Direct to You

The recent Nintendo Direct has revealed games that were painfully obvious (Castlevania Advanced Collection, which was referenced in Australian content rating documents months ago) along with titles that came completely out of left field (ActRaiser Renaissance, a modernized version of the cult classic with polygonal graphics and expanded town building gameplay). The most surprising of these announcements was Kirby and the Forgotten City, a 3D platformer set in an abandoned metropolis. Yeah, his royal pinkness has gone all post-apocalyptic on us. I never would have seen that coming! 

Post-apocalyptic settings have been
done to death in video games as of late,
but this well-worn cliche almost seems fresh
again now that Kirby is doing it.
(image from game-news24)

Forgotten City also features stages that stretch out in all directions, letting Kirby explore at his leisure and adding depth to his copy abilities. Take Needle, for instance. Instead of just sitting there with his spines out, Kirby can roll around the playfield as a salmon-colored sea urchin, sticking to any foes unfortunate enough to be in his path. Some people are already fretting about Kirby's shift to a 3D environment, but personally, I'm eager to see what this will bring to the series.

The strangest announcement was the reveal of an expanded online service, which gives players access to a small pool of games originally released for the Nintendo 64 and... the Sega Genesis. Okay, I get the N64, but can't you play Sega Genesis on practically everything these days? Hell, there's a collection on the Switch right now. That's a library of thirty something games you can fire up whenever you like, and you don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee for 'em.

Similarly, Namco's arcade oldies, already represented on the Switch with Namco Museum, will also be released a'la carte, under Hamster's Arcade Archives banner. You know, just in case you didn't already have Pac-Man for a dozen other formats. I shouldn't complain too much... this opens the door to a lot of games that weren't included in the Switch version of Namco Museum, including Assault and Libble Rabble. It's just a shame that Namco made its Arcade Archives debut with... what else?... Pac-Man. The poor guy's jaw is gonna fall off at this point.

Speaking of all things Switch, there are a ton of games on sale at the eShop right now. We're talking the original Castlevania Collection, Axiom Verge, Borderlands, Valkyria Chronicles, Mortal Kombat 11, Blaster Master Zero 3, a dozen flavors of Mega Man... it's going to take a heavy toll on your wallet.

A Deluge of News

Whoo. Lots of gaming news has piled up in the five-ish finkel days since I've posted, so let's get right to that. The first is that video game box cover artist Mick McGinty (not to be confused with the man who broke Steve Martin's hand in The Jerk) recently passed away. Thousands of gamers on the internet have expressed their disappointment, but Street Fighter II's resident kickboxer Sagat is taking the news especially hard.

Next on the menu is an unexpected but nevertheless welcome Playstation Vita port of Space Cadet Pinball. This was the app included with early versions of Windows, that kept kids entertained on their parents' computers before the widespread adoption of home internet. Hey, it was either that or Minesweeper... for kids who wanted to lessen their boredom rather than increase it, the choice was obvious. 

Twenty five years later, Space Cadet still plays a mean pinball, and is well adapted to the Playstation Vita. Pressing X launches the ball, and the shoulder buttons swing the flippers. However, it's important to note that the game won't work at all unless you pluck some files from the original Windows version of Space Cadet and drop them in the appropriate folder on your Vita. Later versions of Windows don't include the game, but Groovy Post's Brian Burgess has a solution for that irritating omission. PINBALL.DAT is the bare minimum required for getting the game to work, but you're going to want all the WAV files too, so you can hear every funky noise as the ball slams into targets and slips past your flippers.

There was something else, I'm sure... oh yes, the long awaited and excessively hyped indie game Skatebirds sucks eggs. Look, I wanted this to be good. I'm a casual fan of the Tony Hawk series, and saw merit in a tongue-in-cheek parody with avian skaters. The whole affair feels soft boiled, though, from the camera that points everywhere you don't want to the samey characters who roll around on the floor like they never hatched after a wipeout to the ollie play mechanics that force you to hammer buttons like you're playing Joust to get any lift. After waiting so long for its release, Skatebirds was a nasty surprise, like when my cockatiel shifts the papers in his cage at night so he can crap on the bare floor the next morning.

Okay, okay, this is the news you really wanted to hear. There's been a massive leak of Dreamcast and Xbox prototypes... we're talking nearly 150 of the former and 350 of the latter. Most of these games ultimately found their way to store shelves, but a small handful were never released in the United States, particularly Shanghai Dynasty for the Dreamcast and Dinosaur Hunting for the Xbox. Special thanks to Hidden Palace for finding this deluge of software and sharing it with the world.

Now Hear This

I guess this news is as worthy of an update as anything else. After four years of digging in its heels and ignoring its customers' requests, Nintendo is finally letting players use their own Bluetooth audio equipment with the Switch. It's bad news for anyone who bought expensive gray market peripherals to get around this limitation (and the makers of the paint program Colors! Live, who had to include a wired stylus with the software because of Nintendo's senselessly locked down Bluetooth protocol), but good news for everyone else. Just install the latest Switch firmware update- and your JoyCons while you're at it- and you're in business.

Before I go, does anyone know how to connect USB controllers to a Super NES Classic? I got a couple of those 8BitDo SN30 Pros from ShopGoodwill, and they seem like they'd be a great match for Nintendo's micro console... except for the fact that there's no way to plug them into the system. The bitter irony is that you could plug them into a Sega Genesis Mini, but the button configuration is all wrong for Genesis games, and there's no guarantee the system would even recognize them. Damned if you Nintendo, damned if you Ninten-don't.

Tall Order of Ecclesia

So I was poking around the internet, and I came across this news.

image from Wiffle GIF

I'm qualified to use that GIF. See, I'm a grunkle myself.

Anyway, someone is working on a Sega Genesis port of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Technically, it's less of a straight conversion and more of an adaptation, the way Dracula X for the Super NES was a reworking of the PC Engine favorite Rondo of Blood. The designer intends to make the game a more straightforward experience, with eight linear levels for both Alucard and beastmistress Maria. You can probably also count out the absurd amount of little details from the Playstation game, like the peanuts you catch in your mouth for a small health boost or the rainbow of jewelry that bestows elemental resistance or the shield spell that gives you the force fields from Gradius.

Strangely, I'm okay with this. I don't think it's a realistic goal for one developer to smash the entire Symphony experience into a Genesis cartridge. Besides, I've been worn smooth by the concept of the Metroidvania anyway. If you want that kind of game, there's always the original Symphony of the Night... or the very similar Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night... or Axiom Verge... or its recent sequel... or Chasm... or TimeSpinners... or any one of the search action titles that I gave up on halfway through. A classic Arcade-vania is just what the creepy beak-nosed medieval doctor ordered right now.

My major concern is how it will play compared to other Castlevania games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. The developer promises the same silky smooth animation as the Playstation game, but judging from the early test footage, it's going to take a while before this adaptation is up to those high standards. On the other hand, the backgrounds are already shaping up to be incredible, as you can see from this image taken from Pigsy's Retro Game Dev Tutorials.

I think the term "dayum" applies here. Similarly impressive is that the developer has already put the boss Granfalloon on the Sega Genesis, with the corpse-amari dropping its usual payload of zombies on the player's head.

It's probably harder to appreciate in 2021, but on the Genesis, where every programming victory has to be earned with blood, sweat, tears, and profanity, an enemy of this size and with this much detail is astonishing. And it frickin' moves! Bravo, Pigsy. Special thanks to Nintendo Life for spilling the tea on this unexpected (hell, nearly unfathomable) project.