Wow, two posts in one day. This second post is happening for a few reasons. There are high winds around here and that means we might loser power and have no electricity, and I don't really want to be in the middle of a movie or an episode of Sailor Moon when that happens. I also do not want that post below this one to be the one people see. Who knows how long the power/electricity could be out for. I also want to talk about these six video games. So might as well just blather on about six video games made in the 20th Century and for that let's go. Also I could not find a Faxanadu ad or Faria ad or even a Fantasy Zone ad. Anyway a bunch of really fun NES games.
I get to do my favorite thing here and that's shit on dumb nintendoage jerks who have infested and fucked up NES collecting. These guys were the ones who were all like LOL UNLICENSED DOESN'T NEED TO COUNT AT ALL. They would then give the dumbest and worst fucking argument in that some unlicensed games were bad. Woah! I just reviewed two licensed games that were WORSE than any unlicensed game, well, most of them. I will not ever get the people who refuse to collect unlicensed games. They were released during the NES lifetime and I can remember seeing them at video stores. the Pac-Man Tengen box art will always be seared into my minds eye. Just him yelling and screaming is so weird. Speaking of Tengen, I'm surprised they never decided to buy them because they are actually quite good. Most Tengen games were pretty good. Totally worth the $5 most people wanted for them back then. Strange that so many people are like LOL NO UNLICNESED DOESN'T COUNT BUT I NEED STADIUM EVENTS LOL people yet Unlicensed games are not $5 any more. I will forever miss those days. Anyway, Fantasy Zone is the Tengen version of the Sega game. I have never played the Sega version but I have played Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone II for the Famicom and they are pretty fun shooter games. You have to shoot these big old fat robot guys and make sure there are no more on the screen. Then you fight a giant boss. It's simple and very fun and people who refuse to collect unlicensed games because they are bad are morons who stink.
Faria is a Zelda clone. The NES had a lot of them. Battle of Olympus, StarTropics, StarTropics 2, Crystalis, Willow and a few others I forgot about right now. Faria is probably the worst of these games but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It's still fun and honestly the only problem with the game is that the leveling up can be grindy but that's a thing for just about any NES game that has leveling up in it. The graphics are fine and the music is pretty great and Faria is still worth a shot. I did enjoy playing this game and should go back to it because I was close to the end in it. Anyway this game might not be the most original but I don't really care as long as it plays well and I feel this game plays well. Woo.
Oh hey another Zelda like game. This one is a bit more like Zelda II than Zelda and is a better game than Faria. This game has some really good graphics, music and all kinds of swords and shit to play around with. I also must take back one thing because I remember this game being pretty good when it comes to the grinding of levels. It was never that hard to get to the next level in this game. Anyway despite the fact I barely have written anything here Faxanadu is a must play. I think it's a part of a series of games that includes Legacy of the Wizard but I could be wrong there. Portnoyd will yell about this becuase I believe he was a big fan of this game. Anyway this game is incredible and very much worth playing.
I'm pretty sure Felix the Cat is the first Cartoon star of sorts and by Star I mean character that appeared in many many shorts. Felix the Cat started out in 1919 and had 190 cartoons within the Golden Age of Animation. Felix the Cat predated Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker and a shit load of others. Felix the Cat literally has existed for 100 years and still gets love. He had a 1960s Tv series, a 1990s movie, a 1990s short lived cartoon (two seasons and I thought it was great!) and they made this video game, which might just be the easiest video game of all time. Seriously there are levels you can just fly the fuck over. Still, there's enough entertainment here to enjoy. This is a game worth playing, great graphics, memorable music and all kinds of pretty well designed (except for the ones you can just fly over lol) stages. This game is now not worth the dumb shit price collectors spend now but it is very much worth playing. Apparently they brought this game and some other Felix the Cat games out in a new collection by Konami who bought Hudson Soft. Wild that Felix the Cat is still making money these days. Anyway play this game and stop reading my shitty reviews.
I've said before that most of my favorite NES racing games were ones that were pretty simple. No buying different cars, no buying upgrades, none of that. Most of the ones I like the most are just simple games where you drive around a track. However this is a different beast. I actually really like this one too. You have to pick the right cars and right upgrades to get to the final 17 races. The only problem is that it becomes INCREDIBLY HARD during those last 17 races. It's like someone told the people the game was too easy (and it wasn't). The graphics are pretty great and the music is too. The racing is fast and firece and fun and the Challenge is pretty fair as it gets harder and harder as the game goes on. It just gets TOO hard and that's probably the worst part of the whole game. Still a worthwhile racing game.
Is Addams Family the only license to get two games based on two different iterations? Like Fester's Quest was based on the 1960s movie. You can see John Astin Gomez in the ending scene. However in 1991 they made a movie based on that tv series and in 1992 they made another Addams Family game made based on that movie (which is a great movie and the game is pretty good too despite being made by Ocean). It was just something I wanted to ask because I really don't know. Anyway, Fester's Quest is a game that gets a little bit of flack but I quite like. Yes, it's a weird version of Blaster Master and is not A-Tier Sunsoft, but B-Tier Sunsoft is still really quite good. Yes, this game has some flaws. Having to start over at the beginning in such a long game is a pain in the ass. Yes leveling up your gun/whip is annoying too and having items that unlevel up your gun is a pain in the ass too. Still this game is pretty great. I think it's really fun to play. I enjoyed beating this game. Yes, I beat this game before Blaster Master (which is a game I really need to beat). I also think this is one of the games with First Person Stages that were pretty well put into the game. You go through a bunch of these and they never get too hard to get through. Also this game is really hard but you do get to see the entire Addams Family. They feel like they a part of this game. Anyway, the Addams Family is cool, so sit down watch a few episodes of the 1960s TV show and then play some Fester's Quest. It's a good time.
GOOD GAMES: 107
BAD GAMES: 80
OKAY GAMES: 28
GAMES YOU MIGHT LIKE IF YOU AREN'T AN IMPATIENT BABY: 3
I can't imagine the weather up in Newfieville. It's supposedly cold here in the US, so Canada must be an ice cube. Meanwhile, I'm still wearing shorts here in Las Vegas, been mid 60s for the past 2 weeks and for the next 2 weeks after. Living where white bullshit falls all the time is stupid. Yes, it gets hot here in the summer but I can move through heat; I can't move through snow.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I will never turn on hating on NintendoAge jerks. It just proves they were only in it for epeening and spending money as opposed to playing the fucking games. Meanwhile, there are other idiots who embraced Sachen games as US releases, which they very much are not. Huge Insect was only found after someone asked Sachen to make it for them, IN 2004. I hate people.
Anyway, Fantasy Zone is a decent port, but I wish we got the Sunsoft Famicom version. Both are kinda janky, but the Sunsoft one is less jank. JANK. Regardless, I am happy a Sega title snuck onto the NES in some way, so I don't mind that the games could be better.
Everyone seems to rag on Faria (except you at least) and I want to like it because it looks like a solid Zelda clone, and then I try and play it and it never sucks me in and I just lose interest. I have tried at least twice. I mean, the game has everything you could want but it's just kinda... off.
THEY ARE ALL PART OF THE DRAGON SLAYER SERIES, JERK. Legacy of the Wizard is Dragon Slayer 4 and Faxanadu is a spinoff of Dragon Slayer 2, which went by Xanadu. Faxanadu is short for FAMICOM XANADU.
Faxanadu is good and fun and uh, really actually fun. The only knock to it is it has Castlevania jumping which is not good and fun. However, it's not a deal breaker like literally everything in something like 8 Eyes.
I don't have much to add on Felix the Cat other than it fit right in with all the OWEN HANTA and FRANCES BERBERA crap that snuck onto the 8bit Nintendo. It is by far one of the easiest games ever made where you have to make any sort of effort. Yes, the Fisher Price games and Color a Dinosaur are technically easier but that's by design. This is like, more than that. Hudson sure made some great stuff though.
Ferrari Grand Prix is a decent title, but I've never been into racing games unless you could shoot lasers. (I am looking forward to you hating on Galaxy 5000 for that reason, which should be coming up in a few posts) So I am not the one to comment on this game but let's say you're wrong because I haven't yet.
I cannot comment on Fester's Quest because I really haven't played it yet. A big omission for sure, don't get me wrong, but I just never did. The only memory I have of it is a big assed Nintendo Power article about it in like the first or second issue or something. People don't like it but I don't agree with that. I am sure if I played it growing up, I would have liked it and played it a lot. Just never came on my radar.
You need to be more wrong in your next post, this is weird.
The Red Eye insistence that you needed to collect Sachen games for a complete set is also ass backwards. When I say a complete set of NES games I mean stuff that you could find in North America easily. Not having to go to Taiwan to get a copy of the game.
DeleteBeing reminded of that makes me wonder if that guy was ever actually cool or just a big goober.
That's the thing... I don't know either. I had a lot of interaction with him 20 years ago.
DeleteHe seemed really dedicated to the cause and was not concerned with any sort of exposure. He dug people up, got games, dumped them, distribute them, repeat. At the time, we used a NESECITY like board called FEFEA.org (stands for Fuck Em, Fuck Em All, angsty teens what). Things were loose and lulzy and it worked.
Then Frank started LostLevels which was the beginning of the end apparently. More organized, "articles" about dumped games on it and a structured messageboard. Fine, whatever, you know? More games going out and an "org" to fall back on. For 2 years at Classic Gaming Expo, we had a table. I paid for the banner and worked out getting games from BUFFY-G (that was his ebay name, real name, Gy Rinaldi... nice guy, in a different universe, nintendonerd.com superceded nintendoage and maybe changed things). We had dumped games for playing and it felt kinda right.
At that time, I kind of drifted away a bit. Oh look, World of Warcraft. Oops. Also at that time, Frank was making his leap into GAMING JOURNALISM aka a fucking joke. But he stuck with it and parlayed it into actual game development. He didn't know how to code or draw but he worked on stuff. I guess him getting more engrained in "the industry" led him to this insane "Video Game History Foundation" aka "You mean I can pay myself to panhandle and grub for dumped games?".
That was really the true end of it. It's a non profit that produces literally nothing and keeps desperately clinging to life out of other people's wallets. That is very much not cool. Does he remember how we did it before, where we'd all chip in some bucks to buy a game, rinse, repeat? Apparently not, since he needs random people to cough up money for rent, HIS SALARY and keeping the lights on? Doesn't that seem... counterintuitive towards the original goal I wrote out above?
The best part is he's so broke, that he can't even compete with the current state of collecting. He's priced out of every game that comes up and the only thing he can do is dump things for those Wata shitheads and then NEVER RELEASE THE DUMP BECAUSE HE WOULD BE SUED OTHERWISE. Lol. When he was called out on it, he had a Trump like hissyfit. Amazing how he went from getting games out there to not being able to do it anymore. Feels like progress the wrong way.
And what does he have to show for it? A magazine rack.
To answer your original question, he was cool but then he became the game collecting version of a starfucker. He only exists to keep his shop open because he can't do anything else. He's a lost cause.
Wow that rant was so long I had to split this.
ReplyDeleteThat Sachen thing from him was nuts. I was unfortunately on that train when it happened. Digital Press Man allowed him to add Sachen to the US list for what ended up being the final printing of his collector guide. That's what caused all of this. And the sad part is, RED EYE NEVER GAVE A FUCK ABOUT GAME COLLECTING. Why exactly did Digital Press Man consider his opinion? I don't fucking know. I tried to remove Sachen from that and I think on his website (before he imploded it) has them removed from the US category, but the damage was done.
I had a full Sachen set at one point. TRE himself was ordering a whole set to document them and he offered me all 60+ games shipped for $650. What arrived? Half of the games had generic boxes with INKJET labels on them, which were the same ones on the carts. I remember a few started to curl up from the shitty glue they used.
Some games had legit boxes and manuals, and as I found out, as the floodgates opened and more and more people ordered directly from THIN CHEN, those legit boxes were replaced by the same generic shit the other games had as they ran out.
A lot of them, like the multicarts, clearly never had any boxes and manuals so they created them for white people. The manuals for those games were literally stapled photocopies.
A third of the games didn't work at all. One, Super Pang 2, started smoking and giving off a burning smell.
Now we can't say that AVE, Color Dreams, etc made quality games, but they at least put out professional physical offerings. You can't say that with Sachen, at all. The games we consider unlicensed but part of the US set were clearly published by western companies, even if they raided Sachen for games. There is clear evidence of these games being sold and more specifically rented back in the day. I DARE anyone to give concrete proof that a Sachen published game was sold into a legitimate US store or a US rental shop.
As you can imagine, this topic rustles my jimmies into dust.
It really should rustle the shit out of your jimmies, port.
ReplyDeletethe fact he can look himself in the mirror and actually be like "I'm still doing something for the cause!" when he works with Wata losers and dumps games no one can ever use. it's like yeah technically said game is no longer "lost media" but people want to play it.
I know I live in Canada but I bought a lot of games from cracked8ball and he bought a LOT of nes games. Like I'm sure he's bought and sold the NES set like 9,000 times now. It wouldnt surprise me if he's still doing it even with the damn stupid prices they have going on now. The point is, I don't think he EVER mentioned EVER getting a Sachen game. I never saw one in person. I mean yeah, if you want to collect Sachen to say you have everything that phyisically works (at least kinda almost in some cases) on a NES, sure go ahead, but there has been no concrete evidence they ever showed up here.
I just remember him also getting really mad at that gamergate stuff and yeah that was a weird goofy clusterfuck of sad losers but it does not mean gaming journalism hasn't ever not been a joke. I have positive feelings for all of those old video game magazines but gaming journalism is still a huge joke.
Well said about Frank, jerk. What you said was what basically people were telling him when it got out what he was doing and that's when he had the meltdown.
ReplyDeleteIf c8b has never seen it in the US, no one has.
Oh yes his twitter was all panties bunched about gamergate. Part of the problem really.