Blog Archives
Legend – SNES – 2 player playthrough
Back before I discovered King of Dragons, or Chronicles of Mystara, there was Legend. At the time I thought it was the most awesome beat ’em up ever. Two huge guys with giant barbarian weapons traipsing about the kingdom slaying….peasants…and homeless guys….? Well that last part I really didn’t think about in my youth. I just though it was a pretty rad game. Unfortunately playing this game again after about 20 years or so has not held up to the game in my memory. It’s a grossly underdeveloped game with tons of various staples of the brawler genre that are painfully missing, and just complete laziness on the developers part with lack of color palettes, no variety of BGM, poor hit detection, etc. At any rate, it is a pretty rare game, so for a collector, it’s a must have, but it’s not something I could imagine someone owning “for fun”, unless they just enjoyed playing bad games, like I do.
There is nothing that can’t be beaten with infinite continues
Possibly the most difficult game I’ve ever played, or at least in recent memory. I would have to sit down and go through the entire video game library to find another game that compares in frustrating difficulty. Of course there’s “I wanna be the guy”, but that’s in a different category altogether. That game is designed to be unfair. Hagane, despite it’s rather steep learning curve, is extraordinarily fair. You’ll die a lot, but there are tons of 1-ups, extra life drops, and most importantly, infinite continues. Without the infinite continues, I’m pretty certain I never would have beaten this game. At first, the control scheme it a bit difficult to use and is rather awkward, specifically the jumping, when compared to pretty much any other action-platformer. But after getting used to it, you realize how really well the game controls. Hagane also has some of the best level design I have ever seen from a game of its generation, and is complimented by the game’s controls. You’d really have to play the game to understand just how well they work together. And not just for like 5 minutes, you really have to commit to it. It’s like a long distance run. At first, you’re struggling and out and breath and every part of your body is telling you to stop, but then you break out of it and reach a state of euphoria.That’s Hagane.
River City Ransom Underground – Replica NES Cart Bonus!
Anyone who follows me knows how excited I am about the upcoming River City Ransom Underground, from Conatus Creative. They’ve been sending out some of their backer gifts lately in preparation for their full game launch. Anyone who was a backer from Crate Expectations on up was set to receive a replica NES cart featuring RCR: Underground art. Well as it turns out, it’s way more than a mere replica. After opening the box, I noticed that there was in fact a board inside the cart. And as I was debating on whether or not it was just a dummy board for looks, or it actually did something, I saw on the back that it had standard NES security screws officially used by Nintendo on all their carts. So I took out my bit, opened it up and lo and behold, there was an actual board in there with EPROM chips on it. Curiosity piqued, I threw it in my NES and was playing the original classic River City Ransom, which was made using all new hardware, chips, boards, shells, etc.
These carts were limited to only 300, but apparently Conatus Creative does have about 30 left. So if you weren’t a backer but you are still interested in getting this cool replica, there’s still a chance. I don’t think they’ve officially announced out how to get them yet, so keep your eyes open.
Mega Man X – 100% Run
One of my favorite Mega Man games of all time. Might even be my top favorite. There’s just so many kick ass things about it. Mega Man on the NES was always top tier, and then when I found out they were making a Mega Man game for the SNES, I was filled with almost more excitement than my little childhood body could contain. Everything about it was an improvement. Can you have a complaint about this game? Seriously, this is an action-platformer perfection.
Demon’s Crest – SNES – Full Playthrough
Full playthrough of Demon’s Crest by Gamesquad Squad. I had always wanted to play this game because I was told that is was difficult and I like a challenge, but it’s a pretty pricey cart. I guess I had the option to get it as a kid, but I was turned off by the fact that they removed a lot of the RPG elements that the NES predecessor had. Turns out that was a stupid reason not to buy the game. I finally managed to get my hands on one for a price that wasn’t too steep. The game was good, I definitely enjoyed it, but I’m a little disappointed because it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had been lead to believe. The final boss however was nearly impossible. Almost the entirety of the 3rd video is us trying to be the final boss. That’s about an hour and a half of fighting the same putz over and over. The game reminded me somewhere of a cross between Mega Man X and Act Raiser and actually did have a fair about of RPG elements to it. Also, the fact that you can fly indefinitely without a wing strength meter makes this game far superior than the other Gargoyle’s Quest games.
Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan – The Lost Levels
Finished another repro cart. Known in America as Super Mario Bros The Lost Levels, this is the official sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. game which was available on the Famicom Disk System. We of course got the remake on SNES in the form of Super Mario All-Stars. If you are interested in purchasing one of these carts, shoot me a message or send me $35 through paypal to gdraudt@gmail.com with your shipping address. I’ll knock $10 off that price if you send me a donor cart. Message me for possible donors.
SonSon NES Cart Finally Finished
Been kinda busy with things, but I managed to finally finish the label for SonSon. I kind of messed up cutting it a bit, but whatever, it’s my copy so I don’t care. I used the classic Capcom label style, a-la GunSmoke and 1942. I do plan on making an alternate label using the later Capcom label version such as on DuckTales and Rescue Rangers. Of course, if you are interested in purchasing on one of these carts, shoot me a message or send me $35 through paypal to gdraudt@gmail.com with your shipping address. I’ll knock $10 off that price if you send me a donor cart. Message me for possible donors.
Gamesquad Squad
Our Twitch account has been successfully set up and we’ve got a few good episodes under our belts at this point. Hopefully some of you stop by and chat with us while we play. We’re welcome to any requests. Actually I’d happily take requests. It’s a chance to me to play some games that I’ve always wanted to but never really had the motivation to make happen. Plus Max is usually drunk and says stupid shit.
Anyway, we don’t have any sort of schedule set up yet. Our personal lives aren’t neatly scheduled, so it’s difficult to set up a gaming schedule. We’re trying to work something out though.
http://www.twitch.tv/gamesquadsquad if you wanna check us out.
Can’t contain my hype!
Just over 3 weeks away. This is my #1 game this year. I honestly did not think I would be THIS excited about it. I thought I was tired of the whole Dynasty Warriors formula, but you know what? This really works for me. Digging the heavy metal Zelda.
What I’m even MORE excited about is Square Enix and Sony’s announcement of a limited edition metal slime PS4, which will probably never reach the states.
And of course the announcement of Dragon Quest Heroes! Oh joy of joys! For those who know me, you know I love me some Dragon Quest. Another Dynasty Warriors cross over spin-off, and a first for the Dragon Quest series, stepping outside of their standard RPG style. And will also probably never reach the states.
Zelda Hyrule Warriors – first thoughts
I got a chance to play Hyrule Warriors yesterday. It was excellent. It didn’t disappoint me at all. Granted I only got to play it for about 10 minutes, but everything I experienced was fantastic. It’s not so much that the game is flawless in it’s execution, it does have its problems, but it does exactly what I wanted it to. It kicks ass. It’s heavy metal Zelda. I remember the first time I ever played Dynasty Warriors I thought to myself, “I didn’t know they had electric guitars during the Three Kingdoms Era in China.” And I was sold immediately. No different with Hyrule Warriors. Classic Zelda tracks remixed with heavy metal guitars. It’s just fun. No mucking about in unforgiving dungeons, or frying brain cells trying to solve puzzles (not that those things are bad), it’s just constant nonstop action. Something that Zelda has never done before. Which I have no problem with, but I fear this game may fail to find it’s place in the market.
One thing Zelda games have not really had a problem with is suffering from franchise fatigue. -See Call of Duty, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed, Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero- It’s what happens when you release too many games from the same franchise too quickly without enough variation from game to game. A new Zelda release takes its time and at least attempts, if not always successful, to try to change the gameplay elements with each release. But they always, for the most part, have the same core elements to their gameplay. Hyrule Warriors being so vastly different, I feel it has a very specific niche to fill. For starters, it’s much more for the hardcore gamer, which aren’t generally found playing the Wii U. Dynasty Warriors has always been Xbox or PlayStation. And for fans of classic style Zelda games, I know the feeling of “But this isn’t MY Zelda game” is out there, and they may feel underwhelmed by the repetitive hack and slash combat, mourning the lack of adventuring and dungeon delving. It’s still Zelda, it’s just a new way of playing it. I know Nintendo wants to get more serious with their games. Hopefully this is a glimpse of what is to come. The release date, I think, is also not the best timing. It’s being released right around some other lumbering behemoths, such as Destiny. It’s likely to be overshadowed and should have had a more isolated release date.
Why does even concern me? Because I want Nintendo to be king again god dammit! I fucking love Nintendo and it saddens me to see them stumble. Yeah the Wii was a piece of trash, but the Wii U is great and there’s some great content coming out for it. I know this game is going to be awesome and I want others to share my joy. I don’t want teenaged to twenty-something males to feel emasculated playing on a Nintendo console anymore. It actually makes me sad when I see 12 year olds and all they want to play is Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. A game doesn’t need to have guns in it just to be fun to play. But that’s a discussion for another time.
gameblorg 