Complete Donkey Kong Game & Watch!

March 26, 2013 by stopXwhispering

The history: As some of you might already know, I didn’t get any games as a kid, however, my thirteen year older brother did! I know because when I was really young I got his old Donkey Kong Game & Watch passed down to me, so in a way I did get games, but only one and it wasn’t originally intended for me. I loved this Game & Watch though. I played it all the time, all through the summers I was walking around with it, until it was one day lost. I don’t know what happened to it, if I forgot it at my aunts summerhouse, or if I just misplaced it or something, but ever since I’ve been missing it immensely! And I have always been keeping an eye out for it the last couple of years on eBay. I’ve bid on so many orange Donkey Kong Game & Watch systems that I lost count, but never won them >-< Until now!!

I finally got my hands on a complete in box Donkey Kong Game & Watch Multiscreen! It’s all orange and pretty and brings back so many memories ^_^

The box is a bit worn around the edges and has a price tag on it but apart from that everything is in pretty nice condition ^_^

This game is so much fun! I also have the Game & Watch with Donkey Kong II which is also awesome, but this one brings back so many memories ^_^

The manual is also in really nice condition, here’s some outtakes from it, explaining the gameplay ^_^

And the other little paper inlays inside ^_^

It’s a japanese edition, but I don’t really care, it’s the same game and the same amount of nostalgia and fun ^_^
What’s your most nostalgic game? Let me know in the comments below :D

Sega Sunday #2 – 8bit Altered Beast

March 25, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I love Altered Beast, I grew up playing it on the Sega Mega Drive. Once I started collecting video games I found out it was originally an arcade game and there were ports to several home consoles. Most people know about the Sega Mega Drive Altered Beast, but it was also released for the Sega Master System, the NEC PC Engine (both on HU-card and on CD-ROM) and finally I have also found a port of the Altered Beast (Jūōki) game for the Famicom! There’s probably more that I don’t know about..

This Famicom version surprised me though since Sega and Nintendo were such big competitors and Altered Beast were one of Sega’s pearls. But it actually says copyright Sega really tiny in the bottom of the cartridge.

Here’s all the Altered Beast games I have and know about:

Tonight I’ve been playing the 8-bit versions on Famicom and Sega Master System to compare the two. The Famicom version has been totally re-done by Asmik, and compared to all the other ports of Altered Beast this one really stands out. It’s faster, the character isn’t as stiff as he is in the other Altered Beast games and the sprites have gotten a cute and more rounded makeover, compared to the masculine muscular macho-style of the original ^^ You also have 3 continues which makes the game a bit easier. Here’s a comparison of screenshots from the Famicom version and the Sega Master System version:

What’s really interesting though is that in the Famicom version they’ve put in a whole new stage as a second stage, the regular stage that I’m used to where you transform into a dragon is the third stage of the Famicom version. In this stage you transform into a lion and the stage boss is a pig ^^ I think you will be able to transform into a shark in later stages as well (based on the box cover art)

On the Famicom version I managed to get to the stage where you transform into a bear, which in this version is stage 4. On the Master System version I didn’t even manage to get to the first boss before getting a game over >_< This version is if possible even stiffer than the Mega Drive one. I have beaten the Mega Drive Altered Beast a few years ago after I figured out you could change settings and increase your amount of health and lives, but this Master System version is really really hard and I haven’t found any way to get continues or an easier setting..

The game over text is much cuter in the Famicom version ^_^

I managed to record my efforts on Jūōki for the Famicom, but I was too lazy to bring out the DVD burner to record my failures in the Sega Master System version.. Anyway, here’s the video of my gameplay from Altered Beast on the Famicom, check it out since it’s got some pretty sweet 8-bit Altered Beast tunes! :D

Sega Sunday #1 – Shiten Myooh

March 17, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Sega Sunday has a nice ring to it! I will try to post something Sega related on sundays hereafter ^_^ Just based on the amount of Sega games I own I would be able to make a new Sega Sunday for 7,5 years!! :D haha

The Sega game I will cover today was released in Japan and it’s called Shiten Myooh! I bought it only because of the name, it made me giggle ^^ It turned out to be a pretty cool game though!

Shiten Myooh is a Sega Mega Drive game, and it’s got some pretty cool artwork!

I was so happy when I tried it and found out it was an action platformer where you can play co-op with a friend! :D There’s 4 characters to choose from, if you’re playing solo these 4 characters basically mean you have 4 lives before you’re game over. However if your playing 2 players you only have 2 lives each since there’s still only 4 characters to choose from.

If a characters dies you won’t be able to use them again:

Here are the character profiles (in japanese), scanned from the manual:

There’s 6 main stages, and before each stage you can choose which character you wanna play, they all have different abilities and special powers that can be useful in various situations, so there is probably strategic choices you can make depending on the stage.

During the stages you can pick up powerups. Not until at the very end we realized that depending on the color of the item it belonged to certain characters, and picking them up with the wrong character would just make it disappear. We also figured out that you can change characters during the stages to enable you to pick up the right powerup.

After each stage there’s a boss, some where really difficult, even on the first couple of stages! It was easier when you were 2 players, but if one died and had no characters left you were left alone to finish it. You have unlimited with continues though, so as long as you beat a boss that stage would be cleared.

So I tried this out with my friend Annett first, and we almost beat the game (so we thought)! We just couldn’t get past the forest stage that required simultaneous precision jumping, if one fell both would fail.. However I tried the game a few weeks later with my friend NinjaBrite and we managed to beat that damn Forest stage! That’s when we found out there was also a 7th stage.. and an 8th stage.. and a final boss! Here’s a scan of the manual showing the final stages:

Now after beating the 8th stage we thought we had beat the game since there was this awfully long cutscene, looking like some dude thanking us for our effort. And also after beating the first 6 stages there’s no indication of what’s to come…

The text was all in japanese so we didn’t quite know what was going on, but I started filming the ending, still holding the controller, and BAM! There’s a final boss fight!

So here’s the movie of my reaction to the SURPRISE BOSS FIGHT! :D (excuse the Swedish gibberish) ;D

New design!

March 14, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I decided to change the design on my blog a bit. Make it easier for the reader to find posts by showing previews and also changing to a theme that gave me more room to work with menus ^_^ I hope you will all like it! It might take some time to get used to, feel free to express your opinions! :D

I still have some work to do with the menus, and also the collection libraries since all the Famicom tables got a bit glitchy when I changed.. but I will get that fixed as soon as possible ^^

PC Engine Collection Update!

March 9, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Got a lot of new games for the PC Engine, especially a lot of CD-ROM games now that i have a Duo! :D
So now I’ve split up the PC Engine Library into 2, HU-Cards and CD-ROM games.

I’ve added over 60 games today in both libraries, here’s some of them:

You can find the PC Engine HU-card games here:

and the PC Engine CD-ROM games here:

Magician Lord for Neo Geo

March 5, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Clearing games on the Neo Geo X Gold isn’t really too hard. Simulating an arcade game where you would have unlimited coins basically gives you unlimited continues. You just have to be persistent and not give up half-way through, and that’s what I did yesterday for about an hour ^_^ I managed to clear Magician Lord on the NeoGeo X Gold. I did however use A LOT of continues!

Magician Lord is a side-scrolling platform game starring the wizard Elta. You only have 2 in health unless you pick up orbs that gives you more powers, you might even transform into other creatures. For example a 2-legged dragon-man spitting fire, or a ninja throwing swirling sticks :) but when you get hurt you turn back into your magician self, with a big wizard hat. The various forms are: Dragon Warrior, Waterman, Poseidon, Shinobi, Samurai and Raijin, all with various abilities. I did however not find orbs to try them all out. Before the last boss you get to choose whichever form you would like to use. I choose Raijin but lost the power after about half a second ;D haha

Some stages are quite tricky since you have various paths to take and only one leads to the boss. Once you find a grey carved stone with a figure in it you find the first stage of the boss. It’s always a smaller creature to take out, once you’ve cleared him/her you will get warped up to the main boss for each stage. This is usually something larger but in my opinion easier to beat (easier to dodge). Before you encounter the big boss at the end of each stage you will get a warning from the main bad guy. These are hilarious since they are voiced! I put together a video clip of all the cutscenes before the bosses, check it out!

Sometimes hoards of enemies jump you, and you will die several times in the same spot before being able to move forward, however one nice thing is that if you die or even have to use a continue every single enemy you have taken out will still be dead (except for a few constantly re-spawning enemies) and you will begin at the exact same spot where you died.

The music of Magician Lord wasn’t very impressive, quite boring and repetitive. The graphics were ok though. There was a lot of variation in sceneries and also enemies. Here’s all the bosses:

After you’ve beaten the first seven stages and their bosses you will encounter every single mini-boss again, in a row, then you will get to the final boss.

And then it’s The End

One of the stage names really cracked me up! Hahaha.. “Anderground“, I wonder if it’s a typo or if that’s what it’s called.. ;D Judging from the cutscenes with the bad voiceovers it’s probably a mistake..