Hi, I'm Dranzerstorm
Welcome to the Video Game & Music Lounge
This world is dedicated to Video Games and Music as I'll be showcasing the following.
Video Game Reviews set to the same tones as Retro Retrospective's Anime Reviews
Music reviews of Anime Openings & Closings
Western Cartoon music
Vocaloid Classics.
We may even have some Top Tens
I hope this World entertains you.
Next up is an interesting gem from the 80s known as City Connection.
City Connection is very much a game of it's time, the object of which is to travel to the major cites of the world which is represented by platforms and a neat background and paint the platforms to indicate that you've been to that location using a small Honda City car which was very much the ideal small car of it's era in Japan all the while avoiding police and naughty cats evading them using skill and oil cans. The game can be seen as very similar to the earliest platform titles like Joust and Super Mario Bros and is not shy about it but what is unique is that it contained different music or variations of said main theme in all the levels, while mostly using public domain music you can also hear a track from Deep Purple on the London stage; that might not seem like much but in 1985 it was a unique feature especially when sound files are usually the biggest eaters of space on any game of that time.
Because of it's early release in the gaming era it only got as far as the Nes and ZX Spectrum beyond it's arcade release and became even more forgettable when in the Nes release, the rarely seen female driver Clarice was replaced by a nameless male driver. For a good couple of decades the game went into obscurity along with the company Jaleco who at one point just stopped making games, however it received enough of a cult following for a revival on phones with Clarice returning as lead along with new graphics and added game features.
Current State: Jaleco don't make games anymore so the rights for the title were moved to a publisher who re-released the game as a virtual console game, it's unclear whether Hamster, the current rights holder also did the Cellphone game, as it was recent it's fair to say that there is still interest in this small franchise.
Why Should it be Revived?: Splatoon is the key word in why it should be revived as this is pretty much the Splatoon of the 80s. Clarice is a well designed character to appeal to a mass audience and there's limitless potential just to take the idea and run with it. However because Splatoon is already in the current market, City Connection would have to do something special to win over that audience.
Next up a game about an Alien Invasion in the Dreamcast era, it's Incoming.
Incoming is a vehicle combat game, part simulation, part all out arcade shooter, the object is to complete multiple missions from anything among cargo carrying, destroying set targets or defending a convoy or a specific outpost, the range of vehicles on offer include a helicopter, various flying machines which consist of everything from Fighter Jets and Bombers to Star Fighters, you can even play as a boat, a tank and a gun turret. The game even rewards you with total destruction missions should you finish the entire game by completing every mission and sub mission.
This game was way ahead of it's time and it shows, not so much graphically but what it brought to the genre, it would be three years before Halo would change the rules, in the meantime this game became an essential title for both PC and Dreamcast, it was later released in an arcade form 2003 using a VR interface, not many games can really boast that feature.
The game was enriching and satisfying and came with enough fun to keep our attention for hours, it sort of faded from view as the X-Box started it's era thanks mostly to Halo.
Current State: Rage Software, the original British game publishers went bankrupt in 2003, the franchise is currently with Funbox Media and through help of another group specializing in converting old titles for modern PC have managed to convert the original, sequel and expansion for use on today's PCs as of 2015, however it has barely made any news in regard to this release.
Why Should it be Revived?: I was okay with the game as it was, I think I prefer the gameplay to the actual game itself, I'm very much for a Halo Version of the gameplay with nothing but vehicles and heavy weapons, that would satisfy an old itch to scratch as it would bring some new creativity to a franchise that's starting to lose it's appeal in today's gaming.
To kick off what will be a huge number of Video Game Reviews between now and well into 2016 we begin with an appropriately winter game, Snowboard Kids.
Snowboard Kids is a very cartoony snowboarding game in the same category as Mario Kart and often compared to the game as being Mario Kart on snowboards. The game featured a mix of traditional snow locations with a mixture of unconventional areas such as a Desert and an All Green Forest. It's easy to play but hard to master as the difficulty curve can be between cruel and downright unfair towards the end, certainly a game that's well remembered as one of the Players Choice titles in Nintendo's all time best sellers, rare for a 3rd Party title but the game isn't alone and many more of these will be brought up over the coming months.
Returning to the cartoonish charm its the characters that everyone remembers.
Slash is your typical male protagonist.
Jam is his typical best friend.
Nancy is very much the typical cute girl.
Linda is the older one who's a bit stuck up and wayyyy too young to look the way she does. (Look at her design and remember that she's one year older than the rest of the main cast who are all canonically ten years old in the first game)
and Tommy is the gentle fat kid who'd rather eat as many burgers as Mr Wimpy than snowboard.
And for hidden characters you get Ninjas, Demons and Penguins.
While for Sequel characters you get more stuck up rich girls, a girl genius, a child actress and a bodybuilder who loves himself but the five regular characters stay more or less the same except for a certain remake.
Mid 00s saw a small revival not really go to plan as a more anime styled game took to the Nintendo DS who at the time was seen as a last chance saloon to get old franchises restarted. While the gameplay was more or less the same, the characters went through some changes.
Slash & Jam came out more or less unscathed but Linda had been replaced by her younger brother Brad, Nancy became a cold rich girl and Tommy gained some muscles and became a bully type, needless to say the charm and the loss of Linda who in canon is not only the main instigator of the Snowboarding competitions but also the winner of the first game if the Playstation expansion story is to be believed was not welcomed by the fanbase.
Now I get why Atlus wanted to get with the times but there are better ways of doing it, what's best remembered about the Snowboard Kids is memorable character designs and timeless gameplay and for what it delivered in the face of it's rivals was really very good and deserves a proper come back on a big name console.
Current State: It was last seen as a revival attempt Nintendo DS game with not much going for it and Atlus haven't done much with it since, but Megami Tensei and Persona are doing better for Atlus so much focus is on those two succeeding rather than attempting another revival.
Why Should it be Revived?: Definitely should be revived as the Snowboarding genre has suffered a lot of damage from SSX's last release and needs either this or 1080 Snowboarding for it to come back as a serious genre again.
And as this is my last post before Christmas.
Merry Christmas from me.
In this day and age the need to come up with the next best game is getting harder and harder, and these days classics just don't cut the mold anymore as the world increasingly becomes obsessed with going to war, but there are a few quiet franchises still operating under the radar and after 32 years and over 70 games, Bomberman is still going with heavy emphasis on "under the radar"
Other than box art design, the game has barely changed in it's run, although some games are better remembered than others, and their next gen run is worth forgetting but chances are, you are the same White Bomberman with the same cartoon bombs, sometimes you are destroying other colored Bombermans, other times you are destroying other Hudson Soft characters, while another time you fight Wario. Bomberman's collab with Wario is worthy of note as Bomberman didn't get top billing despite being his game.
So we come to today, is Bomberman still relevant in this day and age?
Well yes and no.
At conventions particularly the one I went to not too long ago, Bomberman in the video games room was the most popular choice; played on the Saturn using eight players on a big projector screen, and despite the fact that it was the same battle mode over and over it was still fun and managed to out perform the regular tournament fighting games.
On the other hand Bomberman has been out of action for five years now bar iOS and sadly like his wardrobe buddy Megaman, will probably not make anymore games in this day and age. You see Bomberman is one of those games that comes out and everyone raves about it for a week and it quietly returns to the shadows before it comes out again next year, this also explains why it has such a strange release schedule. Over the years it's tried to break into Karting and Party Games but has failed in the face of Nintendo, in fact the Party one being an ironic case as Hudson Soft help Nintendo design the Mario Party series.
Current State: It's been sent to iOS to see out it's retirement and there's at least still some interest to make more.
Why Should it be Revived?: Well it doesn't need so much reviving so much as it needs to be on a major console even if it's only a download title for Nintendo, PlayStation or X-Box, it's still better than iOS.
A few weeks ago this was revealed.
This is a female Link, dubbed Linkle by Nintendo. So why is this such a big thing? Well lets discuss Legend of Zelda as a series.
The game in basic terms revolves around the power of the Triforce, an ancient relic said to have created the realm of Hyrule, this triangle shaped symbol based on the symbol of the Hojo Clan in Japanese history consists of three different powers of courage, wisdom and power; these represent the three main characters of Link, Zelda & Ganondorf respectively. Through every era in Hyrule a new Link, Zelda & Ganondorf will always appear in a never ending cycle until the franchise ends. There are no rules as to what these three have to look like as long as Link always wields the Master Sword and Hylian Shield, Zelda is always a princess with potent magical powers and Ganondorf is always the main villain with his own powers to boot.
The nature of Hyrule Warriors bringing together more than one Link opened up the possibilities of a female Link when the new character went live, while not wielding the same equipment as the default Link but wielding dual crossbows which is awesome in it's own way.
However critics were quick to denounce Linkle as not an actual Link with more prolific ones suggesting that it's Link's Kid Sister. But you need to put a few things into context.
1. Those who are criticizing Linkle are the same ones who wanted a female Link in the first place.
2. Legend of Zelda is among the biggest selling franchises of all time, so they need to test the waters with a side game before Linkle can be taken seriously as a main game hero. Nintendo are still a business after all and making the wrong decision could backlash heavily. Fans are keen to remind Nintendo about their exploits with the Philips CD-i so releasing Linkle in this format lessens the pain if it really bombs.
3. Nintendo compared to other game companies have the best history with strong female characters.
That last statement is 100% true, people may see Princess Peach as kidnap bait but to put her situation into context, Peach's kingdom is mostly cowardly mushroom people, Bowser and his army are really difficult to escape from and outside of the main series she plays sports and races on equal terms with the rest of the Mario cast. She has even saved Mario herself.
Each Zelda is vastly different from the last, with some even being pirates and ninjas.
Samus Aran is constantly voted best female character in gaming.
The best known Pokemon champion in the franchise is Cynthia.
Pit does all his fighting under the command of the Goddess Palutena.
Lucina made Fire Emblem a household name in the west when the franchise used to be Japanese only before.
Wario's most frequent adversary is a sassy female pirate.
Rosalina's creation was a response to the criticisms about Peach's character and is widely classed as Nintendo's finest creation in the last ten years.
There are very few female characters outside Nintendo who boast the same levels of strength and popularity.
So my point is, I would welcome Linkle with open arms into the same category as those I just mentioned, because Nintendo is good at making strong female characters.
