Werewolf: The Last Warrior

Data East, 1990

So let me start off with one for the NES, since I just said that.

Data East made a game about a werewolf with swords for hands and released it in North America several months before releasing it at home in Japan. I like to imagine that the conversation leading up to this decision involved the statement, “the Americans will eat this shit up.” That’s what I’d say. And I’m American. We love our nacho hot dogs and our spicy-ranch burger nuggets, and we love our idea mashups too. We’re basically a nation of five-year-olds. I’m lumping myself in too, don’t worry. I am thirty-seven years old and still struggle with the idea that I’m not supposed to eat cake as a meal. I’m not looking down my nose at anyone here. Especially since the idea of a werewolf with swords for hands is pretty fucking cool.

I, a proud American, am in fact eating this shit up.

There is a plot, but you can throw it in the trash along with the cellophane the box came wrapped in. Something about an evil doctor who takes over the world with mutants and how the world’s last hope is some werewolf with swords for hands. You have an ANGER METER that you fill with bubbles to get stronger/jump higher, and you pick up W’s to transition from man to beast and back. Being a man sucks. Be the beast. The beast that can still totally handle ladders with his sword hands and whose hourglass figure is the envy of all the ladies about town.

Pictured: them hips and them knife-hands totally working it… into a sewer.

I have no real complaints about Werewolf: The Last Warrior, nor does it really distinguish itself too strongly in terms of presentation. It has some pretty cool cinematic bumps in between levels, but after a little while it gets irritating to start a level and have a cut scene immediately interrupt it after you take like three fucking steps. I enjoy the separate mechanics of being a werewolf and being really fucking mad. Our hero can be absolutely furious AND/OR be a ravenous wolf-man, and I think it’s important to teach young people that being as pissed off as possible gives you superhuman power independent of any separate moon-shifting curse you may have. It’s part of the human condition. The music and sound are adequate, and most importantly, the fun factor is there. I got tired of WTLW less quickly than I expected. 7 out of 10 for a novel (if silly) concept done decently.

Cross Fire

Sanritsu Denki/Kyugo, 1990

Imagine if Contra kind of sucked. That’s Cross Fire.

I’m sticking with “kind of sucked” because this game is playable. It’s just not as awesome as Contra and made me want to play Contra again instead. It makes me imagine an executive showing Contra to some desperate and underpaid developers and suggesting they also make Contra. Compared to the werewolf with sword hands idea, this is fucking shameful. So, to risk sounding repetitive here: it’s Contra with a life bar, and instead of defeating an alien menace intent on ruling the world, you’re just some soldier asshole who “fights evil” (looks for trouble) worldwide. But be ready to basically play a slower Contra with shittier everything.

This is to art what a hammer is to a delicate porcelain plate.

I won’t call the graphics terrible, but I could. What I will call them, out loud and with a sneer on my face, is lazy. This is low-effort shit for 1990, and I’m including placement in that assessment, not just quality. Your audio experience will not be much better. Fuck it, it won’t be any better at all. I won’t lie or sugarcoat anything. I will give Cross Fire one positive appraisal: it isn’t totally unplayable if you can deal with:

1) looking at it

2) hearing it

3) feeling vaguely insulted by it

It doesn’t totally suck. It just mostly sucks, and only because it was allowed to. 4 out of 10 out of sheer contempt for Cross Fire.

Atomic Runner Chelnov

Data East, 1988

In real life, the only powers that radiation will give you are the superhuman power to always be sick and the special ability to eventually die of radiation. Chelnov is another classic example of the trope we’ve never truly let die: a man who became a superhero instead of a charred corpse or a short-term hospice patient due to nuclear radiation. He’s an Atomic Runner now, and he’s running for his goddamned life from the KGB or some other “secret organization” that wants his powers for evil. Slings and arrows, man. Every fucking time.

I don’t feel like it’s entirely outlandish that this makes me uncomfortable on some small level.

I know this is a forced-scrolling game, but it’s still very much a platformer; it’s like playing those “athletic” self-scrolling Mario levels in sequence while Data East throws some giant zombie arms and metal-helmeted fire dinosaurs in there for good measure. The scrolling only stops when it’s boss time. There are a variety of weapons and power ups (six counts as variety, shut up) to find, and you’ll want them. Part of what’s so fun about this game is just looking at it; both the arcade and Mega Drive versions are gorgeous for their time, especially some of the background art like the weird person-tree jungle and the Aztec-esque temple area. Chelnov also offers fantastic gameplay, combining a little bit of constant pressure (the nonstop movement) with a ton of action (everything is intent on murdering you, as usual).

My only complaint about it is possible burnout; I’m glad I took a shot at it on emulator so I could save my game state, just so I had a few minutes to look away now and again. I cannot imagine playing this shit in the arcade. Not only do I hate being watched by strangers, I also sweat at the most inopportune times and I’m sure I’d look like a Butterball turkey in a convection oven while playing this. 8 out of 10.

The Incredible Hulk

Probe, 1994

“At least it’s not any Spider-Man game.”

I am so tired of superhero-themed shit, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe we’ve had force-marketed to us as a combo of sociopolitical “message” and barely-written entertainment. Feel free to email me if you would like to defend milady Marvel Comics at court. I have always liked the Hulk, though. The Hulk gets shit done in perhaps the most honest and cathartic way of any of Marvel’s woke-soap-opera characters: by absolutely losing his shit and stomping the bad guys a new asshole.

Pictured: Hulk tearing Abomination a new, improved, second asshole.

This is one of the few playable early-console-era games licensed by Marvel. I’ve talked about LJN and their sins against us ever since I started writing for NRW, and I will let God smash the gavel on that shit. This game is decent, despite being published by the eternal shit-puddle U.S. Gold. Probe kept this game simple without making it too vanilla. When you give me a controller and the Hulk is on the other end of it, I expect to be tearing shit up worse than Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel on a bender.

You don’t really get that here, but what you do get is a game where the Hulk isn’t a hapless clumsy asshole like every digital version of Spider-Man you saw during this era (except Maximum Carnage, that was fairly good). They can’t have you tearing down buildings all over the place or taking antitank rounds to the chest while laughing, but the Hulk still feels pretty Hulky. You get a decent set of special moves to beat up the Leader’s robots with, including bear hugs, head butts, and a very MK-esque uppercut. It is also decently difficult to harm the Hulk, despite his invulnerability being watered down for a video game. Things don’t get too challenging until they get weird later on in places like space. That’s where shit should start getting challenging for anyone.

Everything looks great, very much arcade-quality without diverging too far from the comics feel of the source material. The Hulk’s walk is kind of goofy, this weird arrogant stomp-march, but I guess he can walk however he wants. He’s the Hulk. Non-shitty digitized sounds are accompanied by an OST that sounds vaguely like the one for Sonic Spinball here and there (which is far from a negative thing). 8 out of 10.

Jewel Master

Sega, 1991

This game is totally my kind of shit. Deep-ass fantasy lore intro (here is a link), elemental magic, a demon lord… shit, what else do you want?

You punch fireballs out of your hands and collect elemental rings to combine for use in your mystical ass-kicking of evil. If you ever played Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, it’s a bit like the DSS Card System, but way less frustrating and slow to build. Another neat angle is how certain types of monsters may be more or less vulnerable to certain elemental attacks; it’s a small but welcome element of basic strategy that adds a bit of additional satisfaction to giving the demon king’s minions an ass whooping.

This dragon doesn’t stand a chance against me in the dance-off.

Like too few of its run-and-shoot platformer buddies, Jewel Master allows the player to aim and shoot upward, instead of just having things come at you from overhead and fuck you up while you sort of waggle your arms forward like John McCain and look foolish. I will never stop dunking on two things in this world: politicians and Mega Man.

It’s a Genesis game developed by Sega, so Jewel Master is pretty damn good all across the board. Its audiovisual artisanship is on par with arcade games of the era, as one would expect from the console itself, let alone games made by the console’s developer. The composer was apparently really into prog-rock, and it sort of shows in the soundtrack, which is probably my favorite part of Jewel Master by a nose. 8 out of 10.

That finishes out May, RetroFans. See you in June! Stay Retro!

Hokuto no Ken/Last Battle

Sega/Toei, 1989

Yes, it’s Fist of the North Star. Or at least it’s set in that reality with you as the cranium-popping protagonist. American localization changes his name to Aarzak… what the fuck. Like, why even bother? Just leave it alone. (UPDATE: Apparently the NA version was not licensed under the IP for some reason.) You punch and kick your way across a wasteland map, engaging in arena fights, wild brawls, and deadly mazes. I can’t begin to decipher the “best ending” for the game, but I know it has multiple “chapters,” and I also know that I get my ass handed to me in every arena fight. Sometimes allies find you and have a little gift for you; this, like many events in the game, seem arbitrary or random. Senseless, even.

Post-Modern Interpretive Dance at its Finest.

Your punches can explode motherfuckers, as one would expect. They can also deflect projectiles. Your kick is no joke, either. The post-apocalyptic nightmare world is full of marauding hockey mask men, crust punks, amateur body builders, etc. just waiting to get in your path so you can tell them they’re already dead.

The graphics are pretty nice, with some parallax and great detail on backgrounds as well as the pretty high quality spritework. Most of the characters don’t suck or look awful. Hokuto no Ken’s soundtrack is underrated, and displays a high level of well-executed complexity one can easily miss for the one thing I hold against this game. That is, it’s repetitive as hell (which means it eventually gets tedious). I give Hokuto no Ken a 6 out of 10. I like the effort, and for what it is, it’s really polished and detailed.

Dark Castle

Mark Stephen Price/Jonathan Gay, 1991 (1986)

I love a good medieval fantasy. I’m not even terribly picky. I’ll still play those old SSI D&D games when I need my fix. I’ve seen a lot of “adventure” games come and go. The Dark Castle port for the Mega Drive has to be one of the most unfortunate things that ever happened to unwary players.

As Prince Duncan, you have to navigate the Black Knight’s castle to topple him from his throne. Seeing as you’re a wealthy and powerful prince, you’ve decided to arm yourself with… some fucking rocks. I’m sure there’s some philosophical statement or Biblical allegory here, but I’m pretty sure even the Disciples would agree: clumsily aimed rocks are a poor weapon against literally everything. The prince runs and jumps (badly), ducks (slowly), and makes sure to pick up more fucking rocks when he finds them.

Yeah, I see a whole lotta fuckin’ trouble all right.

This wasn’t a fantastic game when it was on the Mac or C64. It looks like lazy MS Paint, and I’d even say it looks rushed. Like no one gave a shit. The sound is abysmal, and perhaps the greatest affront is that a strangled MIDI rendition of JS Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” loops nonstop.

Non. Stop.

I love that piece of music. I am a huge fan of the classical organ and people so often overlook the bulk of the piece, focusing only on the first few measures it’s famous for. But now I can’t listen to it on the organ for at least a week. I give Dark Castle 2 out of 10. Disgusting.

Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy’s Invention

BlueSky, 1993

This was one of my favorite ones growing up, for two reasons: I loved Ren & Stimpy; and it was short. I’ve always valued a game I don’t have to sit and play for 4 hours, and this one’s a masterpiece. John K.’s cat & dog duo in their own Genesis game… and it doesn’t suck like you expect so much of the licensed games for the MD to suck.

1 or 2 players (simultaneously) must navigate strange and “exotic” locales as the boys look for the pieces of Stimpy’s Mutate-o-Matic, an invention that turns household garbage into food. The game is full of entertaining enemies and challenges, and Ren & Stimpy have to work as a team, executing team-up moves when certain button combos are pressed when close to each other. The game gets a little harder as it goes on, but for the most part it’s a madcap war of attrition.

Tooting around the aviary at the zoo.

The graphics are good-quality Sega graphics, with lots of animation really taking advantage. The sound is exceptionally good, even including some not-too-sloppy digitized voices from the show. The music is pretty snazzy in some places, especially the zoo and the pound. I give Ren & Stimpy 8 out of 10. It’s a lot of fun to play 2 players, it’s got me by the nostalgia, and it’s still fun.

April holds even more retro gaming goodness in store. See you then!

Gunstar Heroes

Sega, 1993

This is one of the finest run-and-gun games I have ever played. The smug part of me (a big part) would like to just leave it at that, but I don’t get paid to write one-sentence paragraphs, nor would that really do Gunstar Heroes any justice. Gunstar Heroes is like Contra cubed. Contra multiplied by an exponent of itself. Your mission is, in summary, to break a spell used by a tyrant to take hold of the entire world by collecting some gems. Sega seems to like gems for some reason. We won’t get into it. There’s no need. If you are even passingly familiar with their other franchises, you know what I mean. To achieve your goal, you (and optionally, a second player) must tackle the tyrant’s massive army, which includes some really heavy hitters and weird stuff.

Hover-biking giant robot chase scenes? You betcha.

Sega cooked this game up, and from top to bottom, it shows. You not only shoot and run, but you’ve got jump kicks and other tricks, not to mention two-person moves and a variety of gun power-ups. You’re sliding down inclines, riding hover bikes, all kinds of great action-oriented shit is going on. It’s legitimately engaging and exciting. Over-the-top boss fights and a great cartoonish theme make this a ton of fun, and 2-player mode is bonkers. It’s always good to see decent co-op two player games from this era, because so many were “take turns” or just boring in general.

The graphics are pretty sick, with plenty of color and character. The bosses really stand out; many of them are made of separate sprites moving as one (or so it seems, I don’t know exactly how they did that, I’m just a fan, not a programmer). The music and sound are what you’d expect from Sega during this period, rich and well-written to fit the bombastic action theme. I’d like to stress again: this game is hella fun with two players.

Gunstar Heroes gets an 8 out of 10 from me. Solid game, and another one I liked even more when re-encountering it as an adult fan.

Sonic Spinball

Sega, 1993

Some people love this game, and a few people hate it. I’m in the first camp, for sure. I’m a sucker for pinball in any form, be it real or virtual, and despite… well, everything about Sonic in the current era, I’m also a big fan of the franchise. This game holds a special spot in my heart much like Mr. Driller or the original DOOM; I have fond memories of playing Spinball during lousy parts of my life and it really allowing me to detach myself and relax.

There’s not much to discuss in the way of a plot. Robotnik’s being a dick again, Sonic has to step up and teach his ass a lesson, but this time it’s framed as a pinball experience. There are little parts where you’re not behaving like a blue spinning version of the silver ball, but for the most part, what you see is what you get.

The tables are challenging and contain some novel Sonic-flavored elements to them, including the theme-appropriate collection of rings and the end goal of collecting those damn Chaos Emeralds. (More gems. See?) Even cooler is the fact that each table is actually multiple tables, and you’ve got to navigate a very broad space to get things done and progress. Sometimes you’re even running and jumping around like Sonic normally does. There are even boss fights, since Robotnik seemingly loves to get his shit pushed in repeatedly by a little blue hedgehog. Sonic Spinball is a great time-killer without being boring or overly repetitive. The game also keeps score like a normal pinball game would, and is otherwise focused on that format. I could play most pinball tables for hours if life permitted me to fuck around that much, and this one’s no exception.

Jesus, Robotnik. One of your face is enough.

The music, again, is solid and on par with what Sega was capable of during the Genesis era. The Toxic Caves theme really stands out, not only as the first level music but as a good upbeat funk-type piece that seems right at home in a 1990s Sonic game. Spinball ups the ante graphics-wise, as well. There’s a lot of animation and activity, and Robotnik’s boss appearances are particularly well-detailed.

I give Sonic Spinball an 8 out of 10. It’s a bit of a novelty job, but it’s fun, it looks good, and it plays well.

Ristar

Sega, 1995

“This is one of those cutesy games,” I muttered to myself while loading the rom up in Fusion. I was absolutely right, and further expected to be let down by it, but it’s actually not terrible. Sure, it’s another platformer, and a lot of it is nauseatingly adorable, but it’s a ton of fun to play and it’s well-produced. (It just occurred to me that all three of today’s games are produced by Sega.) You assume the role of a little star dude in a distant galaxy, who (in a recurring theme not only in Genesis games but video games as a whole) is fighting against tyranny, this time in the form of a big nasty named Kaiser Greedy. Greedy is a “space Pirate” intent on ruling the planet Flora (Neer in the JP version) and the surrounding star system by force. This is another one of those games where they did way too much fiddling with the story from JP to NA release, so I’m not going to write a Cutting Room Floor style essay about it. Suffice it to say, it’s up to Ristar, with his gigantic stupid face and childlike digitized voice, to save the Valdi System from the beefy baddies.

It’s a platform game, and a late entry into the category during the era in question, but Ristar can do some cool stuff with his stretchy arms, like propel himself like a catapult or deliver vicious grabbing headbutts to enemies. A lot of play is based around the use of Ristar’s stretchy arms, but there’s plenty of conventional platform elements too: the run and jump stuff, underwater levels, bonus stages, and some pretty cool boss fights (including wizards and shit, which I’m always down for).

Get down here so I can rope-arm headbutt your ass, you dizzy bastard.

The digitized sound isn’t very good, and Ristar’s voice is creepily childish. The other sound, as well as the BGM, is pretty good. Not necessarily top form Sega stuff, but adequate. The visual experience is on par for a higher-quality Sega-produced Genesis game, with a lot of color and variety befitting the cute bubblegum flavor of the game as a whole.

I give Ristar 7 out of 10. It’s not what I’d call a classic, or even exceptional, but it brings enough of its own juice to the table and offers a fun experience to anyone who loves platformers.

Expect The third and final chunk of Sega-meat on Saturday, RetroFiends! Thanks for reading!

Yes, folks, we’ll be giving the Sega Mega Drive, known in North America as the Genesis, the same attention we gave the NES last month. While I had an NES and enjoyed it very much, the Sega Genesis is likely the console I’ve put in the most hours on, and as I’ve said before, I was on the Sega side of the fence for the Console Wars when it competed with the Super NES. There’s a lot to love about the system. In particular, I’ve always liked the unique sound that the YM2612 chip lent the music, not to mention some of the remarkable titles Sega self-produced for the platform. There was nothing wrong with the SNES, but if you were cool… you had a Genesis.

The Ooze

Sega/Sonic Team, 1995

I wanted to start with this one because I missed it as a kid, only to discover it years later, and it blew my fucking mind. You play as this scientist who finds out some grody stuff about his employer’s business. Your boss tries to kill you by exposing you to some gnarly green slime, but little does he know he just created one of the coolest protagonists for a video game ever. With what’s left of your humanity, you set out for revenge.

GRAAAAH! He’s so fucking cool, man. I can’t even be mad that I missed it as a kid because it was worth uncovering it years later and being jazzed as hell.

YOU PLAY AS A SLIME MONSTER. It’s as cool as it sounds. You slide around as an amorphous blob, able to do all the things a blob could do (move through tight spaces, etc.) and capable of whipping out deadly pseudopods to murder and devour anything in your path. Getting attacked reduces your mass, but turning creatures into ooze and subsuming them replenishes it. There are even power ups, despite the idea that you’re already pretty boss as a sentient ooze. The controls take a little getting used to, but once you’re comfortable, you’re really going to enjoy yourself. The soundtrack is really good, especially the first stage, the toxic dump. Really good digitized SFX as well, with some nice voice samples that come through crisp and clear. I shouldn’t even have to say that the graphics are incredible, but I will, because holy shit. It’s not just normal sprites for your ooze man; your character is composed of modular chunks of 16-bit slime that flow in a very “realistic” fashion. A lot of effort clearly went into this game, and it shows.

I give The Ooze 8 out of 10. It is what I consider a high quality game, giving you the total package when it comes to gameplay and the audiovisual experience.

The Terminator

Probe/Virgin, 1992

I really don’t care much about the third and subsequent films, but Terminator 1 and 2 are, in my opinion, among the best science fiction films ever made. I doubt many of you would disagree, especially since the first one is filled to the brim with that dark-neon 80s starkness that retrowave/synthwave fans adore (myself included).

Unfortunately, the Genesis game is a woeful sack of wet horse shit.

You play as Kyle Reese, first in the future (to get to the past) and then in the past (to save the fucking future). The game follows the plot of the movie, at least loosely. A lot of the game involves just slugging through areas and getting hurt with very little in the way of mobility, hoping for the little health tanks to drop from enemies. I don’t remember Kyle murdering hundreds of police in the movie either, especially not with a crazy rapid-fire shotgun. This game plays like a sloppy death metal album: just things smashing and being smashed together as you mechanically plow through it and hope you don’t die (or just stop caring, like I did).

I spent several minutes just fighting my way out of this dead end. Just constantly hurling grenades at buff shirtless cyborgs. It’s like trying to have sex to grindcore music. It becomes mechanical and you get mentally tired.

To be fair to it, I’ll mention a couple things they did really well. The dialogue scenes between levels are actually pretty cool, featuring only minor affronts to the English language and some very well-done, almost comic-book style presentation. Some of the later levels feature interesting elements and stipulations; the police station requires you to reach Sarah Connor before the T-800 does and is a fairly good attempt at capturing the movie’s intensity.

I just wasn’t impressed with the game as an overall end-product. With the money Virgin has, they could have published a much better game. Terminator gets 3 out of 10 from me. It was almost depressing how “throwaway” this effort seemed.

Devil Crash MD/Dragon’s Fury

Naxat/Technosoft, 1991

“Are you just using this as an excuse to talk about Devil Crash again?”

Yes. Yes I am.

It’s no secret that I love the Naxat “Crash” pinball series. Virtual pinball is a great way to pass time, and Naxat fucking nailed it with Alien Crush and Devil Crash. Unfortunately, my PC-Engine emulator is on the fritz, so I’ve been playing the Mega Drive version of Devil Crash (called Dragon’s Fury in its North American release for the Genesis) to feed the beast.

Nothing is really lost in translation from platform to platform. The game still looks gorgeous, rife with cartoon-occult schlock imagery and straight-up Halloween wickedness. The Mega Drive’s YM2612 handles the music well, although it doesn’t seem as “blended” smooth as it does on the TG-16. Small loss, though. Play is the same; in fact I even think the game handles a little bit better on the Mega Drive. That might just be me, though. I’m very good at deluding myself. (I even call myself a writer sometimes.)

She’s still there, and she’s still a real knockout. Hubba Hubba!

The only thing that bothers me about the MD port of Devil Crash is that they named the American version Dragon’s Fury and pointlessly watered down a lot of the weird occult content. I understand the motives and all, you want to protect your children from the nefarious secret Satan codes they put in the video games… but we were way too fucking soft about this kind of thing back then. You gotta know the Enemy to fight him, and the best arena for that is pinball. Put on the Armor of God and hit the paddles!

As a solid port and a great game on its own merit, I give Devil Crash MD 8 out of 10.

I will catch you in a day or two for part 2 of this one, folks. Stay Retro!

The martial arts have played a mystifying role in pop culture ever since the great Bruce Lee graced the screen with sick moves so fast the camera could barely capture them. Perhaps even before that, the very idea of such fighting prowess, with or without a weapon, has been a vivid font for fantasy in the public mind. I remember being drawn to karate and tae kwon do as a youth by heroes such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I took classes for about a year, but at age 8, all I really did was pick my nose and wiggle my ass in the full-length mirrors lining the wall. I lacked focus and discipline. I revisited the endeavor later in life and made moderate headway, but at that point I had developed other interests that far outweighed my desire to become a fighting machine. I was also, as I am now, about as in-shape as a water balloon with several holes in it.

I loved the video games that featured martial arts, though. Herein, we’ll take a look at a few of the rarer kind of fighting game: the ones that treated it less like a cartoon and more like a sport… or at least made an attempt at pseudo-realism. We’re treating the Grab Bag more like a speed bag or heavy bag as we check out these “real” martial arts titles.

Best of the Best: Championship Karate

Loriciel, 1992

We’ll start off with one that was released across a ton of platforms in one incarnation or another. This game was first released as Andre Panza Kickboxing in Europe, but its release was limited and only included personal computers and the TG-16. Its better-known version was released in 1992 for the NES, Genesis, SNES, and both Amiga and DOS computer systems.

The cool part of Best of the Best is that it’s kind of a career simulator. You can’t just jump in and start collecting championship medals; you’ve got to train to get your stats up and pick your battles based on the tale of the tape. By sparring against a dummy opponent and doing various other exercises in a gym, your fighter builds his stamina, strength and speed to compete with an array of real-life kick boxers emulated within the game.

In the ring and in the gym. A true badass doesn’t waste time. Get at it.

One downfall for me was the control scheme, and I can’t even fault it completely. It’s wonderful how customizable it is, allowing you to go in and set certain moves for certain arrow/button combos, but it can become a bit harrowing to keep up with when you’re in the ring with a CPU opponent that knows what it’s doing by rote. I’d call it a labor of love to get polished with this control scheme, but it isn’t for me. The game itself is quite a commitment, between training and matches… but then, it’s realism we wanted, right?

Budokan: The Martial Spirit

Electronic Arts, 1989

This title saw a broad release across tons of computer and console formats, and received mixed reviews. An earnest attempt at depicting realistic martial arts combat, both armed and unarmed, Budokan puts the player in the shoes of an aspiring student preparing to enter a grand tournament. Matches are fought against a set of variably armed opponents, and during the tournament the player may select from four methods of fighting: the staff, nunchaku, kendo (a rattan sword meant to simulate a katana or similar weapon), or unarmed karate. The CPU opponents are not limited to these weapons, and the player may only choose each of his own methods four times before it is no longer available in the tournament.

This dude is, in fact, serious with this shit.

There are also areas for practicing the four methods of combat, though this game lacks the stat-leveling system present in Best of the Best. The practice is literal, meant to sharpen the actual player’s skill. This practice also helps build an understanding of how ki and stamina work in the game; ki is built up in defense against attacks and then released in your own offense, and stamina is a rough representation of how much punishment you can take. When a fighter’s stamina bottoms out, they’re done.

The controls, yet again, are a little unwieldy and take a bit to get used to. Once you do, however, the big challenge is timing as you learn to adapt to other combatants’ styles and patterns. It’s helpful to at least glance at the pre-fight screens that describe your opponents; each one hints at their style and how one might overcome it. It’s just as tricky to select a good weapon to match your foe’s, since like vs like is not always the ideal strategy. I enjoy the concept of this game overall, as it’s just as cerebral as it is “physical.” It’s not just whack-a-mole. As an aside, the Amiga version has fantastic music and may be the best overall version of the game.

Bushido Blade

Light Weight/Square, 1997

It’s time to dip into some fifth-gen shit. I figured this was a great title to start with. You know how in so many fighting games, everyone has a life bar and every brutal injury takes only a fraction of it? Well, not in Bushido Blade. When you step onto this low-poly battlefield, things get real.

There is a story mode in the game that varies slightly for each character, and not only involves fighting various other figures in the plot but also series of ninjas and other challenges. While the single-player game is wonderful and challenging, it’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m focusing on the VS. Mode.

You and a CPU opponent or another player face off with a choice of weapons in a fight to the death. When I say “to the death,” I don’t mean until some abstract yellow bar is empty. I mean, you fight until someone is on the ground gushing blood. And that doesn’t take as much contact as you think.

Striking and blocking at different angles and heights can be achieved with fairly simple button/arrow combos, and there’s even a little acrobatic work you can do to present a harder target to your opponent. A lazy or hasty strike can leave you open for a counter-attack, and a good hit to a limb will render it useless. Many matches will end swiftly, however, as a blow to the head or torso creates a catastrophic blood-spurt and a sudden defeat. Some of the selectable characters are better-trained with one or another type of weapon, and this is worth reading up on or figuring out. For instance, Kannuki is great with the big power weapons. Give him that broadsword or hammer and watch him smash through an opponent’s defenses.

The graphics are as good as any other early PS1 release, and the sound is killer also. Most fights have no background music, which seems oddly appropriate. The only sounds are those of desperate one-on-one combat.

WEIGHING IN

Best of the Best: 5/10 (It’s really cool, but the controls are occasionally baffling. Visually smooth though.)

Budokan: 6/10 (Great for its time, I think the Amiga version wins out presentation-wise.)

Bushido Blade: 8/10 (One of my favorite PS1 games, hands down.)

OOOH THAT BAG / CAN’T YOU SMELL THAT BAG

Further back, I looked at the incredibly sick Naxat pinball games, Devil Crash and Alien Crush. Since then, the phenomenon of video pinball has become one of my favorite sub-compartments of video gaming, and the hunt has been on. In the new era of little handheld devices capable of playing emulated classics, it is a great type of game to pick up and burn time with when you’re, say, waiting for an appointment or a passenger on a long car trip. Not to mention how gnarly some of these games are visually and soundwise.

In this Grab Bag, I’ve focused primarily on titles of this nature for the Mega Drive/Genesis console. I’ve been on a heavy Sega kick lately, between the Dreamcast’s 18th anniversary and a new influx of ROMs from various sources. I won’t beat around the bush: this is just another excuse to write yet another love letter to the system I grew up playing, but it’s also a good look at a sub-genre that oven gets passed over in the vast swathe of titles available for the Mega Drive.

Crue Ball (1992)

Developed by Electronic Arts/NuFX

European cover, front and back. Regional differences are minimal. Side note: Jesus Christ his face.

This is, in fact, a licensed and branded pinball game for the Mega Drive in representation of the hair metal band Motley Crue. It features three of their songs, rendered down into the typical YM2612 sound-style of the MD/Genesis, and also features an artistic interpretation of “Dr. Feelgood” himself. Apparently, Doc Feelgood looks like this, which isn’t really a comforting presentation for a man who works in medicine:

I’m absolutely sure this guy took his Hippocratic Oath completely seriously.

Now, This game gets sniped at a lot. I’m not going to say it doesn’t have its flaws. For one, the game is pretty basic, without a lot of bells or whistles; it’s really just a pinball game. I would not have paid retail price for this game in 1992, but as I said above, in the modern era of portability and data-vaults the size of fingernails, Crue Ball is a good game to whip out on your handheld and kill some time with. The gameplay, while simple and non-embellished, is decently fun. It’s… I mean, it’s a pinball game. The board is three-tiered, as we see in the Naxat games, and you’re given a handful of separate but connected goals to attack in order to rack up the points. The game is also generous with balls, giving you four per play, which I think is nice considering this isn’t something you’re sinking pocket change into like blood into a loose bandage.

The soundtrack, in my opinion, sits weirdly within the game; the licensed songs come off poorly, but the music written expressly for the game really isn’t bad. The intro’s rendition of “Dr. Feelgood” is an immediate example of the YM2612’s limits being exceeded; it cannot make hair metal sound awesome. Hair metal must do that on its own, as is written in the Ancient Scrolls. Aum Ha. Blessed Be. Every Rose Has its Thorn.

The visual presentation is cool but not over-the-top or absurdly wild. The exception, I would say, is Doctor Goddamn Feelgood, who looks like if you burned an art student’s mind on uncut coke and asked them to draw Callisto from the X-Men’s Morlocks. Otherwise, there are some classic Genesis-style sprites in here, stone heads and grungy little skull-dudes waiting for you to nail them with the silver ball. It contributes to the fun instead of being apart from it; the overall art-intrusion to the pinball itself is appropriately minimal.

Lastly, I will add an interesting bit from the game’s development: it was not initially intended to be a Motley Crue themed product. Its prototype title was “Twisted Flipper,” and since you just read that, let’s nod together: yeah, that sounds dumb as hell. MTV was approached for a license but decided they’d take a powder on the deal. Late in development, Motley Crue (perhaps in a bid to regain a little pop-culture traction, or more likely out of the same money-hungriness that compels Steven Tyler to plug in his microphone despite clearly being some kind of lesser undead creature at this point) latched on eagerly.

Sonic Spinball (1993)

Developed by Sega

Sonic’s expression says it all. “Yeah, son. Check this shit. At it again. Lava, flippers, pissin’ off that goofy-ass Robotnik… sittin’ still is for dead people.”

Let us first note that this title was also released for the Master System and the Game Gear; I am focusing solely on the Genesis/Mega Drive version. (For those of you who play games on your phones, I am told there is also an iOS version available.)

This is another one of the many Genesis titles I had regular and casual exposure to in my youth. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the blue hedgehog and his saga of ownage against that trick-ass fool Robotnik, despite not really being good at the regular series (in fact so bad at them that our videos for Sonic and Sonic 2 are played by a friend of mine who willingly volunteered to show off his expert chops). Sonic Spinball, however, is a different story; I enjoyed its refreshing change of tone/pace and the fact that I wasn’t complete ass at it since it was (mostly) a pinball game.

I say “mostly” because the cool thing about Sonic Spinball is how it mixes in a dash of platformer elements to the typical video pinball scenario. There are times when Sonic will land somewhere and you will have to control him like the good old Sonic we all know and love. In the first stage, if you’re lucky, you can do this as a save against “losing a ball” (dying a horrible death in monster-infested toxic waste), and it is also a crucial part of finishing stages by beating the shit out of your eternal foe, Robotnik, who really needs to fucking learn to give up.

Seriously, dude… what kind of machine are you gonna build that one blue hedgehog in weird-ass red shoes can’t just reduce into scrap metal and a bad joke within a few minutes? Take up crosswords or model trains or some shit. It’s time to cash it in.

The soundtrack is on par with other entries into the franchise from this era; good use of the Yamaha and all peripheral tools, a rich sound, and that distinctive jazzy-yet-mildly-badass theme to all of it. The aspects of platformer and pinball are melded well, tastefully unintrusive toward one another so as to form a really easy symmetry. Once you catch on to the way the game is played, it’s good fun.

I guess the only strike against Sonic Spinball to me would be its slight lack of initial approachability. It’s not just another video pinball game; it’s sort of an experimental hybrid. This can lend it a bit of clumsiness and difficulty, but it’s not unlike plenty of other well-liked games with a unique take… it just requires a bit of patience to get into it.

Dragon’s Revenge (1993)

Developed by Tengen

Just to mix it up a little, here’s the Japanese cover spread. You can click it to make it bigger.

This game gets brief mention in my article about the Naxat pinball games (linked at the top of this article). It is a sequel by way of another developer to Devil Crash MD, which was released Stateside as Dragon’s Fury. Tengen (which was a subsidiary development house for Atari) handled the American distribution for Dragon’s Fury, and enjoyed the results so much that they followed up with a sequel that had no input from Naxat at all. Critics tend to see this sequel as a bland watering-down of the original concept (which had taken some watering-down anyway in the translation from a Japanese PC Engine title to an American Genesis one), but Dragon’s Revenge is a solid member of the Video Pinball Club if you can get past all the historical/political bullshit. I, as a solvenly hedonist who just likes to play semi-passive games while my life ticks by and I die one minute at a time, can easily get past it. Way past it.

The table is in no way conventional, unlike its predecessors; it is barely linear and requires appreciable skill to navigate as one wills instead of just ride the currents. In terms of theme and artistic presentation, Dragon’s Revenge is decidedly far less horrific and eldritch than its progenitor Devil Crash, featuring instead a gently grim fantasy theme and even a loose plot (which is largely unnecessary and not worth discussing at length here, but if you’re curious, check out the manual). The basics are close enough, with a main table, several accessible bonus games, and a secondary fun factor of squashing little monsters and demons along your silver sphere’s journey across the landscape.

Four screenshots that exemplify the stark differences between this title and its prequel. Gentle elf forests and a distinct focus on scantily-clad women. Click to enlarge, perv. 😉

The OST gets little mention in other reviews or discussions, but I think it’s pretty damn good considering that it’s small and seemingly an afterthought. My overall assessment of it, when trimmed to one adjective, would be “adequate.”

While the popular view of Dragon’s Revenge is as the worst of the Crush series, it’s still enjoyable on its own merit. I wholeheartedly agree that it cannot hold a candle to the original pair of games for the PC Engine, but that’s an understatement on par with “Nintendo has sold a few million units over the years.”

LET THEM STAND FOR JUDGMENT

Crue Ball: 5/10 (don’t pay more than like $10 for this used, and ideally just get a Rom, but it’s okay enough)

Sonic Spinball: 7/10 (it’s weird as fuck when you first jump in but it’s become memorable all on its own as a really cool combination of ideas)

Dragon’s Revenge 6/10 (it is a bastard child, there is no denying that… but it can’t really be discarded as bad because, well, it isn’t)

“YOU DRATTED KIDS!” See you at the end of the month! Stay retro and play retro!

Funk.

It means all kinds of things. Let’s look at the two most binding definitions of the word:

This iconic game has plenty of jams and plenty of implied bad smells… and a lot of everything else, too. ToeJam & Earl is a piece Mega Drive/Genesis bedrock, not to mention a game that stood unique among contemporaries with its gameplay style and innovative combination of concepts. Further boosted by its incredible soundtrack, the game is part of any core collection for the console.

Work began on TJ&E in 1989, when two Electronic Arts developers – Mark Voorsanger and Greg Johnson – set out on their own to develop a game that combined the real-time action of a console title with the elements of a roguelike.

What’s a roguelike, you ask? Well, it’s kind of like an RPG… except you’ll almost certainly die, the world you’re in is randomly generated, and everything is turn-by-turn instead of real-time. That is, you control the pace of the game completely, and in between actions, it remains frozen in time. The term comes from the original game of this kind, Rogue, which is a rather bland-looking (by modern standards) text and ASCII based game for early computers. There are newer reworkings with graphical tiles and enhanced interfaces, but the idea remains largely the same. Voorsanger and Johnson took this idea to Sega, and Sega liked it so much that they asked to publish it exclusively for the Genesis.

TJ&E can be played by one or two people, controlling the titular characters: ToeJam (a little red guy whose entire “head” is represented by two long stalks ending in huge eyes) and Earl (a tubby orange alien wearing some stylish shorts and classic wraparound shades). Their totally righteous but comically designed rapmaster spaceship has crashed, and they need to find all of its component parts to repair it and continue on their way through the cosmos.

The greatest part of this vehicle’s design is its total and brazen ignorance of the fact that sound does not carry across the vacuum of outer space. It also looks like something Jacques Cousteau would draw on a napkin while high as fuck.

Players guide the duo across a plethora of floating space-islands in ¾ perspective, avoiding constant peril and totally lame hassles all the while. If ToeJam and Earl end up separated, the screen simply splits along the middle, tracking their separate wanderings. The universe through which this search-and-retrieve mission is conducted can be randomly generated at the time of play, or a fixed-in-place set of levels that are the same each time you play the game.

ToeJam hard at work, while Earl… well, Earl just kind of stands there. Good job, Earl.

Besides your ship’s missing parts (which are represented VERY abstractly), you’ll find all kinds of funky shit on the ground and wandering around this bizarre floating maze. One of the primary elements of play is the scattering of pickups represented by garishly wrapped presents all over the place. Mimicking another element of most roguelikes, these presents all do different things (most good, some bad), and once you open a present of a certain type (using the menu you access with the B button), you’ve identified all future instances of its kind that you find. Until then, they are mysteries. One present even randomizes (and thus negates all your identification of) all presents. What a pain in the ass.

You’re not alone on this bizarre chunk of earth, either; an astonishing variety of weirdos roam the environment, some wishing you more harm than others. One of my favorites is the hula dancer. She often shows up around more harmful guys like the little red devils, and drawing too near her results in ToeJam or Earl compulsively mimicking her dance (and allowing the other nasties to get the jump on you). There’s little in the way of offensive tools in the game, forcing players to adopt a careful and thoughtful approach to moving through the world. Some beings will be found asleep, and holding down A allows you to creep by them slowly but quietly. Some also behave in certain predictable ways, allowing you to pay attention and use that to your advantage. Telephones reveal parts of the map (accessible by pressing C), and elevators move you up to the next board. Usually, a hint will appear to tell you that a ship part is on the level you’re entering… so scour the whole thing!

ToeJam & Earl features a lot of color and wackiness in it graphics, strongly tied to its overall early-nineties vibe. Its amazing soundtrack, composed by John Baker, comes on even stronger with the 90s power, with a R&B funk style inspired by musicians like Herbie Hancock and thick with bass and flex. The music is another example of a soundtrack really turning that YM2612 all the way out, and I rank it among the finest in the Genesis game library.

Initially, ToeJam & Earl sold poorly, but it built a cult following and also rode on the coat-tails of Sonic the Hedgehog during the Christmas of 1991. It spawned two sequels, and a Kickstarter for a new game successfully reached its funding goal in 2015.

I give ToeJam & Earl 8 out of 10. It’s a pretty fun game, if not a little meandering and open-ended sometimes… but it was definitely a unique spin on console gaming with its combination of source ideas. And man… that SOUNDTRACK.

See you in September! Get your asses back to school (or just get ready for autumn if you’re a grown-ass adult) and STAY RETRO!

Beat em ups.

I’ve said so much already. What more can I add? The style was super hot in the 16-bit era, and still weaves its way in and out of the limelight from time to time. The formula is classic, even timeless, to speak boldly… one or two protagonists (maybe more, if hardware permits), punching and kicking their way through hordes of baddies, occasionally facing down a lieutenant or three on their way to the Big Bad Guy(s). The format allows game designers to go way out into left field for enemy and level design, and that’s unfailingly where developers were at in the early and mid 90s.

Crude Buster, alternately titled Two Crude Dudes, fits that bill precisely; it is wild, colorful, and just-beyond-real. Released for arcades by Data East in 1991, the game is hailed by many as a classic entry into the beat em up family, and the game did so well in arcades that it was released in 1992 for the Mega Drive/Genesis. Players control one of two hulking mercenaries hired on by the government to take back a ruined New York from a group called “Big Valley,” who (literally) nuked the city and claimed the rubble as their own.

Now, I don’t know if “Big Valley” is one of those “lost in translation” things, but it isn’t a very heavy-sounding name for a terrorist organization full of tattooed punks and mutant bio-monsters. They make up for it in action, though. Your unreasonably buff nuclear warrior is first assailed by shirtless frisbee aficionados and what look like mustachioed elf men; things soon turn a bit more dire as you face the first boss – a brute rivaling you in swoleness, in face paint and KISS shoes, wielding snakes.

He wants to rock and roll all night, and murder everyday.

As you progress through the nuclear ruins of NYC, shit only gets more serious. The most annoying enemies early-on are the little hunchbacks who latch onto you and sap your vitality as they gnaw on you. However, it gets far worse as weirder and weirder mutants come crawling out of the rubble to make your Brian Bosworth-looking ass wish you never shook hands on that government contract.

Thankfully, your crude dudes are pretty monstrous themselves. They can easily lift set-pieces as big as junked cars, as well as most enemies they can grab. These make great projectiles to supplement your determined (if not terribly graceful) punching and kicking. If you get low on health, look for soda machines. JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE, drinking some fizzy water loaded with coloring and corn syrup will save the day. These also usually show up in little vignettes between levels; the arcade version just puppets you through, while the Genesis port makes you whack the cans out of the machine yourself.

Just guzzle it down, big guy. Make all the pain go away.

The graphics in the arcade version really don’t suffer much in the crunching-down for the 16-bit Genesis port. They are on par for their time; things are a riot of color, and there’s a comic book level of detail to everything (not to mention the cool visual popup sound FX a la 1960s Batman). The sound is where some effort clearly went in; the arcade version features a lot of digitized FX and some good music. The Genesis port actually has better music with a more fitting pace to it, but it loses a lot of the digitized stuff out of sheer space efficiency.

All things considered, I’d give Crude Buster an 8/10. It’s challenging, fun, colorful, and definitely deserves mention in any conversation about the beat em up format in video gaming. Crude Buster is different enough to interest you, but it’s still a red-blooded beat em up hit through and through.

See you in August, you big goofs!

It’s time for us to cross the streams, true believers.

There’s a lot of talk about comics here on NRW, and rightly so. Joey has his own awesome strand of articles wherein he sheds light on the old and exposes us to the retro-new, and we love it, because Joey is to the medium of comics what I am to sitting on my ass in front of a CRT monitor with a controller in my hand: he’s a passionate expert on the subject. It’s worth diving into; when done well, the comic book or graphic novel is an art form capable of deftly transporting the reader to new worlds – some like our own, and some realities away from it.

What can’t be overlooked is how the comic book multiverse has been thrust into the colored-light beams and binary rows of the VG grinder time and time again in the plodding quest to juice franchises for more revenue. Here’s the dolorous stroke, folks: We’re going to take a look at how they’ve done this with one of Marvel’s undisputed icons, their bread-and-butter household name… Spider-Man. Peter Parker, the world’s most beloved wise-cracking web slinger, has been dipped in silicon and code frequently throughout video gaming’s history, with results that I will be kind and describe as “varied.”

I mean, he’s an icon. Some comics fans think he’s a pussy. Honestly, I do too. I’m more of a Punisher guy. No one can deny, however, that Peter Parker is one of the most luminous stars in comic book history. (Artwork by Michael Golden)

Everyone’s pretty familiar with Spidey’s origins and powers. He got bit by a radioactive spider, got some powers, lost his uncle to crime, and got serious about cleaning up the Big Apple (and sometimes beyond). The wall-crawler has made tons of friends and enemies since his appearance in the 60s, from goblins to murderous hunters to symbiotic aliens that abandoned him and sought out his unstable and disgruntled colleagues for revenge (Venom is the man!) Pete’s powers, coupled with his nifty web-shooting devices, make for the possibility of great dynamic gameplay if translated creatively into digital form. Right?

Ah, shit, kids… let’s just do this. I’m not gonna look at every game, but we’ll examine the prominent titles that most of us may have seen or played.

Spider-Man (1982)

Platform: Atari 2600

Culprits: Parker Brothers/Atari

Eh. It’s not great, but everything looked like this in 1982. At least we can tell which one’s Spider-Man.

You’ll probably expect me to be cruel here, because I do lean on the side of bastardry when it comes to the 2600. I mean… eh. Let’s stay in context… this isn’t bad for a 2600 game. Considering the limits of the system graphics- and sound-wise, you get a good representation of the key elements. Gameplay consists of getting up on top of the building and kicking Green Goblin’s ass, which to be fair, ate up a lot of Peter’s logged superhero hours in the 70s/80s either together or as separate activities. Using your web shooters is a little tedious, but once you’ve got the hang of how to do it in a rhythm and pull yourself up, it’s pretty fun. I suppose my only knock on this one is that it’s not enough to do. But then, not every 2600 game can be Burgertime and crush your soul with raw chaos.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1990)

Platforms: Amiga, Atari ST, PC Compatibles

Culprits: Oxford Digital/Paragon Software

Let me start off with something nice before I put my hands under the table and fucking lift. The Amiga has always stood out for its time as a system capable of audiovisual richness, and this game really turns her out. The ST and PC versions are decent in that regard too, although the audio quality varies.

“Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level!”  I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.

Now, let’s talk about HOW they chose to turn her out. The controls are pretty fucking far from intuitive; while I expect translating Spider-Man’s iconic means of locomotion to be a challenge for a game developer, this shit is just abyss you’ll keep falling into until you start being meticulously careful… which isn’t prudent in 90% of the situations you’ll be navigating. Move fast? Move really carefully? The answer to both is usually no. Again, I can’t knock the graphics, but there’s something inherently wrong about this image, seen during the intro. Something that reminds me of “non-Euclidean shapes,” “lightless gulfs across time and space,” and “red-haired woman being forcibly abducted by a fishbowl-headed mannequin.” Poor Mary Jane.

somebodys_fetish.jpg

Almost as bizarre is the choice to represent your life bar as a picture of Spider-Man that turns skeletal from the feet upward as you move closer to death.

He looks a little embarrassed. I don’t blame him.

Last gripe: the game is, at least to me, unreasonably goddamn long considering the tedium it is to play. You can watch a longplay here, and be sure to listen to the entire intro music, or at least sit through it for as long as you can before reaching for that little red track-bar to skip through it and save your sanity.

Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (1992)

Platforms: NES, Game Gear, Master System

Culprits: LJN (OF COURSE), Flying Edge, Bits Studios

This game is mercifully short, but still feels like being hurled into a black hole and somehow kept alive to slowly lose one’s mind via time dilation. Spider-Man, despite being fully human height, has the same general proportions as Wee Man from Jackass. His ability to leap through the air is admirable, and the controls aren’t too bad… until you try to do any of the shit Spider-Man is known for doing in terms of movement. The graphics are candy-colored palettes of pure hell wherein men are depicted universally as shoeless mongoloids and no light seems to penetrate anything (despite the garish coloration of everything).

It’s like Willy Wonka took a massive shit all over everything, and really wasn’t feeling well when he did. I bumble forth, capable of great feats of agility but barely able to keep my goose neck from dropping my pumpkin head onto my barrel chest. As Spider-Man, I am the monster, and I belong here.

A small handful of farty, tooty pieces of music cycle as you penetrate deeper into the Sinister Six’s criminal kingdom, presenting a strange yet totally-LJN mix of jazzy swing and “I ate so many tabs I can’t even tell what genre this is.” The drums punch at the listener’s mind, almost as if they are intended to pummel you into accepting the rest of this musical affront as tolerable. It’s like a rave in a Civil War graveyard, and someone invited Dizzy Gillespie. Actually, fuck that… that’d rule. This doesn’t.

Again, I can’t flush this game completely; it’s a decent effort overall, but LJN had a tendency (with a scant few exceptions) to attach its name to something and then pile drive it into the floor until no amount of reconstructive surgery could fix it.

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (1994)

Platforms: Genesis. SNES

Culprits: LJN, Acclaim, Software Creations

We’re ending on a positive note. We have to. We owe it to ourselves.

I really liked the Maximum Carnage story arc in the comics. It’s held high by some and shit on by others, but there’s something about a villain so terrifying that two bitter enemies (not to mention a wild cross section of Marvel’s 90s line-up) combined forces to defeat him as he rampaged across New York with his own wrecking crew. I love big events, and I LOVE villains. And Carnage… well, he’s one burning hell of a villain.

Really, if anyone deserves this shit, it’s JJ. 

This effort did decent justice to the source material. I’ll keep this simple and just tick off some pros and cons.

PROS

-Venom is a playable character

-Morbius shows up, along with Deathlok, Black Cat, Iron Fist, and a few other underrated Marvel good guys

-it’s a beat-em-up, and not a bad one, either

-comic book style cut scenes, and they’re not done poorly

–pretty damn good music

-LJN didn’t set this one on fire and stand back playing pocket pool while it burned to slag

Really cool audio-visual presentation all around. It keeps true to the comic feel without burning that candle at both ends with a welding torch.

CONS

-The music did not sound as good in the Genesis version

-This game is also long; why the hell does Spider-Man mean “long fucking game” almost uniformly to game designers

-It’s incredibly unfair to put bad-ass characters like Black Cat, Iron Fist and Morbius in here and not have them as full-on playables

-I feel like a lot of the villains get undersold in terms of their powers and badass-ness

-Still, to make an understatement, a bit fucking cumbersome to do the web slinging thing, although it must be acknowledged that it’s better in this than in any predecessor

Overall, Maximum Carnage is fun as hell. I owned the Genesis cart as a kid and got a lot of replay value out of it. It’s a net win due to presentation and the choice of formatting it as a beat-em-up, which makes it approachable on a level far beyond its ancestors in Spidey’s video game library.

That brings us to 1994, folks, so I guess I’ll put the brakes on it here. Thanks for reading, and before I go, I suppose I owe you some number ratings on these hunks of pop media history.

Atari 2600: 6/10

Amiga: 5/10

NES: 3/10

Genesis/SNES: 7/10

See you at the end of the month, RetroFans! Excelsior!!!

The beat ’em up was (and to some extent, still is) an extremely popular game format. The concept may sound repetitive on its nose – that is to say, you mostly just walk forward and beat the shit out of people – but it’s been done in so many ways, with so many embellishments and extra touches, that it hardly gets old if you’re a fan. Like a lot of us, I was primarily exposed to this genre through either arcade ports or original titles for the Mega Drive/Genesis. Now, as I’ve discussed in some previous articles, we definitely didn’t get the bulk of Japan’s weird stuff then, but we did get some gnarly-ass console games… one of them being Mystical Fighter.

This weird but fantastic entry into the Genesis beat ’em up library was called Demon King Renjishi in Japan, hitting shelves in October of ’91. Very soon after, it was released for American audiences as Mystical Fighter. Its developer, KID Corporation (defunct as of 2006), is also known for developing Burai Fighter and Low G Man. Taito published the game, lending its name to the wide distribution and classy packaging.

Aforementioned classy packaging. JP (left) and USA (Right). Click to enlarge.

The plot of Mystical Fighter is based loosely on Japanese myth, and I do mean loosely. An evil “Lord Kabuki” is all set to conquer the kingdom after kicking the asses of White Lion (not the band) and Red Lion (I also promise this has nothing to do with Voltron). A mystical seal on Mt. Fuji is broken, setting the two warriors loose again to take a second shot at stopping Lord Kabuki… and the players control one or both of them as they try. The US manual’s translated version of the plot is below:

The first thing one notices as the game kicks off is that, while a little stereotyped-sounding, the music is awesome. It’s got a serious beat, and it’s not just some innocuous background loop. The ol’ YM1612 is put to beautiful use, something which this Segaphile will finally admit does not always happen. The graphics are also very fitting for the theme, evoking the dark and ephemeral world you’re supposed to be traveling through to stop the evil lord. The contrast your two characters – who look pretty damn kabuki themselves – also plays a well-conceived role in establishing the tone. It’s suitably heroic, even if understated. Normally I save an appraisal of these elements for closer to the end of a game article, but I wanted to put them right out front because I find them particularly impressive in Mystical Fighter.

This isn’t to say that the action is lacking. This game has every bit of the jaw-breaking, shit-kicking intensity that Streets of Rage or Golden Axe have. I’m sure there are folks who would disagree with me, but just look at the moves you can do! I’m not knocking Streets of Rage, but Axel cannot grab someone by their lapels and full-on hurl them entirely across the screen in a horizontal line. Mystical Fighter is its own animal, and it’s one with a mean temper. The sound effects that go along with your crazy leaps and attacks only add to the feeling of overall mayhem.

One guy goes flying in a laser-straight line toward the edge of the screen while another prepares to taste my creepy white foot. Once you get used to the controls, it’s like playing as a brutal circus acrobat or blood-crazy gymnast. 

There is a mechanic similar to that in Golden Axe, however, where you pick up scrolls (as opposed to potions) to save up for devastating magical spells. The more you pack up, the better the effect. You get to use those moves on an army of sumo guys, ogres, undead samurai, ninjas, and some bosses that are literally out of this world. The enemies may look like fat guys in bathrobes and clones of E. Honda, but don’t be fooled… everyone and everything you encounter is dangerous enough to take seriously.

I did find that some of the boss fights are pretty easy though, once you figure out the fairly predictable patterns. The big dog (lion? I don’t know) thing at the end of one of the first levels stands out as a good example of this. Just punch it in the face and get out of the way. Keep doing that and you’re golden.

He looks way scarier than he is, which isn’t very.

My attention span is admittedly horrid, so I haven’t beaten this game, but I do plan to revisit it. I give Mystical Fighter 8/10; it’s better (in my opinion) than other reviewers give it credit for, it’s got its own incredible flavor to it, and it promises high-flying fun.

Thanks, folks! See you again in mid-June! Stay Retro!

Sharp vocals echo, ping in and out, receding quickly with a gated reverb. Comforting harmonies join in the bridge with the stabby bass fueling the bodies movement, gives the song an addictive bounce. Plucky synths enter and the vocal line comes to life for the chorus and truly punches with glamour, hits of nostalgia of random glossy celebrity images from both the past and present. Rushing in as ill-formed snapshots, scattered poignantly out of sequence, some thrown to the wind.

This song is either from three decades in front or behind us, and I can’t decide which.

Support: https://soundcloud.com/nightcrawlermusic
https://soundcloud.com/dana-jean-phoenix

Somewhere between Richard Stanley and Mamoru Oshii and set in the same universe as a William Gibson novel from 1984 is GENESIS, a slick short film from David Placer that just premiered on youtube just a few weeks ago and already has earned a little over a thousand views and counting.

I first became aware of this film through an active cyberpunk blog Neon-Dystopia. It took no effort at all to sell me with a dialogue free plot that centers on the ideas of human or nonhuman consciousness evolving into a higher state through the mainframe of the digital matrix. The pacing is just right and the seven minute runtime neither felt rushed or forced upon me; rather it gave the piece just enough breathing room to say what it had to say in retro grandeur. And at three in the morning I was compelled to search social media for whoever was behind this film. By 8AM I found my man and decided to pick his brain.

Sam Haine:  Tell me about yourself – Where were you born? What did you do as a child that began your interest in film? Favorite things to watch on television, movies and the like?

David Placer: I´m from Madrid, Spain. As a child I loved series like “Dragon Ball” or “Knights of the Zodiac”, full of violence and blood, so they were prohibited by my parents. As I grew up, the search for violence and blood became a priority, movies like Predator or Terminator were prohibited at home, so I watched them at some friend’s house or with my grandfather, like a secret. Everything I wanted to see was prohibited, so I became obsessed with movies like “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Robocop”, “Conan the Barbarian”… so here is when I think started my interest in film.

Sam Haine:  What were the inspirations for GENESIS?

David Placer: From mangas like Biomega (aesthetically the character of the Motorist comes from here), comic authors like Alejandro Jodorowsky and his vision of science fiction, in some way the idea of a fusion between souls in the cyberspace comes from his influence, his ideas like creation comes from pure love, that is what the Genesis character means to me. French authors like Moebius too. The idea of he perfect being that is  the character of Genesis at the end, comes from the film “The Fifth Element”.

Sam Haine: The first time I watched GENESIS, I immediately felt like I was watching a film made by the film company VIDMARK Entertainment.  Were you familiar with this company?
David Placer: Not really, more with Trimark Pictures, Canon, Orion…

Sam Haine:  I see influences from films like Hardware, Lawnmower Man, Johnny Mnemonic and most obviously Ghost in the Shell. How much did these influences help with the creation of GENESIS? What other influences did you draw from?

David Placer: The Terminator for the motorbike scenes is a good example, but is more about all the universe that exists with the 80´s movies about aesthetic, cinematographic language, characters, mood and feeling, and music.

Sam Haine: Most of the story is told through music and visuals. Who decided the music for GENESIS? The film score really cements the setting of the story. 

David Placer: The composer is Siddhartha Barnhoorn, I let him know that I wanted an 80´s sound that fit with the image, and the points where the story needs more drama or action, and he did the rest, creating a music that flows with the images, I gave him some inputs, thats all. Is important the work from Dave S.Walker with the sound desing too, his sounds makes it feels real.

Sam Haine: A more direct question – Why did you make GENESIS?

David Placer: Well, I´m always doing short films or music videos, and I always wanted to do science fiction because is my favourite film genre, and when I discover all this retro wave scene years ago, all this music, a clik comes to my mind, I started to remember why I was doing this, all I loved in my childhood is very conected with this music, so I find and old but new universe where I can do the science fiction that I want to do.

Sam Haine:  Are there any future projects that you are working on?

David Placer: For my, see Genesis is to see the birth of a hero, would like to see where this hero can go now, what kind of powers she/he has, and why is in that world.

Sam Haine: What does Cyberpunk mean to you?

David Placer: The fusion between flesh and technology. To see humans develop themselves through technology.

Watch: Genesis (2017)
Starring – Girl / Genesis: Natalia B. Herraiz.
Motorist: Emilio Caparrós.

Directed by David Placer.
Produced by David Delgado.
Music by Siddhartha Barnhoorn.
Director of Photography: Ana Ramos.
Art Director: Julián López.
Sound Design by Dave S. Walker aka Kyoto Dragon ( https://www.facebook.com/kyotodragonlord/ ).
Edition & VFX: David Placer.
Assistant Director: Alfonso Ruiz.
Assistant Art Director: Kike Rodriguez.
Runner: Pablo Couto.
Red Dress by Amaia Relloso.
Raiders: Sebastián Moreno & Pablo Couto
Original Soundtrack:  https://siddharthabarnhoorn.bandcamp.com/album/genesis

Hello, World!