Sorry that this video did not make its way into your sphere of experience over the weekend! I got a little caught up with other stuff. But you, my amazing patrons, have not been forgotten. I decided to take a break from Famimaga Video this time and upload the VHS tape I digitized for my recent Ninja Gaiden episode. I think this thing has already been upscaled and released into the wild by other people, but in case you want this version, here it is.
2023-10-31 12:39:18 +0000 UTC
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You didn't think Friday the 13th was it for this year's Halloween season, did you? What the heck kind of Halloween would it be if I didn't cover Castlevania... or at least something Castlevania-adjacent? Honestly, now.
2023-10-25 11:25:57 +0000 UTC
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Good afternoon, somewhere in the world. (It's still morning here.) This weekend I have the next issue, as it were, of Famimaga Video. This is a weird one—it has a lot of cool stuff that breaks from the increasingly tired mainstays of this series, like a pieces on Twinbee 3 and Final Fantasy Legend, but it also includes some poor choices. Specifically, Square's Tom Sawyer, whose depiction of the runaway slave Jim is utterly indefensible, and a massive 17-m...
2023-10-22 12:45:35 +0000 UTC
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Hey all, I posted this week's video a few days early, but I would hate for you to think I'm neglecting you today. So, here is a little bonus tape: An official super play VHS tape of the arcade version of Gradius III, which I have ripped and upscaled (albeit imperfectly, due to the poor condition of the original tape).
This is the sort of thing I've been uploading every weekend for folks at the Exclusive Content tier, by the way. If old official VHS tapes and LaserDiscs of video...
2023-10-18 12:33:23 +0000 UTC
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As you know, I shared this week's episode early to coincide with the actual Friday the 13th. So here's the bonus episode I normally would have shared over the weekend. This is it for Gakken TV Boy. And Alexander wept (with relief) for there were no more super-primitive ports and clones to discuss.
2023-10-18 11:45:41 +0000 UTC
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Well, I'm posting outside of my usual schedule here. But, I mean, come on. How could I not? Please enjoy.
2023-10-13 15:29:00 +0000 UTC
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Hey. It's Ninja Gaiden. I don't need to say a lot here in this space, because I've said it all in the video. Set aside a chunk of your afternoon, and enjoy....
2023-10-11 11:50:22 +0000 UTC
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Another Famimaga Video this week—nothing super spicy to be found here, but it does at least give you the opportunity to sample the contemporary response to the advent of CD-ROM technology with its PC Engine CD-ROM2 preview. I'm afraid the best the format had to offer at the outset was a barely enhanced port of the original Street Fighter and a game where you could look at digital photos of a flash-in-the-pan idol performer, though. Nothing to particularly curl the toes.
2023-10-08 16:49:57 +0000 UTC
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OK, I didn't quite manage to get this one up yesterday, thanks in part to Amazon's "Same-Day Delivery" for the cables I was missing to capture live footage with meaning "first thing next day." Good thing they keep raising the price of Prime. I'd hate to think I was underpaying for one of the most unreliable premium services around.
Anyway—back to NES for a run of episodes taking us up to tax day ’89. This one, I fear, is mostly just taxing. Kung Fu Heroes is one of those ga...
2023-10-05 11:52:07 +0000 UTC
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I've normally posted my weekly video by now, but I'm running behind this week due to circumstances beyond my control. It should be up later today, but Everything Going On has finally caught up with me and I'm a bit behind the ball. I'll be back on track next week, though!
To tide you over, here's a VHS rip of an official Star Soldier strategy guide video.
2023-10-04 12:17:56 +0000 UTC
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As promised, the flip side to the Ultima Mix LP I recently picked up and ripped. The video rips will resume next week!
Tracklisting:
1. Exodus: The Terrible (4:45)
2. A Peaceful Town (2:13)
3. Holy War (1:57)
4. The Eternal Castle Britannia (3:12)
5. The Return of the Champion (4:02)
6. Ultima - Eyes of Knives (4:17)
2023-10-01 13:09:18 +0000 UTC
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Oops, did I make fun of bad politics from worse politicians this episode? Well, blame Sega for starting it. There's probably a really interesting academic study to be conducted about the way terrible American politics creep their way into the pop media of other countries in a way that distorts and softens the actual negative impact of those policies. But I'm not an academic, so I'll leave that to someone else and simply settle for lobbing softballs while explaining the real-world history behi...
2023-09-27 12:47:50 +0000 UTC
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Well, here we go. The bonus video for this month—remember those? It's only been a month or so since the last, but it feels closer to a year on my end. A busy month, that is to say. But here, once again, we have... Gakken TV Boy?! Oh well. Don't worry, there's only one more of these to go. Thanks for sharing in this weird ordeal with me.
2023-09-23 13:47:31 +0000 UTC
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More Master System shenanigans this week with Alien Syndrome and Aztec Adventure. These games have more in common than simply starting with the same letter of the alphabet, despite one originating in the arcade and the other being an original home console creation. Both share a top-down viewpoint, both involve roaming around killing bosses in order to open the door to the next level, and both are designed in such as a way as to be intensely difficult due to their miserly combat mechanics. Som...
2023-09-20 13:11:45 +0000 UTC
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A little something different this week in terms of bonus content: Music! In addition to tracking down weird old video tapes about classic games, I've also been grabbing weird old albums related to classic games from time to time. This one, Ultima Mix, showed up in Japan around the same time as the Famicom port of Ultima Exodus (featured in a recent NES Works) and contains about 40 minutes of remixed, rearranged music from that version of the game—most or all of which, to m...
2023-09-17 12:10:45 +0000 UTC
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I hope you're enjoying NES Works 1989, and I am happy to say that NES Works will continue going forward this fall and beyond. HOWEVER, every growing boy and girl and enby needs a little Sega in their diet, too. Segaiden's meander through the mysteries of Master System will also continue going forward this fall and beyond, with my current plan being to bring the Master System and NES timelines parallel next summer, with their respective August 1989 releases. At which point all hel...
2023-09-13 10:30:55 +0000 UTC
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Good Sunday to ya. Here's another bonus upload—the next issue in the Famimaga Video series. Do you call a VHS tape an issue? This transmedia stuff is a semantic nightmare, I tell ya.
What's not a nightmare is the material covered this issue (if that's what we're calling it?). The Game Boy launch! EarthBound Beginnings! New Mega Drive and PC Engine releases! Also, SD Gundam. Ah well.
If you are able, i.e. have the life experience to do so, I recommend c...
2023-09-10 13:15:04 +0000 UTC
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Good afternoon! To those of you in Europe. Otherwise, hello. Please enjoy your weekly dose of video content. It's approved by doctors. Well, nine out of 10 of ’em.
This week brings us not one but TWO vintage arcade conversions from Konami, by way of Ultra Games. One of them was Konami's own creation, whereas the other they had simply distributed in Japanese game centers back in the day. You can really tell. They played favorites here. One of these conversions is perfectly acceptable, ...
2023-09-06 12:08:11 +0000 UTC
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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a new month. I'm kicking things off for September with the first weekly bonus item—another issue of Famimaga Video. It remains interesting (at least to me) to see the gradual evolution of games in Japan during the latter Famicom days and to compare these releases to contemporary game launches in the U.S., currently under discussion in NES Works. There's a lot of baseball and Final Fantasy II here, but a shocking amount of content for ...
2023-09-03 15:02:41 +0000 UTC
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As you know by now, I don't love sports, and I especially don't love pro wrestling. And yet, I kept the snark to a minimum here and engaged with the material in a sensible, straightforward manner. I'm growing as a person... though I've still got a long way to go before I grow to Andre the Giant levels.
2023-08-30 10:48:43 +0000 UTC
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One last li'l extra for the month of August—another Famimaga Video. So much high-quality B-roll of games I will now be able to reference in my videos without actually having to play them! It's very exciting for me, a creator.
I regret that there's nothing super awesome or unique this episode, and a third of the run time is dominated by Famista ’88 and another big Final Fantasy II piece while Mega Man 2 barely gets a mention. Typical media bi...
2023-08-29 12:44:45 +0000 UTC
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1989 is off to a rip-roaring start already. Between Tecmo Bowl and Ultima: Exodus, that's a couple of really big titles hitting early on in the year. Well done, people who made video games for NES. You're doing us proud. Did us proud. Whatever.
Anyway, this episode is pretty lengthy for a video about a single title, so I'll let it speak for itself. Thanks and good night.
2023-08-23 13:10:49 +0000 UTC
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The VHS uploads will continue until morale improves.
Yes, I'm afraid there's nothing to be done for it. I've uploaded another rip of Famimaga Video, which continues to be a wonderful window into the Japanese games market during a very specific (and vibrant) period of history. This particular tape devoted a huge amount of time to fleshing out the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Final Fantasy II teasers from the previous episode, and I gotta say that this glimp...
2023-08-20 14:49:07 +0000 UTC
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Confession time: As an avowed hater of American football, I find anything to do with the sport utterly insufferable. Hell for me is a Super Bowl party where I'm not allowed to slink off to a quiet, hidden corner and read or something. And yet... Tecmo Bowl is pretty fun. Compared to every other football game I've ever had to play for this project—experiences I would compare to having low-grit sandpaper rasped across my gums for an hour—I didn't hate Tecmo Bowl. At the en...
2023-08-16 11:25:13 +0000 UTC
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A brief digression from Epoch here, as my modded TV Boy console finally arrived back from Sound Retro Co. and allowed me to embark on this: A six-game journey through one of the most utterly failed consoles ever to ship in Japan. The Gakken TV Boy is so weird! I encountered it last year at Long Island Retro Gaming Expo and immediately fell in love with the absolute stupidity of its design. So, it's only fitting that I edited together this first episode about the console while traveling home f...
2023-08-14 12:34:41 +0000 UTC
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Well, we've hit that point in NES history where we'll begin seeing lots of questionable filler content for the console courtesy (?) of Western devs and publishers. In this case, Hi Tech Expressions makes its NES debut by hiring Rare to produce a port of its PC edutainment game about Sesame Street muppets counting numbers (though—not The Count?!); Rare in turn hired Zippo to do the work for them. We've seen arrangements like this before, such as with LJN commissioning Atlus to make games for...
2023-08-09 12:16:49 +0000 UTC
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Good afternoon, friends! Or whatever time of day it may be for you. I have your first patron-exclusive video for August here—another VHS rip. This one is a treasure trove of material for my work, the first in a series of 45-minute video magazines that Family Computer Magazine (Famimaga) released bimonthly as a counterpart to its print publications for a couple of years during the bubbliest part of the Bubble Era. These things were super cheap by the standards of Japanese V...
2023-08-03 17:59:39 +0000 UTC
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So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye... yes, this brief interlude of flirtation with Metroidvania Works has come to a conclusion as we reach the end of the 1980s with a pair of stone-cold classics: Gargoyle's Quest and Metal Gear 2. I'll return to Metroidvania Works in, uh... a while. After I'm done with NES Works 1989. And Segaiden 1989. And all that other ’89 stuff....
For now, though, wipe that errant tear. Good things are on the horizon. And, hey—these t...
2023-08-02 12:05:44 +0000 UTC
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Good morrow, friends. I hope the morning finds you well. If not, perhaps this video will turn the tides of fortune in your favor?
Anyway, penultimate episode of Metroidvania Works (the first decade) here, touching on two games that don't really belong under the metroidvania header. Ain't that always the case? We're still in the building blocks era—and the featured game this episode comes from one of the guys who invented some of the essential building blocks of the exploratory platfor...
2023-07-26 12:44:25 +0000 UTC
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Well, it's another one of those rips of official Sega home longplay videos from the ’80s. I've done a horrible thing and picked up a LaserDisc player so I can digitize material from a different medium altogether. Is the video quality actually better than VHS video? I don't know! But I have never owned an LD player before, so this is kind of neat?!
2023-07-22 14:00:40 +0000 UTC
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