If you've been subscribed to this patreon for a while, you may recall that I kicked around some layouts and ideas for a book of photography focusing on pre-NES Japanese console games quite a while back. Well, I've been plugging away at this concept in the background for a few years, and it'll be going up for preorder soon. And there will be more books to follow....
2024-08-28 22:47:30 +0000 UTC View Post
You know, I had originally planned to relegate Tengen's unlicensed releases to the realm of NES Works Gaiden. But as of this episode, I've decided against that approach. (Sorry, Tetris.) Not just because it would be fueling Nintendo's corporate revisionist history, but also because, well, these games were out there, and kids were playing them. You couldn't buy Super Sprint at Walmart, but that didn't stop the mom-and-pop video store down the street from carrying it...
2024-08-28 12:29:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Another Game Tech Video VHS rip full of game coverage from 1988, including popular mainstream stuff and offbeat weirdness alike. This episode's lead feature is a Konami retrospective inspired by Snatcher. Beautiful. Just watch out for the (1) fighting game tournament whose gimmick entrants don't quite manage to successfully walk the line between "goofy drag event" and "whoopsie I did a li'l transphobia." I stress that this video is a product of its time and culture, but I don't love that part...
2024-08-23 20:54:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, look, I finally shelled out for an expensive SD card capable of capturing UHD video at 60fps, so everyone can stop complaining about the frame rate on the hosting segments.
You can still continue complaining about how poorly I play Sega games for my recorded footage, though. That's never going to improve. But at least Kenseiden is pretty forgiving about it all! Except in those training chambers. I'm gonna have nightmares about my time there.
Next week: I'm jumpi...
2024-08-21 11:51:05 +0000 UTC View Post
I have been struggling to dig myself out of the hole of my life lately, which has caused me to fall way behind on bonus video uploads. But I'm getting back on track! I'll try to make up for it by the end of the month, beginning here with a new VHS rip of Game Tech Video. I apologize in advance for the spectacle of "Indiaman," but that gross misstep aside, this is an interesting video! There's a huge segment on the Genpei Toumaden board game and a look at a canceled game that would ha...
2024-08-21 00:09:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello, it's me, your favorite old man, here to talk about video games. This is the second episode in a row that I had to record on the road, so the audio might sound a little muffled since I used my portable setup for events rather than my usual mixing board. But! My life-destroyingly manic summer schedule has finally begun to calm down, and things should start to return to normal somewhat from this point (including a lot of bonus content makeup work). I'm also going to give the more distres...
2024-08-14 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
First, let me offer an apology to everyone who is here for exclusive bonus content—I've been remiss on those uploads the past few weeks. Life has been hectic to say the least, and I've been struggling just to get these weekly videos completed in time. Once I make it to the other side of Long Island Retro Expo this coming weekend (assuming the incoming hurricane doesn't keep me grounded, given that the storm center is scheduled to arrive here about five hours before my flight on Friday), I w...
2024-08-07 12:03:09 +0000 UTC View Post
We say farewell this episode to the Sega Card format. Farewell, Sega Card format. You were tiny and didn't usually offer the most interesting games, but you were a neat concept, and everyone loved your bizarrely meta self-referential packaging design. Except, sadly, on this game's box, because they went with a lovely painting of Spy Vs. Spy instead of showing a dude holding a Spy Vs. Spy card. Better for sales, worse for shelf display consistency. It's like Sega wa...
2024-07-31 12:16:57 +0000 UTC View Post
My Segaiden production schedule is running slower than I had planned. I keep ending up with lots of single-game episodes that I had originally specced out as covering several titles at once. Stupid Sega, making all of these games that merit more sustained conversation than I expected! What a bunch of jerks.
You know who's not a jerk? Diamond Feit, who held the camera while I shouted at it for the intro sections. This is the video host equivalent of a friend who holds your hair back whil...
2024-07-24 12:06:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Believe it or not, we are right around the halfway mark of our journey through the American Master System library. Sad news for Sega fans, no doubt a relief for the haters. Anyway, it seemed only appropriate to pause for a moment to take stock of the highs and lows of this adventure so far, and to praise the games that maximize the console's capabilities while showcasing what makes it stand apart from Nintendo's console.
Edit: Sorry this went up late! I meant to post it this morning, bu...
2024-07-17 15:22:34 +0000 UTC View Post
I say good day to you, sir! Or madam! Or whatever your preference of salutation! I have for you another episode/volume/issue of GTV. This one explores the narrative lore of hostess Sophie in perhaps more detail than is necessary. But it also has some interesting features! Once again, GTV leans into things outside of the Famitsu/Famimaga kids-oriented mainstream by lavishing lots of run time to strategy games (San Goku Shi, Daisenryaku, AND Famicom ...
2024-07-14 14:01:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Remember how I've been lamenting all the bad (or at least underwhelming) sequels on Master System? Well, here's one that breaks the trend. Wonder Boy in Monster Land goes all reverse on Sega's summer ’88 sequel movement; rather than simplifying the design of an earlier work, it takes a simple platformer and juices it up into something akin to an action-RPG. It doesn't quite go all the way, and it would be surpassed quite impressively by its sequel the following year. But that'...
2024-07-10 12:11:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Another GTV release. As always, I highly recommend activating auto-translated subtitles for this one.
GTV continues to be weird, although we do see less and less of Sophie and those strange cave dudes as time goes by. New this issue is a "Mr. X" feature in which a luchador shows off final boss strategies for various games. This issue continues the USA software spotlight, though it's much more interesting this time around. Instead of simply showcasing which Famicom games became popular ...
2024-07-07 22:54:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the episode that you were supposed to be enjoying yesterday. A day late! (No word on the dollar balance, however.) Please enjoy.
2024-07-04 19:53:39 +0000 UTC View PostThis almost never happens, but Segaiden episode 60 will be a few days late. I got in way over my head last week on my freelance projects, between putting together the final Epoch video and editing an always-time-consuming episode of Retronauts Radio. Combine that with personal life chaos, and baby, you've got a stew goin'. By "stew" I mean "late episode."
Segaiden 60 will go live by Saturday at the latest, and my release schedule will be back on track beginning next week. Apologies for ...
2024-07-03 11:48:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Barely made it in under the wire on this one, huh? EDIT: I did NOT in fact make it in under the wire, because Patreon decided not to set this scheduled post live yesterday afternoon. Thanks, Patreon!!
But here we are! Casio PV-1000 is now officially in the can. I'd love to produce a PV-2000 series someday, but that may be an effective impossibility. That system shipped with a rubber membrane keyboard that has proven to become brittle and fragile over time. I've yet to see a sin...
2024-07-01 11:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Or, if the cart label is to be believed, Alex Kidd: The Lost Star. I love the quality control on 8-bit Sega packaging.
This episode probably comes off a bit negative, which is just going to increase the sour remarks about Master System that I see on my videos. But I will spoil the storyline a bit and say that next episode ends with a redemptive arc.
2024-06-26 12:18:39 +0000 UTC View Post
Another VHS capture of Sony's short-lived video magazine. This series is becoming increasingly weird, which makes it super valuable in my opinion. It's really great to see an alternate lens into the peak Famicom/early PC Engine era—GTV strayed further from the sanctioned Nintendo view of games and into the more offbeat stuff. And even the games that showed up in both GTV and Famimaga (like the lengthy baseball special) comes off wildly different here than in the other magazine.
Anywa...
2024-06-23 20:07:30 +0000 UTC View Post
The Master System coverage will continue until morale improves.
Aw, just kiddin'. There's nothing so ominous about this episode, which tackles a genuine delight of a game in Fantasy Zone: The Maze. I had never played this one before and assumed it was going to be pretty unremarkable, but it turns out to be a smartly designed throwback action game that has some pretty deep ties to Sega history while also doing a damn good job of being, y'know, Fantasy Zone...
2024-06-19 12:23:10 +0000 UTC View PostYou know, I've had this Patreon for like a decade, and it's only now occurred to me that I can use it like a blogging platform. So I should do that, as a bonus for you cool supporter types.
To kick things off, I'd like to talk about the sheer bewilderment involved in my recent Master System Light Phaser travails.
I mentioned in last week's video post that I've made some major changes for...
2024-06-18 11:56:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Well, I finally made it happen, with no small thanks to MiSTER Add-Ons. I'll share the gory details some other day, but the Rescue Mission section now contains my own footage rather than someone else's. Their footage admittedly featured much better play, but mine looks crisper. Ah, conundrums.
2024-06-17 13:55:40 +0000 UTC View Post
It's time for a rare Content Warning from me, although I don't think the material here is that upsetting given the context. It's another Game Tech Video from Sony, this time hailing from May 1988, that once again takes a more offbeat look at contemporary games than other Japanese video or print publications of the era. GTV almost feels like a zine with its focus on less-popular games and interests outside of the usual "ages 5-to-12" audience that Famicom was marketed to. There are a couple of...
2024-06-16 12:50:59 +0000 UTC View Post
This is, I'm afraid, not the most auspicious start for the return of Segaiden! I've uploaded an incomplete episode this morning. It's not that I didn't have time to complete it, but rather that I didn't have the correct equipment.
I had previously recorded Master System footage from a modified Japanese Mark III console, which had been tweaked to allow simultaneous RGB video output and FM sound from the FM Unit attachment. It did have some limitations, however, most notabl...
2024-06-12 12:12:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Segaiden returns this coming week. In the meantime, here's a little appetizer as I try to get my recording setup up and running for Master System.
Moving to a new place and jumping to 4K capture has required some changes to how things work for me. For one thing, the RetroTink 4K requires a different type of input cable than the Framemeister did, and I don't actually have the right cable... so I'm using an adapter that is causing some faint jailbars to appear in the footage...
2024-06-08 11:33:53 +0000 UTC View Post
It's a Very Special Episode of NES Works this week as we hit August 1989 and perhaps the single most seismic month in the entire history of video games... or at least since Famicom, SG-1000, and MSX all landed in Japan at the same time. But even August 1989 puts July 1983 to shame, really, with the launch of four new game consoles all at once! The NES has been running the tables to this point, but can its luck hold out? How will Game Boy fare against the technologically superior...
2024-06-05 11:59:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Whew, I almost didn't make my self-imposed deadline with this one. But here it is! The next-to-last episode of NES Works Gaiden Casio... well, next-to-last unless I should somehow come across the means to record from a PV-2000. That's unlikely. Those things are hard to find in any condition, but locating one with an intact keyboard that hasn't turned into brittle fragments of membrane plastic? Fuhgeddaboutit.
This is a pretty interesting episode simply because it features two remarkable...
2024-05-30 14:04:16 +0000 UTC View Post
You may have noticed that NES Works has increasingly engaged with world politics, real-life political figures, and public policy. Well, it's all been leading to this. For some reason, publishers decided that 1989 would be the year of Mad Magazine-level political commentary in their NES games. I kinda feel like this is the peak of this trend! It's a game where you rescue President Ronnie (or Herbert Walker in the NES edition) from Japanese terrorists. There's a lot happening in this one. And b...
2024-05-29 12:15:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Somehow, I missed most of Rare's original creations back in the day between R.C. Pro-Am and Battletoads. That is, the games that weren't created under contract crunch for a publisher who landed the rights to some sort of toy or Hollywood license and commissioned a quick-and-dirty production (though, come to think of it, my generally unerring sense of danger that steered me away from bad licensed games kept me from playing most of those, too). Which is to say, Cobra ...
2024-05-22 12:13:25 +0000 UTC View Post
Oops! I meant to upload the second side of Capcom Game Music Vol. 3 but life got in the way. Well, eff you, life. Here's that vinyl rip. This rip doesn't sound quiet as good as the side 1 rip as there's a small scratch on the record I picked up (which is probably why it was priced within the realm of human reason), so you'll hear a little bit of popping toward the end of the first track. It's not too distracting, though, unless you find that vinyl pops trigger a misophonic reaction or somethi...
2024-05-19 14:03:50 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, it's me, the guy who hates playing sports games, here to tell you about a sports game that (as the kids say) whips ass. Is this the first console sports title to lean into the fundamental similarities between a proper sports team management simulation and the role-playing game? I'm not saying 100% yes, but I'm at least at 99% yes. Baseball Stars is an RPG for indoor kids who don't mind being outdoors sometimes. I'm not one of those, but I can at least respect it.
2024-05-15 11:35:24 +0000 UTC View Post