I've moved!

So I started up my own homepage so all content and updates will continue over there.

You will find me at :
http://famicomfanatic.com

See you all there!
Arashes

Hector 87

Hector 87 has one of my favorite front cover of all time. The dystopian art is phenomenal and i would definitely love to have it as a poster framed on my wall.

This is a somewhat good horizontal shooter, but there's a extremely steep learning curve. The game is typical "Famicom Impossible", but at least you don't die in one hit (although it isn't far from it). You will have several chases in every stage to refill some lost health, but it comes with a price. By mashing on the missile button you have to hit a statue several times to make it drop some health and considering that the game doesn't have  auto fire you will probably be tiered in your thumb at some point when you'r in desperate need for just that last piece of health and will probably die shortly after.


When it comes to the music in this game, Hudson Soft delivers. The whole soundtrack is amazing, full of atmosphere. The commercial for Hector 87 remade the "stage-1" song in that classical "80:s Japanese synthesizer sound".

Here have a listen:

Famicom Soundtrack:

Commercial:

As for the graphics, its your typical standard early Famicom graphics, nothing that special really. You can easily see what things are supposed to resemble. The thing that makes this game stand out a bit is that every other stage shifts and goes from the "over-the-top-view" to a "side-view" mode. This changes things upp a little and i always enjoyed the "side-view" mode more since i feel i have more control.

When it comes to controls i have some issues with this game. As mentioned before there is no auto fire which is somewhat okay since a lot of other early Famicom games didn't have that either, but here you don't get any power upp's which would perhaps relieve you from the constant button mashing like Gradius "laser" for instance. And the ship moves painfully slow as well, so you will subconsciously press the D-Pad harder and by that way be exhausted in your both thumbs before even reaching the 1:st boss. This is when having a "Hudson Stick" controller would help, but they are somewhat rare and expensive these days.

I guess that's all i can say for this game. If you happen to stumble across this, don't ignore it. This game changeless you on a both mental and physical way and for me its a must have, even though it kicks my ass constantly......

This is it for today.
Arashes Out!

Finding gold when you least expect it!

I spent my Saturday morning in Gothenburg last weekend and went to a couple of secondhand stores and found this little thingy. The owner had no idea of its value and asked for $15 so i bought it without hesitation xD

He claimed that the battery had no power left as well. After fiddling around with it a couple of minutes I saw that the way he had inserted the battery was kind of wrong.....So after a quick correction it sprung back to life with the iconic "bleep bloop" sounds.

I say, for $15 it was well worth it :D

Arashes Out

Samurai Ghost - Denpei Tome Den

For long I've wanted to own this game. I don't really know much about this one so this will mostly be pictures. When i obtained this game i was shocked that it was so huge, i had seen pictures of it in comparison to other games, but when seeing this in real live it sure is huge and heavy! Also i got it for a steal (5$)!

What i have figured out is that this game is meant to be played like Monopoly at the same time you plat the video game. You have a game board, several cards and figurines that you have to play simultaneously with the game! This concept is extremely cool if you know Japanese, and can enjoy the game as its meant to be played. But for me its a bit harder. My Japanese skills are below novice and i cant quite figure out how to play this.

Oh well, at least this is a game is pretty to look at. From the beautiful cover artwork to the cool looking figurines. 

There you have it! A lot of pictures on this strange Japanese game.
Arashes Out!

Things that makes my happy!

A big box of goodies!

There's nothing more exciting than getting a package direct from japan filled with 35 Famicom games and 4 Super Famicom games!

Totally made my day!

Arashes

Game Boy Review : Mario Land

I thought i would wright a short review on one of my favorite Game Boy games. I picked this up from japan (CIB) for 2$, quite a good catch if you ask me. This game is ridiculously short and takes about 15 - 30 minutes to beat. This Mario game wasn't developed by Shigeru Miyamoto but instead developed by the creator of the Game Boy console himself. This man is called Gunpei Yokoi and he went on to created the japan exclusive console "WonderSwan" as well.

There's a lot of small differences in this game compared to the other before this one. For instance:

• Different "Star Power" music
• Koopas explodes when stepped on
• Mario's "Fire Ball" ricochets off walls
• Princess Toadstool (Peach) is replaced with "Daisy"
• Bowser is absent in this game, the boss of this game is called "Tatanga"
• There's 2 different levels where your handling a submarine and later a air plain
• Instead of a flagpole at the end of the levels, there's 2 doors ( the upper one always leads to a bonus stage)
• 1-ups are hearts instead of mushrooms

As you can see, there's a lot of differences. Some big, some small.

When talking about Mario Land i just have to mention the music. It, like the gameplay has a different feel to it. You can really feel that this isn't your regular Mario game, not that's there anything wrong with that!

My favorite tunes are the "Chai Kingdom", "Easton Kingdom" and the incredibly beautiful "End Theme".

There's not that much more to say about this game, its simple, fun and an excellent game to play when you don't feel like to dedicate your time on a big adventure that takes up several hours.

Also, here are some pics of the instruction book, back of the case and the whole set!

Enjoy!

Arashes Out!