I hear tell that the first few copies of the magazine (are we still calling it that?) have made their way to readers, and that is fine news indeed! But here in the land of imaginary words that can vanish with the slightest hiccup of a web server, we press on in the face of the void with another four articles for our online edition.
Edit: By popular (two people) demand, “journal” it is.
Baseball & Tennis
We begin today with a tiny, bite-sized appetizer for the rest of the content. It’s like videogame tapas or something. But less fattening. How did we manage to squeeze so much information about two games into so few words? Sheer abuse, my friends.
Nemesis
Gradius was one of many big NES series to make their way to Game Boy, although for some reason Konami decided to disguise the Vic Viper’s debut under the name “Nemesis,” which had previously been the arbitrary U.K. moniker for the series. Thank goodness this was a one-time anomaly, or else we’d be reading about “Gryzor” next week.
Final Fantasy Legend
This article only appears in the hardcover edition of the quarterly, but we’re printing it here for all to see because, well, that’s kind of the point. As time goes by, I find myself more and more fascinated with the SaGa series, which began here. If I don’t get to interview Kawazu before the inevitable day on which I’m kicked out of the industry, I’ll be a sad, sad man.
Daedalian Opus
I was always fascinated by this game as a kid, and all because of its amazing, fantastic, wonderful, incredible name. Admittedly, I was never moved enough to actually play it — but Mr. Nomali’s insightful article, I think, is more than sufficient to inspire me to seek out this impressively-titled puzzler.
Is it just me, or is that guy in the Final Fantasy Legend picture holding a chainsaw?
I got my hardcover copy on Saturday, and I’ve got to say it’s really nice. I’m already looking forward to future installments – great work on it!
Call it a journal! I mean, magazines don’t come in hardcover, do they?
“Journal” looks fancier on my résumé, too.
Nemesis was not a one time anomaly, there was a Nemesis 2 before going back to tradition with Gradius: Interstellar Assault.
Nemesis II is just the Japanese title of Gradius: The Interstellar Assault. Which is also forthcoming!
Nope Eric, that guy really is holding a chainsaw, or SAW, which you can get in game. And which is also host to the game’s most famous bug(?). Who says you can’t chainsaw your Creator into iddy-biddy bits?
Yeah, the chainsaw is awesome. My original lead was going to be “Let me tell you about the time I chainsawed God to death,” but in the interest of honesty I didn’t (since I used a different weapon for the final battle).
Baseball on the Gameboy and Baseball on the NES are actually not all that similar IMO. Baseball on the Gameboy is more like a slow version of R.B.I. baseball on the NES.
I can’t help but wonder if Gradius 3 in the PSP collection being the arcade port was some kind of evil reaction to the ease of Nemesis.
Why hurt me like that, Gradius? I never even played Nemesis. My hands are clean.
Ben, you could be right. I didn’t have a version of NES Baseball to check against. I only knew that Game Boy Baseball felt a lot like an early NES baseball game.
I remember playing Daedalian Opus as a kid. I believe I called it “Dandelion Opus” though.
Yeah I reviewed Baseball on the Gameboy a few months back and compared them.
If you want to check it it’s at http://www.retrowaretv.com/home/GameQuickieFront/Baseballgb/tabid/135/Default.aspx
If not it’s all good. lol
I finished reading my paperback copy today. I really enjoyed it. I found the Gameboy Camera article to be the most interesting. It is my favorite software for the GB by far. The comparison to Wario Ware really made me think. I think the main draw to me as a kid was that “I get to make pokemon music!!!!”. It definitely influenced me in alot of ways. I still have a few gameboy cameras lying around, but finding a printer that doesn’t print out garbage is tough.
One thing I’ve collected from looking back at what gameboy games were good and which I just played alot, is that although the gameboy color was totally appreciated and almost as (if not just as much) iconic as the gameboy, it really didn’t have very many great games. Especially not as many great third party games. That’s only including the GBC-only carts, not the black ones. There’s Metal Gear GB, Wario Land 3, Mario Tennis, Pokemon Crystal, and a few more that I own. Really though, its nothing comparatively.
Well, the GBC only had two and a half years before the GBA was out, compared to the original GB’s nine and a half before the GBC. It’s to be expected that its hits wouldn’t be as numerous, although they were individually of the same high quality.
Um, did anyone notice that the archives for May are missing?