The second video in our Neo Geo series is out! This time we’re playing some Garou Densetsu The Battle of Destiny (also known as Fatal Fury). Both Becki and myself are absolutely horrible at fighting games, and it’s definitely not really our cup of tea, but these types of games sure bring out the fighting spirit in you! Haha! We both tend to get extremely competitive….
Watch the video here:
I will get onto editing the final two games we played, Sengoku and Ghost Pilots soon :)
This weekend I visited a dear friend way up north in Sweden :) I brought an NES so we could try out some adventure games and also play my latest Tetris acquisition, Tengen Tetris, since my friend loves Tetris! ^_^ We had loads of fun with the co-op mode of Tengen Tetris, and also played a bunch of other games, like Xexyz!
Xexyz is an awesome adventure game that merges platforming action with sidescrolling shooting ^_^ It’s also really pretty and colorful, and you get to see fairies in bath tubs! haha ^_^
Another game that we played was Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth which is also really cool :) It is also a merge of platformer/shmup, but it also has a strategic boss battle element :) This dinosaur was really annoying >_<
We also played Zen: intergalactic ninja! This game is hard!! But I love how they’re making it all about environmental friendliness haha ^_^ Every stage is about fighting pollution in some way, and in the bonus stages you recycle trash! LOL! I’ve never encountered such an environmentally aware Ninja ;D
Last game we played was Karnov, and we got stuck on the 5th stage with the dinosaur boss that appears a second time >_< The game was a bit glitchy, we got stuck sometimes inside walls and had to wait for the timer to run out and kill us, lol…
On Saturday we went into town and visited the GAME store. They had quite a lot of retro games, apart from three big glass cabinets by the entrance they also had more shelves around the counter :D I picked up quite a lot of games here ;D
At the end of they day we visited a really awesome place called Café på Bit! It’s a café/arcade! Mainly focusing on console gaming but they also had some pinball machines and an arcade machine with Pixelbot Arena (a game produced by a local talent) :)
Apart from all the setups, CRT’s and consoles, they also had a whole wall of games you could choose to play! :D They had the entire NES library that was released in Scandinavia ^_^ And some games were even for sale! I picked up a few great ones ;D I’ll tell you all about them in my next post ^_^
We spent 4 hours there, all three of us were playing the same game, the only game I was interested in playing since I knew I couldn’t play it at home: Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril! I’ve seen the game maybe once before, and I know it’s a new game released for the NES (in 2006 I think) made by one guy. It was extremely difficult! You just had to memorize every step! We were competing on who would finish it first, after four hours none of us were even close to finishing it haha ^_^ I made it the furthest though, to boss no. 2…
Café på Bit was really cosy, too bad it’s so far away from me :( Probably around a 15 hour drive! I recommend anyone visiting the north of Sweden to check it out though! ^___^
I’ll get right on writing my next post about my pickups! I came home with almost 20 games! :D
I’ve never really liked the Nintendo 64. I’ve always found for example 16-bit graphics to be much more appealing than the awkward 3D graphics of the N64. I also never liked the controller, the stick is so “wriggly” and loose and there’s way too may buttons on the controller! haha ^_^ And the three handles?! How are you supposed to hold it?? ;D
Then again, I never played a lot of games on the system. The only memories I have are from loosing continuously against my boyfriends little brother in Golden Eye 007 back when it was new, and that was extremely annoying >_< We also played a bit of Diddy Kong Racing back then which was fun though. I recently started giving it a little more attention, mainly since I found that there are also a few 2D games and puzzle games on the system ^_^ It started with the Pokémon Puzzle League game that my friend Gabriella showed me, it was so much fun! Then I also started looking up the japanese scene for the N64 and here are the games I have gotten so far:
Rakuga Kids, a 2D fighting game with the quirkiest characters and cute animations ^_^ This one is quite entertaining even though it’s not as advanced as the regular fighting games like street fighter :) Here’s the back so you can see what it kind of looks like ^_^
Uchannanchan no Honoo no Challenger – Denryu Iraira Bou, the longest name of a game that I have ever encountered ;D It’s a type of puzzle-like game where you have to steer a ball through a maze, it’s also 2D, and gets quite challenging :D The cover is mainly what drew me to it in the first place though ;D Hysterical!
Magical Tetris featuring Mickey Mouse :D It’s basically like Tetris with a few extras thrown in ^_^
I’ve also gotten a few Tennis games. They were quite fun in 2-player VS mode, and didn’t look too horrible on the N64 ;D Also my niece is really into Tennis so I thought it would be fun to play some with her :) I also had to get Mario Tennis 64 of course ^^
Hoshi no Kirby is another classic series, I haven’t tried it out yet, but I’m hoping that the N64 graphics won’t ruin it ;D
I also got some Star Wars games, because STAR WARS! ;D (the top one is Rogue Squadron)
Ganbare Goemon (known as Mystical Ninja over here) is a series that sometimes can be quite enjoyable, I haven’t really tried this one out yet though. Judging from the back it’s unfortunately awkward 3D worlds :/
Then I got some Sumo games, mainly because they were cheap and I liked the cover art :D
Last but not least I picked up a copy of Diddy Kong Racing, I already have it for my PAL N64, I mainly wanted to see if there are any differences in the game ^^ I haven’t really had time to compare the two yet though.
So all my new Japanese Nintendo 64 games got their own little corner in my game room, if I get any more I’m gonna have to get more shelves ;D
I also have 20-something games for my PAL N64, but I haven’t really worked on that collection in the last decade or so.. If anyone has any suggestions of GREAT GAMES for the N64 then please feel free to give me some suggestions ^_^ I have all the regulars like Super Mario 64, Golden Eye (even though I dislike it much), Pokémon Snap and the Castlevania games among others.. but if you know any hidden gems for this system then please let me know :D
This weekend I went to Retrospelsfestivalen in Malmö. This was the first year they arranged for a retro gaming show in the south of Sweden. I was super excited to go there, and it’s less than an hour from where I live. I had been asking my boyfriend to please join me and keep me company since all of my friends couldn’t make it. He ditched me less than 24 hours before I was going there, made up an excuse that he had to clean his grandmothers attic with his mom… I was pissed and pretty sure he was just dodging it to go fishing instead >_<
I had been speaking to the organizers of Retrospelsfestivalen and they had asked me to help hand out the prizes after the Tetris tournament, I accepted and went up on stage around 3 pm. We handed out the prizes and then they interviewed me about my game collection for a while and after that they asked me to try out a new game. In the below video you can see the game while I’m playing it, and it’s being projected behind me for an audience of around 500 people…
At first I thought the game looked cool, was expecting some kind of action platformer, but after reading the first couple of mushy lines about love I was getting confused and thought the game was kind of lame ;D Until the story-telling stopped and it just said…
Then I certainly thought somebody was just pulling my leg, maybe the organizers had set me up to embarrass me a little bit. Then the question hit the screen:
Now I thought that some guy in the audience might have some crush on me and decided to try and propose! I never thought my boyfriend would have the imagination to surprise me with something so grand and also fitting to my interests. But indeed, he had a programmer make the game with him and he stepped out from behind the stage with flowers ^_^ I was chocked! …and I said yes :)
It’s not everyday you get proposed to through a video game ^_^ The game only had two options to choose from, play co-op or single player :D Check out the video below to see the whole thing:
After the proposal the organizers gave us a whole bunch of gifts that had been put together by some of the exhibitors and sellers at Retrospelsfestivalen. This was so nice! Thanks to all of the great people that made this day super special ^^ We got the Generation 64 book written by Spelpappan, a Swedish documentary about the NES from Videospelsklubben, a Zelda T-shirt, Tetris mug, Halo mega bloks set and a bunch of other merchandise ^_^
This was of course my highlight of Retrospelsfestivalen 2014 ;D But there were also lots of other great things! I did have time to buy some things before, and talk to people. They had a lot of sellers, but compared to Retrogathering they had a lot more “new” things, like plush toys, T-shirts and other merchandise from games. There were of course a lot of retro games being sold as well, and some people displaying home made retro games they had made. There were also loads of TV’s setup to play various retro consoles and a hallway for Pinball machines and arcade cabinets. On the stage they had competitions in Tetris, Super Mario Kart etc. In the finals of the Tetris competition the competitors had to first make their own controller using the Makey Makey! This was original ^_^ I also met Pappas Pärlor who make amazing bead art! Here’s some pictures from the event!
These last few pictures are from a game called Space Clutter. It’s a homebrew game that only exists in this one homemade little arcade cabinet. The funniest thing is the handwritten note that was displayed next to the game, it reads in Swedish: “Space Clutter, super hard space game! You will NEVER be able to beat it!” so I just had to try it. It was difficult, but fun! :) The plot of the game is written underneath the shoot button and reads “Everybody in space hates you. Use the red button to kill them.”
I will make another post soon with the games I bought at Retrospelsfestivalen :)
I’ve recently come back from a two week vacation in Tokyo, I went there with 5 other friends and we had a blast! ^_^
While in Tokyo I took the opportunity to go hunting for some retro games of course! I’ve been to Tokyo quite some times now, but I’ve only ever found Super Potato where I could buy retro games. This time however I got a friend from instagram to show me around Akihabara to all the best retro game shops! ^_^
Here’s a map I’ve made of the places I went to:
The two Sega buildings that I pinned on the map are easy to find. After you take the Akihabara Electric Town Exit just go right, out into a square, if you look to your left you will see the first giant SEGA building:
Once you get closer to it you will see the second SEGA building as well:
So first off is Super Potato, this place is a bit pricey, but it’s a must-go for all retro gaming enthusiasts! It’s located on the street behind the two SEGA buildings. It’s kind of hard to find the entrance since it’s quite small and you won’t really see the signs for it unless you look up (or can read japanese). It’s down on this street, I’ve located it with a circle, however if you go on the route of the map it will be on your right side instead of left.
This is the building:
You will have to go into a corridor and take the elevator up:
Super Potato has 4 floors, first floor is mainly cartridge games (famicom, super famicom, sega master system, mega drive, pc engine, game boy etc). Second floor has some newer games like playstaytion, dreamcast etc. The third floor has mainly strategy guides to retro games and the fourth floor has retro arcade machines where you can play puyo puyo, pac-land, final fight, ghosts n’ goblins and a bunch of other old classics ^_^ Everything is very neatly displayed and they also have a bunch of merchandise.
One thing that bugs me about Super Potato is that they have two giant shelves filled from top to bottom with famicom games and most of them are doubles. You will see the same game 10 times in a row sometimes, it makes it hard going through it all.. and time consuming. They have however put end labels on the plastic wrap of each game, but it’s written in japanese.
Next up is Mandarake Complex, I didn’t spend too much time here, but they had loads of retro games at reasonable prices! And so many boxed games in great condition ^_^ I saw a mint CiB Recca and I really wanted to buy it, but that game is almost just as expensive in Japan as it is on eBay… :( At Mandarake Complex all the games were in hard plastic cases, it made it a bit dull to look through it all, and hard to spot the games you were looking for..
They also had an assortment of Neo Geo games, I really would like to start collecting for that system, but damn those games are pricey! The most expensive one I saw was 220.000 Yen, which is over 2000 USD… o_O
I did however spend more time at another Mandarake store in Nakano (Nakano is just one stop from Shinjuku station with the JR line, or three stops if you don’t take the chuo rapid line). (Note that this store is NOT located in Akihabara and not pinned on the map above..). Mandarake Galaxy is located on the second floor inside Nakano Broadway, a mall that is just straight ahead after exiting the station.
This one wasn’t very big but they made use of their space by only displaying one of each game instead of triples (like in Super Potato). Their games were also really neatly displayed in a way that you could easily browse through them ^^ And it was very reasonably priced! :D This is how happy I was at the Mandarake Galaxy store in Nakano ^_^
They had a lot of gems and I bought loads of games here, including Gimmick! ^_^ They also had another cabinet inside where they had stuff that wasn’t for sale, just for show >-< Like the Sega Mega Drive Tetris!!
Next up is Trader in Akihabara, this is located just a bit further down the street from the two SEGA buildings.
Just like in the Mandarake Complex in Akihabara this store had all it’s cartridges and boxed games in plastic cases. This makes it kind of hard to browse through loose Famicom carts.. I bought a few games here though.
I found a boxed Altered Beast for Game Boy Advance, I regret not getting it since it was so cheap >_< 3500 Yen is approximately 34 USD…
They also had a bin filled with loose carts that all cost under 100 Yen! The cheapest I found was 19 Yen, which is less than 20 cents ^_^ There was no guarantee that they would work though. However, all the five games I found in the bin has worked perfectly ^_^
You could also get Neo Geo games here and other rarities. However they were not displayed, only by advertisements all over the walls. I guess you would have to go to a counter to order them.
Now the last shop my friends took me too was so cute! It was run by this old lady and her husband, and it was called FRIENDS ^__^
It was very small, but it was crammed with retro games! ^_^ And it was mostly very cheap :) It was really easy to browse through the Famicom carts, and they also had a bunch of bins filled with cheaper carts, around 100 Yen.
Apparently there was also a second floor, I didn’t have time to see it though. I was told they had Sega Saturn games and stuff like that upstairs.
I would recommend all of these shops for retro game collectors that visit Tokyo ^_^
And if you’re not into buying games, there are also loads of places to just play games! :D Here’s my post about the Arcades of Akihabara ^_^
Seriously Play are games that I think you Seriously Should Play! In this post I will re-visit a game I wrote about a while ago, but only briefly, namely Spin Pair for PC Engine!
Spin Pair is an HU Card game, so you don’t need the CD unit or a duo to play it. It’s a puzzle game in the style of Tetris or Columns where you have shapes falling down, which you can flip or move left or right. However, in Spin Pair the shapes are very different and it makes the game more complex. Not only can you switch places of the pair of shapes falling down, but with the second button you can also rotate the contents of these two shapes! So basically what you need to do is get half a shape to fill up the opposite half of a shape in the same type/colour.
There is also another aspect of Spin Pair that I really like. If you have shapes of the same colour/type lining up horizontally in the same row and you remove ONE, then ALL of them will disappear! This makes for a great way of being able to plan ahead and arrange your shapes so that you can easily remove them all in one drop ^_^
Another trick I’ve learned is that you can separate the pair that is falling down, if you get the first one to land on a higher row then you are free to move the remaining shape to the side and also rotate it :D
There’s a story mode you can play, where each level gets a little bit harder. You will have to remove certain amounts of each shape, and this number will increase for each stage, also the amount of shapes will increase making it much more difficult since you will have to survive longer. You’re not always lucky to get the shapes you need either.
Each stage also has new shapes, they go from being quite normal shapes like squares, triangles and circles to really complex shapes.
Allt he different shapes represent various object. Everything from animals to robots and vehicles. Sometimes it can be hard to know which one it is you’re lacking. Since you can rotate the content of the shapes in four different directions it’s easy to make mistakes.
Once in a while the game will speed up, making it more difficult, and the only way to get it to slow back down is to remove shapes!
There is an endless mode instead of story mode where you just play to see for how long you can survive. It starts off easy with few objects and then increases. There is also a 2 player mode where you battle each other. Every time you remove a row with several shapes of the same type your opponent will get punished, having a pair of 3 or 4 objects falling down in their next move.
Already from the start I really liked this puzzle game, but I found it to be quite difficult. The more I played it though the better I got at it. Now I’ve managed to beat the story mode and it’s still a lot of fun to play! The final stage comes as a surprise with the words “COME ON BLACK WIZERD!!” lol… and then you have to remove loads of the same shape but in different colours, and you’ll see two cute little wizards fighting with their broomsticks.
I recommend anyone who’s into puzzle game to try this little gem out. The music is good, the animations are cute, it’s a challenge and most of all very different! You should Seriously Play it! :D
Retro Video Gaming 