Mega Man 9 Indie Film

Because not doing work is fun I made a movie.

The Mega Man 9 Independent Film

Just go to 8bitcity's Youtube page, blogger uploads are poor quality and I won't bother with those anymore.

Epic Mega Man 9 Medly and Mega Man 9 Hacked

I found a few cool Mega Man 9 videos on youtube. The first is an epic Mega Man 9 medley on an electric guitar and keyboard, pretty well produced, with some nice gameplay footage spliced in. Definitely worth a watch.

Epic Mega Man 9 Medly

The second video is hacked Mega Man 9, this just happened yesterday, and the hacker, TRACE, has claimed the top spot with 99999 screens. Note, he did not achieve this score, obviously, but hacking Mega Man 9 is cool nonetheless. I feel bad for the guy that was in number 10 (I believe his name was Chris).

TRACE Hacking Mega Man 9

And the third video is another Mega Man 9 hack, this time using Proto Man in Mega Man mode, allowing you to use Proto Man in the shop. Enjoy.

Proto Man Goes Shopping

Saving the best for last is a song based on Mega Man 2, using the music but rapping over it. It's made by Dwayne and Brando. This is the funniest shit related to Mega Man 2 I've ever seen, and if you only watch one video it should probably be this one.

Mega Man 2 Rap

The same guys made another video in the same style, about Final Fantasy. Just as funny, check it out! They've even more videos than these, enjoy.

Final Fantasy Rap

Star Quest Trailer

Official trailer! This is from the current build of Star Quest, which is made using the same engine as Skeletronic. Watch the trailer!



It's also available on youtube here.

I'm going on a Beach Quest next week, so I'll be afk.

Quest 64

Quest 64 has all of the ingredients for a good adventure. In most ways, Quest 64 was bashed for not being revolutionary. But somehow it's acceptable for Final Fantasy 3 (the DS Remake) to merge simple gameplay and basic 3D graphics. In this sense, Quest 64 was very much unintentionally ahead of its time because the quest for ultimate graphics nobly proceeded and consumers did not yet yearn for the video games of old. What I mean is, Quest 64 would be well-accepted today as a budget title.

But history, I think, might be better to Quest 64 because when we look back to 1999 we see the world ready for the new millennium, the past is unacceptable. Simple 3D graphics are a mode of representation that will likely not be repeated, therefore, I think, Quest is something special, something limited. It belongs to a select group of games that we haven't seen repeated in large quantities of high-quality games since the N64.

But it is a pioneer, for which it never received any specific credit. It is one of, if not the first, early examples of a 3D 8-Bit-style JRPG. The gameplay is pure 8-Bit simplicity. Stats that make sense, spells, no weapons, no armor, items, towns. The battles are very dynamics, random encounters happen within the field, no battle screen, but the mobs are not visible before a battle. You fight in an octagon of death, represented by a simple line. Your enemy has a movement octagon, typically fairly small. This movement system is a great analogue SRPG feature (think Warhammer). You have to aim your spells, so battles stay interesting, but it's turn-based, so you have time to think.

You also have a staff, which is stronger based on how much magic you have and how evenly-proportioned your character is. You have complete control with spell progression, and there are 4 spell categories.

Quest 64 doesn't bore you with cut scenes (though it's people talk a lot). You'll fight lots of monsters, and, more importantly, explore lots of areas. The story is developed through dialogue with NPCs. The music always great, every track is enjoyable with some exceptional pieces interspersed. The world changes from night to day, slowly... and that's when you might realize something about Quest 64, after having played through ten hours or so: this game is massive. Environments, castles, towns are pretty large and there is a huge world to explore. Unfortunately you explore it in a linear fashion and rarely return more than one town behind you, but the result is that you are constantly exploring new territory.

I'd go so far as to say that Quest 64 feels like a combination of an 8-Bit RPG and a massive 3D adventure like Oblivion or World of Warcraft. That, and one of the coolest final dungeons in video games.

The brilliance of Quest 64 is that while most video games take place in an "environment," others games almost create a complete world. Quest 64 is one of those games. The texture mapping and polygon count might be low, but that allowed the designers to make Quest 64 an expansive and memorable adventure.

Protip: if you move the joystick to the left or right (in town, in an open area) Brian should run in a circle. Unplug the controller, and Brian should continue to run in a circle. Now, while you wait several hours let's talk about how the game raises your agility. By running. Eventually you'll have 255 Agility and your movement octagon will be larger than the battlefield. No enemy can touch you, and you'll never miss with your staff.

Screenshots are from the European version. Long story. The games are basically identical aside from a few changes (Brian's name and his cloak color, for example), this article refers to the American version, but I thought people familiar with the NA version might like to see what our friends in Europe played at 50 fps.

Rygar and the Nintendo Power Mystery

I've got some spare time because my NES is auto-leveling Rygar, which I'm going to attempt to play through tonight. I've never beaten the first boss, though I have played the game many times. Of course I won't be using any FAQs. One could look the maps up at The Video Game Atlus, a great site upon which I recently stumbled. Another useful site, if you have any old Nintendo Power magazines (The first few years are the best gaming magazines ever), is the Nintendo Power Index. I'll be using it to look up a few games in this post.



It's found in the first issue of Nintendo Power, so let's open it up to get some tips!



It has a great Zelda spread, and good maps of the levels. But notice the only entry Rygar receives in Nintendo Power (ever).



Note the early use of "ftw" in the not-obvious Kid Icarus tip.

The game is very difficult, but they only give one small blurb to Rygar? It's very strange, older games often got reviewed years later. Most popular games got covered, and it's a really decent title. I wonder if gamers would think that maybe Rygar looked more fun than the original Zelda. Not all gamers, but Americans might be drawn to this Captain-America adventure game, which combines aspects of Mario and Zelda. Similar to Kid Icarus, but much, much better. Placed lowest on the page, smallest. Juxtaposed; size confirming worth.

Super Mario Bros. was featured in issues 2, 3, and 12. It was again featured in the Lost Levels issue, and again for Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, for the GBA.

Kid Icarus was featured in issues 2 (twice), 10,12, and 45. I'm not sure if contemporary Nintendo Power reviews VC games, but if so I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Of course it's the official Nintendo-sponsored magazine, but they purport objectivity like most periodicals. Looking at the title page for the first issue we see SMB2, the game designed specifically for stupid Americans who couldn't play games with the fury of the Japanese spirit. Jerks. Second, Zelda, the most blinging NES cartridge. What else do Americans like? Baseball, and therefore 3 baseball game reviews. The other features fade into meaningless over-excited magazine talk. At least SMB2 was a pretty fun game, even though I would have preferred the real SMB2. And Zelda was definitely worthy of a gold cartridge. But baseball games are boring. Why the hell do we need three baseball games, just because we are American? I guarantee that 2 baseball games are plenty for me, though Mario Strikers looked really fun if it were a present from a distant relative who couldn't expect to know what video game I would enjoy, a raffle prize, or perhaps found in a fast food coffee shop. However, Wii Baseball suffices for any baseball-related gaming activity in the 21st century.



It's time to see who is behind this racist madness. The following is a transcription of the Editor's letter (huh, he's American) with my commentary applied as footnotes.

Dear Player,

We hope you enjoyed reading the first issue of Nintendo Power as much as we enjoyed making it. We spent many hours doing research (playing games) in order to bring you the most complete reviews, the best tricks, and the raddest reading ever! (1) I even jetted (2) to Japan for a week(3) to work with Nintendo Power staff over there(4). You try to explain Wheel of Fortune to someone who doesn't speak English (5)! It was great to make new friends and to meet some pretty hot game players too (6)! Maybe we'll even profile a few of them in a future issue (7).

Nintendo Power will come out every other month, and we want to provide you the very best in video journalism (8) (We've discontinued the Fun Club News(9), so that we can devote all our energy to making Nintendo Power the best magazine you could ever subscribe to(10)). What could be more fun? (11) So, if you have an opinion about something (12), or a hot tip you want to share(13), we'd like to hear about it.

See you in September,
H-------------------

P.S. I'm working real hard on Zelda II (14). Look for it. It's going to be great!


1. The letter begins well enough. It's 1988, so rad is acceptable.
2. More lingo emphasizes the cool. Too busy being to cool to play Rygar.
3. A whole week!?
4. The guys that actually make this magazine?
5. Exciting statements end in exclamation points!
6. Palis Hirton?
7. See Nintendo Power Sluts XXX, Erotic Electronic Publishing, 1989.
8. With your leadership this magazine rocks!
9. Who cares!
10. Most of the time National Geographic is boring.
11.What indeed!
12. How convient!
13. "Which library bathroom should I haunt?"
14. No way! Zelda 2 was released in 1987. The coverage, however, was great.

Wizards & Warriors

I spent the weekend reading Faulkner and playing Wizards and Warriors. (and Ironsword, the first two games in the 4-part series). You play as Kuros, a knight running around freeing tied-up half-naked babes from evil monsters.
Fun game, really hard. However, you continue from exactly where you die... so eventually you forget about lives altogether. And as the afternoon drifted into evening like insects skimming on water, improbable yet somehow vindicated by the harsh physics of our world, I battled as Kuros, falling repeatedly in battle like Confederate and Yankee soldiers pierced by bullet from afar or the close and familiar sting of a bayonet, leg vaporized by the earth tumbling explosion of a cannonball... In the words of the wizard in Conan the Barbarian: "Life and Death, the same."



It's a curious game, because it's kind of bad. The jumping physics are awkward (though somewhat fun), you can easily loose the best items in the game by picking certain treasure chests, and monsters constantly spawn off-screen and kamikaze into Kuros with no hope of ever defending the attack.

But, the game has nice artwork, great music, infinite lives, and some cool areas to explore. It's a good game if you are looking for a fantasy adventure and have already played Legacy of the Wizard (and part 2 of the post) and Faxanadu. Similar and inferior to both, that about sums it up.

Had I played this game as a child, I might enjoy it more. But as the list of NES games I haven't played dwindles, Wizards and Warriors is a refreshing reminder of the high-quality NES library. I have owned the sequel, Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors 2, for some time, but I could never figure out what to do. I've decided to sink some more time into Ironsword, maybe it gets better as the game progresses.

Wizards and Warriors (the entire series) is also notable for being made in America. Most good NES games come from the land of the rising sun and it's comforting to see that at least some Americans were trying to make a decent NES game.

This installment steal it's story from Mario, having you rescue a princess in 8 castles, the first 7 named from myth and literature, but not being "your" princess. Eventually "Thou Hath Rescued Thy Princess / Thy Search Hath Ended" and thy princess remaineth kneeling in submission, half-naked and blond.



Levels 2-4 are caves, and all look similar, thus the game drags. But stages 6-8 are fantastic, epic, and worth the trouble of getting there. Wizards and Warriors simply needed well-programmed enemies, something even Legacy of the Wizard couldn't accomplish. Enemies in this game appear from everywhere, can fly through walls, or simply can't be killed. Every enemy in the game feels cheap, both in battle and programming.

There is also a place (I believe it is level 5, but it could be 6) that seems oddly familiar. Hmm, what could it be? See the final screenshot, I had to take it with a real camera; I was playing on cartridge today. I'll continue the series and post my thoughts if something interesting should come to mind. I've been looking for a Game Boy game to play recently, and Wizards and Warriors X: The Fortress of Fear looks fun. Any other fans of this series or a particular game within?

The 2600 Adventure of Zelda

Every gamer suspects that games were better in the past. Obviously, most such feelings are nostalgia, but others enjoy playing older video games more than most modern ones. Older games ring true in myth. Modern games fail because of the lack of integrity in the creators of the game, executive meddling, stupid ideas, million dollar budgets, or, primarily, an asbestos desert of creativity, content to copy the great games, adding nothing and producing hollow xeroxes of great adventures.

Adventure was the first graphic adventure game and released in 1979. The story is distilled medieval adventure: a hero travels from the gold castle, through countryside and mazes, fighting dragons, harassed by bats, steals the treasure back from the wizard's black castle, returns to the gold castle. He then becomes king and builds an army and takes over other video game worlds. That's the story to adventure and it is a perfect description of the gameplay. That connection between material function and story exhibits pure unbridled form.

"Created by Warren Robinett" was inscribed as a rejection of Atari's unrestrained video game commidification. You can't expect people to care about your video game company at the expense of the artists producing your product; it breaks every code of author attribution. The video game creator functioned as programmer, artist, musician, and writer. Obviously a man or woman might be exceptionally skilled in some areas and lacking in others forms a small team of individuals who carry out a united vision.

On February 21, 1986, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda in Japan, with Miyamoto credited. They don't credit Adventure, the game released 7 years (that's seven years without a decent overhead graphic adventure game) previously, maybe no one noticed. Adventure has 1 screen scrolling (so does Zelda...), dungeon entrances on one screen, isolated in the center (Zelda, too, has castle entrances like these. The point being that if one were to take Zelda and compress it, the result would be Adventure.) Multiple quests, bats, multiple items to solve puzzles, 3 dungeons, dragons, weapon, mazes, a holy item that needs to be retrieved. Zelda has, multiple quests, bats, many items to solve puzzles, 18 dungeons, dragons, 6 or 7 weapons, octorocks, mazes, a 8 holy items that needs to be retrieved AND a princess! Adventure even has an area, in the white castle, called the crypt. Zelda makes overt reference to this with the "white castle" i.e. the entrance to level 6 in the first quest being next to the graveyard. Zelda even assumed the dragon's mechanic of eating the character with the Like Like enemy, consciously avoided, but still changed and put to use.

The Legend of Zelda adds everything that Adventure couldn't with only 4k of memory. Zelda was on a 1-MB cartridge but was only 132K thanks to clever programming. The overworld is stored as "rooms", but rooms are made of columns, not tiles, which greatly decreases the amount of storage space, but sacrifices flexibility in map design. Certainly a matter of aesthetic taste, but the game that captivated 6.5 million had a certain aesthetic symmetry, a mathematical quality which made Hyrule appear as crafted by ancient and sleepy gods.



For your comparison here are both maps. Notice the graveyard in the west of Hyrule, as described in the above passage.



Where do these games not fail? In story, because each is simple and mythic. The games are likewise simple and mythic, and artist expectations are upheld. But what of other games that purport to good storytelling yet fail with hollywood blockbuster lowest-common denominator entertainment? Sometimes it's hard to appreciate a game without thinking, "this is all 50 million dollars could make?" And at the bottom line consumers buy graphic... actually consumers buy well-marketed video games and, occasionally, the outstanding AND well-marketed video game. One has to imagine that that money could have funded 10 smaller projects, with plenty of money left over for executives to waste, and at least some hope of producing something worth the time and effort invested by designers and consumers (and critics!)

Atari even made a little known spiritual prequel to the Legend of Zelda, which you can only play if you download the rom, known as The Adventure of Zerda. Here is a magazine scan of the world map. As you can see there are clear similarities between Adventure and The Legend of Zelda, proving the relationship conclusively.



Human nature assures us that individuals will make good video games because they want to, and people with a job making video games will become disillusioned with the corporate world and decide to at least get paid well and work on (what I assume) is important science, or put their name on half-assed products like Wii Music, the worst game ever made. Video games need artists, not fatcat sellouts.