Jeremy Parish

NES Works #072: Karnov

Good evening! Or morning. Wherever you are in the world, I hope it's good. Maybe this video will make it a little better? It's a look back at Karnov, the NES game. Strangely enough, the first four NES games we'll be looking at for 1988 can trace their origins to the arcades, and each one feels progressively more impressive than the last. Karnov isn't bad, but it's still a bit in the doldrums... however, things will be looking up soon.

After this episode, the "...

Game Boy Works Gaiden #08: Game Gear 1990, Pt. 1 of 4

Atari Lynx isn't the only handheld getting Gaiden love! Game Gear coverage has been in the cards since the beginning, and now we're near the end of 1990 for Game Boy, it's time to look at Game Gear and see how it fared. As with the Lynx episodes, these overviews will encompass three to five games per episode and will rarely go into tremendous depth (though of course there will be exceptions), and they won't appear nearly as often as Game Boy Works episodes for the simple fact that Game Gear d...

Game Boy Works #120: Bubble Bobble & Chibi Maruko-chan

I know people are excited for coverage of Bubble Bobble, but this is not the one to be excited about, sadly. The Game Boy release was not a direct adaptation of the NES or arcade game but instead went off in its own direction. Solo. A solo direction. Not a good direction for this series.

And yes, I show up briefly on camera here without it being some sort of bit. Apologies if this alarms you. I'm trying to play by the rules of Gaming YouTube a little more without going...

Game Boy Works Gaiden: Atari Lynx 1990, Pt. 1 of 3

This brings us halfway to bringing Lynx's release chronology up to date where we are with Game Boy—a little sad, innit? The system just didn't have all that much software support; going by the title screen credits, these four releases were programmed by most of the same Epyx and Atari folks responsible for the 1989 lineup. That's a lot of games for a few people to handle!

Bearing that in mind, though, these are pretty strong releases. All four are based on Atari Games arcade propertie...

August/September Preview

Good afternoon! As I work to refocus and generally improve this project, I realize it couldn't hurt to give everyone a sense of what's in the works right now and in the coming weeks. I've tentatively scheduled content through summer 2021... ironically, I did this shortly before North Carolina experienced its most powerful earthquake in more than a century, which kind of feels like the planet saying, "Don't bother." (Whatever, Earth, you're not my mom, except in a sort of metaphorical sense.) ...

Video Works book PDFs - repost

Hi all, it seems like the links to old book files have become muddled. Unfortunately, these PDFs are far too large to post directly to Patreon (for some reason... that reason being "Patreon is very stingy with bandwidth"). I've put together the four Video Works books to date into a single file and linked to them here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6lz2jivpltcgrl5/Vide...

A note on the direction of Video Works

Hi all, 

I don't post non-video updates here too often, because there's not really all that much to say beyond "thank you for helping me create these videos." Lately, though, I've been thinking a lot about the purpose and direction of this project, and everything has come into much sharper focus these past few months. I figured I should share my thoughts here and give you a sense of the direction my plans have been building.

Video Works began as a strictly Game Boy-related pr...

Game Boy Works #119: Double Dragon II & Scotland Yard

When is a Double Dragon game not a Double Dragon game? When it's actually a Kunio-kun game. Now you see why I needed to cover Renegade first.

Unfortunately, next episode also features a Game Boy adaptation of a popular 1988 NES hit... but alas, Bubble Bobble was late ’88, so I can't just nip over to NES Works for a one-off like I did with Renegade. Which is big part of the rethinking I mentioned in last week's post...

Game Boy Works Gaiden #06: Atari Lynx 1989

This episode has been a very long time coming—as in, since 2014. I've struggled for a long with the capture technology and the overall methodology of how to approach Atari Lynx, and I think this approach (rather than a game-by-game single-episode format) is the way to go. My original thought was to track down the designers and programmers of these games for first-person commentary, but ultimately I realize that's outside the scope of Video Works and, much as I'd like to go big like...

Metroidvania Works #12: The all-singing, all-Falcom episode

This chapter of Metroidvania Works goes a bit out of chronological order to bundle together four games by Nihon Falcom, who did a lot of heavy lifting for the action-RPG genre in the mid ’80s. We'll see a couple of these games down the road on NES Works (and another of them elsewhere), so I didn't go into exhaustive detail on any of them. But these are pretty interesting and diverse takes on the genre—and Faxanadu is arguably the most refined and polished metroidvania we've yet s...

Metroidvania Works #11: Zelda II / Rygar / The Goonies II

This week's Metroidvania Works brings us to the end of the small bubble in which several of the titles concerned have already been explored in NES Works. From here on out, it's pretty much going to be new and different material thanks to the survey approach of this series—and in fact, the lead item this week, Zelda II, won't show up on NES Works for quite some time thanks to the extended Famicom-to-NES localization delays that were common in the NES era.

Game Boy Works Gaiden #5 (sort of): Mr. Driller DrillLand & The History of Mr. Driller

I'm honestly not sure how this episode will go over—it's the longest video I've produced to date, and it's kind of off-topic (grouped under Game Boy Works Gaiden because Mr. Driller 2 will be showing up on Game Boy Works Advance eventually). It's 100% self-indulgent. It's also a little uneven as retrospectives go, since it kind of mutated as I was writing it... this was really meant just to be a quick overview of the Mr. Driller DrillLand remaster. The good news is that if...

NES Works #071: Renegade

I wasn't planning to put together a new NES Works episode for quite a while, but the next Game Boy Works covers a Double Dragon game that is actually a Kunio game. And given that Renegade—the Kunio game that inspired the original Double Dragon—is next on the NES agenda, it only made sense to dip a toe briefly into the NES pool. And this episode reminded me why NES Works is so fun to put together! Even for a short game like this, there's so much...

Virtual Boy Works preview

Hello, all! As we're right at the midpoint of the year, which has somehow passed with agonizing lethargy yet also alarming speed, I wanted to share a teaser of the Virtual Boy Works book. It's currently somewhere between 80-85% complete—I was hoping to have it finished by the end of June, but it's looking more like the end of July at this point. This is the first quarter of the book, which will clock in right around 180 pages, and is still very much a work-in-progress. It's missing some ima...

Game Boy Works #118: In Your Face / Koro Dice

This week's episode is a little messy, though in a way that might not be immediately obvious: It lacks any photography of In Your Face's physical release. Somehow the images I shot a few years (!) ago have gone completely missing, and while I was able to find a complete-in-box copy up for sale, postal issues during the pandemic means it's been caught up somewhere between here and Europe for more than a month. So please forgive the small gap for one of the primary focal points for this project...

N64 Works #005: Wonder Project J2

I found a great deal of satisfaction in putting together this week's video! Wonder Project J2 received extensive coverage in gaming publications back in 1996 (both print and online, notably in the form of the wee tiny baby version of IGN that was N64.com), but it ultimately never came to the U.S. As a big dumb nerd who was just getting Very Into Anime in the mid ’90s, the luscious cel animation that features so heavily in Wonder Project J2 really caught my eye. So it was a lot of f...

Metroidvania Works #010: The Wing of Madoola / Relics / Zillion

I think this is the last Metroidvania Works episode that'll be focused entirely on obscurities; from here on out, I'm pretty sure you'll have heard of most if not all the games to show up. Anyway, I think this series is becoming my personal favorite now that I have the formatting and methodology figured out! It's an interesting exercise to trace the origins and influences of a genre. So I think it's safe to say we won't be going a year or more between episodes from this point out.

Game Boy Works #117: RoboCop & Play Action Football

I'm posting this week's piece a little early to make up for last week's delay. This is another one of those difficult episodes I had to power through the best I could, although I couldn't seem to get past stage two of RoboCop to save my life thanks to that terrible face-match minigame. Ah well. Things will get better soon! There are some interesting Game Boy releases on the horizon. Now that I'm nearly through the murky mediocrity, the pace should pick up shortly. Thanks for bearing with me.<...

N64 Works #004: Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Well, I'm a liar twice over. After all the frustration I had hunting for my copy of MK Trilogy, I stumbled across photos I took of the packaging several years ago. I could have sworn I took them, but they didn't show up... because they were tucked away on a backup hard drive. 

Unfortunately, I found it because I was hunting for photographs for the next video, which I am 100% positive I took, because I specifically remember editing them. But those have dis...

A quick note on this week's video...

...namely, that it won't be going up at the usual time tomorrow. My copy of the game covered in the video (Mortal Kombat Trilogy) has gone missing, so I had to order a replacement.  That was 10 days ago, and it still hasn't arrived; looks like it'll be here tomorrow, and once it lands, I'll need to let it spend a couple of days in the quarantine zone (where all parcels sit upon arrival nowadays). The video is otherwise complete outside of the photography, so it'll be up this wee...

Metroidvania Works #009: At last, Metroid AND ’Vania

We did it! We finally got to a Metroid game in Metroidvania Works... and a Castlevania game, too, though technically this one has never been officially issued under the name Castlevania. We're still a ways away from the TRUE metroidvania, but it still feels like progress of a kind, no?

Metroidvania Works #08: Knight Lore / Xanadu / The Legend of Zelda

Hey! Remember Metroidvania Works? I do. I'd been waiting to produce this episode until I could record Xanadu footage, but... after buying a very expensive copy of the game that didn't work AND an MSX flash device that wouldn't boot beyond the title screen, I finally just shrugged and used someone else's footage. Sorry about that, but hopefully the point comes across all the same!

Game Boy Works 116: Battle Bull & Navy Blue 90

This one has been sitting in my to-do queue for something like half a year, so I finally decided to just brace up and do the danged thing. Now I can move forward with Game Boy Works, hooray. 

I guess I need to do the same and power through Mortal Kombat Trilogy for N64...

N64 Works Gaiden: Final Fantasy VII

This game does not really fall within the Video Works remit, and I will get back to the regularly programmed content soon—but you have to admit that I'm pretty good at coming up with flimsy excuses for covering games outside the standard NES/Game Boy/N64/etc. realm. It's a talent.

NES Works Gaiden #10: NES Fandom

This one is another patron request, though as sometimes happens when I set out to tackle a topic, it mutated a bit along the way. This began as a survey of NES collecting, but soon grew to encompass a much broader overview of how the NES has evolved among fans and collectors and technically inclined enthusiasts since the system's retirement. Collecting for NES wouldn't be what it is today without landmark works of fandom—and that includes, ironically, emulation, which in making games playab...

NES Works Gaiden #11: Mega Man Legends

Hey everyone! Thank you for your words of support after last week's post. That was meant as a simple statement of gratitude (not a request or anything), but everyone seemed totally supportive, and several of you went a step beyond to help out. I'm a little overwhelmed by it. I don't really know how to reciprocate, but I'll at least try to make a start by sharing this week's video a few days early. This is one of those "barely justified to fit this venture by way of an incredibly flimsy excuse...

A thank-you, some news, and Game Boy Works Gaiden: Trip World

This week, we have a patron-requested Game Boy episode, and (I hope) the last time we'll see a significant break in the planned sequence of coverage for the platforms I'm chronicling. Not much of a chronicle if it doesn't go in order, right? So, as an FYI for future topic requests, I'm modifying the language of that tier a bit to clarify that the request tier is really meant for subjects that will fall outside the standard Works track—things like Famicom imports, games on systems outside of...

NES Works #070: Mega Man

Ah, that's more like it. It's been a long road, getting from there to here, but... Mega Man! A fine finale to 1987. Come to think of it, all three volumes of NES Works have ended on a strong note with Super Mario Bros., Gradius, and now this. I'm scared to look ahead in the syllabus. What if NES Works 1988 ends with some kind of, I dunno, Beam/LJN release? Dreadful. 

For now, though, there's Mega Man, the culmination of everything we've seen in 1987. Mayb...

NES Works #069: Wizards & Warriors

I have a soft spot for this one, although I recognize its flaws in hindsight. I also have come to better appreciate the heritage behind it, which (in my humble opinion) goes a long way toward balancing out its shortcomings. 

Or maybe I just like the box art.

Next time, we'll see a game I love without reservation despite the box art.

NES Works #068: Top Gun & BreakThru

This is me, powering through the last dregs of 1987. Ah, I guess these games aren't that bad, especially after The Karate Kid. Still! Better stuff is coming soon. Thanks for bearing with me!