Amiga 500! Deliverance, Lionheart, Cannon Fodder etc.

March 7, 2015 by stopXwhispering

I have apparently completely forgotten to write about my Amiga 500, it’s soon two years since I got it! I did however at that time take a bunch of pictures of it! So here’s what it looks like ^_^ I even got a brown plastic hard case for it as well :D

After I got it I also bought a couple of games for it. I still haven’t tried all of them out, some required a mouse and I didn’t have one at the time, so I just kind of forgot about it.. But Cannon Fodder is a lot of fun, I mainly got it because my fiancé used to play it as a kid, and I was hoping he would be happy seeing it again ^_^ The other games that I did try (Universe and Space Hulk) were not as fun as advertised by the covers ;D Altered Beast is always a favorite of mine though! Great game, and I think I remember this port to be pretty decent :)

Just like a month ago I started buying more games for the Amiga 500 again :) You might have seen some of my instagram updates with Exolon and Switchblade II. Exolon didn’t have a working disc, but just last week I received two more discs from the seller, so hopefully there will be one that works! Been so excited to try that game out because the cover art is awesome!! :D Just look at that closeup of his face! The same goes for Switchblade II, I love these retro box arts :)

Apart from these two games I’ve also gotten Deliverance, Lionheart, Silkworm, ST Dragon, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Xenon 2 Megablast and Wizball! All of these were great games! I’ve decided not to just buy games based on the cover any more for Amiga 500, because there are so many games for it, and I don’ wanna end up with crappy ones. So I have now at least checked out some screenshots of the game before buying it. This only goes for Amiga though, Nintendo and Sega and all the other consoles I still go by the box art or the name of a game. I like being surprised ;D

Deliverance and Lionheart were particularly striking games! I wish I had a way of capturing screenshots from them when I played them… Really great looking games, Deliverance had a bit stiff controls but it was just so cool! :D Lionheart had amazing sprites and beautiful sceneries, and the controls were really advanced even though you just had a stick and a button to work with!

ST Dragon was a cool sidescrolling shmup :) Xenon 2 Megablast was also a good shmup, but I preferred ST Dragon.

I really prefer the NES version of TMNT to the Amiga 500 one..

Somebody recommended Wizball to me, I didn’t quite get it though.. I thought the controls were really awkward and I just kept dying >_<

The best thing about Silkworm is that it’s a 2-player co-op game! :D It sucks being the Jeep though >_<

That’s all for my Amiga update right now :) I bet I will get some more games for it eventually ^_^ I like the system, but it still feels a bit more like a computer than a video game console.. but I still like the retro games on there :) So I will keep collecting!

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

Scanning and sorting.. Hajya no Fuuin

August 10, 2012 by stopXwhispering

Collecting japanese games is always a bit tricky, especially if you don’t know any japanese. Fortunately I studied it for 4 years and lived in Tokyo for a little while, hence I can read all the Hiragana and Katakana which are phonetic alphabets. The Kanji’s however are difficult, I only know a few basic ones. Most Famicom games which contain Kanji’s in the name have tiny Hiragana above the Kanjis so you will be able to pronounce it even if you don’t know that particular Kanji.

Like for example on this Altered Beast game:

I don’t know those Kanji’s but above it I can read that it says “Jyu u o u ki”, hence I can sort them game in my excel spreadsheet alphabetically, written in both roman letters and Kanji. The joy! (I’m kind of a freak when it comes to keeping things in order..)

However, one game has really pissed me off for a couple of weeks now.. namely this one:

It says Fantasy Role Playing, and then the name of the game is in Kanji, without the help of Hiragana or Katana. I was googling and searching through lists of alla ASCII Corp games and alla Kogado Studio games but couldn’t find anything!! Eventually I remembered my japanese digital dictionary that I bought to help my studies!

This thing sure is a blessing! At the bottom you can actually write a Kanji on the touchpad and it will tell you how it’s pronounced and what it means! :D So I tried to write out these Kanjis:

And after some trial and error I finally got a bit of the name and was able to google it to get the whole thing.

A few hours later I remembered something Alana had told me about Googling pictures.. I went to try it out and WOW! I just dragged and dropped the image there and it gave me the name o_O

And I could just copy past the Kanjis into a Kanji converter online which would give me the pronunciation. Why didn’t I try this out earlier?!

It sure saved me a lot of hours today though, because I’ve been scanning and sorting for three days! All my Famicom cartridges now have a picture on my computer labeled with the correct name!

I am hoping to get up a page on my blog where I can help people out by finding names of japanese games by just looking up the image of the cartridge, with big pictures of each game cartridge and name in English / Roman letters / and in japanese plus adding publisher (such as Konami or Namco etc) and what type of game it is! I will also add an extra page with games I have doubles of, in case anybody would wish to trade ^_^

Apart from this three day scanning and sorting project I have acquired a Super Mario Bros. 3 Poster that came from the Swedish Nintendo Magazine back when the game was released. It’s so pretty! :D

And my boyfriend also found my old Nintendo CarryAll case, I haven’t seen it for years! And inside along with a manual and some other stuff I found this pretty poster of the Nintendo Game Plan with ROB! :D