Gradius Flyers & Posters

Gradius Review

The fist game in this 3 part Gradius special!

Gradius was the first game ever to use the "Konami Code". The player could simply pause the game and input: " Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A" and you would get all power-ups except "Speed Up, Double and Laser" As a mater of fact, lets go through them all:

• Speed Up: Speeds up you plane by 1 stage
• Missile: Fires a missile diagonally downwards 
• Double: Shoots two bullets at once, One going forward and second diagonally upwards
• Laser: A short stream of laser that penetrates enemies
• Option: A small sphere that follows you and shoots the same projectile you do
• ?: Also called a shield that's in front of you and 

The power Up system was pretty innovative at the time and still is a way. A red colored enemy would drop a power up sphere which you would collect and it would move the indicator on the Power Up screen to the left by one step. By pressing "B" you would obtain the marked Power Up and the marker would reset to the beginning. This way, you would have to prioritize what were more important at that specific time. Would you use for instance "Speed Up" and easily pass through a hard section or save it and hope to obtain a Option.

Dying on the other hand resulted it losing everything you had saved up, unless you had something marked on the Power Up screen, then at least you would start with the marker on "Speed Up". On the subject of dieing in Gradius, this game killed you in one hit. One small projectile or colliding with a wall or enemies resulted by death.

This game had some interesting levels, all of them started out with you piloting the Vice-Viper through a space like stage where you have the chance to collect some Power Ups to repair you for the coming stage.

The stages in this game are:

1. Volcano
2. Stone Henge
3. Moai
4. Invert Volcano
5. Tentacle
6. Cell
7. Base

Theres some secret 1-Ups and scores you can get like for example, Fly through a volcano or touch the back side of a diamond shaped rock and so on. The bosses on the end of some level are called "Core" and the name says itself, It's a ship that fires at you and has a Red or Blue glowing core. They were used in almost every Gradius game that were to come.

Konami are known for making some of the best Famicom music and this game of course is no exception.

The Space stage song of course is classic and used in almost every Gradius game. And the Mid-boss and End-boss song is just what you want for a good boss fight, its fast paste and makes you nervous and that "one hit death" constantly reminds you that the slightest little mistake you do here will make all that hard worked power-ups disappear. And taking on the boss again with no Power-Ups certainly makes it a lot more harder.

Pros and Cons:

The Good Stuff:

• After beating the game you can replay the whole game with harder difficulty, beating it more times will make each play through harder.
• Stellar soundtrack
• Fun Power-Up system
• Challenging Bosses

The Bad Stuff:

• This game is really hard, even on the first play through
• Cheap Death's on certain locations

Well, that was Gradius 1 for the Famicom.

Stay tuned for the next Gradius game in this Three parter.

Arashes Out!

Arumana No Kiseki Flyer

I just had to upload this awesome Arumana No Kiseki flyer.

The Miracle of Almana Review

アルマナの奇跡 or Arumana no Kiseki

Arumana No Kiseki is a game heavily influenced by Indiana Jones which you can sew on the cover art. The story is quite simple, a mysterious man stole the Arumana treasure from its resting place in a small village causing them to turn into stone, and now its all up to you to get the treasure back and free them. You star of the game with 30 daggers which you can throw at enemies and a grappling hook of sorts which you need to use to climb the many mountains you will face. During the game you will find several power ups such as:

• Bomb: Throws it in front of you and explodes.
• Gun: Simply shoots a bullet straight forward.
• Bolas: It flies of diagonally.
• Crystal Ball: Eliminates enemies on screen
• Spike Ball: Similar to the "Bomb" except this does more damage.
• Hat: Simply a 1-up.
• Pendant: Extends the life bar slightly.
• Meat: And of course the classical "pork chop" that heals you.

This game is somewhat on the hard side, it starts of simply and gets gradually harder, by the end its a bit to hard like so many early Konami games. You will explore mountains, rivers, mines and lastly a sanctuary of sorts. The enemy setups is classic gaming enemies like snakes and scorpions. There are human enemies as well, all wearing turbines and being equipped with guns. The yellow/brown-ish enemies doesn't drop any items but the red ones does. There is pretty basic setup of bosses to, they are:

1. Water Hydra/Water Dragon: He just stand's still and shoots 3 projectiles that home in on you.
2. A old Hermit on a cloud: He just flies around and shoot lightning bolts at you.
3. A wall with skulls: There's One brown scull moving up and down on the Left side and there's 3 gray skulls on the right side, they both fire beams, but if to of those beams collide they will scatter around the stage.
4. Big Tarantuela: He just jumps around constantly and shoots web. If you stand close to the boss, his web attack will just go through you and leave you unharmed.
5. Plant: A plant that comes out from the floor or walls and shoot boulders at you.
6. Flying skull: Smaller flying skulls comes out of its mouth and homes in on you, and you can also see the stolen Almana treasure on its forehead. 

Now to get to the good part, The soundtrack. The soundtrack is mainly the reason i bought this game. Its some of the best famicom soundtrack there is out there, it's definitely on my top 10 Famicom soundtracks list.
Some songs appear on more the one stage though, but that's not a problem in my opinion. From the start to the end of the game its just sheer goodness. This game also uses the FM Syntheses chip but this time its on all tracks. Konami sure knows how to make a stellar soundtrack.

I included a medley for those who are interested.

Well then, this is a game that i strongly urge you to try out. It's a bit on the short side but it's action packet from the beginning to start.

Pros and Cons


The Good Stuff:

• Amazing soundtrack
• Creative power ups
• Some really good looking stages 

The Bad Stuff:

• A bit short
• After stage 3 it gets really hard

And here's some pictures of the Box ,Disc and the Play Card.

Arashes out!

Super Mario Bros 2 Poster

Weird Mario & Zelda Famicom commercial

In case you haven't seen this rather strange and amusing commercial.

New Logo

Thanks to Kristoffer Axelsson for the new awesome Logo!

Super Mario Bros 2 Review

Super Mario Bros 2 review

Now this game is a LOT more interesting. First of, we in Europe and America didn't get this until it was included on the Super Mario Bros All star labeled "The Lost Levels". Well the title seems to be just right, they were lost all right. So how come we didn't get it? Well Nintendo of America thought it was to hard for the American audience so instead they switched out the characters of the Japanese game called "Doki Doki Panic" to characters from the Mario universe.

During that time we didn't know this and took it for what it was, Mario going around and picking up vegetables from the ground and collecting cherries. It was different from the first game but it's not like Mario Bros 3 wasn't different from the first game as well.

In Japan they released the American and Europe game but they called it "Super Mario USA"

Thinking about it, its rather strange.

Well, to get back to the game review.

Super Mario Bros 2 is a really hard game for several reasons : The physics isn't the same when you jump on enemies, it includes "wind" that either slows you down or gives you a boost depending on the direction it comes from and the lastly the stage design. Beating the 4 last levels in the the game sure is a challenge, i cant count how many times i got a game over screen. And figuring out that you must hit a special block for a wine to appear the first time through isn't that easy to figure out when the stage loops forever. On the other hand i love what they did in the final level when you meet 2 bowsers, first time you think "yaay, i just got past bowser, now its just the final stretch and i'm done with this game" and then...... there's one more. But beating the game rewards you with a sweet ending theme using the FM Synthesis sound that only the Disc System could produce. I personally think they should have released it in America and Europe, hell they released Ghost n goblins didn't they! 

The Pros and Cons

The Good Stuff:

• The possibility to chose characters at start and they actually differ from each other
• Well hidden secret power ups and 1-Ups
• The ending theme using the Disc Systems FM Synthesis chip
• The secret "World 9" which you obtain if you beat the whole game without the use of warps

The Bad Stuff:

• Extremely hard at some points with some not so self explanatory parts
• The FM Synthesis chip sound hardly used
• The Poison Mushrooms

Well that's it for Mario Bros 2

Hope you enjoyed it.

Arashes Out! 

Super Mario Bros Review

I assume i stick out a bit when it comes to first Nes game ever played or owned, i didn't in fact play Super Mario Bros when i first got my big gray box, it was Mega Man. I got my Nes with Mega Man 1 and i played it a lot as a child, and that game wasn't what i call easy. I didn't  beat that game until i was a lot older i i should perhaps add that i sold my copy of Mega Man 1 as a child so i didn't play it for a lot of years.

But when i bought my famicom i certainly bought it with a copy of Super Mario Bros.
Now, there really isn't that much to say about Mario bros that a lot of you out here doesn't already know about, but i just thought i should start with it since its a real classic.

Super Mario Bros is a really Speed run friendly game in my opinion, you can run you way through the game from start to finish with some exceptions of course. The TAS (Tool Assisted) Speedrun record of Mario is currently at 4min 47sec and I'm pretty sure that's not humanly possible to clear the game on a console.
I haven't clocked myself when i speedrun but i guess I'm somewhere over 5 - 6 min.

Japan got a cart version of the game and even a disc version.
The disc version has a strange glitch where you can complete the game after world " -3"
You can get to the Minus world in the same way as the cart version but it wont make the stage loop, as a mater of fact it isn't even the same stage. The stage on the disc version is the "1-3" stage but all glitched up and you're under water. I find it really interesting to be honest.



The Pros and Cons:

The Good Stuff:

• Fast past action with perfect controls
• Classic Soundtrack that everybody knows
• The well balanced difficulty

The Bad Stuff:

• The Loop parts where you have to take the correct route

"the princes is in another castle"


Well this truly is a great game and i still play this often to polish my speedrunning skills.

Stay tuned for Super Mario Bros 2 (Famicom Disc) Review

Arashes out!

Some Famicom pictures

I just added some pictures of the Famicom for fun.

The front of the beutifull Famicom

The controler looks mint and sure feel like that to.

The composite video mod.

The Ram cartridge that temporarily stores the famicom disc games.

The disc reader unit itself

Famicom on top o the disc reader.

And a lovely shot of the side.

And the back as well.

And if you want to know the Technical Specs of the famicom, well lets just say i got you covered.

Famicom Spec:
CPU: 8-bit 6502 NMOS (1.79MHz)
RAM: 2KB (16Kb), 2KB Video RAM
Colors: 52 (24 on screen)
Sprites: 64
Sprite Size: 8x16 pixels
Resolution: 256x240 pixels
Sound: PSG audio

If you ask me, Japan really got an amazing looking console and we European and American got a big gray box that's not that neat looking at all. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy these pictures and stay tuned for a review coming up.

Arashes Out.

Let's start this of classy!

Let me start of an say:
welcome to Famicom Fanatic blog!

This blog will mainly focus on reviews of famicom and famicom disc games.
There will be all sorts of crazy famicom games, some of them you know and love and some that may be new to you and maybe inspire to try it out your self.

I always loved Japan and gaming and I decided to import a Famicom mainly because i love to collect things, and its not a challenge to collect NES games because they are so common. I also dislike the fact that i live in Europe and our Nes games are restricted to 50Hz instead of 60Hz which causes the game music to sound extremely slow and a bit painful to me. I also discovered that plugging in a famicom with the standard NES RF cable in a European TV makes the sound totally disappear.... so i spent almost 100$ for nothing. Playing a Famicom game without music really bugged me for a while so i bought another one that was modded with a Composite video output, Sadly that console only lasted for 1 month because it just broke down on its own. So after a year i got myself a new famicom that was a bit more expensive (200$) that was modded professionally and looked almost like it was brand new. I have owned that console for quite some time now and I'm happy that i bought it.

I also have a rather big Famicom game collection that's just gradually growing and growing. I am soon to obtain over 100 Famicom games.

So sit tight, and soon i will post my first Famicom game review

Arashes Out!