A Mix of Mega and Meager

Another Sega Genesis Mini 2 update? Why, don't mind if I do! All the games for both the American and Japanese versions of this micro console have been announced, and the American line-up brings with it a rather large spoonful of bitter disappointment. Hope you weren't expecting the Lunar games already announced for the Mega Drive Mini 2... what we'll be getting instead are Night Trap and Sewer Shark, two full-motion video titles released early in the life of the Sega CD. There's no question these two games were a part of that system's history, for better or worse, but it's unlikely that anyone who owned a Sega CD back in the 1990s was looking forward to being re-introduced to them. Hell, they're not even the best FMV games on the system, getting trounced by Cobra Command, Time Gal, and the over the top vehicular lunacy of Road Avenger.

Imagine if you will, John Wick crossed with
an old episode of the cartoon M.A.S.K. That's
Road Avenger in a nutshell.
(image from YouTube/NintendoComplete) 

Other highlights in the Sega CD library that Americans won't be getting in the Sega Genesis Mini 2 include Lords of Thunder, Keio Flying Squadron, Eternal Champions CD, Dark Wizard, and Wonder Dog. Luckily, a few worthwhile titles managed to sneak their way into the selection, including Final Fight CD, Sonic CD, and Robo Aleste, the less memorable but still diverting sequel to MUSHA on the unexpanded Genesis. So it's not a totally hopeless collection of Sega CD titles, but personally speaking, there's a little too much Dana Plato and a lot too much Ecco the Dolphin for my tastes.

Fortunately, although the system's Sega CD library is underwhelming, Sega found a whole lot of cartridge games to cram in here. They include enhanced versions of previously existing games, deep cuts you might have missed in the Clinton years, and even some arcade conversions written from scratch. One example of the latter is Super Locomotive, a late 1982 release which has you criss-crossing tracks on the top half of the screen while firing missiles at the cabooses creeping up behind you on the bottom half. I just played the arcade game out of curiosity, and it's tough, pushing your multi-tasking skills to the limit. Your reward for chugging your way to the depot at the end of the stage without crashing is an uninterrupted cover of Yellow Magic Orchestra's Rydeen, which is strikingly good for an arcade game of this early vintage.

Here's the recently announced
Crusader of Centy, which had provided
Genesis owners a welcome dose of
methadone for their nagging Legend
of Zelda addictions. Hey, at least it
wasn't as shameless as Neutopia.
(image from Wikipedia)

I mentioned the overclocked version of Viewpoint in a previous post, but M2 is going that extra mile with a conversion of the original Fantasy Zone, a port of the 32-bit puzzle title Puyo Puyo Tsu, and astonishingly, a remaster of Space Harrier II which smooths out its infamously choppy 3D effects AND adds a port of the original Space Harrier for good measure. Convincing scaling, on the Sega Genesis? If anyone can pull off such a feat, it would be the mad geniuses at M2. There are also dozens of games you actually played on a Genesis in the 1990s, with The Revenge of Shinobi, Rolling Thunder 2, Ristar, Shadow Dancer, Hellfire, and Midnight Resistance being among the standouts. (You already added most of these to your old Sega Genesis Mini, didn't you? I know I did.)

I'm still hesitant to buy a Sega Genesis Mini 2, especially with the Lunar games off the table and especially for the uncomfortably high price of $130. Still, I couldn't blame others for taking the plunge. The quality of the Genesis games on tap is higher than I'd expected, and considering that this is an Amazon exclusive, its price is likely to only go up in the future, just like the Turbografx-16 Mini before it. Plus, you're getting brand new games for the long-dead Genesis, which holds its own peculiar attraction. A good Genesis version of Space Harrier after all these years? Now that I'd like to see.

Embracer, shown here claiming its prize.
The sea, she is a harsh mistress.
(that was just an old episode of Wild Kratts
that you badly Photoshopped!)
(hey, shut up!)

By the way, there's important news about one of the games on the Genesis Mini 2, Truxton. Tatsujin, a game company founded by former employees of Toaplan, were drawn into the insatiable tentacles of the Swedish conglomerate Embracer Group. You could say that all Toaplan's base 're belong to Embracer... although I suspect most people would have the good taste not to say something so stupid.

(Not me, though.)

Point of Contention

The Sega Genesis Mini 2 is shaping up to be a fascinating mess, like a car crash. You want no part of it, yet you can't stop gawking at it from a safe distance. Case in point: the recent announcement that the hopeful but ultimately hapless Genesis conversion of Viewpoint will be one of the games built into the system. For those who don't know, Viewpoint was originally released for the Neo-Geo, a shooter in the vein of Zaxxon and R-Type with retro-futuristic pre-rendered graphics and a ferocious difficulty level. Polygonal crabs and spinning idol heads will throw everything they've got at you, and you'll need to be ridiculously skilled to survive the onslaught.

The Neo-Geo version of Viewpoint.
It was impressive in 1994... look, you
kind of had to be there.
(image from AL82 Retrogaming Longplays)

Viewpoint was a game so intense even the Neo-Geo had trouble handling it, infrequently buckling under the weight of Aicom's big bosses and hailstorms of bullets. The budget-priced Genesis, alas, was even less equipped to handle the game's demands. Nexus Interact watered down their port of Viewpoint to keep the system from being overburdened, but even with less impressive special effects and fewer onscreen enemies, the action suffers from slowdown and flicker almost from the moment the game starts.

This is why Sega and M2 are taking the unusual step of running the Genesis version of Viewpoint in a special Tera Drive mode, which boosts the clock speed of the emulated Genesis and leaves it better prepared for Viewpoint's hardware-melting demands. Is that cheating? Yes. Could the same thing have been accomplished on a real Genesis with the use of a DSP? Possibly, although at a hefty cost to the consumer, judging from the $100 Virtua Racing. Is it worth the bother? Arguably not. Until the release of Street Fighter II Special Champion Edition in 1993, the Genesis was Shoot 'Em Up Central, offering tons of great shmups without the bleeding edge graphics of Viewpoint, but with smarter use of the machine's limited resources.

Viewpoint was delivered to the Genesis
with more than a few dents and scuffs.
To Nexus Interact's credit, putting this
on a Genesis was like taking a grand
piano up to the second floor of an
apartment building.
(image from Sega Retro)

So I'm a little perplexed that Viewpoint was given the green light for inclusion on the Genesis Mini 2... but it does give me an excuse to share a few pages from Squirrel Burger Cookout. Here now is my review of the Neo-Geo version of Viewpoint, along with its little brother on the Genesis. I couldn't stir up much interest in this book comparing home ports of Neo-Geo arcade hits, but I may as well get some use out of what I finished. I'll probably be posting more selections from the book in the near future... collect them all!

EDIT: Reader Aaron Schnuth alerted me to a problem with the Viewpoint review... namely, it wasn't accessible without asking for permission first. I goofed, but it should be available to everyone now. Boy, is my face red!

Leave Your Mark

This year's EVO, the long-running fighting game tournament, brought with it some exciting news. After over twenty years, we're finally getting another Mark of the Wolves!

image from Pinterest

That must have come as a relief after holding it in for twenty years.

Seriously, it's been twenty years, two decades, nearly a quarter of a century, since the previous installment of the Fatal Fury series. Do you have any idea just how much the world has changed in twenty years? People were still using VCRs, landline telephones, and slow-ass dial up internet. I had a friend download Mark of the Wolves for me, and he had to leave his computer on overnight to get all seventy megabytes of it. Do you know how long it takes to download a seventy megabyte file now? Depending on the speed of your internet connection, maybe as long as it takes to read this paragraph.

We don't know what SNK has planned for the next Mark of the Wolves, but it's probably safe to assume that after two decades of technological advancement, it's going to be a completely different game from the last one.

Before I go, here are a few other tantalizing tidbits from EVO. Tae kwon do master and slinky sadist Juri will be included in Street Fighter 6, alongside a new character named Kimberly, who looks a bit like King of Fighters XV's Isla and fights a bit like Maki from Capcom vs. SNK 2. Speaking of KOF XV, it's getting Samurai Shodown characters added to its own cast, which makes absolutely no sense... not that coherence is a high priority in fighting game storylines. Fan favorite Bridget will make their return in the latest Guilty Gear, and a whole lot of games are getting rollback, resulting in smoother, more reliable online fights. 

(Am I the only one who buys fighting games for the offline modes?)

Overall, if you're a fighting game fan, there's a whole lot to look forward to over the next year. After all this time, Mark of the Wolves 2. Wow.

Eternity with Nerds

One of the best parts of TRON is when the lead
character gets into a disc fight with Sark, and
manages to rip through his defenses and carve
a trench through his forehead. Then the friggin'
MCP brings Sark back as a shambling, super-sized
zombie, with random shapes spilling out of the
massive wound. A dumb, dated movie? Perhaps.
But you can't tell me that scene wasn't
high-octane cool.
(image from Reddit)

First things first... let's pour one out for David Warner, Nichelle Nichols, and Paul Coker Jr., who all died last week. Nichols, best known as Uhura from Star Trek, had been in rough shape for a couple of years, suffering from dementia, but Warner's death from cancer seemed to come out of nowhere. Gamers know him as the triple thread of Edward Dillinger, Sark, and the Master Control Program from TRON, but David Warner lent his Shakespeare-honed talents and commanding voice to countless projects, starring as Jon Irenicus in Balder's Gate II, Jack the Ripper in Time After Time, and Ra's al Ghul in the DC animated universe. Warner's passing is a particularly crushing blow to a nerd like myself, who was utterly OBSESSED with TRON in the early 1980s, and continued to follow his career thanks to his roles as some of the most threatening cartoon villains of the 1990s.

As for Paul Coker Jr., he didn't really have anything to do with video games, but his work as a cartoonist kept me entertained as a child, whether it was reading issues of MAD magazine or watching Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. What's amazing is that he held on for as long as he did... you would have thought he had stepped off this mortal coil and into legend a long time ago, but nope, he died just a few days ago. I'd tip my cap to you, sir, but after watching Frosty the Snowman, I don't dare take it off.

So! Video game stuff. There's not much to report, aside from a solid release date for TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection. That's coming to the eShop, Xbox Live, and PSN on August 30th, and will cost forty dollars. Also, the Sega Genesis Mini 2 will arrive by the end of October, but unless you're willing to cough up $125 right now on a pre-order, it's not likely you'll get one. Sega plans to manufacture only a tenth of the units they previously made of the Sega Genesis Mini, so if you're not already committed to a purchase, you'll have to live without it. Alas, your insatiable hunger for the smash Sega arcade hit Spatter will have to be satisfied elsewhere.

MONSTER HIT!

What's nifty about the Arcade Stadium games is
that you're getting CPS2 titles, which weren't
offered in previous collections on the Xbox and
PSP. Maybe some day they'll step up to the
big leagues of the Naomi... one could only hope!
(image from Steam)

You know, I thought I would regret being impatient and buying NightWarriors in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium before I had the disposable income to purchase the whole collection at once. After all, each game is four dollars, and there are thirty two of them in total, which means buying a'la carte would cost you a kingly $124... not including SonSon, which Capcom "generously" gives you for free. 

Maybe I'll feel foolish about that decision later, when I plunk down forty dollars and effectively re-buy NightWarriors along with all the other games in the collection, but right now, at this very moment? I'm quite comfortable with my decision. Sure, I could have slummed with Darkstalkers: The Chaos Tower on the PSP, or dug up my Xbox 360 and played Darkstalkers Resurrection on that, but it was worth double-dipping for a portable version of what could be my favorite fighting game of all time.

As far as I'm concerned, NightWarriors represents the pinnacle of the series; more complex than the first Darkstalkers with its limited super move system, but without some of the unwelcome changes made to Vampire Savior, like the more threatening atmosphere and the Killer Instinct-like health bar system. You can turn off the tweaks to the gameplay in the PSP version, but you're stuck with the new soundtrack and backgrounds from Vampire Savior, tilting the game away from the whimsical horror of a Tim Burton movie and closer to the oeuvre of David Cronenberg. You've seen the Fetus of God, right? If you haven't, I'm sorry, but you're about to see the Fetus of God.

image from Street Fighter Galleries

Look, just be glad I showed you a concept sketch and not the actual stage, with its pulsating pustules and its glowing, semi-translucent skull and a host of unearthly creatures flowing into and out of the fetus. It's clear that the designers wanted to leave the player a little disturbed, and while they certainly achieved that goal, I don't have to like it.

What was my point? Oh yes, NightWarriors is worth whatever price they're charging, even if they charge less later... and this being Capcom, you know that will be an inevitability. The individual games in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium are four dollars right now, but will likely be two dollars in a few months, and maybe even a buck a year from now. Why wait, though? I'm not a YOLO kind of guy, but for a game this good, I'm willing and eager to make an exception.

Not shown: the soundtrack, which is like an
injection of serotonin directly into your eardrums.
(image from Pixel, the guys who made this)
(no, not the Cave Story Pixel, some other Pixel)

While I'm being uncharacteristically optimistic, I just wanted to offer another recommendation... Donut Dodo, which is currently available on Steam but will be released for the Switch by the end of the year. If you like fixed screen platformers like Donkey Kong, this will be your new crack. It's better than Donkey Kong in some respects, moving along at a faster clip and with a more athletic hero. If Billy Burns falls off a platform, it's not curtains for the baker unless he tumbles into a bed of spikes or a ravenous toilet. You can even guide him to safety as he falls, making him feel a bit more like Mario in Donkey Kong '94 for the Game Boy, and a bit less like his old, death-prone self from the original.

Donut Dodo is five dollars, and for that price, you definitely want to snap up a copy. I'm having a hard time convincing others of its quality, but if the Switch port by Flynn's Arcade is up to the standards of its Steam counterpart, everybody is going to know just how much booty this game kicks by the end of the year. Just remember that you heard it here first. Unless you watch one of the Gen-X game reviewers on YouTube, like the Bob Vila-esque John Hancock. In that case, you heard it from them first.

Genesis Does, Exodus Doesn't

You know, I should be more excited about a second Sega Genesis Mini. I should be, but what we're actually getting in October isn't as thrilling as the first Genesis Mini was back in 2019. Only half the games have been announced, but it already feels like Sega and M2 have painted themselves in a corner with this one... we're getting a handful of Sega CD games, which is a plus, but so many great Genesis games were already included in the first system that what's been offered so far in the follow-up have the unappetizing flavor of cold, stale leftovers. 

The Genesis bites off more than it can chew,
and chokes on its misguided port of OutRunners.
The system won't be the only one gagging.
(image from GameFabrique)

Take for instance Afterburner 2, OutRun, and Super Hang On. These were all fine games elsewhere, but these titles were heavily dependent on the convincing illusion of 3D movement, and without hardware scaling, the Genesis simply cannot provide it. Adding insult to injury is OutRunners, the OutRun sequel which uses even more advanced hardware than the SuperScaler technology found in the original. There's no way the 3D deficient Genesis can hope to do this game justice, and OutRunners not only lives down to those low expectations, but somehow tunnels under them. What's going to be announced next, the tragicomic Genesis port of Galaxy Force II? (Really, you need to see this in action to fully appreciate what a poor fit this was for the Genesis. It's so disappointing it borders on traumatic. It's the video game version of being told the Easter Bunny won't be stopping by the house next spring, because Santa Claus ate him.)

Some of the other Genesis selections are better, but nowhere near essential. You've got Alien Soldier, best described as a more hostile and claustrophobic Gunstar Heroes, zany criminal caper Bonanza Brothers, a conversion of Fatal Fury 2 that's accurate in all the right ways while also being broken in all the right ways, 16-bit sequels to Namco classics Splatterhouse and Rolling Thunder, and co-processor powered polygonal racer Virtua Racing. (At least that's one 3D game that won't look like it's running on a flipbook.) On the down side, the Genesis Mini 2 will also be home to The Ooze, a well-intended but clumsily executed top down action game starring radioactive slime, and the coldly received Sonic 3D Blast, a pretty tech demo that just barely finds its footing as a video game. 

The PC Engine version of Star Mobile.
Yeah, I'm not feeling this one either.
Why not Klax or Rampart instead?
(image from ZXSpectrumGames4/YouTube)

Even the freshly designed bonus games are kind of a bummer, with a port of the original Fantasy Zone as the headliner, and Spatter and Starmobile bringing up the rear. Spatter's one of those arcade titles in MAME you probably played once and forgot about; a low-octane Rally X starring a tyke on a trike. Star Mobile, a port from the PC Engine and X68000 computer, is a puzzle game on a set of scales. The object is to drop stars on the scales, sandwiching the small stars between larger ones while keeping the weight on both sides balanced. It's difficult to learn, and even harder to understand why you'd want to master it! As for Spatter, that was dismissed by Sega as too inconsequential to include in the first Genesis Mini, which only adds to the second-string, B-sides feel of its sequel.

Okay, now that's more like it. I've got this
game on a million formats, including the
Sega CD, but at least this would give me an
excuse to flip on this system for a few minutes.
(image from Sega Retro)

Admittedly, the Sega CD games are more promising. They include Sonic CD, Shining Force CD, and at least in Japan, Final Fight CD and both Lunar titles. Final Fight CD was the best port of the game you could find on a home console for many years, and given its enduring popularity in America I have no doubt it will be included in our model of the system. The Lunars are still up in the air, as they were localized by the long defunct Working Designs. Working Designs liked to crank up the difficulty and add timely pop culture references to the games it translated, and it might be too much effort for Sega and GameArts' current owner GungHo to unravel the mess they made.

Ultimately, what's most likely to dissuade me from a purchase won't be the games, but the price and availability. The original Genesis Mini could be found at retail stores throughout the country for a respectable sixty dollars, but like the TurboGrafx-16 Mini released a couple of years ago, the Genesis Mini 2 will be an Amazon exclusive, and it's going to cost a pretty penny. We're talking $103 for the system itself, and an extra $22 for shipping. You're still paying for shipping even if you've got Amazon Prime, so that's $125 for a mini console that doesn't hold the appeal of either its less costly predecessor, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, or the Super NES Classic. Thanks to its limited supply and distribution, the Genesis Mini 2 will be a must-have for collectors with deep pockets, but for me personally? No sale.

Special thanks to Polygon's Owen Good and WildCatJF for information about the Genesis Mini 2 and its currently confirmed library of games.

What Dreams May Leave

I've been so derelict in my blog-updating duties! Shame on me!

This month and the upcoming one are so filled with awesome games and collections that I'm not sure how my wallet will survive it. Capcom Fighting Collection! Capcom Arcade Stadium 2nd! Klonoa Phantasy Reverie! TMNT Cowabunga Collection! Couple that with an enormous sale on Nintendo's eShop, and I suspect July is going to be one exciting, if financially exhausting, month for gamers like myself who like to kick it old school.

There's one collection in particular I'd like to talk about at length, and that's Klonoa Phantasy Reverie. Fans of the series know that years after its debut on the Playstation, there was a sequel on the Playstation 2, and a remake of the first one on the Nintendo Wii. That remake seemed like a good idea at the time... the first Klonoa was a little rough around the edges thanks to the limitations of the Playstation hardware, and the Wii version sanded off those pointy polygonal corners nicely, giving it that dream-like quality Namco couldn't fully express in the original.

Really, what the hell was this about?

However, watching footage of Klonoa Phantasy Reverie brings to light an issue with the Wii remake that I hadn't previously considered, a misstep that all the free fish taco coupons in the world can't make you forget. Instead of merely injecting more color and life into the game's surreal backgrounds, Namco also made the questionable decision to age up the lead character. Klonoa is taller and more slender in the remake, with a post-pubescent voice and a more flippant attitude than he had on the Playstation. One has to assume that Namco did this to appeal to fans of Sonic the Hedgehog, but for those of us who were quite happy with Klonoa as he was originally designed, it has the unfortunate side effect of derailing the game's narrative.

(Just a warning in case you don't already know... spoilers are coming.)

Kid, you are not going to like what happens next.
(image from Polygon)

There's a reason Klonoa takes place in the dream world, and it goes beyond giving the art team more creative freedom than it otherwise would have had in a more grounded, realistic setting. The dream represents a state of blissful, childlike innocence, and by the game's conclusion, all of that is torn away from the young hero. Klonoa first discovers that his grandfather, a man (cat... rabbit... thing) who provided love and comfort in the dream world, is dead in the waking world. After he defeats the final boss Nahatomb, Klonoa is told that once balance is restored to Phantomile, he cannot exist within it. A hungry vortex appears in the sky, and after an initial struggle, Klonoa is forcibly swept into it, never to return.

And it hurts. It hurt when I first watched it in my twenties, and it hurts now in my forties, leaving me with tears in my eyes and a heart so heavy, it feels like it's dropped three stories into my intestines. Watching this ending is difficult for the player, but it would be that much harder for a child who's not been through such hardship. Klonoa is probably eight in the original game, and these revelations would be devastating at that age. To a teenager who sees the world through a lens cracked and clouded by cynicism, perhaps not so much.

Fortunately, Namco saw the error of its ways and returned Klonoa to his smaller, cuter, squeakier design in Phantasy Reverie. He's older in the sequel; taller and tougher and with his hat rebelliously turned backward, but it makes more sense there. After all, it's been a few years since the events of Door to Phantomile. He's not a kid anymore... he's seen some stuff.