Wagyan Land 3 for Famicom – review, passwords & guide

October 20, 2013 by stopXwhispering

Wagyan Land 3 is a very intuitive platform game with puzzle elements. The sprites are cute and the stages are very colorful and has a lot of variation. There are also LOADS of stages! 24 to be exact ^_^ and 16 bosses!

I have Wagyan Land 1 & 2 for the Famicom as well, and they’re ok.. but in this third one the platform elements were just a lot more fun and took a lot bigger part in the game compared to the previous Wagyan games.

Instead of fire power and hordes of enemies this game uses the colorful platform stages and gravitation to create interesting, variational and most of all fun stages! Usually Wagyan has a standard high jump, but on some stages the gravitation has been lowered so you can jump even above the screen, this also makes him move slower which makes it more challenging to dodge flying enemies or hazards.

In other stages if you hold the jump button Wagyan will flip gravitation completely so you will be walking in the ceiling, this makes it tricky when avoiding holes both in the floor and the roof. This particular type of stages have gameplay that can be compared to the more recent game VVVVV.

In some stages you will have to push buttons in order to flip gravity instead of just holding the jump button, these buttons are of course put in tricky spots where the timing of your steering has to be precise. In another stage the walls are bouncy like a pinball table, Wagyan will only jump diagonally and you will have to predict the landing point so that you will bounce off walls in the desired direction (and hopefully not into a hole in the ground) ^_^

There are even stages where he gets a jetpack and you will have to steer around, kind of like Asteroids, by boosting!

One touch of an enemy kills you instantly. You can shoot out “ギャ” and “ド” signs but they don’t make the enemies go away, they just freeze them temporarily. Depending on how much power your “gya”-sounds have the longer the enemies will stay frozen. The only items to pick up during stages are stars for points (which might lead to an extra life eventually) and little Wagyans which increase your power when shouting “GYA” ^_^ If you reach 4 in your Power meter you will become invincible :D After it wears off however your Power meter will be back down to 1…

There’s one stage where you need to use your “ギャ” shouts to get around, because they freeze in mid air and you can use them as platforms :D

There are 16 bosses in total and this is where the puzzle element comes in. There are three different types of boss fights which I will explain here. Most of them are quite easy but some do require some knowledge of basic japanese language.

Boss fight: Find-the-number-game
It’s basically what it sounds like, you get a screen with a bunch of numbers and you have to go click the one that the boss tells you to. In all of the bosses except for one (stage 12) the numbers start at 1 and go up, 2, 3, 4 etc.. but in the one on stage 12 he gives you random numbers which makes it a bit harder to predict where to go. It’s still pretty easy though since the boss is extremely slow to react and beat you to it. I only lost a few points when the boss was already standing on the number I was looking for basically ;D

Boss fight: Memory
This is just memory, the boss always starts and gets to pick two cards, then it’s your turn to pick two. If they match you get a point. The trick here is to find the pattern. The patterns are usually pretty easy once you get them. Try looking for pictures right next to each other. Here are some examples of the layouts I got, and as you can see the images are almost always either right next to each other or in a predictable pattern diagonally:

Boss Fight: Picture-word-game
This is the tricky one.. You basically need to be able to read a bit of japanese hiragana, and it’s even easier if you know some japanese names for random stuff. In the beginning you just need a few points to win so you can make a few trial-and-errors but after a few boss stages it gets harder. The objective of the game is quite simple, if the boss chooses a picture of a “Lemon” it ends with a “N” then you have to pick a picture of something that starts with a “N”, like “Nail”, then the boss has to choose a picture of something that starts with “L” and so on.. but with japanese Hiragana instead of roman letters ;D Every time you get one right you get a point.

In the beginning I was just guessing and thinking the picture had to be related before I figured out the real objective. I actually made it all the way to the second to last boss before I started having real trouble and actually “got it”. After that I recorded all my attempts and made a guide to help myself through it. I read hiragana and katakana fluently, but my vocabulary in japanese is not that good. My picture recognition is though :D So here’s the guide and this is how you use it: I made a list of all the hiragana letters, the boss will always show which one you are looking for (i.e. 『い』), either you read it or just recognize the symbol and skim through the list, next to the letter I’ve listed all the pictures that can be a correct answer for that letter. Some pictures can have several names, like a “horse” could also be called an “animal” or a “pony”, therefore a picture can be listed under several letters.

There’s another guide I made in the beginning, it helped me in the first couple of word-stages, but it wasn’t very useful at the end where the possibilities were bigger and pictures changed more frequently. In this guide however you can look for a picture, and the picture below it is a correct answer. This helps if you don’t know how to read hiragana, then you can just look for images instead. However, sometimes that particular correct picture might not be on the screen.. This list isn’t complete since I switched to the other one which was more helpful for me.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might pick a picture that ends with a letter that doesn’t have a corresponding picture, in this case you win! :D Except for the last boss, he will just challenge you again and it will start over… As long as you get the required amount of points (get past the bar on the left) then you win.

The final boss will challenge you in all three games, first the word game, then memory and last the numbers.

You get a password after every single stage! This is generous, and great if you wanna get to a certain stage, like the jetpack stage which has great music! ^_^ And in case anyone gives the game a go and get stuck somewhere, then here is the complete list of stage passwords:

Stage 2 password: 4C4 888E8 888A

Stage 3 password: 4A0 77747 7779

Stage 4 password: 27C 77387 717F

Stage 5 password: D5A 55445 5655

Stage 6 password: 27D 77387 707F

Stage 7 password: A55 11001 111D

Stage 8 password: 250 33343 333A

Stage 9 password: 939 77507 7577

Stage 10 password: DDB 55405 5449

Stage 11 password: 210 33333 333D

Stage 12 password: 8DO FFF0F FFFA

Stage 13 password: 2A9 66586 6566

Stage 14 password: 5C4 88868 8982

Stage 15 password: 130 333A3 3431

Stage 16 password: 484 88888 8A86

Stage 17 password: FFF 77337 7677

Stage 18 password: 501 BBBBB BCBC

Stage 19 password: 651 FFF1F F0F1

Stage 20 password: E3C 331B3 3C3B

Stage 21 password: 7AB 66516 6B66

Stage 22 password: E9A 55455 5A69

Stage 23 password: 106 00000 020C

Stage 24 password: 2C6 000C0 010E

I really enjoyed this game, it was a fun challenge to try to beat all these bosses and good practice for my japanese language skills ;D

Violinist of Hameln for Super Famicom

July 8, 2013 by stopXwhispering

There’s this little cute guy, wearing a hat, a cape and carrying a violin, that comes to a village and plays for the monsters and makes a friend. A girl in a red hat with a white bow…

This story is about the Violinist of Hameln ^_^ On Super Famicom, by Enix!

This weekend me and my friend Gabriella played through the entire game, almost twice! ;D On saturday we sat for hours playing through until the second to last boss, and then.. forgot to press continue on time when we got distracted by our 3DS’s >_< This game lacks cheats or passwords so there is no way to skip ahead, you have to play through it all in one go!! But on sunday we gave it another go, and beat it without ever even getting a Game Over and we had 25 lives to spare! :D

The best thing about the Violinist of Hameln is his buddy, the girl that can transform into almost anything!! Of course you have to discover the various powers first to unlock each creature she can turn into. The creatures will help you along the way. And if nothing else, you can always pick up and chuck the girl straight at enemies or walls :D It works! The Violinist can only jump, glide a bit with his cape and shoot notes from his violin, so having the girl around is very helpful! Here’s a chart of all the characters you can unlock and choose from in the start menu:

And here they are in action:


The Ostrich buddy: Walks over spikes	The Frog buddy: If you stand on her you can jump up on hard to reach platforms

The Robot Buddy: Can walk over spikes and punch rock walls if you jump on her.	The Curling buddy: Can be thrown and will glide into narrow spaces and is effective against enemies

The Gorilla Buddy: Can walk over spikes, but is mainly meant for you to get passed a certain stage where you have to transform your buddy into the gorilla to impress a guy.. See the gifs below for more Gorilla action ;D	The Penguin Buddy: Let’s you swim passed water, if you jump on the penguin she dashes forward and destroys enemies in the water.


The Fish Buddy: If you step on it it will float upwards! If you press down it will drop, but you can’t steer side- ways unless the wind takes you there.	The Duck Buddy: Can swim over water but also dive if you jump on her.

The Monkey Buddy: Can climb walls! You just tag along and shoot whatever comes in your way ^_^	The UFO Buddy: Hovers around you constantly and is good when you need the girl to follow you (BECAUSE SHE SUCKS AND WALKING AND CAN’T JUMP AT ALL!!) >_<

The Monster Buddy: Is useless, but you need it to get passed a road block. A guy needs to see the monster to let you pass to the next stage.	The Frisbee Buddy: You’re actually not supposed to stand on her, just throw her like a frisbee at enemies :)

The Elephant Buddy: Can put out fires if you jump on her! Pffrrrsshh!	The Bird Buddy: Can fly!! And you can steer her! :D Be careful not to fall off though >_<

The Octopus Buddy: Let’s you swim under water! :D	The BOMB Buddy: You can throw her and she goes BOOOOOM!* Works like a charm on all following bosses :D
	Here’s a closeup of your buddy BOMB blowing up! ;D LOL

The entire screen flickers when the BOMB is thrown ^_^

There are four world maps, each filled with several stages followed by a boss at the end.

In the beginning of each world map there’s a village which you can re-enter at any time between stages on that map. Here you can talk to people, regain health at an inn and buy stuff! :D Like shields, extra time for stages, a better cape and also some of the stuff that your buddy can turn into, like the UFO (but you will find this one on a stage later) and the missile (I’m not sure if you can find this one, so I’d suggest buy to it!)

During stages you can find stars, when you have found 4 stars you will get to a bonus stage where you can find an extra life and also get loads of coins!

The stages are all very varied, and with pretty graphics ^_^

The bosses were a lot of fun! And not too hard, we only had some problems with one, which was the second boss. But eventually we figured out how to beat this one too ^_^ You’re just supposed to throw your buddy straight upwards towards the boss’ platform and he’ll fall down so you can hit him :)

Here’s screenshots of all the bosses:

First boss, not that difficult, keep throwing your buddy at his face :)

The second boss, we were stuck here for a while since it was hard to dodge all the snakes that kept spawning while also dodging his spiked he kept shooting in all directions >_< but shooting your buddy from below the platform worked like a charm :) The non-blurry screenshots were taken while we were figuring out what to do and thought the UFO was a good idea.. but just throwing the girl worked a lot better ;D

This is the third boss, some skeleton guy on a really weird horse that has no face!!! LOL He wasn’t too difficult if you had the missile. I came into the boss fight for the first time with only one heart of health and I managed to beat him, while taking photos with my iPhone!! ^_^

During the final boss this guy with a grand piano on his back came in and joined the fight. You met him previously in the village, but I didn’t quite get what he said, so during the entire battle I wasn’t really sure if he was on my side or not.. but it turned out that he was on my side when the credits started rolling ;D

During the entire game you got the feeling that the Violinist wasn’t all that nice. He was quite mean to the girl, throwing her around and she looked pissed most of the time. And also during some cutscenes between stages this is what you saw:

But in the end it seemed like they made friends after all ^_^ This was a great game, and totally worth the high price :D

Psycho Fox for Sega Master System

February 20, 2012 by stopXwhispering

Yesterday I played through Psycho Fox for Sega Master System.

I’ve visited this game many times, and I always really liked it. It is however pretty hard, the steering is stiff and it’s hard to maneuver the characters, which makes you inevitably fall into the arms of death. This has always led me to give up after a few stages, but not this time! (Thank heavens for unlimited continues!)

Psycho Fox is a side scrolling platformer, with good graphics for the 8-bit era and cute characters with some nice ability differences. You can eventually play as four different characters and change in stage whenever you have a ladder. You just have to press the PAUSE button which is on the Sega Master System located on the console and not the controller, just right next to the reset button.. so don’t be hasty!

You start off playing as the Fox. His speed and jump is moderate. He’s the character in the middle, which you eventually will end up not using, unless you need a continue and start off without ladders again.. This character is definitely the cutest though in my opinion!! ^_^

And as soon as you have collected a ladder, by either killing enemies or finding it in an egg you can change to either one of the other three characters. The Hippo is only good for one thing, which is breaking stone walls. Apart from that ability he is the slowest character.

Then there’s the Tiger, he is by far the fastest character, but his jumps are as good as the Fox’s. There are a few areas in the game where he can be beneficial, but mainly I preferred playing the last character.

The last character is the Monkey, he runs like the Fox but he jumps spectacularly! This gives you an advantage on most places in this game. Since the movement is still pretty stiff and jumping far won’t be possible unless you have some space to make a run for it first the Monkey gives you a chance to survive in some places where precise jumping is needed, since he has a little more airtime for you to steer him towards where you want to land.

There are 7 bosses in total in the game, which means 7 worlds each with 3 levels where you always encounter the boss at the end of level 3. The first three bosses re-appear on stage 4-5 and 6, and the 7th boss is unique.
The first boss is a thing made of layers that jumps around, you will have to shoot off his middle layers by jumping on a little canon. He will re-appear on stage 4, but this time sliding towards you instead of jumping.

The second boss is a mosquito which you will have to spray 3 times with the giant bug spray can. He will re-appear the same on stage 5.

The third boss is a giant tiger-cat-thing that just runs back and forth, you just have to jump on him three times. This doesn’t sound too hard, but in this game, with the shitty movement, and not to forget ONE HIT AND YOU’RE DEAD AND HAVE TO START FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE STAGE, then it is actually quite frustrating at times..

The final boss is a giant Fox! I always thought that you were playing as the Psycho Fox, but I guess it’s the Fox at the end who’s Psycho..

This guy shoots lightning bolts at you and you have to punch the container on the ground to shoot bouncing red balls at him. After just three hits he’s dead. However, watch out for that lightning.. this took me quite a lot of tries.. and having to run through the entire stage after getting hit once is not uplifting I tell you….

It felt really good after having finally beaten the game though! =D

This game had the weirdest ending..

A Sumo-like fox stomping his feet and clapping his hands in slow-motion with a bunch of random animals and a retarded horse.. shouting DOSUCOI! I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.. and the credits after that where quite entertaining, there was an animated polaroid camera showing pictures of each of the creators. Imaginative ^_^

“Responsible Person” hahaha ^__^

Here’s a video I put together of the gameplay:

Here’s another video of all the full length boss fights:

And here’s a final video of the entire ending:

Super Star Wars for SNES

February 13, 2012 by stopXwhispering

So here’s the review of Super Star Wars for SNES!

This game was not a disappointment! It narrated the original story of the first movie amazingly! You got to relive many of those memorable scenes and play as your favorite characters through levels that were really detailed and true to the story.

Like visiting Obi-Wan in the desert…

… finding Han Solo and Chewbacca at the bar…

… rescuing Princess Leia from the Deathstar…

Or encountering Darth Vader!

The game also had a great variation of gameplay, from side scrolling platformer to driving a hovercraft and even piloting an X-wing when hunting down Darth Vader and destroying the Deathstar ^_^

The bosses were classic SNES type boss fights, taking up half of the screen but having a weak spot. Not always something that happened in the movie, but always with some connection to it, very imaginative! Like Banthas!! =D

After encountering new characters you unlocked them so they were playable, you could choose between playing as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Chewbacca. I preferred Chewie since he had the highest jump, even though he was slightly slower. Luke was the only one with a lightsaber though, but I still preferred shooting laser ^_^

Han Solo looked real silly when he was wiggling his gun around..

Having the old Nintendo Power issue for Super Star Wars helped me and my friend out a little bit, but mainly they just described the scenarios. They did mention that there was a hidden place on stage 5 where you could get unlimited lives. This was very helpful! Since you don’t have unlimited continues. We finally beat the game in about 4 hours. I speed ran it the morning after in about 1.5 hours. It’s faster when you have figured out how to beat each boss and where you will have to jump not to fall to your death (yes, on some places you were supposed to fall down a platform but if you didn’t know to jump at the end you would fall into lava and die immediately)..We actually had more help from the latest issue of LEVEL (a Swedish gaming magazine) that had a retro review of Super Star Wars Trilogy where they had a small walkthrough for each boss in all the games. The Nintendo Power issue actually only covered the first 9 stages (!) There is 6 more stages after that!! An example of advice given from Nintendo Power for the Kalaar boss “Jumping to avoid the attacks takes precise timing“.. no shit?! That’s it! This was one of the hardest bosses and it took several lives before we got lucky and pushed him back to avoid him hurting us. Thank god we have Youtube today!

Look at Luke’s silly surprised face ^_^

All in all it was a great game, hard and challenging, but just enough to make you try again and finally beat it =)

Here’s a little video of all the cutscenes from Super Star Wars, it’s quite fun to see the famous movie scenes in 16-bit ^^ The music is really great!

I also edited together a video of all the Boss battles of Super Star Wars.