Few and Far Between…

As the days turn to weeks and beyond and time seems to be whipping on by, I’ve been able to find some more games by way of internet alone and have had some reasonably good success finding some interesting new things to add to the collection.

The first few things were for the Famicom. Saiyuki World 2 and Konami Wai Wai World 2 both looked like two excellent platformers that don’t require any English to play. I’m always happy to bolster my Famicom collection! Door Door is the game in the bottom right of the photo below, and I first ran into it on a plug and play system I received from a friend a few years ago. The game was so adorable, and you essentially have to let enemies run into open doors and then close the doors behind them. The only other games I really want for Famicom at this point are probably Bird Week or Sqoon, so I’ll have to keep an eye out for them as well.

Battle of Kingdom is a Game Boy game I ended up reading about on an online forum, and it was listed as an RPG that didn’t require any English to play. So far, apart from the menu right at the beginning of the game as well as the opening cinematic, this is entirely true. It’s a bit of a different game where you need to walk down a path and kill certain enemies along the way a la action RPG, and the more points you have, the more special moves you can do or the more/better party members you can recruit to join you. I haven’t quite gotten it all figured out yet, but I am pretty happy with what I’ve played so far.

I was thrilled to find out about Dragonborne, a Game Boy RPG that was just released about a month ago from a UK/German group called Spacebot Interactive. I’ve heard excellent things about it and after playing it for a little while, I’m really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the game is like. It has all the great aesthetic pieces of games like Rolan’s Curse or Final Fantasy Legend. So cute! I think they have another pre-order open right now that’s closing at the end of November, so if this sort of thing intrigues you, get on it!

In an effort to round out more of my Virtual Boy collection, I picked up the Japanese version of Red Alarm. I understand it shouldn’t be too much of an issue playing this version over the North American release, and the only reason I went for this one instead is because of the price point. Game prices seem to have already skyrocketed because of the pandemic in general, but this game was on for a deal that I couldn’t pass up.

Space Squash was a Japanese exclusive for the Virtual Boy that I only found out about recently. This library has to have the quirkiest titles and far too many sports games given how few games were released in total, but it’s something that looked fun by my standards. The mod that we have for our Virtual Boy that allows us to play it on a CRT only uses one eyepiece to create the image, so I hope that not having the “true 3D” of the visor won’t take away from this gameplay experience. Time will tell!

After finishing up Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for NES a couple of months ago, there was a great deal of encouragement that came straight from my stream audience to pick up Super Punch Out for the SNES. Here it is! It’s not super pristine by any means in terms of condition as there’s some strange wear on the label, but it’ll do. It turns on and is legitimate, so there will be more punching action in my future! Mr. Dream and Macho Man have a date with Vengeance… my secret name is actually Vengeance, in case you lost that train of thought.

Valis III for the Sega Genesis is a game I’ve been wanting for a very long time. To date, the only game from this series I’ve played is Syd of Valis, a super-deformed version of the much more serious Valis II that was released on the Turbografx-CD, and I enjoyed that one. Valis III always felt unobtainable because of the price point, but I managed to find a copy of it that’s a little beat up that was available below the going rate. Now it is mine, and I can’t wait to play this sometime.

And what would one of these posts be without some Sega Master System stuff? To start out here, I picked up Master Games 1, which is a compilation cartridge with three games. Super Monaco GP feels, looks and sounds relatively awful at a first glance, and Columns is just the same old Genesis game with a slightly more ear-piercing version of that wonderful tune. In my opinion, the gem here is World Soccer. It’s such a competent little game and while I normally run screaming in the opposite direction from sports titles, I think I’ll have fun playing this. In addition, I also found a copy of Dick Tracy. I think it’s the same as the Genesis version of the game, which is very different from the NES game. It’s the EU version as well, so much cheaper than the North American variant. I need to see the movie some day.

I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I bit the bullet on Shadow of the Beast for the Master System, but here we are. There are much better ports of this one, but given that I don’t own a copy of it for any other system, this was too good to pass up since it was in such beautiful condition. The music is probably the biggest draw for me to this particular title, and the Master System’s sound chip does a pretty decent job. I’ll be curious to see how far I can get here, or how it might be different from the other ports.

Streets of Rage for the Master System, you might be thinking? Why yes! This and Streets of Rage 2 were both ported to the console, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it plays. The music’s even quite good. It’s not Genesis good, but it’s still really great. The only bummer is that you have to call for police back-up with the pause button on the console… that’s less than ideal, but from what I gathered watching my other half play through a bunch of it, the game’s easier than the Genesis game and maybe you don’t even need the police as often. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway. I dislike dismantling my game room every time I want to play a Master System game!

Well that just about does it for this time around. I’ve been buying up some more things lately and am waiting for them to arrive, so hopefully I’ll have another update in the near future for you all. In the meantime, stay safe out there!

Thanks for reading!

-GG