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

Famicom pirate games #1 – The Last Ninja

February 22, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I’ve never been very interested in collecting pirated games for any of my retro consoles. I have always preferred original games, however lately I’ve accidentally come by a few pirated Famciom games. Like the Super Mario IV Armadillo hack, which is basically just the Armadillo game changed to have Mario as the main character, and Caveman Games, which is a NES release ported on a cart for the Famicom.

I know there’s a lot of people that prefer pursuing those rare pirated games, and lately I’ve begun to understand why that is. It’s quite charming, it’s a game just like all the other games I’m collecting, and somebody made it, made an effort to re-code an existing game to their liking, and it’s always intriguing since you never know what to expect form a pirate game. The pirated games are more rare as well, and usually unique, since they weren’t mass produced like many other original releases.

The Last Ninja was a game I saw on Ebay and it intrigued me since I wasn’t completely sure which game it was and also, my best friend NinjaBrite loves Ninjas! So I bought it hoping that she would enjoy trying it ^_^

So I cleaned the game up a bit and tried it briefly to make sure it worked and it worked perfectly on the first try ^_^ I looked it up as well and found out that The Last Ninja was actually released for the NES by Jaleco however the game was also firstly released on the Commodore 64 but it was called The Last Ninja 2.
I compared some screenshots from this version and the version on C64. It is lacking a lot of the details from the C64 version. Here’s the comparison of sceneries: (click to enlarge)

If only the C64 didn’t have such darn long loading sequences then I would probably be playing that more often than the 8bit systems! >_<

More Famicom games ^_^

February 9, 2013 by stopXwhispering

I’ve been continuing to add all my newly acquired Famicom games to the Famicom Library, here’s some of the new additions! Click an image to find it in the Library ^_^

Famicom catalogue update!

January 30, 2013 by stopXwhispering

My Famicom collection page was getting so massive that I had problems loading it even when I was just trying to edit! Therefore I have now re-designed the page and split it into sorting games from A-Z! (and yes, I actually have Famicom games in every single letter, except for X…)

This should hopefully make it easier to browse through the games for the visitor as well ^_^ Both in the top and bottom will be an alphabet of links to each page, like this:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

I have also added a few new games to it. So far there’s 481 games in the list, I do however have a bit above 100 more to put in there under various letters. I’ll get to that soon ^_^

Every game is also labeled with their code on the cartridge, so if you are searching for a certain game that you have but need the name of you can search it in my search box and the correct page will pop up! :D

Oh, and I’ve also added three stars to a few of my personal favorites ^_^ So if you see stars it might actually be a f*cking awesome game!! :D ★★★

So what are you waiting for?? Go check out my new FAMICOM LIBRARY! :D

Updates in the Famicom Collection

December 9, 2012 by stopXwhispering

It’s been a busy week.. first I got this huuuge package of games from Japan:

Sorting, cleaning, organizing and trying them all out has been taking some time. BTW, I really love the japanese store stickers, they are always so easy to just peel off without any effort! :D And from this Ebay seller the stickers even had a corner folded in so it was really easy to grip and rip ^^

Apart from that I have been updating my Famicom Collection, now I am finished with “S” which was the largest letter! 64 games just starting with the letter “S”! I also added a few other new additions like Lot Lot, Mississippi Satsujin Jiken, Madara, Maniac Mansion, Meikyuu Jima (Kickle Cubicle), Ninja Jajamara Kun, Obake no Q Tarou, Paaman, Perfect Bowling, Puzslot, Quinty etc.. You can check them all out in my Famicom Collection >>

Some games I would like to highlight:

Paaman
A really fun platformer, where each boss battle is like a boardgame race to the finish line, even though it’s in japanese it’s quite easy to follow ^_^

Puzslot
A fun puzzle game, kind of like Columns where you have to match colors and shapes falling down in pairs, except here you first have to stop the slot-machine-like pieces so it’s quite random what you will get and if you don’t stop them fast enough you won’t have time to place them correctly.

Salamander (Life Force)
I love this shooter!! Great music, great gameplay ^_^

Kyattou Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats)
Another game I added today. A really fun platformer where you can change between different cat characters that have various abilities :)

Seikima II: Akuma no Gyakushu
An entertaining platformer based on a heavy metal band. It’s really hard though.

Seirei Densetsu Lickle (Little Samson)
A great platformer that I think most people know about already. It looks really great, and sounds really great and it’s fun to play ^_^

Shufflepuck Café
A really interesting air hockey type game. I’ve made a review of it here >>

Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti
A really cute but still brutal platformer! I’ve made a review of it here >>

Star Wars
Gotta love Star Wars ^^ This one is a platformer. It’s really hard!! AVGN mentions it in his Star Wars episode >>

Street Fighter 2010
A really challenging and well made platformer. AVGN has a great review of this one as well, check it out here >>

Super Mario USA
And of course I have added all of my Super Mario games for the Famicom as well. Super Mario USA is the Japanese release of the PAL/NTSC Super Mario Bros 2 :)