Today I'm looking at one of gaming's lesser known mascots - Bonk! I review the original Bonk's Adventure on the TurboGrafx-16, as well as look at a bit of his history and the history of the console to explain why Bonk never made it big in North America like Mario or Sonic.
[img width=320 height=316]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oErLX7bYBH8/WDOY4uHTQ_I/AAAAAAAAAoc/wyoo8vNHS78pWT2QOHJMCU7pwu1UJ_CYQCLcB/s320/Gargoyles%2BQuest%2Bbox.jpg[/img] Box art scan shamelessly stolen from GameFAQs. Someone at Capcom USA should have been sacked for turning Firebrand into a green gargoyle instead of his signature crimson.
From time to time, video game companies see fit to tinker with their intellectual properties. This may be due to creative surges within the development teams wanting to try something new. Sometimes a dev team knows the formula within a given series has become stale or rote, and they feel the need to mix things up. There are examples where changing the formula has had resounding success, such as Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as well as instances where this approach completely flopped, as was the case with Accolade's Bubsy 3D. Whatever the reason, creative minds generally need to branch out to do different things to keep things fresh and flex their creative muscle.
Such is the case with Gargoyle's Quest from Capcom. It's sort of an off-shoot of the Makai-Mura series, better known as Ghosts 'n Goblins, or Ghouls 'n Ghosts. In Japan, the game is known as Reddo Arima: Makai-Mura Gaiden, which can be roughly translated as Red Arremer: Demon World Village Side-Story. Rather than starring the main protagonist of the Ghosts/Ghouls series, Arthur, it actually stars the "red arremer" enemy from the original game known as Firebrand. Based on the game's plot, it could be seen as a prequel to the original game, which you find out at the end.
If I were asked to describe Jaleco, I would define it as a company the on the edge of greatness. Their catalog is filled with titles that, while above average, didn't quite reach the same heights as their contemporaries. Released for the Famicom in 1992, Pizza Pop! places the player in the role of a pizza delivery boy who is trying to earn enough money to buy his girlfriend Betty a ring. As he pushes onward to his delivery, he has to deal with his rival, Nick and his army of minions.
What is the Holiday Season for you? For me, it's the idea of "free time" (and spending time with friends and family, above all else). I am always getting into something, but during free time, I like to experiment with many technical things, ROM Hacking being one such example. I also do other "technical" things that involve long, drawn out processes due to modern hardware being a pain to work with in regards to retro stuff. That said, let's begin...
Experiment 1! The Video CD, according to Philips [img width=385 height=345]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a136/DarkTheThief/f38cb4de-4dfc-11e6-966d-7e7ea334f58a_zpsqiarpkkg.jpg[/img]
This is going to sound strange to everyone, I am sure, but I really like what one would describe as "dead formats", but "dead" is far from the truth! While the Video CD is not making a comeback, Laserdiscs and (as far as I know) Betamax Tapes have big collector markets these days. In fact, one store here in my Hometown sells Laserdiscs and makes a lot of money doing it. Anyway, to get to the point, ever since I learned of Video CDs' existence, I've been fascinated with them. So I decided to try my hand at making some. It was hard. See, when the Philips CD-i released (note that my CD-i is the only method I have of playing these Video CDs), Philips added 4 certain files to their Video CDs that prevented them from playing on standard Video CD Players. This odd setup also prevents standard Video CDs from playing on the CD-i. Anyway, the 4 files can be found easily enough by searching the internet, but they can't be added to a CD easily. I learned how to do it thanks to the very helpful folks at the forums here: http://www.videohelp.com/ What's more, your video files need to be of a specific file type and at the same time, encoded a very specific way to work. So why is all this hard? You can't do it on a modern Operating System. You need to use a VM (Virtual Machine), which is an Operating System that works like a program within your current Operating System. Was all this difficult? Yes. Did it take me around 3 days to get it right? Also yes. Was it worth it? To me, very much so. I like older technology, and I'm sure we can all relate in one way or another, considering what this website is.
Experiment 2! ROM Hacking, because I can [img width=569 height=521]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a136/DarkTheThief/Faxanadu%20ROM%20Hack_zps3ubsfxno.png[/img]
ROM Hacking is hacking an older game's data to modify/add stuff to the game. One thing I love about RPGs is that you can name (or rename) Characters to whatever you want. The example above is from an NES Game called Faxanadu. In the Famicom Version, you could name the Main Character, but for reasons unknown to me, they took this feature out of the NES Version. I found out about this about a year ago, and at the time, I couldn't do anything about it. As time passed, I learned how to hack ROMs, so I did what you see above to remedy it. I did something similar with The Goonies 2, also an NES Game (though you couldn't name characters in that one in any version). At some point after this, I thought "What if I could do this with a 16-Bit Game?", so I tried my hand at ROM Hacking Shadowrun for the Genesis. This was surprisingly easy, and while I don't have a Screenshot on hand to show it, it was also just a simple Name Change. Was this whole thing stupid? To a few people, yes, but I can say that at least two friends thought it was cool.
I get a lot of free time in October, November, and December, and those are just a couple of things I did this year in said free time. The Holiday Season is great: Time with family and friends, time off from work/free time in general, giving and receiving items, and much more. What do YOU like to do during your free time this time of year?
My friend's Nintendo Christmas tree. I'm more than a little jealous.
Like many of us, I've had a lot to think about in 2016 that hasn't been entirely pleasant. On top of any personal circumstances some may have had to deal with, there's been enough divisiveness and controversy on a macro level throughout the year, and particularly in the last month, to make anyone's head spin. I have no interest in bringing all that negativity to this community, but I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't at least acknowledge the fact that it's affected me deeply recently, to the point where I had a hard time getting into a proper head space to decide what I wanted to write about this month.
Fortunately, and what shouldn't have been surprising, I eventually realized that once I stopped looking back at what couldn't be changed and started looking forward to the weeks ahead, an appropriate topic was staring me right in the face. It's December now, and with that comes holiday sales, time with friends and family, and hopefully for most of us, some time off from work or school to spend gaming. Whether it's trying out a newly acquired gift we weren't expecting, or finally breaking into that special game we've been dying to try out (you know the one I mean; that gift from you, to you for being so good this year), this is a great time to purge the negativity from the rest of the year, recharge the ole mental batteries, and think back on some of the best holiday memories of year's past.
Back around 2004 I ordered my first box of NES games off of Ebay. There were about 40 games in it and it cost me around $100. I was mostly trying to acquire some games I had as a kid like Hydlide, Karnov, Ninja Gaiden and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was very cool to explore other games that I didn't even know existed that also came in the box, including unusual games like Chiller, hidden gems like Kickle Cubicle, and classics like Contra. In retrospect, it was an amazing deal, but I didn't know that at the time. I had just picked up a cheap NES at a local Pawn Shop and was looking for some software to play on it...simple as that. After enjoying the next couple of weeks of immensely exploring each and every title in the box, I realized I had awakened something I didn't know was inside me.
Growing up as a kid in the 80's, I have vivid memories of walking into the local arcades of the time and pumping countless quarters/tokens into those high-tech cabinets. Some of my favorite machines of the that bygone era were the brawlers. While many games focused on high scores, had GAME OVER screens, and required starting back at the begging upon defeat, beat 'em ups often awarded continuous play via simple capitalism. As a result, many stage bosses got tougher and were aptly named "quarter munchers" due to their tendency to gobble shiny Washington's from your pant's pockets and/or Mom's change purse. As a kid, I'm sure few or none of us kept track of these types of expenses, it was all about popping in as much change as we could to get an end screen and enjoy that feeling of sweet bliss that would carry over to the school playground on Monday.
My favorite brawlers growing up were Double Dragon, Kung Fu Master (which may barely fit this category), and Final Fight. However, for the purposes of this article, I will only be discussing the latter.
I've been playing an insane amount of Destiny recently. I'm starting to settle into a routine of playing on certain days to get certain activities done, but I fire up Destiny almost every day for at least a little while. I recently purchased the Special Edition of Skyrim, probably my favorite game of ever and I am pretty excited for the release of Final Fantasy XV this week. These three long (unending?) games got me thinking about why some gamers play games that go on forever.
I recently took a road trip to the Denver, CO area and spent a good weekend hunting there. We had some choices for arcades to visit, but with one being in Downtown Denver and one right outside it, we made sure to find something closer, and with less traffic. Hyperspace is advertised as the Denver area's largest arcade, and its a good one to go visit if you're wanting to spend some real time surrounded by cabinets and pinball. Its a flat entrance fee for all you can game arcade action.The cost of a day pass is $12 and for $45 you can acquire a monthly pass. Every machine is set to free play and with the push of the start or credit button, you can play until your heart's content.
Greetings bipedal organisms. It has come to my attention that we as human beings (or you as whatever you are) need food to live. While eating a few meals a day typically sustains us, we often crave something more: a snack! We also like to combine our snacking with doing things we love, such as playing video games. Woe is us, however, as many of us fall into bad snacking habits while playing. Since the holiday season is upon those of us in the good ol' US of A is mainly about eating (don't let anyone tell you otherwise), I figured it would be a good time to address the pressing issues about safe snacking.
I am on record cheering with unreserved optimism for the arrival of virtual reality to the mainstream. Technology that has been teasing me for as long as I can remember seems to finally be available in a way that legitimizes VR gaming as as worthwhile venture for both gamers and developers. As a console gamer, the peripheral I was most excited for was Playstation VR, which released early in October, 2016. Though it took me longer than I anticipated to finally give it a try, I spent a few hours with it last night, and I'd love to tell you all about it!
I don't know about y'all, but November has always been kind of a null month for me. There are a few birthdays to celebrate this month, as well as some holiday events (shopping or otherwise), but nothing that really grabs me or inspires me to write. But, whether I have an inspired article idea or not, the year marches forward. So, in lieu of anything themed, I'll go ahead and drag out an old idea from the stack. So, readers of the RFGen front page, I give you My Two Favorite Schmups.
[img width=700 height=505]https://advancehappynewyear2017.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/advance-happy-new-year-pics-2017.jpg[/img] Pic from advancehappynewyear2017.com
For many of us, to say the year 2016 has been difficult would be an understatement on par with mentioning the N-Gage never quite surpassed the Game Boy Advance. It seems everyone I know had a tough year for several reasons, and I spent quite a bit of it with family members in hospitals or medical appointments. Many good things happened, but it seemed every week the idea of a return to some 'normal' got pushed further and further out. I think I see some disadvantages to this whole 'being the adult' thing that never got spelled out alongside the whole cookies-and-bedtime-whenever-I-want setup. Or maybe it was spelled out and I was too busy drawing plans for my future home, complete with helipad and shopping mall in the backyard. (Was I the only kid who drew that up?)
Oh, and I guess some famous family is moving out of a nice house near Virginia and the new family moving in is making the neighbors nervous or something? We live in a strange country. And it's not even Canada! (Although I hear they have some nifty retro-stocked video game stores up there.) And apparently some Brexfast thing happened and now importing games is all confusing and/or tasty? Crazy world.
Most folks on this site likely play games to unwind, unless you play games to get mad, in which case I recommend Carrier Command for Xbox 360. For the rest of us, it's good to have our go-to games for decompression.* You know what I mean; those games you aren't necessarily playing to complete, but rather to mentally unfurl and let the stresses of the day process somewhere in the back of your mind.
This year I offer 10 humble items for your first-come, first-served consideration! Just remember the rules:
- Just one selection per person.
- The first person to claim the item gets it. First come, first served.
How to make your claim:
- Take note of the number of the item/lot you desire, and...
- Post that number in the Not-So-Secret-Santa blog's comments section.
All RF Generation members from anywhere in the world are welcome to take advantage. Just be aware that, unless otherwise noted, all games being given away are NTSC U/C coded for use in machines for the North American market.
- As for shipping costs: I'm covering it. Just note that I'll be mailing this stuff out using the cheapest shipping methods possible, so it might be a while before your claim gets to you. You'll receive a PM informing you of your successful claim, and either requesting your mailing address, or confirming the one I have on file.
We are a community of collectors, gamers and the likes, and some of us enjoy to let the world know what is on our mind. For those members, we have the community blogs, a place where they can publish their thoughts and feelings regarding life, universe, and everything. Some of those members might even choose to write about gaming and collecting! Whatever they write about, you can find it on their blog. You can either see the latest community blog entries in the feed you see to the left, or you can browse for your favorite blog using the menu above. Interested in having your own blog hosted on RF Generation? It's rather simple, first be a registered member, and then click the "My Blog" link that you see in the navigation above. Following those two steps will certainly get you on your way to blogging.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy our entries, rantings, and completely unrelated series of thoughts. We write for you to read, so we certainly hope that you enjoy our material.
