Famicom Impressions: Tecmo Super Bowl

December 13, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Oh no, it’s time for another sports game! It’s not an RPG this time though, just PURE AMERICAN FOOTBALL in Tecmo Super Bowl テクモスーパーボウル (TCF-4U) on Famicom, released in 1991.

Tecmo Super Bowl – Famicom

It has some nice graphics in the intro, and I really kind of liked the music in game, the little that I got to hear of it.. because every time something happened on the field (which I felt I had no control over what so ever) the freaking song started over again! The stupid screen popping up every 10 seconds asking me for a strategy is SO ANNOYING! I would call this a strategy/sport-simulator game, no action at all, I got control of the ball (or whatever you call it in American football) once, and no matter where I tried running the opposing team caught up and threw themselves on top of me, suffocating whatever nice feelings I ever might have felt towards this game >_< booooo

At least no Japanese language is necessary to play this, only an incredible infatuation with sport-strategy ;P

Here’s a video, judge for yourself.

Famicom Impressions: Nakajima Satoru F-1 Hero

December 3, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Next up on Famicom Impressions is a racing game called Nakajima Satoru F-1 Hero 中島悟F-１ヒーロー (VRE-F1), released by Varie in 1988.

Nakajima Satoru F-1 Hero – Famicom

I’m not that into racing games, but I gave it a shot.. You can choose between “Warming Up”, “Battle Mode” or “Grand Prix Mode”. I began with Warming Up, then I got a guy, who I presume was Nakajima Satoru, explaining the stage I picked and all the tips and tricks of how to get around the corners. This was all in Japanese though so it didn’t do me much good XD It was almost impossible to stay on the track! I haven’t played much racing games, but the only one I can compare it too is Super Monaco GP on Sega Mega Drive which is WAY easier in comparison! Here you only had two buttons, accelerate and break, and I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong in the corners, I tried button mashing the steering, I tried speeding up and slowing down, breaking, releasing.. nothing seemed to work..

Now that I come to think about it, it’s pretty similar to Super Monaco GP on Sega Master System which I only tried out once with my friend Becki, and I completely sucked at that too XD I even have video proof of that here >> if you fast forward 10 minutes into the clip you’ll get right to it ^_^

After this I went into Battle Mode. At first I assumed it was two players, since one wasn’t moving, after a little bit I realised I WAS THE ONE not moving! I didn’t understand why so I quit and went on to Grand Prix Mode.. Then my car wouldn’t move either! Until I realised that I had to use up and down to shift gears all of a sudden. Why wasn’t this in Waming Up mode?!

After having qualified with the shittiest time it went on to the competition, I was looking forward to racing against other cars.. but alas.. all of a sudden I’m not in control anymore?! An AI has taken over my car and is driving it extraordinarily awesome! Why?? Maybe they felt sorry for me being so shitty at this game… :/

See my complete failed attempt at this game here:

Famicom Impressions: Pooyan

November 30, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Out of the last couple of Famicom games I picked up, this was the most playable, until the 2nd stage at least…. This is the Famicom Impression of Pooyan プーヤン (HFC-PO) released by Konami in 1985. An arcade-like platform game. It was I think an arcade game before it was ported to console.

Pooyan – Famicom

You can really tell the difference between games released in the more than 10 year span of the Famicom’s lifetime. This one is from 1985, and the Dragon Ball Z game I made an impression of yesterday is from 1993. Just compare the graphics! And this is Konami, which has given us amazing things such as Castlevania, TMNT, Parodius, Contra, Crisis Force and many more.. most of these games are from the very late 80’s to the early 90’s though.

So basically the game is about shooting the balloons that hold the wolves so that they fall to their death instead of climbing up the ladder to eat you and your family alive. Fairly easy concept, but there’s loads of wolves coming down simulateously, and eventually they get different colored balloons, some will shoot back at you so you have to dodge as well. Once I got to stage two though I got stuck. HOW THE HELL DO YOU SHOOT THE BALLOON OF THE PINK WOLF?!?!? As you can see in the video below the pink wolves block every single arrow I shoot at them! >_< Since I couldn’t kill them 5 new enemies spawned every time I let one slip, and there was always a new pink one there! It was destined to fail..

Apart from that no Japanese language is needed to play this game, it’s not the best game on the Famicom, but certainly not the worst, however I’m fairly sure it’s the worst Konami game every made >-<

Here’s the video of my firtst attempt:

Famicom Impressions: Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku

November 29, 2016 by stopXwhispering

I managed to find a Dragon Ball game for the Famicom that I didn’t previously have! This time for Famicom Impressions I tried out Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku ドラゴンボールＺ外伝サイヤ人絶滅計画 (BA-DBZ4) released by Bandai in 1993. Dragon Ball games usually have pretty colorful artwork containing silly anime characters with funky hair, and the manga/anime series has a pretty big fan base from what I understand.. I’ve never been that into anime or manga though.. but I’ve always hoped for a good Dragon Ball game! This is not it though..

Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya Jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku – Famicom

From what I’ve figured from the series the Dragon Ball story is about guys that are flying and fighting. This game is pretty much based on that as well. Unfortunately the action is not controlled by you, it just has a lot of cool looking fighting cutscenes. Instead you control the characters like in an RPG, choose which card to use, pick an action and so forth.. I hate menus.. I want live action!

At least the game has some pretty rad tunes ^_^ Check out the video below to listen to some of the music :) It’s awesome! Apart from that I wouldn’t really say it’s playable or fun without an extensive knowledge about Dragon Ball lore or the Japanese language.. In the main fighting menu the only thing I understood was ステータス (status) and アイテム (item). The others seemed to be various attacks or card picking.. I have no clue what the cards are about, some of them seemed to give me special attacks.. at the end though I just fought for my blonde dude to get killed so I could turn it off XD

I got to see a dragon though, who gave me free cards! The game really has some nice sprites :)

Check out my first attempt at this game here, and listen to the nice music at least ^_^

Famicom Impressions: Suikoden – Tenmei no Chikai

November 28, 2016 by stopXwhispering

The next Famicom impression is on Suikoden: Tenmei no Chikai 水滸伝・天命の誓い (KOE-XJ) by Koei from 1989 and… I seriously have no clue what is going on in this one..

Suikoden: Tenmei no Chikai – Famicom

It’s some sort of RPG/strategy/story-telling nonsense about ancient dudes in China.. so.. yeah.. this:

I don’t know if I chose the wrong menu or if there’s some kind of intro that just lasts FOREVER.. but I didn’t even get to do anything! I just looked at the numbers scrolling in the bottom left, and once in a while a dude popped up, with numbers attached to his card, and that was the only time I got to interacet: I pressed a button and his card went away and the numbers began scrolling again until another dude popped up. FUN!!! *not*… I hate strategy… especially non-interactive types…

Here’s a video of the few minutes I could stand of this game… at least some of the music is decent! o_O

Famicom Impressions: King of Kings

November 27, 2016 by stopXwhispering

Next up for Famicom Impressions is King of Kingsキングオブキングス. It was a game I didn’t have, looking at the artwork on the cartridge made me quite positive it was some kind of strategy game (I’ve learned to tell the difference on these Japanese games with their beautifully deceiving artworks XD). But you never know! I could be wrong, so I had to try it out for myself to be sure :)

King of Kings – Famicom

Just as I thought, it was some kind of strategy and turned based war game. I was quite clueless to begin with, I tried pushing all the buttons and got to various menus. Thankfully the menus were not as extensive as in many other strategy games. I tried various options and figured out that I could buy troops for my King! I bought some of each kind and started placing them out on the map, moved my king around to various towns on the map and got to raise my flag :D

Then it took a while before I could figure out how to end my turn.. I eventually found it in the Select menu, the second from the bottom. And here’s where the game got reeeally boring and long >_< Once it was the computers turn I had to sit and wait for him to do ALL of his moves with ALL of his characters.. each turn he had he got more and more troops and his turn just grew longer and longer. And it wasn’t sped up or anything, he was just as slow on deciding as me almost!! I couldn’t press anything to skip it :/

There’s of course battles as well, but they’re all randomly AI controlled, you can just sit and watch and hope for a positive outcome.. In this game you don’t do anything except move around characters on the board and buy more characters.. as far as I could understand at least. I made the mistake of moving my King too far from my main castle, because that’s the only place you can buy more troops..

I managed to withstand 3 or 4 turns of my own.. then I was so bored out of my mind that I just shut it off.. I would say it’s fairly playable, even if you don’t understand Japanese, just guessing your way through menus gives figurative results so you can understand what you just did basically. But it’s definitely not fun in my opinion.. just boring.. I’m not much for strategy games in general though. It was probably great at it’s time for people into that kind of stuff :P

Here’s a video of my first attempt at this game. I’m surprised I didn’t shut it off sooner XD