on mission five, which is about as far as I’ve ever managed to get in FFT) is the revolutionary new “cutscene” feature. It’s this thing where instead of always having the fat little sprites quibble about with their text boxes, once in a while there’s animation and voice. But seriously, the cutscenes are beautiful. The style is so very inspired, and makes me happy to be watching my game instead of playing it. Or at least makes me forget the irritation of having just sat through twenty minutes of tubby sprites gabbing at each other.

Ummm… I dunno. If I have to gripe, it’s that they didn’t add an easy mode for people like me. I can shred through killer solos in Guitar Hero, but for the life of me I cannot manage to successfully get five heavily-armed men to take out three unarmed goblins. It’s a wonderful game though, regardless of how much I suck at it. But hey, on the upside, at least the outcome of the war between Heaven and Hell won’t be resting on my shoulders.

Baby BANG! BANG! BANG!

Here’s an interesting one. I don’t know if you’ve ever played Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-kun (roughly translated as Kid Dracula), but there’s something odd about Dracula-kun. See, the thing is that he looks alarmingly similar to the comic representation of myself. I’m sure you’ve seen the Ryan character a million times by now, but just take a look at lil’ Dracky-Kun!

The similarity is undeniable! I was so shocked by this revelation that I even wrote and drew a comic about it. Not great comic by any standards, but it gets the point out there.

So obviously if there’s any plagiarist here, it’s me, because the original Kid Dracula was released on the ~~NES~~ Famicom waaaay back in 1991. But even then it was only ever released in Japan. I did read the article in Nintendo Power about the Game Boy version like a million times though, so maybe it just kind of burned the character into my mind. Who knows? As a character whose appearance has changed quite a lot over time, I obviously never planned Ryan to look like that, but the powers that be had other plans, I guess. Thing is, I would have lived my entire life without noticing if it weren’t for the magic of ROMs. To celebrate, let’s all go play some ROMs. Particularly Kid Dracula!

This song’s about anal

I got a frightening E-mail the other day, letting me know that Pandora would no longer be providing its service to Canadian interwebbers. I thought it was just a really bad joke, but it turns out it’s true. This makes sadness. I’m sure there’s some crazy garbage I could shove into one of my web browsers that would keep the site from detecting my location, but then I remembered that I have well over 25 gigabytes of music on my hard drive, and my CD count is coming around to about 200. So yeah. I’ll miss the occasional new bands that I like (gotta thank Pandora for Gary Hoey and The Pink Spiders), but overall, I guess sticking iTunes on random play is more than good enough to fill the void.

I knew he’d mention them eventually, but I beat Matt to the Shrek Snickerses by one day! So check that out to see what someone who knows how to work a camera thinks of them.

All the old people on the internet have really been abuzz this week. Why? Apparently everyone in the world already knew that ActRaiser is an awesome game, and they’re just delighted that it’s shown up on the Virtual Console. Me? I tried the ROM once, died and gave up. Turns out I missed out on a wicked game.So I plunked down the 800 or whatever Wii Points it cost, and I’ve got to say it’s my best purchase yet. Tecmo Bowl notwithstanding, in three days, it’s already the Virtual Console game I’ve spent the most time with, and considering I’ve got Super Mario 64, StarFox 64, and A Link to The Past on there, that’s really saying something. But yeah, ActRaiser is an Enix game, so of course it’s awesome. I’m hoping for maybe some Wonder Project J in the future… or even better – a new Wonder Project specifically for Wii! But God forbid Square-Enix makes a sequel to a totally original game when they can keep inundating the industry with more and more Final Fantasy garbage (and occasional Dragon Quest goodness).

Who’ll be the lonely one

There have been a lot of little thoughts bouncing around inside my skull lately, and I’ll probably end up getting around to blogging about most of them sometime soon. So the blog will probably continue to be active for a while to come. But maybe not. You see, today was a very good day to have Wii Points, as two really awesome games have landed, and I may very well be absorbed in those for a while.

I’ve been waiting for it since the day I got my Wii, and finally finally StarFox 64 is available on the Virtual Console. It’s like the second best StarFox game ever (I like Command only slightly more), and goddamn I loves loves loves StarFox. Pretty much anyone who knows me can attest to that. The real challenge here will be tricking people into playing multiplayer with me. Though really, I’m not that great at StarFox where playing against me isn’t worth the trouble. Also the NES classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles showed up as a complete surprise to me. I must have logged a hojillion hours into that game in my youth and never gotten past that one really hard jump in level three. I downloaded it mostly out of nostalgia but also because I’ve made a promise to myself to finally beat it. That may, of course, be easier said than done, because the game is really flippin’ hard. April’s continued support means nothing!

To make matters worse, Guitar Hero 2 for the 360 lands in two days, and while I may have been able to resist the call otherwise, I cannot just turn away from the chance to play “Rock And Roll Hoochie Koo”. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that me and the tall one bought an Xbox 360 last Monday. I’ve pretty much been playing Dead Rising, Gears of War and Hexic all week, but failed to even mention them even once. Oops. Making my bank account even less happy with me, Super Paper Mario is a requisite purchase for anyone with a Wii and common sense, and that happens on the 9th, or so my sticky note of important releases tells me. Thank God I still have a small wad of tax return money, or else there’s no way in Hell that even I could justify spending so much in such a small period of time. And I pretty much hate money, so that says a lot.