Sunday, August 23, 2009

English Policenauts translation due out TODAY

OH GOD



That 8/24/09 is actually going by the Japanese dates. The folks on Junker HQ are saying it should be up by noon on 8/23, which is TWENTY WHOLE MINUTES FROM NOW.

Forum Post
Website

I've owned this game for almost exactly ten years. I bought the import version and, as a naive high school student, thought "Yeah, I'll study Japanese and I can totally play this in a few years!" And then after several years of study, I realized that getting to that level of comprehension would require more effort and/or cultural immersion than I was willing to take - in other words, I'd probably need a degree in the damn language - so I gave up. And now it'll come to pass.

Yeah, after all this anticipation, it might be disappointing or whatnot, but I still think Snatcher is my favorite Kojima game, so I'd love something more in that vein. The MGS's are still pretty great (except 4) but, at an early stage in his career, he probably had some superior who could actually slap him around and tell him whatever he was thinking was actually "retarded" and should "stop right now or be fired, you dolt." MGS2 and 4 could've used a lot of that.
Posted by Discoalucard at 11:39 AM 0 comments

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Doujin CD Review - Detana!! K-STYLE - School Mizugi de Daiabare!



01 There in The Sea - Twinbee Yahhoo
02 Mirage - Lighting Legend
03 Wisdom of Living - Lighting Legend
04 Main Theme - The Goonies
05 GTR Attack !! - Contra Hard Corps
06 Ruins of Bacaros - Metamorphic Force
07 Lucky Zone - Gradius 3 SFC
08 End Demo - Labyrinth Runner
09 Tears of Dracula - Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow
10 Riddle - Castlevania
11 Theme of Simon - Castlevania 4
12 Wiched Child - Castlevania 4
13 One Night in Neo Kobe City - Snatcher
14 Memoire - Space Manbow

Circle: Woodsoft

VGMDB Entry

Konami music is always a good source for arranged music, even if the topic is pretty broad. As such, there’s a huge variety of songs, spanning older stuff to obscure releases, along with a few newer songs. The opening track, “Umi no Kanata e”, is the third stage theme from Twinbee Yahho!, and while the expanded intro is decent, the instrumentation is lacking the energy that made the original version so fun. The next two tracks are taken from the awful PSOne 3D fighter Lightning Legend – the opening vocal theme isn’t bad for anime-style J-Pop, but the arrangement barely changes anything, and the second song isn’t all that interesting either. Next is an arrangement of The Goonies theme – that’s right, Cyndi Lauper’s “Goonies R Good Enough” – done on a piano. It’s so altered that it’s hard to pick out the main melody, but it’s still surprisingly well done.

“GTR Attack!!” Contra Hard Corps theme is well done, but I never really liked the original music that much to begin with. “Ruins of Bacaros” is from the arcade fighter Metamorphic Force which featured a rock soundtrack. The synth guitars used here aren’t much different than the actual game, but it’s cool representation of an excellent song from an obscure game. Labyrinth Runner (AKA Trick Trap) is even more obscure, although the song is actually quite dull, and seems to exist just to show Woodsoft's knowledge of old, unknown Konami arcade games. The Castlevania remixes are mixed – the “Theme of Simon” rendition is a bit too close the official arrangement on the Dracula Battle album, and “Riddle” is plain unremarkable, but “Wicked Child” features a live guitar with 80s style synth that almost makes it sounds like an Ys song. It also features a never-arranged song from Dawn of Sorrow, “Dracula’s Tears”. It was probably the best song in the game and while this arrangement doesn’t do much other than improving the rather fuzzy instrumentation of the original and expanded it a bit, it still sounds pretty good – it wouldn’t sound out of place on a PC Engine game. The shamisens in the original song never fit, anyway. The version of “One Night in Neo Kobe City”, the opening credits song from the CD versions of Snatcher, is a bit more laid back and snazzier, with a particularly nice live sax. “Memoire”, the end theme from the MSX shooter Space Manbow, isn’t bad, but it’s hardly a standout amongst classic Konami canon.

Overall, it’s a decent album, even if it’s not entirely consistent.

Download samples



Posted by Discoalucard at 4:28 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Konami Composers

I've been having fun digging through the ranks of Konami's Kukeiha Club, amongst other composers to have worked for them over the years. Here's a list of the major ones, with mini bios and links to their websites. Forgive me for any errors - I'm working sources from both the English and J-Wikipedia, as well as Mobygames and any other place that has credits, so some of it may be incorrect. I do find it interesting how many old timers are still with Konami, with many of them working on the Beatmania series and other rhythm games.

Motoaki Furukawa AKA Michelle Furukawa

One of the old-school folk, Motoaki Furukawa contributed to Gradius II, A-JAX, Super Contra, Castlevania, XEXEX, Castlevania 64, Lethal Enforcers, Policenauts, and Sunset Riders. He's put out a few solo arrange albums, including one, Under the Blue Sky, that includes music from Gradius, amongst others, and nowdays spends a lot of time with Konami's rhythm games. He also contributed a few tracks to Thunder Force VI.

Website

Michiru Yamane

Michiru Yamane is mostly known for her work on the Castlevania series. Her first work on the series was Castlevania: Bloodlines, but her Symphony of the Night soundtrack won her accolades from around the globe. She also did Aria of Sorrow, Lament of Innocence, Portrait of Ruin (along with a few songs from Yuzo Koshiro), Order of Ecclesia (with the help of Yasuhiro Ichihashi), Curse of Darkness, and contributed to Dawn of Sorrow, Dracula X Chronicles, and Harmony of Dissonance.

Ms. Yamane worked on several earlier titles long prior to Castlevania though. These include Asterix (Arcade), Crime Fighters 2, Detana Twinbee, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan for the Gameboy, Motocross Maniacs, SD Snatcher, Ganbare Goemon 2, Cowboys of MOO Mesa, and Rocket Knight Adventures. In the post 16-bit days, she also suppled work for the PSOne games Gungage (not her best work) and Elder Gate, and JP/EU-only PS2 game OZ: Over Zenith/Sword of Etheria (actually quite good.) She also contributed a few tracks to Suikoden III and IV, and Elebits.

Website

Miki Higashino - MIKICHANG

Ms. Higashino is most well known for her work on the first two Suikoden games, which are largely regarded to be the best of the bunch. Her work stretches back pretty far, to Gradius, Salamander, Life Force, Knightmare, Gradius III, and Contra 3. She also did Vandal Hearts and recently contributed a few tracks to Otomedius.

Website

Sota Fujimori

You'll recognize a Sota Fujimori tune if you hear it - the man loves house, trance and dance music. As a result, he's one of the main guys in charge of Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania music. He helped Michiru Yamane with Gungage, did the newly arranged versions for the PSOne remake of Akumajou Dracula X68000 (Castlevania Chronicles), and did all of the non-heavy metal tracks for Contra: Shattered Soldier. That last gig earned him the full time job of composing the entire Neo Contra soundtrack, which accounts for the change in style between the games.

Website

Akira Yamaoka

Akira Yamaoka is the man behind the Silent Hill music. Although most of those soundtracks consist of industrial grinding and other environmental effects, his guitar-based themes, used in intros and endings, are also quite distinct. From the third game on, he also uses a lot of vocals, sometimes to unintentionally cheesy effect, something of a talent for Konami's musicians.Starting at the third game in the series, he began directing the Silent Hill games in addition to writing the music. He technically supplied the soundtrack to the film version, although it mostly just consisted of renditions from the games anyway. Eventually Konami starting farming the Silent Hill games to outside (Western) companies, but Yamaoka still supplies the music. In addition to Silent Hill, he also composed most of the music in Contra: Shattered Soldier, which has an extremely loud, extremely heavy rock soundtrack. His solo album, iFutureList, is quite excellent and worth a listen. Some of his tracks also appear in DDR and Beatmania stuff.

Masahiko Kimura

One of the composers of Castlevania 64, as well as Dawn of Sorrow, and contributor to the Suikoden III & IV soundtracks. He seems to do slow, piano-based themes very well.

Yuuji Takenouchi

Another name from the early days of Konami, Mr. Takenouchi contributed to Space Manbow, Mystic Warriors, Quarth (MSX version), Metal Gear 2, X-Men and Gaiapolis. At some point he left and became responsible for the Bravo Music (AKA Mad Maestro) series. He's supplied music to a few other games, most notably the PS2 cult hit Chane Dive, Namco's Ace Combat X, and From Software's recent PS3 RPG Demon Souls.

Website

Naoki Maeda - Ensonique Maeda, Daamae

Like Fujimori, Naoki Maeda spends a lot of his times with Konami's rhythm games - anything you see a "NAOKI" version, it's by him. He's also apprently the guy behind Be4U, the girl band created by Konami specifically to promote (and supply music for) their rhythm games. Before his work on these, he also composed the soundtracks to Yahho! Twinbee and Salamander 2, both of which are outstanding.

Kimeyo Yamashita - yamako

This young woman is responsible for the soundtrack to Castlevania, providing the basis for some of Konami's most memorable music. She also composed (or contributed to) Moero!! Twinbee (Stinger), Almana no Kiseki, Hi no Tori (Firebird/Phoenix), Esper Dream, and King Kong 2. She left Konami early on and went freelance, but worked on several other notable games, including Captain Saver (Power Blade), which accounts for its curiously excellent soundtrack, and Megaman X3. She apparently also did/does a lot of works on the Medabots games.

Website
Myspace

Kenichirou Matsubara - KEN, Taurus Matsubara

Going hand in hand with Ms. Yamashita, Ken Matsubara is responsible for Castlevania II's soundtrack, again, one of the highlights of their 8-bit output. He also did the arcad game Haunted Castle, which accounts for the reason that they both share a few of the same songs. He also worked on a few other games, notable Penguin Adventure, Gradius II, Trigon, Wai Wai World 2, Crisis Force, Contra Force and Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure.

Tsuyoshi Sekito - Zenji Pekito

So this is pretty interesting - three of Square-Enix's current composers originally got their start at Konami. Tsuyoshi Sekito worked on early MSX games like Space Manbow, SD Snatcher and Metal Gear 2, as well as TMNT 2: The Arcade game and TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project for the NES. Upon his defection to Square, he started with Brave Fencer Musashi, and moved on to Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song and The Last Remnant. His style on these games fits closely to Kenji Ito, the previous composer of the SaGa games.

Kenichirou Fukui

Kenichirou Fukui worked on several early 90s arcade games, including Sunset Riders, Lethal Enforcers, GI Joe, Violent Storm and XEXEX. His first work at Square was the excellent dark techno soundtrack Einhander. He disappeared into the background for awhile, mostly doing soundtrack, but he also ended up contributing to Front Mission 5, Hanjuku Hero 4 (neither of which came to America) and Project Silpheed.

Junya Nakano

Junya Nakano seemed to work in the same period as Fukui and Sekito, supplying music for X-Men, Asterix and Mystic Warriors. Upon his departure to Square, he headed up Dewprism (Threads of Fate), collaborated with Masashi Hamauzu and Nobuo Uematsu with Final Fantasy X, and did work on Musashiden II and Project Silpheed.

Tappi Iwase

Tappi is mostly known as the guy behind the Metal Gear Solid theme (the same one that was purportedly ripped off from a Russian composer.) Before that, he worked with Hideo Kojima on the Policenauts soundtrack (perhaps he also composed that haunting 14-note theme that's the core of Policenauts soundtrack and plays on the Konami logo in MGS.) He also supplied music for Suikoden II, Lethal Enforcers, and Contra III.

Norihiko Hibino

Hibino first collaborated with several other composers on Zone of the Enders (and eventually its sequel), but he also did much of the music for Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and 4. In his interviews, he was apparently annoyed that "big name" Hollywood composer Harry Gregson-Williams was often given first (and in some instances, only) billing for soundtrack composition, when he really only did the cutscenes. Hibino was freelance by the time MGS4 came out, starting up the company GEM Impact, and has since done other works, including 1942: Joint Strike for the XBLA and PSN and Ninja Blade for the Xbox 360.

Website

Taro Kudou - Souji Taro

The composer of two of Konami's best SNES OSTS - Super Castlevania IV and Axelay - left Konami and apparently went into development with Square, then went to work for Love-de-Lic and eventually Vanpool. He's credited with working on Super Mario RPG, as well as Tingle's Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland

Jun Funahashi

One of the composers for Castlevania III also did the NES Tiny Toons games, along with Contra Force and Batman Returns. Eventually he got promoted to a music director at Konami's Hawaii office, which mostly did DDR and Frogger stuff.

Hidenori Maezawa

Another one of Konami's early legend, Maezawa composed music for the NES version of Contra, Super C Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Life Force. He also contributed to Castlevania III and designed the VRC6 memory mapper chip, which allowed for extra sound channels in Famicom games. He also did the music for the original Parodius - apparently he was given such a short time to write it, that he just cribbed various public domain classical and folk songs, which ended up becoming one of the highlights of the entire series.

1up Interview

Mutsuhiko Izumi

Yet another old-timer, Izumi worked on Snatcher, SD Snatcher, Metal Gear 2, Asterix, TMNT (Arcade), TMNT (NES), TMNT Turtles in Time, Metamorphic Force, Speed King, Crime Fighters, and Solar Assault. He mostly does work on the Beatmania series and its associated games, particularly Guitar Freaks.

Norio Hanzawa - NON

Norio Hanzawa was not at Konami long - he worked on the MSX version of Quarth, Rollergames, and both Castlevania Adventure games, which happen to be some of the finest soundtracks for the little system. He later defected along with Masato Maegawa and a few other to form Treasure, where's been one of their lead musicians ever since. There, he worked on Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, Alien Soldier, Mischief Makers, Bangai-O, Bleach: Blades of Fate, and many others.

Mikio Saito - Metal Yuuki

Mikio Saito defected from Tecmo, where he had composed the arcade versions of Ninja Gaiden and Rygar. At Konami, he's mostly known for Thunder Cross II, contributing to Akumajou Dracula X for the PC Engine, and tons upon tons of Tokimeki Memorial stuff.

Here are some other Konami composers, whom I couldn't come up with any other interesting biographies for:

Seiichi Fukami - FUKA

Gradius II (Famicom)
Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
Thunder Cross
Gradius III
Gaiapolis
Gokujou Parodius

Atsushi Fujio

The Adventures of Bayou Billy
Life Force (NES)
Jackal (NES)
Survival Kids

Yukie Kimura

Graidus II (Famicom)
Gofer no Yabou (MSX)
Akumjaou Densetsu
Gradius III (SNES)
Pop'n Twinbee
Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure

Funa-chan

Twinbee 3
Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania III)

Hidehiro Funauchi

Policenauts
Kid Dracula
Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
Operation C
Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad
Quarth
Castlevania: The Adventure

Suzuki Katsuhiko

Madara
Lagrange Point
Twinbee 3
Yume Penguin Monogatari

Piston Uehara

Majou Densetsu 2
Gofer no Yabou Episode 2
F1 Spirit
Space Manbow

Muchi Muchi Brin - KO

XEXEX
Wai Wai World 2
Gokujou Parodius
Gaiopolis
Boku Dracula-kun (Kid Dracula)
Tiny Toon Adventures

Junichirou Kaneda - J_KANE

Labrynth Runner
'Nyan Nyan Panic
Thunder Cross
Gradius III
Thunder Cross
Zen Intergalatic Ninja
TMNT Tournament Fighters (SNES)
Ring of Red
Posted by Discoalucard at 10:10 PM 8 comments
Labels: ,

Koumajou Densetsu - Scarlet Symphony

Koumajou Densetsu - Scarlet Symphony sounds like an interesting idea - a combination (of sorts) of Castlevania and Touhou. It's not like things like this haven't happened before, because MegaMari is pretty much the same idea, but tossed together Touhou and Mega Man. It was released at Comiket over the weekend, and a demo's been out for awhile now, which you can find at Frontier AJA's website. For a bit of background, the title is a combination of the word "Koumakan", referring to the castle inhabited by Remilia, a vampire girl, and "Akumajou Densetsu", the Japanese title for Castlevania III. Obviously, having a vampire castle made it a perfect setting for a Castlevania-like game.



It's a bit of a weird one, though. Koumajou Densetsu looks and feels like a Metroidvania, but it's actually structured like a classic Castlevania game. In other words, it's back to being a pure platformer. There are even bottomless pits!



Frontier AJA has the Castlevania feel down to maybe the 90% level. The sprite of the main character, Reimu, is easily up to the level of Konami's games. She moves much like Richter Belmont from Symphony of the Night, and wields the whip much in the same manner. But it's clear the developers spent a lot of time focusing on her and not much else. The jumping feels a bit unresponsive, and the hit detection feels quite buggy. Since this is based on Touhou, cutesy fairies take the role of famous Castlevania enemies like spear and axe knights, though there are still several regular enemies, which have all been redrawn, but look a bit dull. The music, while fairly decent, is done by someone who obviously loves Castlevania music a whole lot, but lacks the talent to create something that truly stands on its own.



The worst of it is that Koumajou Densetsu borrows from the Metroidvania level design philosophy - that is, lots of flat surfaces, slopes, and not much in the way of variation, with enemies just kind of strewn about. This style is okay for Metroidvanias, because they're more about exploration than action-platforming. Obviously, when you take that style and apply it to a game that IS an action-platformer, it doesn't work. The designers will do nasty things like sticking four Minotaurs - which have huge range and take tons of hits to kill - into a claustrophobic corridor, where their attacks are practically unavoidable. The levels are all remarkably tedious, too, with the same tiles and layouts repeated over and over, and makes replaying them a drag. In other words, it's way worse than Konami's own titles.

The other major aspects ditched are all of the RPG elements. The enemies in the Metroidvanias were never particularly balanced, but they weren't really supposed to be, because your character would eventually get stronger, and amass an array of cool weapons to fight them with. At least there's a special secondary attack which calls out a partner for a quick and powerful strike, which drains ten crystals. You start off with Marisa, but then each of the defeated bosses will join you and lend you their powers. There are also some vague shoot-em-up elements - a tribute to its Touhou heritage, naturally - none of which really work.


Reimu doesn't have a double jump, but she can fly. This produces a bit of a quandry in certain areas, because if you can just fly over everything, then what's the point of fighting enemies? Well, fallen enemies drop little red crystals - the tougher the enemy, the more crystals. Reimu can shoot tiny little bullets on the ground by hitting Up and Attack, but it's her only weapon when zooming through the skies. It's remarkably weak, but it does fire rapidly.


The boss battles are all flying girls, most of whom have some kind of bullet hell-style projectile patterns. You can technically try to fight them with your whip, but you can also take to the skies to fight them in mid-air. But since your bullets are so weak, you really need to focus your stream on them if you want to do any damage. The flying itself brings up some concerns - you can't directions in mid-air without dropping to the ground first, and if you run out of crystals, you're basically defenseless without bringing the fight back down to earth. There's also a very serious problem with bullet hell-style games in 2D that apparently the developers never acknowledged - your sprite is much bigger, and without the full 360 degree of movement offered by overhead games, PLUS the addition of gravity, makes the bullet patterns all but impossible to avoid unless you just run really, really far away. MegaMari had the same problem. Developers! Guys! It's nice that you're trying to Do Something Different, but it just doesn't work, so cut it out.


There's some acknowledgment that the game is so poorly balanced, in that certain enemy attacks don't do very much damage. In most of the boss battles, it seems like rushing them with a partner attack, while doing everything you can to dodge the projectiles, is the most effective measure to kill most of them.


A lot of people got excited for this when it was first announced, because it does it look pretty good in action. But, at heart, it's still a doujin game, and thus expectations should be kept in check. Like most, it's a cool concept that just isn't executed terribly well.

At least they seem to be responding to complaints. There's already a patch that brings the game up to version 1.02a, which adds an intro movie with a vocal song, some cutscenes along with the excellent original artwork, a larger health bar, and the ability to restart on the last level you played after you exit the program, amongst other changes. Maybe with this kind of time and devotion, they can turn it into something better.
Posted by Discoalucard at 6:15 PM 8 comments
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A Boy and His Fushigina Blobby

I didn't even realize it until I read a post on Gamespite that the Japanese version of A Boy and His Blob had a few changes from its original American incarnation. The most obvious is that the stupid looking stick figure boy now looks a lot more adorable, although the rest, at least from the few minutes I played, seemed to be the same. The title is "Fushigina Blobby: Blobonia no Kiki", which basically means "The Mysterious Blobby: Trouble on Blobonia." It was published in Japan by Jaleco.



What I did notice is that the stuff you feed your blob are no longer "jellybeans", but rather simply "candies". What's more, a lot of them have changed. This makes sense, because the flavor and its transformation type were usually linked by some kind of meaning, a few of which involved cultural or linguistic understanding. I went through the original batch of candy you get at the start to compare them to the English versions, and found some interesting stuff, even though I can't quite parse all of it.



Licorice (Ladder) = Apple (Hashigo) - I don't see the connection here. "Licorice ladder" is a nice bit of alliteration, but I don't see or get anything in Japanese.
Strawberry (Bridge) = Nashi (Hashi) - A "nashi" is a type of Japanese pear and rhymes with the word for bridge. Easy enough! I never understood the English one - how are "strawberry" and "bridge" connected, other than them sounding nice together?
Cinnamon (Blowtorch) = Curry (Gas Burner) - Both are spicy, obviously. Curry is just more recognizable in Japan than cinnamon, perhaps?
Vanilla (Umbrella) = Kinoko (Kasa) - "Kinoko" means mushrooms, which look like umbrellas, don't they?
Apple (Jack) = Nikki (Jack) - In English this is a reference to the "Apple Jacks" cereal. I'm not even sure what a "nikki" is, much less the correlation.
Tangerine (Trampoline) = Purin (Trampoline) - A "purin" is a type of Japanese custard. Trampoline is pronounced "to-ro-po-ri-n", with the last part of the word sounding similar to "pu-ri-n".
Root Beer (Rocket) - Champagne (Rocket) - Maybe just another case of something the Japanese are more familiar with? Champagne works better, honestly, because it reminds me of a cork popping off, more similar to a rocket flying into space. Root beer just reminds me of fizz.
Ketchup (Catch up) - Coffee = I guess this is just another gross candy, since the blob won't actually eat it. I'm not sure what the pun on coffee (pronounced "koo-hii") is supposed to be, if any.
Punch (Hole) - Donut (Ana) = Self-explanatory....donut hole. I think I like this one better, too.

The rest - Cola, Coconut, and Honey, are all the same. I guess if I'm bored enough at some point, I'll try to get the other candies and see what they're called.
Posted by Discoalucard at 9:04 PM 11 comments
Labels: ,

Maniac Mansion - Famicom version

There are actually two versions of Maniac Mansion released for Nintendo's 8-bit system. Most of us are familiar with the Lucasarts one, published in 1989 by Jaleco. I actually think this is the best version of the game, because despite the censorship and the improved detail of the VGA version, the NES one moves quicker and smoother than the PC versions, and has a rad soundtrack to boot. Anyway, Jaleco actually made their own version specifically for the Japanese market a year prior, and it's a bit of a wreck.




Check out the graphics. All of the characters, what with their empty eyes and vacant smiles, look like they jumped out of a Cathy comic strip. The Game Over screen, which shows the characters as angels and is only in this version, looks particularly ludicrous. The box cover shows them all as super deformed dwarves, although at least there's some cool artwork in the manual. (Images from here.)



There's no scrolling whatsoever - everything moves screen by screen. The longer backgrounds are either split up into multiple screens or condensed into one. Various background details are missing, although it has the nude statue that was taken out the NES version. Outside of a few original tunes here and there (and an especially aggravating pause ditty), most of the game is played without music, much like the PC versions. The only noises are the annoying footstep noise when your character shuffles from place to place.




The FC version also pares down the interface a bit by removing some the extraneous verbs, like Fix and Unlock. The NES version did the same thing, but made a very welcome improvement - whenever you highlight an object you can interact with, its name pops up at the bottom of the screen. None of the other versions have this exact function, but the PC versions have an extra command called What Is that works the same way. This command is completely missing from the FC version, which makes fumbling around in the dark a huge pain in the ass, because you basically just need to click everywhere. I found this Japanese review which expressed frustration at that one hilarious part where you can accidentally blow up the whole house while looking for the electricity breaker when the lights go out.



This same page brings up something I hadn't thought of, though. The first puzzle in the game is to get through the front door, which is, of course, locked. The solution is a well known cliche - just check under the doormat. But then it dawned on me that this cliche might not be well known outside the English speaking realm, and with the difficulty in finding objects to interact with, it's possible that Japanese players might just give up before they even start. It's interesting how this is the sort of puzzle that might be more difficult due to cultural divides. There are other bits of localization that make the FC version more palatable - the dime becomes a 100 yen coin, and the Three Guys Who Publish Anything apparently have an address in Tokyo. There's even a Japanese style mailbox in the first screen, which I'm not entirely sure makes sense, because there's a regular mailbox in front of the porch two screens over. Huh.



The worst part, though are the passwords. The NES version was kind enough to include a battery. Japanese gamers had to deal with 104 character passwords, officially making them the longest of any game on the system, or perhaps, ever.



The NES version


Nude statue in the NES prototype
Posted by Discoalucard at 4:54 PM 5 comments
Labels: , ,

Monday, August 17, 2009

Fred Ford and the origin of handheld gaming


Toys For Bob’s Fred Ford: the man, the myth, the Melnorme Trademaster. And as I discovered, possibly also a founding father of handheld videogames? Could it be...

---

(above photo taken from a web archive of Yukki’s old site)

In a recent interview I conducted with Fred Ford, he revealed some fascinating and hilarious background to the work he did before teaming up with Paul Reiche III. What I found particularly interesting, was that he worked on a “Japanese monochrome handheld with a screen about 1cm by 4cm”, creating several games for it. Based on when Toys For Bob was founded, this would put the device at pre-Gameboy era, essentially making Fred Ford one of the earliest people to work on handhelds.

His entirely unedited statement goes thus, followed by some musings of my own:
---
I was attending U.C. Berkeley at the time and, being the eighth out of nine kids, was responsible for paying my own way as my parents had long ago been sucked dry.

I somehow sensed that the promotion I was striving toward in my janitorial job was always going to remain beyond my capacities and so I answered a 'Help Wanted' add for a local software company, Unison World. I only had my work ethic to offer, having no prior experience, and when the interview ended with "Well, we're not hiring just yet, but we might call you in a month or two.", I figured I was being let down easy.

But I did get a call in a couple of months. After spending a sleepless night, agonizing over what I was throwing away in the field of custodial engineering, I grudgingly accepted. And the crazy thing was that they let me do whatever I wanted, ruining me for later Silicon Valley corporate jobs where my bosses actually wanted to have some say about what I did. First I worked on some sort of Japanese monochrome handheld with a screen about 1cm by 4cm (maybe 16 pixels by 64 pixels). I did a bowling game, a first-person bi-plane game, and a top-down window on a find-the-other-tank game.

After that I moved onto the NEC, Fujitsu, and MSX. Sometime during this halcyon time, the two owners of Unison World had a falling out and one split off to form Magicsoft. Their agreement had all of the employees, including me of course, going to Magicsoft. Not too long after this, Erol Otus, would coincidentally go to work for Unison World although I did not meet him at the time.

Some of the games I did for those systems were: Pillbox, Sea Bomber, Ground Support, and some submarine game whose name escapes me. I was working on a game for the MSX (I still have the eight inch floppy) when Magicsoft ran out of money. This was just as I was finishing my degree at college and the timing seemed right for me to put away childish things and join the corporate world. Luckily, after six years lost in the corporate wilderness, my senses returned and I hooked up with Paul.

Perhaps the most memorable thing as a callow, introverted 20 year old were the hookers who would primp in front of the large, mirrored window that fronted our office on Adeline Street in Berkeley. Some things you cannot forget even if you want to.
---


The question is, which handheld is he talking about? Google searches concerning Unison World don't bring up much pertaining to games...

The easiest thing would be to email him again and ask, especially since Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III must stand as two of the finest developers in the industry, happy to answer questions and just chat with fans (such as this forum topic on Little Witching Mischiefs), even if it’s not going to further any plans for intergalactic domination (which is not something I can say for most other developers, controlled by PR reps who won’t even acknowledge your existence unless you can guarantee high-scoring prime-page magazine coverage). Yeah, FF and PR3 are some good guys, and apart from not wanting to take advantage of this situation with more questions, I think it’d be fun for us to try to deduce the answer ourselves.

The orientation of the screen makes me think it’s Milton Bradley’s Microvision (the screen was actually square, 16x16, but it’s still an oblong system), especially since it also had a bowling game and other titles released for it which fit Fred’s description (see above link). Picture below taken from Wikipedia and rotated counter-clockwise.


On the other hand, Fred describes it specifically as Japanese handheld. Assuming it’s obscure, there’s not going to be much information on it in English. A good bet could be the Epoch Game Pocket Computer, from 1984. Except online sources say that only 5 games were released, none of which match Fred’s description... Which makes me think it’s the Microvision again. Picture below taken from Handheld Museum.


Quite a puzzle, I’m sure you’ll agree readers. Winnie Forster’s Games Machines encyclopaedia sheds no light on the subject, and was even lacking in an entry for Epoch’s handheld. But it’s a fascinating piece of handheld gaming history, pre-Nintendo Gameboy. If you have any ideas on what it might be, let us know!


EDIT:
So I emailed Rik at the Handheld Museum, and he shed some possible light on what else it might have been. Thank you Rik!
---
I'm really curious about what he was working on... If he can't remember details, one thing to try to figure out would be what year this was. Microvision came out in 1979, and I know the people at GCE (the company that made the Vectrex) were involved with it. But that might have been designing the base unit, and Fred's company was programming games...

Do the names Dan Shafer or Chuck Blanchard sound familiar to him? There's another cartridge based game that came out in 1983 with a 16x32 pixel screen (though larger than he described) called Super Micro Cartridge. I don't think it was for the Japanese market, and none of the games sound like his (although you could imagine them being re-named with the right 'stretch of the imagination').

Maybe he'd recognize the look of it?

I assume this was a cartridge based game? It might have just been a game with several games built into it... Hard to say. Most of the cartridge based games back then had custom screens instead of just 'pixels'...

---

EDIT 2:
Fred Ford gives a response, and the plot thickens!

About the Japanese hardware I was working on, I remember only that the screen was shaped more like a calculator's screen than a typical handheld (i.e. rectangular rather than square). But I don't recall its being a true calculator. I also think I recall that it was mostly black. So maybe it was the missing link between calculators and handhelds. This would have been 1981 or 1982.
Posted by Sketcz at 5:17 PM 6 comments
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, August 16, 2009

I, Gamer: Seriously!

I am very glad to have recently experienced the bipartite old-school blastfest known as Serious Sam. First brought to the PC gaming market in 2001 by Croteam, a group of then-rookie developers from Croatia, SS brought to us a relatively simple experience that cuts out all the fat and gets right to the mean of an FPS; the S! The goal in each stage is to get from point A to point B by building a bridge out of your antagonists' corpses. I don't mean that literally (though that sounds like an awesome game idea), but you do have a lot of killing to get around everywhere. And I mean a LOT, like in this screenshot where Scythian Witch Harpies do a "Zerg Rush":



Aside from the occasional MacGuffin required to advance (which is invariably obtained after a big battle), there's almost no puzzles. You only have to keep killing until the next gate opens up while staying alive with all the health and armor powerups you can find. It's practically a modern-day revival of classic arena shooters, particularly Smash TV and its successor Total Carnage. You have big arenas and a lot of space to run around, and you have to mow down bastards such as the plentiful Kleer Skeletons, the stingy Arachnoids, and the Sirian Werebulls which I hate with an intense passion. Oh, and of course, the headless Kamikazes whose initially humorous yell you will grow to loathe in due time. This game didn't pull its punches with tossing wave after wave of alien jerkholes atcha. Oh, I forgot to mention the plot consists of badass human warrior "Serious" Sam Stone going back in time to prevent an assault from xenoform big bad Notorious Mental. It is flagrantly derivative from Duke Nukem 3D, and Sam himself even looked a LOT like Duke for the initial release of The First Encounter, but he was changed in all subsequent games. My guess is that Croteam realized how similar their premise was to DN3D and made Sam look like him for shits and giggles, but they were shocked when it caught on and they went on to make sequels with a less-infringy Sam who reminds me a tad of Bruce Campbell.



Sam sure is serious alright, and you've got to be if you want to kick Mental's ass. This is a tough game that will likely elicit a lot of save scumming to survive through some of the longer battles. It's also incredibly mean at times, as it frequently assaults you with enemies who drop out of thin air if you go out of the way to pick up an item on the side. Fortunately, you have an awesome arsenal consisting of (but not limited to), a revolver (or a pair) armed with unlimited ammo, the requisite minigun meant for mowing myriads of mooks to mulch, CHAINSAW, a surprisingly fast-shooting rocket launcher, and my personal favorite, a cannon armed with massive iron balls that flattens anything in its path. Despite such a fine arsenal, you'll always be wanting more when it comes to the bigger bads of the game. Hell, even most of the minor ones are fearsome through sheer number (I'm wagering there are at least one thousand Kleer in The First Encounter alone), but giant enemies also get painfully common in later stages. The Major Bio-Mechanoids, for example, are almost like the Cyberdemons of Doom fame but only about a fourth as durable. They still take a lot of punishment regardless and can easily kill you with a single rocket to your face, and there are... easily around a hundred of them throughout the entirety of The First Encounter. Twice that in The Second Encounter, likely. That's nothing to say of the skyscraper-sized bosses, the most infamous of which is Ugh-Zan III, one of the most famed big battles of recent FPS history. It's hard for The First Encounter's conclusion to not be epic while THIS guy is chasing you up a road littered with every type of enemy in the game and you eventually get to fight him at the very top of an alien pyramid.



"Big" applies to a lot in the series, not just the enemies. While its goals are technically linear and straightforward, the size of all the levels are MASSIVE. Many of the areas in which you fight enemies don't leave much room for cover but a LOT of space to dash and dodge enemy assault, upholding the eternal adage "you can run, but you can't hide." Something I find impressive is that in the original PC version, most levels allow you to run outside of your intended path and off into the wilderness, and instead of colliding with an invisible wall, you just keep going and going and going! I'm sure there's a limit to be drawn somewhere, but it's amusing to see the stage where you once where as a tiny line on the horizon. There are even a few bonus areas that are placed out yonder, such as an oasis on the very first level of The First Encounter. Instead of being confined to limits as you are in other games, you can really roam free in Serious Sam even though there's not too much outside of the actual areas. I just find this scope impressive, and this "wilderness" is cut out of the XBOX version, unfortunately.



If you want to play the original Serious Sam, I should clarify its releases for posterity, as it's a tad confusing. The First Encounter (2001) is the game to begin it all, but its successor, The Second Encounter (2002), is not so much of a sequel as it is a follow-up/expansion that manages to feel somewhat different from its predecessor while having the same look, weapons, and enemies of the first with some awesome additions, as well as continue in the direction of its predecessor. Think Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 in this case; the two games are kind of the same, and yet, not quite. I believe hearing they were intended to all be one part, but the four areas of the planned game turned out to be too long overall. If this is the case, I'm assuming Croteam expanded Egypt and made it the entirety of TFE, while the other three areas (Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, and Medieval Europe) carried on to make up TSE. If the two can be compared, I like TSE more if not just for the addition of four incredibly useful weapons and more varied landscapes, but if you see them as two halves of a whole game (as I do), the entire shebang has to be played overall. The XBOX port (2002) actually does combine the two into one massive game, but it reportedly removes some areas here and there; on the other hand, it better balances difficulty by giving Sam lives that can respawn him on the spot, so it might be worth a play if you're not fond of scumming in the PC version. Both parts were re-released for the PC in 2003 as Serious Sam: Gold Edition, alongside an expansion titled Dark Island, which I have yet to play myself.



I can't recommend Serious Sam enough, not only on its own merits, but also because it's a throwback to the straightforward FPS games of old like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Rise of the Triad. That's not to say that modern FPS titles bordering on RPG and strategy territory aren't awesome (such as Deus Ex and Call of Duty), but I'm a sucker for "retro revivals" where a game gets back to the basics and sticks right to them. Serious Sam certainly delivers on this premise, and it's wrapped up in a nice package too. The graphics, while certainly not the most advanced for their time, are impressive considering they come from a then-unheard of developer working on a modest budget. The soundtrack is freaking amazing, and I'll provide an example at the end because I can't really describe it. The game's coded well, as I personally have not noticed too many breaking bugs or glitches, though maybe I haven't looked hard enough. And to top it all off, the game does NOT take itself seriously at all in an ironic contrast to the title. Sam rattles off some hilarious one-liners ("Didn't I kick your ass two rooms back?"), he comes across telephone booths where he somehow talks to himself, the Croteam developers are represented by freakish aliens with human faces but with bloated craniums, and there are some silly and/or bizarre easter eggs for players who look hard enough. My personal favorite is a curious pair of eyeballs which transform into a titanic Kamikaze if you shoot at it. This quirky charm rounds off an overall awesome experience that SERIOUSLY should not be missed by anyone looking for a rootin'-tootin'-assbootin' experience rife with explosions, lasers, and big bad bombs. Just remember, SAM I AM! Or... rather, Sam he is. I'm not Sam. I'm Mike. So yeah. THIS is Sam.



Anyway, here's the promised music link, which is from the last area of The Second Encounter, actually. If you're touchy about not wanting to hear music from near the game's end, just thought I'd give you a heads up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQMCAdMadMY

Also, the game was popular enough to spawn a console-only sequel for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube called Serious Sam: The Next Encounter, as well as an official PC sequel titled Serious Sam II, which was also ported to the XBOX. I have yet to play TNE or SS2, but I might blather about them later if I get around to them. Hell, I might even write a full out article about the series, though I'll see if college doesn't effectively beat the crap out of those plans. Also, Serious Sam: The First Encounter is getting an HD remake due to be released for the XBOX Live Arcade and PC, but I don't know too much more about it just yet, such as if they have plans to do this for The Second Encounter as well. However, I would very much like to see a revival and larger mainstream release of the series, and with augmented graphics no less, so I approve.
Posted by sotenga at 11:30 PM 6 comments

Contra Rebirth

So while I was looking through the files of the Contra HQ, it was particularly distressing how BAD the reviews were, if there were any at all. The site had always been mistreated by me, mostly for time issues. I started the site, went to college, and let it rot for four years, more or less. Then I redesigned it and brought it a bit up to par between jobs, then it fell through the cracks again. It was really cool that Contra 4 actually mentioned the site in the credits - I think those pictures from the Contra Shattered Soldier (Shin Contra OST) are the ones I'd scanned myself - but pretty embarrassed that the site really never became what it should've been. At least it's functional as a graphic and media archive. It's maintained by Ed Oscuro now, and I believe he's moving it to a different server.

At any rate, this is a long roundabout way of saying I'm working on an HG101 article to Contra, mostly to accompany another Konami themed write-up I'm working on. I don't know when that'll actually go live, but in the meantime, here's a review of Contra Rebirth, which was released last month in Japan for WiiWare. I won't lie - I totally pirated this. I WOULD have paid for it, because it is excellent and way worth the 1000 points they're charging, but Nintendo's nimrod approach to digital distribution will continue to guarantee that they won't be seeing any real money from me until they get their act together.

Contra Rebirth



The purpose of this Wiiware game is initially a bit confusing. The Rebirth series began with Gradius, which brought the series back to its 16-bit roots using similarly styled graphics, music and gameplay. But wait – wasn’t that what Contra 4 was supposed to be?



Well, kind of. If Contra 4 focused mostly on the first three games, Contra Rebirth also adds in some influence from Hard Corps, as well as bits and pieces from the other, later games. It’s another 2D game, with a visual style much like Contra III, and it plays pretty much the same way, including the two-weapon system and the position lock without strafing abilities, although the bombs are gone like in Contra 4.



The heroes from the get-go are Bill Rizer and Yagyu Jubei, the latter marking his second appearance after his debut in Neo Contra. The sprites look pretty decent, but the backgrounds are boring and look totally shameful – it’s sad that a portable title manages to look substantially better than a console game. Still, in action, it’s hard to notice, because it uses some effects, like the huge explosions from Hard Corps, as well as some scaling effects when certain enemies enter the playing field. The music is taken from a range of the Contra games, from the original up to Hard Corps, including even a song from Operation C, all done in the style of the arcade Super Contra, which is FM sound with some strong, digitized percussion. Once again, it's provided by Manabu Namiki, who, with Gradius Rebirth and Fantasy Zone II DX to his credit, seems to be the go-to guy for retro style arrangements.



While Gradius Rebirth was a bit too familiar for its own good, Contra Rebirth is a bit more innovative. The second and fifth level, the city and alien base stage respectively, should ring some bells for series fans, the other levels are mostly new. The first stage takes place in a spaceship under attack (you’re delivered by the same helicopter as the rest of the games, even though you’re in outer space) As you run past a window, you see a huge snake-like monster fly by, shooting it scales at the ship, which in turn crack through the floors and ceilings and start hatching little aliens. At the end, it launches another one of its spores on the window. Once you blow it up, it sucks you out into space, as you jump from debris to debris falling through orbit, destroy the snake bit by bit. The third stage has you riding a series of cyberneric llamas through the wilderness, first destroying a ninja-robot, then facing off against a gigantic missile which attacks by shooting other, smaller missiles. The fourth stage is a descent into a lava cavern and ends up with a fight against an animated stone statue. The final battle is against a huge floating garbage ball which lips the orientation of the screens. Like Contra 4, there’s just enough “holy crap” moments to keep it exciting while still feeling familiar.



The biggest problem is its lengths – it’s only five levels, along with a final boss fight, and it’s over. Still, Contra III was only six level, and two of them were wasted on the simple overhead stages, whereas Rebirth only has side-scrolling levels. For a Contra game, it’s also relatively easy on the standard difficulty settings, although the higher ones prove a nice challenge. Beating the game on different levels unlocks two additional characters – a cute little robot named Tsugumin and a robotic lizard-thing named Plissken. It’s probably not related to Snake’s callsign from Metal Gear Solid 2, instead going back to the original source of Kurt Russell’s character in Escape from New York, but you never know. In this case, you’re fighting against the General Salamander, and one of the pictures in the backgrounds looks like Venom, the bad guy from the MSX Gradius games (and Gradius Rebirth.) Could this be Konami trying together all of its classic game series together into the same canon?



The voice clips are remarkably cool and many pay homage to prior Contra games. Bill yells “Locked and loaded!” and "It's payback time!" upon respawn, like Ray and Wolf from Hard Corps. Plissken yells “It’s time for revenge!” and “Let’s attack aggressively!”, the same quotes from the English version of Contra III. Yagyu seems to be around just to yell out awesome sounding Japanese, while the little robot has a cute little synthesized voice. (A flower even pops up from her corpse when she dies.) In the intro, where Bill Rizer once again wakes up cryogenic sleep a la Shattered Soldier, the camera closes up on his face as his eyes shift back and forth wonders out loud “What is this place?”, just like the arcade Super Contra intro. It’s all so beautiful. All of this taken together not only works as a series tribute but also stands alone as an excellent game, easily up to the level of the 16-it titles.
Posted by Discoalucard at 10:57 PM 8 comments
Labels: , ,

Fatal FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

I know I'm a few weeks late to the party with this one, but apparently some Chinese hackers discovered references to some unused characters in the King of Fighters XII code. These include Vice, Hwa, Takuma, Mai, King, Yuri, Billy Kane, and a few alternate characters, like "Dark Ash" and '98 style Iori. So, three comments on these:

(1) Still no NESTS saga love? I know this makes me a heathen, but I really started to get into the series around '99 and '00 - objectively not the best games of the series, but I like their style a whole lot more than anything '98 and prior. The game needs some K', Kula, Vanessa...and I wouldn't complain about Whip, either. (Needs more of the Mark of the Wolves folk, too, but that should be a universally understood fact.)


(2) Hwa? That's not an interjection, that's the name of the Muay Thai kickboxing guy, Hwa Jai, back from the original Fatal Fury. Of course, the series already had a better Muay Thai fighter with Joe Higashi. He was so lousy that he was one of the few characters, along with Michael Max and Richard Meyer, that never appeared in any of the later games, even when a bunch of them were resurrected for Fatal Fury Special. Even those guys got spiritual successors in later games - Axel Hawk for Michael Max, and Bob Marley Wilson for Richard Meyer, officially making Hwa Jai the most bitch useless character in the series aside from that one dude that existed solely to get pummeled in the intro to Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. So, why him? EDIT: Sotenga informed me that he does make cameos as Joe's trainer, but that would've totally ruined my joke!

(3) Everyone's spazzing out about DLC in fighting games, because the prospect of having characters sold to us piecemeal is infuriating. And yet I'm hoping SNK will be a bit smarter here. They've already realized that the whole "yearly upgrade" thing just isn't working any more. Maybe they're looking at Guilty Gear and seeing all of the incremental updates, and hopefully realizing that there are now better ways to sell fighting game updates than forcing gamers to buy, roughly, the same products over and over. I really wouldn't mind if they released a pack with, say, 9 new fighters, a few new backgrounds, and additional modes, and charged, say, $20 for it. Maybe do the same thing every six-to-nine months, and perhaps release some fully upgraded retail versions at budget-y prices, to keep newcomers up to par. There are a only a few other games doing this right - I'm not huge into Fallout 3 but their approach to the extra packages sound pretty good, as do the additions to GTA4. But it holds lots of possibilities for fighting games, way beyond paying way to much money for downloadable keys to unlock something useless like costumes.
Posted by Discoalucard at 10:08 PM 3 comments
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)