Jyutei Senki, Super Famicom

During the weekend I suddenly suffered a tooth inflammation that made it hard to eat, drink, swallow and gave me a lot of pain. Unable to do anyting, I sat down with a strategy game I had, Jyutei Senki.

It has a beautiful box, but I only have the cart at the moment.

I enjoy strategy games. Back when I was a teenager I spent many hours on the PC with games such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert and Heroes of Might and Magic IV. There is an appeal to me in being able to build something good that outsmarts the opponent, without ever feeling like I have to do work myself. The action does itself, and I am the military leader who builds smart strategies. A nice feeling when you plan a battle so that you know in the end your own guys will be able to just barely beat out the enemy and win the scenario.

Also, the computer can never cheat in strategy games. You can see what he has and you both have the same resources at your disposal. He has to follow the same rules as you. And, you can save and load at any time. So you can't blame your loss on a mistake or bad luck. 

Game Description

Jyutei Senki was only released in Japan. It was developed by Tam-Tam and produced by Enix and I would call it a light weight strategy game. I was happily surprised that it required no Japanese knowledge at all. Most Japanese strategy games I've tested so far seem to want to add complexity such as byuing and selling, reparing, and an abundance of options.

I'll show you someone elses video, because it goes faster than my gameplay. Here is a gameplay I enjoyed with someone playing the fan-translated version , and you see the intro and such. Normally I don't like to link to other's videos because I found that people often remove them!

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Jyutei Senki is simplistic. Take turn to move your units, and if they are close to an enemy unit, they can attack, and the enemy can retiliate. Each unit has a strength and attack range, and all that other stuff we expect from strategy games.

One little extra in this game are the repair spots. Put a unit on it, and the next move it will be fully healed. This is a tremendous advantage if used smart. You can restore your strongest unit from almost dead to completely restored in just one move. You can even place a unit on the repair spot and wait for enemies to attack (and give them retaliate damage), only to have yourself healed the next round.

Another thing that one might not be used to is that from each scenario, your units will get taken to the next scenario. But the ones that died won't come back. With each kill, a unit gets upgraded up to a max of 10 when it becomes "ace" and will get an extra power upgrade. You don't want them dead at that stage! So save often to avoid it... And try to keep your units alive.

The computer isn't particularly smart and often attacks you on repair spots. It also fondly attacks your most useless units first instead of finishing off your strongest units, puts its weakest units in front of its stronger units so they can't pass, and so on. Computer stupidity is one of your main advantages.

My story

Well, as it so happens, I started from a save game on level 7 without knowing. It took me a little while to understand how to play, and unfortunately I didn't understand this "don't die" thing too well at first. Your leader, a big bird called Ark, is stupidly weak until he gets 10 kills, but then he becomes the best unit of the game! So upgrade him quickly, and don't have him killed. He will, unlike other units, return in each new scenario, but at any level below 10 he is a useless crap that just dies as soon as battle starts. If he dies he will restart at level 0 again.

I played through the first couple of stages at about 40-60 minutes each. How many are there?? After each scenario it just says "to be continued". At around stage 12 it started getting more difficult, and I realized I should have upgraded other units earlier.

The gamefaqs FAQ (http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/570965-jyutei-senki/faqs/39388) goes up to 17 scenaries, but the FAQ is incomplete. The game has 20 scenarios! The last 5 scenarios took me around 2,5 - 3 hours each, except the very last that took less than an hour.

The reason why the later scenarios took much long were:

• The computer moves take so long. He moves each unit one at the time, and when he has many it will take around two minutes per move. ("beer time")
• I had to restart a couple of times because I realized my strategy was bad. For example, I had to keep my flying birds alive, and kill off his flying birds quicker.
• Many Save and Load. Make a bad move and see your strong unit get killed off three moves later, you might have to reload from an earlier point. If it still can't be avoided that this or some other important unit dies, you might have to reload from an even earlier point. You can use a max of three save game slots, so use them wisely.
• I hadn't upgraded properly and was almost much worse than the opponent and had to find tricks to beat him, at the same time keeping my best troops alive.

Well, like a mad military commander I kept playing a couple of hours each night. Finally, Wednesday night, I beat the final scenario and the game. The ending was satisfactory. After the scenario mode there are expert scenarios you can play, if you want even more challenge.

I don't think this game has anything that can't be found in some app game but I am happy to have beaten this classic 1993 game, in case I ever make a list of games beaten. Starting from level 7 without knowing, it took a total of 25-30 hours, I think. It could have gone in at least half the time if I had known how to play from the beginning.

Here are some other reviews:

• http://www.videogameden.com/sfc.htm?jse (Jyutei Senki is a fun and unusual War Game. Its overall design is extremely well worked out and unique. Graphics are correct and perfectly fit the game's theme, especially the large animated scenes displayed during battles. However, the difficulty level is quite high. Most of the time any defeated units is lost, and this makes the outcome of any battle greatly influence the rest of the game, especially in later stages. All in all, an excellent game I would recommend to any fan of the genre brave enough to stick out its tough difficulty level. )
• http://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/570965-jyutei-senki/reviews/review-56263 (This game is not for the faint of heart. It's very good, but the high difficulty level really turns a lot of people off of this game. Maybe if someone makes a PAR faq, it'll become more popular. But if you want a real thinking strategy, then you have found it.)

Othello World, Super Famicom

During the weekend, I played several hours of Othello World.

For this blog post, I will call the game Othello. In the US, the game is known as Reversi. Othello is a trademark name that was developed in Japan in 1971 based on the English game Reversi, developed around 1880. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi.

I enjoy to play Othello against computers and I can usually beat the simpler ones, but not this one. As one reviewer on gamefaqs said, this is a hard Othello game.

There are five world. Eventually I did beat Sky World after I found a strategy I could use, but after Sky World there is the Sky Caslte world that is REALLY hard. I may have had a won game at some time, but in the endgame you have to be a master of calculation and that is very hard against the perfectly calculating computer.

In order to beat Sky World, I had to put some time into actually studying Othello. I read this strategy guide: http://www.samsoft.org.uk/reversi/strategy.htm
and "Othello lesson" on youtube (lesson 2 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at0g9zibQZY

These strategies didn't work well against the computer, however, so I played  different against it. I played the opposite of what the guides suggested, but I think I did alright. One needs to realize that I am not an expert player and can't remember long lines of opening play or do long lines of precise calculation.

It was an anti-computer strategy. My plan was to take possession of three of the four sides, and give one of the sides to the computer. Most importantly, I take the side to the opposite of his side. Then I would allow him to give me disks and try not to get outside of the inner 16 squares.

Since I have all sides but one, I will have the last move on any row or column and slowly he will run out of good moves. It is useful here to have a few waiting moves. Because I have given him one of the sides, once he runs out of good moves, he will have to move on that side to give me the corner, and a theoretically won game (just needs some hard calculations). 

There videos might be boring for the average person, but I think that someone who is really interested in Othello or Othello World might find them interesting.

Here is how i defeated the fairy


And here is grim reaper. He was harder than the fairy.

On Sky Zone, you are allowed to get three hints. Just press start, and the computer will tell you how to move. This is useful for the endgame. Unfortunately you con't have this on the Sky Castle and I didn't have much chance without my hints.

There doesn't seem to be any password online for this game so here are passwords for Sky World and to Sky Castle. To enter the password, select Continue from the start screen, then you enter your name in 4 letters (press Select to change to Latin letters), and after that you will be able to enter the password. The password screen allows many letters, but only enter the ones you need.

Here is the password for Sky Zone.

And here for Sky Castle.

There isn't much else to say. It is Othello, and it is hard.

Super Famicom Friday, four games

It isn't Friday and I didn't even play them on a Friday. As artistical freedom I'll still call this my Famicom Friday (super edition). It is almost Christmas and maybe you expect some Christmas games, but sorry I only celebrate Christmas for two days and don't bother for the rest of the month.

During the week I played a couple of SFC games that you probably are not familiar with.

Blazeon, an uncommon shooter by Atlus.

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At first I was perplexed but then I discovered I could freeze some enemies and fly into them to get their suit. Interesting idea. Usually when I try crazy stuff like that I die but ever so rarely I discover something.

The game looks like Gradius at first. The most distinct difference is that in this game you fly really slowly sometimes without any enemies appearing. Maybe the enemies will appear if you set it to Hard mode.  It does make the levels take a long time.

There seems to be infinite continues. Because the levels take so long, you still have to replay 5-10 minutes of moving along sequences. If you like this peculiar kind of gameplay, give it a try. It is original in the way that I have never played anything like it.
Also, I read on gamefaqs that the game becomes a real challenge later on. The manual tells me there are only five levels though (or six? don't remember).

The game is uncommon and my copy in a fine collectors condition, as new, will cost you 448 SEK (70$). Worse condition or loose cart would obviously be cheaper.

Also played Popful Mail. I was impressed by this game, one of the more playable action/RPG games I have tried. With all that walking and ladders and so on it felt like Castlevania. Maybe it is just my lack of experience with these games that makes me feel that way.

The game is also on Sega CD and Pc Engine with all games being different. This article explains more: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/popfulmail/popfulmail.bak.htm. They recommend the Sega CD game released only in Japan and USA. A working Sega CD does costs a bit these days. I could mention that we offer restoration of Sega CD consoles, and can also rather easily make it region free.

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The levels take a bit long. If you enjoy playing cute hack'n slash games you probably won't mind.

There is some Japanese text in the shop but I quickly guessed my way. There is also a battery save option here. You need to know that you have to trade your Exp for Gold, which you either do in the shop or in some other places.

In the video I made mistake at around 09:30 when I didn't go into town to be health items. Then I died around 13:50 and had to restart. Finally found my way into town and bought the health items I needed by 18:00. I also saved there. At around 21:00 I continued the trip. I played on and beat the boss and then came to an underground level (with bats!).

This game is rather common and can be had for around 175 SEK (25$). I recommend you check it out. As I read on hardcore gaming, this game is rather long and you get more characters you can switch between.  A nice story driven adventure.

Dolucky's A-Leage Soccer.

Another sports game. Sports games are thankful to play because they are easy to into. Some of them have good gameplay, although most have strange problems with controls and I quickly get annoyed. I feel that about modern PS2 and PS3 sports games too. Sports games are fun only if you can beat them, no?

This one I played for some 30 minutes at least, so I would rate it a playable game. After a while the controls got frustrating. You have to tackle all the time and the computer cheats. Also, you can't see much of the playing field. For 48 SEK (7$) it could be worth to try it out. If there is a 2-player mode, and there should be, it is probably fun with a friend long enough to justify the 7$.


When you have charged your power meter, you can press L to go into overdrive mode. This will make you shoot a super shot. A humerous game, and maybe you can play it better than I could.

As a bonus, I will recommend a different soccer game on SFC. Fighting Eleven, by Konami! There is also Fighting Eleven II. The EU/US titles for the games are Internation Superstar Soccer and Internation Superstar Soccer Deluxe. I read on gamefaqs that the Japanese version has more teams, but don't rely on that info. Here is a video I uploaded a month ago where I beat Denmark. I'll include it here as a bonus. More information on how to play is in the video page.
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Finally, during the week I also uploaded this video I made a while ago of Hashire Hebereke.
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It is a racing game with inspiration from Super Mario Kart. This was my first time playing. I didn't do well the first race but I quickly got into it. Another game that should be fun to try it for a while.

I don't know if it can be played multiplayer. If so, that should be fun. I sold the loose cart for 75 SEK (12$) and for an uncommon game like this I think it is worth paying that. Getting it Complete In Box would be more expensive.

Tenchi Muyo! RPG, super famicom

Except for retro games, my colleague Kristin also likes some Japanese animes and manga. Here follows her review of this game on to which we put an English translation. 

Written By: Kristin
There are many Japan-exclusive strategy games, one of them is Tenchi Muyo! Game Hen, also known as Tenchi Muyo RPG in the inofficial translation. The game was developed by Banpresto and was released on the Super Famicom in 1995. If you ever saw the anime or read the manga, you will probably recognize most of the characters presented during the game: main character Tenchi, Princess Ayeka, Ryoko the demon, Mihoshi the space cop, cat-bunny Ryo-Ohki and so on. But this game introduces two new characters, never seen outside of this game: the girls Mizuki and Kusumi.


These screen shots are from the english translation which we can add to a physical, original cart.

Kusumi, an old classmate to the scientist Washu, is filled with revenge. During the game, you fight monsters who are summoned by Kusumi, but also by Mizuki - the girl who suddenly appears during the first scene. At first, she works as Kusumi's right hand - to do the dirtywork; for example kidnapping princess Sasami (also known as Pretty Sammy).

But when Tenchi and the gang manage to rescue Sasami, Mizuki is abandoned by Kusumi who in turn kidnaps Ryoko the demon. Mizuki now joins Tenchi and she becomes a playable character. By using her knowledge and Ryo-ohki's ability to transform into a space ship, they follow Kusumi to the moon where she continues her revengeful plans.


These screen shots are from the english translation which we can add to a physical, original cart.
All characters have different abilities; pros and cons. Some are naturally weaker, some a bit slower, while others can move around more freely. You can level up your characters up to level 8 but you are limited to use only four characters for each game.

To make a character level up, he or she needs to make the decisive hit, making the monster die. Just like in many other games, each character also has its unique set of attacks, which grows in numbers when they level up.

The game is really short in comparison to many other strategy games, but even if reaching the end isn't that difficult, there are many extra gaming hours to gain, plus some bonus characters. You have the possibility to go back to places where you already visited.

If you like this series since earlier, you won't be disappointed. There are a lot of dialog and the chemistry between the characters are often familiar. The game is very well-made, and even if the dialog can get a bit messy at times with all the honorable titles, you are pretty forgiving once you start playing the battles. And it's hard to quit. Tenchi Muyo! RPG is, compared to other startegy-RPG titles, actually very easy-going where you won't have to deal with a heavy story line. So if you're curious on how these type of games work, this title could be a great starter before taking on the bigger and longer strategy-RPGs.

SMB2 "lost levels", original vs All Stars version

One of my favorite games is Super Mario Bros 2 in Japanese version.
The appeal of this game for me is in its original FDS version.

In its original version, SMB2 is more challenging. The physics in the FDS version is the same as in the first Super Mario Bros, and I hope that people can remember that SMB is more difficult to control than a game such as Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World.

Personally I think that the "cutified" sprites and music in All Stars take away the charm off the original.

In the original, you can't control your character very much after he has started to jump. And I think your character seems bigger and less likely to fall off platforms. So they have made it easier.

A more obvious difference is that in the original you don't have any save function. If you are game over on 8-4, you have to continue from 8-1. And the levels 8-1 to 8-4 are really difficult.

When it comes to level design, the levels are basically the same. 

I remember when I first played this game in Super Mario All Stars, 20 years ago. It felt kind of weird. But after having tried the FDS versions I started to appreciate the original more than I ever did before and it surpassed my lack of curiosity for the All Stars.

I think it took me around 30 lives to beat 8-1 and 8-3, and they are still tricky. 8-4 takes me even more lives. 8-2 is actually relatively easy. There is supposed to be a very difficult jump there, but frankly I can often get it on the first try. Maybe the difficulty is in finding out you have to do the jump in the first place, in case you didn't know.

Here is my playing from the castle in 7-4 and all the levels to 8-4.

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I don't have any good editing software and all I can do is the cut videos at the beginning and end. I took the videos from in between boring parts where I died alot, but the gameplay in each video is continous. So cheer for me! When I die, you'll have to wait longer.

You should know that I took a lot of extra lives in the beginning of my run! But I had lost almost all by the end, LOL. Here you can check the beginning where I took 100+ lives.
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If you think it is cheating, you should know that this trick can only be done in this particular place in the game, right at the beginning. Nintendo must have put it there on purpose.

I got inspired to play through the game, and do the 1-up trick, by watching the Game Center DX episode of the game. Seems it was deleted from youtube, but it can be found here: http://vimeo.com/22219988.

I've also made a video of the all-stars version here. As I play it again, it feels slower than the original. That's one thing I like about the original - it is a fast paced game.

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I made a longer play of the original, playing through every single level one by one without using warps. If you complete it that way, you get to play the secret world at the end, as you'll see.
I was sure I wouldn't make it because I had died so many times and only had a few lives left, but with some luck I did it. This video shows my last attempts at 8-4. I was nervous,  still can't believe how I did it.

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Each time you beat the game, either with warps or without, you get a star added to the title menu. This is saved onto the disk and will be there for as long as the disk works. In my copy above, you can see from video 1-1 that there are 3 stars. At the end of the video 8-4, you can see that another star was added.

I don't know how many stars you can have, but I have had some copies of this game that has had the title menu full of stars. When you have 7 star (or 8?) you can press Left+A (or Left+Start?) to reach the Hell Courses. They are pretty much impossible, and I don't even bother with them.

The original SMB2J can also be found as a famicom mini game which is identical to the original but on a smaller screen.

For GBA (region free game). I had one for 275 SEK

 
It is also on Wii Virtual Console and 3Ds virtual console. I don't own those consoles and can't evaluate that.

A review said about the Wii game:

A fairly popular trend on the Internet now is hacking old Mario games to make new levels, then challenging friends to try to beat the purposefully too-difficult designs. You can find videos of the subculture scattered on YouTube and similar sites, and watch as players try over and over to get through seemingly impossible side-scrolling challenges. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is a lot like that. 

Compared to the Mario we Americans know and love, The Lost Levels feels a lot like a fan-made hack – with platforming challenges that are just a bit too frustrating and don't flow as well as Mario 1, and graphics that seem like a downgrade as well. But, odd as it is, this is the real, actual follow-up to Super Mario Bros. the way it was intended to be. A set of 52 extra levels, all made harder than any found in the first SMB, and all spiced up with just enough new elements to make it stand alone as its own separate game. It's absolutely worth 600 of your Wii Points to experience it, and Luigi's alternate controls, and the near-maddening new vision of the Mushroom Kingdom for the very first time. Just prepare yourself for repeated trips to the Game Over screen, because it turns out that NOA [nintendo of america] made the right choice after all, over 20 years ago, in holding this one back.  -- http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/10/04/super-mario-bros-the-lost-levels-review

Personally I think the best experience is still to play the original software on the original hardware. This can be a difficult and complicated thing. First you need to get either an AV modded famicom+disk system, or a twin famicom. And make sure the disk system is refurbished by a qualified person!

Twin Famicom I sell for 998 SEK, fully working, with EU power and two disk games

I do the necessary belt restoration, but sometimes I have to recalibrate some of them because they weren't reading 100% accurately. I have a free 1 year warranty for recalibration. I hope I now have to skills to do it properly, but three months ago I had two recalibrations.

Getting either of these setups in working condition usually will cost around 1000 SEK (150$), plus shipping. Possibly you have to spend more on finding the power supplies you need.

Then the game will cost around 100-150 SEK (15-25$) for the disk. If you want a boxed copy, you'll need to pay a bit more. The good thing is that the game is common, it sold more than 2 million copies in Japan. A little trivia is that the game only takes one side of the disk, so if you are lucky you might get another fun 1 sided game on the other side, such as Twinbee, the original Super Mario Bros, or Ice Hockey.

Famicom Friday: Fuzzical Fighter and Palamedes II

Yesterday I had myself a Famicom Friday, with some games that have not been sold for a while.


Palamedes II.

125 SEK

I played this game for about an hour. At first it is almost as annoying as Puyo Puyo but there are two good things compared with Puyo Puyo. First, the matches can be over really fast which reduces the annoyance. Secondly, I won sometimes.
The game has some randomness to it, so one is likely to win after a while.

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The gameplay seems complicated but it isn't. You have the die [sv not: "die" är singularform av "dice"] at the top with a number. Your have to place your dice that will make a poker-like number. The best combination is a straight, such as 6-5-4-3. Second best is four of a kind. Also good is three of a kind, or two of two different sorts. When you get some good combination, you will remove 1-4 rows from your screen, and the opponent will get 1-4 rows added. That's the puyo puyo aspect.

The tricky thing is that you can only place a die that has the same or acjacent number as the die on the table. So if the die on the table has 5, you can place 4,5 or 6. Say you place a 4, then the die on the table will change to a 4. This also effects what the opponent can place.
I think the video explains the rest of the gameplay.

The game was fun for a while. The main annoyance is that the die on the table is hard to see when you look at your own board. They should have put it in the middle, and maybe have a sound indicating what it changes to. The second annoyance is that the game feels random. In one moment you are almost dead, and the next your screen is empty and the opponent is almost dead.


The third game I played was Fuzzical Fighter.

195 SEK

Strange that this game hasn't been sold, but I was happy because I enjoyed it very much. I played it for 3 hours. Not only is it uncommon but also a great game.

Sometimes I think many people don't have very good taste, because I keep on getting requests for games like Trip World, that I don't even think is fun, but I now have a loose copy for sale for 795 SEK (125$). That is the lower end of the current price on eBay. Fuzzical Fighter is unsold for 195 SEK. Oh well.
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At first Fuzzical Fighter may be confusing because you start in this Dragon Quest view and might think "oh no, not another weird japanese RPG". But actually the RPG mode is insignificant and easy to figure out. To prove my point, you get passwords that consists of FOUR NUMBERS and is the same for a level no matter how you upgraded. So it isn't an upgrade-heavy game.

It also starts off slow and easy and may seem boring. But there are 8 levels and they get harder and faster.

You get gold when you shoot enemies and you use it to buy stuff in the shop. In the shop with an ship sign you can upgrade Shoot (シュート ? I don't know), Shield (シールド) or Engine (エンジン). The katakana is literally the English word phonetically. Learning some basic katanaka is actually not that hard. I recommend practice on: http://www.realkana.com/

In the other shop you can buy items, literally アイテム.
You use the Item by pressing Select during gameplay. I know one item will take you back to the last castle you won. One upgrade is "Add Power" (パワー means power) to add HP, and one is "Add Magic" (マジック means magic) to add more Magic points.

The magic that is 16 MP will also take you back to the last castle. This is useful if you are almost dead. Use magic buy equiping it, and press the A button.

To equip your ship, simply press Start when playing and select your upgrades.

A special thing about the game is the Fuzzical mode. This is an autopilot of sorts that will avoid obstacles. I think it is useful on later stages when the screen scrolls fast and there is a ceiling and ground that show up. I actually had the Fuzzical mode on in the video because it made it more fun to play. It feels weird at first but is strangely playable. Easier than when I tried Darius II last week with my not-too-functional Mega Drive controller.

The graphics is nice and the music is well made.
To buy upgrades you sometimes have to "level grind", meaning you play a bit of a level until your HP is low, then you use a magic to go back to base, buy an upgrade, restore health, and restart the level. You restore your health by going to Inn, select the top menu item, and then chose the top item that is cheap and will restore your HP and MP.
I didn't mind grindning because I thought the game was fun to play.

If you are one of the people who read my blog posts regularly, you may know that I enjoy action games with a strategy element. That  is so that my brain will do some work and not just my reflexes, and to keep my from falling asleep by repetitive gameplay.

It is also nice with a shooter where you can keep on trying. Keep on collecting gold and buy upgrades instead of getting game over. It doesn't feel super hard either, which is nice for someone like me who is not a mad-skillz button mashing shmupper (who only plays with a custom made Seimitsu part stick).

I show a video from early gameplay only. It gets more fun later on.

And as bonus, a few days ago I also played some more Super Mario Kart ghost valley 1, to show I could beat the time I mentioned in my recent Mega Drive blog post.
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And I made another Goemon video! Now on super famicom: Gokujou Parodius. Wow, some of my favorite games Twinbee, Gradius and Goemon all in one, what a combination! But I feel that parodius is more of a joke than a game. :) I don't play it seriously.

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The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare (Super Famicom)

 

My colleague fredJ uploaded these videos recently, where he tried to complete the game. Youtube has limited our videos to 15 minutes, as mentioned in the blogpost of Magic Knight Rayearth on Saturn, so the video is cut in smaller pieces. Also, the game has a lot of uninteresting passages that were cut away so that you won't get bored. It took around 1:30 h to play the game from start to finish, and of these 30 minutes was cut away, for a total of around 1h video time.

Played on original super famicom hardware.



My colleague says:

When I was a kid I wished for this game, and since it was relatively cheap I got it for birthday or something. A friend told me what a loser game I got, but I thought it was alright, even if it was very hard. It was frustrating but slowly I learnt some tricks on how to beat the courses. I manage to beat it a couple of times. It wasn't many but I did it completely on my own and am proud of that.

The Japanese version is probably quite rare because we haven't had it before. Since this is the Japanese version it is in full NTSC and 60 Hz, unlike PAL 50Hz. Also, it really is easier to play a game in RGB rather than the crappy antenna cable most people had back in those days.

The game has some fun mini-games and a varied main street. While frustrating, it doesn't get boring and I liked the concept of being able to walk around freely. You can also always recover in the sense that if you fail you can play the same level again and again. But you probably *will* have to play some mini-games many times to learn the tricks to beat them, and until you have figured them out, you will probably hate it. Everything in these videos are played from memory actually. There's probably better ways to do certain things but maybe you'll pick up some other tricks you didn't know even if you have played the game before.

Here you'll see some tricks that you probably have to know to play the game. These things are in the manual so they are not spoilers.

• When the Z meter is empty, you are game over with no continues.
• Quickest way to fill up the Z bar is by riding the skateboard a long time. You can also use bubblegum and get Z's up there.
• Jump over three fishes for three pillows. The will give you an entire extra life bar! This is probably important if you want to complete the game.
• You have to jump on the papers. I don't actually know any way to find them for sure. Just walk around, try to get points and avoid getting hurt.
• Shooting on the TV *may* make a paper appear, and following the question mark when it appears.

Also should comment on "bartzilla" that starts at 10:30 in the video above. Some people don't understand the controls. They are simple: Press A to shoot at the train, Down to shoot down, Forward to shoot forward, Up to shoot at the other side of the rails, X to shoot the jet plains, B to shoot at tanks. And don't shoot a laser shot until the previous laser shot has hit its target. Also, don't shoot the car at the end.



My colleague played some more courses but also failed on some. For brevity, he cut away most parts of the courses he failed, for example the House Climb several times even though he always beat it easy in his PAL version. Either he was unlucky here, or the NTSC version is harder.

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The last course, which is the second Indiana Jones course. He also played it in video 1, but failed. He also learned that the green demon doesn't actually kill you unless you hit at him. He died twice and was pretty nervous, he says:

"I knew I could beat it if I didn't make mistakes. This is probably the most difficult of the courses in the game. I had to paus to think, unpaus, etc alot and I didn't keep the recorder on for that that, so you'll only see the end of that course."

Yay, he completed a game. =)

The Japanese version is probably exactly the same as the American version because all the text is in English.

Not a great game, but actually not a bad Simpsons game and it has several original themes. Most people on forums have as a complaint that the game is too difficult, especially the second Indiana Jones level.  But it is definitely beatable if you know some tricks, as the video shows.

Currently playing: Mario's Super Picross on SFC

Last week I have spent more time than I should playing Mario's Super Picross.
I don't actually play many video games, even though I sell them. Mostly I prefer to relax after work. But this is a relaxing and de-stressing game.

Who ever had the game before me must also have thought so, because in the savegame he solved all 300 puzzles. That probably takes at least 100h in my estimation. The early puzzles are simple but later puzzles take almost all the 30 minutes and may require several tries. Last copy I tested had something like 280 solved puzzles... Yes, addictive game, and maybe not that well known.

I'll borrow someone elses video because I already uploaded a game boy picross video.
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So it is pretty simple to figure out. a 0 means there are 0 black blocks on that row or column. If it says for example "2 2" it means that are two black blocks next to eachother, then unknown emply blocks, then another two black blocks next to eachother.

There are some tricks to figure out where the black blocks are. For example, if a row has max 15 blocks and there are 9 connected blocks on that row, you know there will always be a couple of blocks in the middle.

The difference with this SFC game from the GB games is the Wario mode. In Wario mode you don't get penalized for placing in the wrong square and the timer goes up instead of down. That means you can't lose a level, but the levels also seem more difficult to solve.
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I wish the music of the games were better. It isn't bad but I think it could be nicer to listen to, and more variation would be good too. But I still play it.

I read the game was the first Japan exclusive game to be released on the European Virtual Console. I play it on super famicom hardware, obviously.

A retro meeting yesterday

Yesterday I visited my friend and a very good costumer "stopXwhispering" who writes ambitiously at http://retro-video-gaming.com/. A much more popular blog than mine so your likely to know about it I suppose.
Meeting people isn't something I generally do much of but I couldn't miss this chance to see so many of my old games again. I was also always curious in the 2-player aspect of retro games which would be an excellent opportunity. I think around 25 people showed up in stopXwhispering's fine retro room with many consoles and TVs hooked up.

stopXwhispering is a very good collector because she collects to play games, and it is nice to see people enjoying our games. It is much harder to please the museum collectors who seem to collect items as dust collectors and prefer their manuals to be unread, etc. Not that I care why people buy games, of course, but I do care about making customers satisfied.

She had though out a competition of some games and the best total score would get a price. I think that on purpose they picked games that are not common PAL games people might have played before.

I didn't do to well myself. I ended up in the middle of the field. It was only thanks to a somewhat strong performace in the game Tetris (BPS), which I actually have played a little before.
In Tetris (BPS), you turn the block by pressing Down which takes a couple of minutes to get used to. Somehow I must have learnt the skill from all of my testing of the game. It may still be unfair for those who don't know that to get a high score in Tetris you have to get many four-rows or three-rows. I didn't know myself until recently actually. But I am not much of a gamer.


We also played Hector '87, also known as Starship Hector. The key to get a high score was probably be to watch others play to learn where the enemies are. A decent shoot'em up game, from the "middle" generation of 8-bit shooters in my opinion. I consider first generation shooters to be Xevious, Twinbee and Argus. With the middle shooters you have more enemies on the screen, better music, and just more intensity.

We also played Musha on the Mega Drive and Ninja Spirit on Pc Engine. It seemed that some people were a lot more experienced than others in playing these games, or maybe they were just better gamers. Anyways, I didn't last long. Ninja Spirit is an expensive and sought after game, I could have played it when I had it, but I never really saw the appeal... I can't think of any "run and kill" game that I have played for more than 5 minutes.

Then, a music quiz that didn't go to well for me either. I think one reason is because I wanted to do it alone and another reason that I never really got into NES as a kid. I don't know the hair color of Metroid or the names of bosses in Mega Man. Anyways, the quiz was well drafted, I think. God, in general I find quizes annoying, but a quiz while drinking beer at least makes for one fun. 

There was also a Halo moment I refused to take part in so I got disqualified.

In the semi final, the best people played Vs. Collection. I remember I had this fun and uncommon for sale at 25$ for at least six months (in great condition) before stopXwhispering bought it. I think many people don't have good taste in games since they passed out on this fun game.
It was fun for me to see it in action with 4 players.
They also played Super Bomberman. The bomberman games are always fun with 2-4 players (or more in some version!). But I think some of the later bomberman titles got confusing, and that the simpler bomberman the better it is.
I set up Bomberman '93 for pc engine to try out multiplayer and it proved popular. Games for 2 or more players are probably good to have for gamer meetings. It would also increase interaction between people that don't know each other. I read that was one major reason why Pong was so popular in bars in the early 70's.
I did find a person to play Salamander (Life Force) co-op with, but that game is too aggrevating for most first time players. I did make it to the first stage boss for the first time so I will call it a success. My co-op player was game over much earlier though.

In the final match, the two best players played Fatman on mega drive. I once tried to sell this game very cheap but no one ever wanted it. I auctioned it away in a lot last week. It is in the middle.


These 9 games sold for 161 SEK.

Fatman is obviously a crappy game but it was fun to watch and fun for the finalists to play, a "camp" game if there is one.
I sometimes compare the artistical side of games to movies. Some people like movies and are called movie buffs. These movie buffs like to think that they are watching some artistical creation that tells us some deep secret about life, when in reality they are watching some pretentious run of the mill production that lives in its own reality and tells us lies that are disconnected from reality (such as "follow your dreams", "the bad guy always get shot and dies" or "one day a prince will come and take you to live happily ever after").
Video games are no worse or better, from an artistical point of view. A game like fatman is like watching a camp movie, I think. I just happen to like video games better than movies.

I almost forgot to say it was a very nice evening, and thank you very much to hostess Stopxwhispering.

O-chan no Oekaki Logic, Sega Saturn

Article by Kristin

This game works exactly like Mario Picross, the only difference is that our well-known plumber is exchanged for Sunsofts characters from the Hebereke series. It's a puzzle game where you try to figure out a pattern based on numbers on the side of the board. If you are unfamiliar to the Mario Picross series, you can read about it in our previous blog entry from last year: http://japanspel.blogspot.se/2012/09/mario-picross.html. Also, now that we have a video recorder, here is a video that Fredrik made recently of the Game Boy version of Mario Picross:



O-chan, the cute cat-girl (who is changed into the Lizard boy Freeon-Leon in the NES game Ufouria), is the main character of O-chan no Oekaki Logic, in comparison to all other Hebereke games where Hebe (or Bop-Louie in Ufouria) acts as the main character. The games has been released on many platforms: Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Super Famicom and Wonderswan. The Playstation even got two sequels, logically called O-Chan no Oekaki Logic 2 and O-Chan no Oekaki Logic 3.

I don't know much about the differences between all these versions of the game because there isn't much information about them on the internet. But we were able to try the Saturn version and uploaded a video about it on our YouTube channel:

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We recently sold the Sega Saturn version on Tradera, the auction ended at 52 SEK which is about 5 euros. You might still be able to see the auction here. None of these games are very common but they are also not very expensive, so they could be worth checking out if you like challenging puzzle games and have grown tired of Sudoku. We hope to get more copies of this game in the future. Next time, maybe even for another console.

Tenchi Muyo! RPG till SFC

Det finns många strategispel som aldrig släppts utanför Japan, ett av dem är Tenchi Muyo! Game Hen, som även kallas Tenchi Muyo RPG i och med den inofficiella översättning som gjorts. Spelet utvecklades av Banpresto och släpptes till Super Famicom 1995.

Om man har sett på animen eller läst mangan så känner man nog igen de flesta karaktärer som presenteras under spelets gång: huvudpersonen Tenchi, Prinsessan Ayeka, den närgångna demonen Ryoko, rymdpolisen Mihoshi, katt-kaninen Ryo-Ohki med flera. Men det introduceras även två nya karaktärer som aldrig påträffas tidigare: tjejerna Mizuki och Kusumi.



Dessa skärmdumpar kommer från den engelska översättningen som vi kan flasha till fysisk original-kassett.

Kusumi är en gammal klasskamrat till vetenskapskvinnan Washu som är ute efter hämnd. Under spelets gång slåss man mot monster som är framkallade av Kusumi, men även av Mizuki - tjejen som plötsligt dyker upp i första scenen. Hon fungerar först som Kusumis utsända för att göra smutsjobbet; bland annat att kidnappa prinsessan Sasami (även känd som Pretty Sammy).

Men då Tenchi och gänget lyckas rädda Sasami så anses Mizuki ha misslyckats med sitt uppdrag. Hon överges därmed av sin chef som då istället kidnappar Ryoko. Tenchi och gänget tar då över stackars Mizuki på sin sida som först nu blir en spelbar karaktär. Med hjälp av hennes kunskaper och Ryo-ohkis förmåga att förvandla sig till ett rymdskepp, följer gänget efter den hämndlystna Kusumi då hon flyr iväg till månen för att fortsätta sina planer.


Dessa skärmdumpar kommer från den engelska översättningen som vi kan flasha till fysisk original-kassett.

Man spelar på ett rutnät snett ovanifrån och alla karaktärer har olika egenskaper; fördelar och nackdelar. En del är naturligt svagare, andra är lite långsammare, medan andra kan röra sig mer fritt. Man kan levla sina karaktärer upp till level 8 men egenskaperna är bestående oavsett level. Däremot så är man begränsad till fyra karaktärer per match.

För att en karaktär ska levla behöver han eller hon slå det avgörande slaget så att ett monster dör. Så som i många andra spel har varje karaktär unika attacker och magier som utökas allteftersom att var och en i deras level ökar.

Spelet är ganska kort i jämförelse med många andra strategispel men även om det går relativt snabbt att komma fram till slutet så finns det många speltimmar att hämta och olika karaktärer att hitta på vägen. Man har möjligheten att gå tillbaka till platser man redan har besökt.



Om man gillar serien sedan tidigare så kommer man inte att bli besviken. Det finns mycket dialog och kemin mellan karaktärerna känns ofta igen. Spelet är mycket välgjort, och även om dialogen lätt känns lite rörig då de alltid tilltalar varandra vid namn och hederstitlar, är man ganska förlåtande när man väl kommer igång att spela. Och det är dessutom svårt att sluta.

Tenchi Muyo! RPG är nämligen ett jämförelsevis lättsamt strategi-RPG där man slipper tung story som många andra spel inom samma genre kan ha. Så om man är nyfiken på hur den här typen av spel fungerar så kan denna titel vara en bra inkörsport till tyngre och definitivt längre strategi-RPG.

text av Kristin Loman.

Gradius III for Super Famicom

In the last couple of days I have played Gradius III. I have previously written about Gradius on famicom and on Saturn... But I never played much of Gradius III before.

It plays like Gradius. In Gradius III you can chose between some different weapon upgrade systems. I prefered most of the original weapon system, with diagonal "Double", and the downward missile. But I felt that the E-Laser was better than the normal Laser.

Anyways, just like on Gradius, Gradius III is pretty annoying and tough. As long as you can avoid getting hit, the game is pretty simple. Upgrade to the max and fly around. But if one of the enemies bullets gets through, you are back to zero powerups and in some circumstances this is almost like a game over.

The game isn't unfairly difficult, like Salamander is. But in some cases it will be difficult to avoid dying the first time you play something.

I don't know how many levels the game has. I think I beat 7 of them. The last one was a boss with two stone heads.

Gradius III is a fairly common and affordable shoot'em up game on the Super Famicom. It is a fun game, but very annoying...

Skillnader mellan NTSC och PAL

Text och bild av Fredrik Josefsson.
Får ej återges utan tillstånd. Vid citering, länka alltid till denna sida.

NTSC är det som används som TV standard i USA och Japan, och PAL är standarden i Europa. NTSC går i 60Hz och PAL går i 50Hz. Detta har att göra med hur ofta bilden kan uppdateras. En uppdatering på 50Hz gör att bilden flimrar mer än om den är i 60Hz.

Spel som är gjorda för en NTSC konsol i 60Hz och spelas på PAL konsol går långsammare än vad de gjorde ursprungligen (16,67% långsammare). Detta kan påverka både spelet och/eller musiken.

Många spel PAL-optimerades när de släpptes i Europa så att hastigheten skulle vara likadan. Detta krävde att spelet programmerades om, och brukar inte vara 100-procentigt. Till exempel så är NTSC versionen av Super Mario Kart ett par procent snabbare än PAL versionen trots att det är PAL-optimerat. En annan skillnad är att den välkända musiken i Super Mario Bros 1 går snabbare i original än vad det gjorde i Europa.

Det var nästan bara Nintendo som PAL-optimerade sina spel, så spel gjorda av andra utvecklare är ofta långsammare i sin PAL versioner. Mega Drive spel optimerades ofta inte heller, vilket gör att NTSC versioner av Mega Drive spel går betydligt snabbare.