Kenji Sasaki, the director of Sega Rally at one point in development worked so much on the project that he began questioning the very thought of finding driving "fun".

As a minnow you'll barely know how to drive a go-kart in Super Mario Kart, in comparison a fine-tuned high performance Toyota Celica GT-Four is well above your pay grade. You will start racing in the beginner-friendly Desert course just fine and dandy, until you try to make the very long easy right near the end and see yourself smacking head-first into the stone wall, sometimes even finding your curious eyes getting distracted by the zebras standing nearby. The Forest with it's pine trees welcome you to a hairpin turn that you have no hope of knowing how to handle in your weighty polygonal real world vehicle, and you barely find yourself making it to the end out of sheer luck. Then the apparent finale rears it's ugly head, an insurmountable Mountain with not only it's own hairpin turn, but many tricky curves, a long narrow turn leaving little room for error, and precise maneuvering through town. This is the end for you, this mountain cannot be conquered. You're left to zero knowledge of the hellish Lake Side extra course that lies beyond that mountain, home to narrow precision-demanding turns and chicanes that only true experts of the dirt may discover and have any hope of navigating.

You become enamored over how mean the mountain is, and find it's song mesmerizing through it's triumphant guitar riffs that feel like it's cheering you on. You're but a kid, but you try your best to figure out the science of operating a championship-grade motor vehicle. You only learn so much, even if you do get a bit better at the other portions of the track, a hairpin turn is still essentially a guaranteed crash. Despite an obvious skill plateau for your moronic self, you still find the game fun to play and come back to it just to hear it's cheery demeanor root for you. You've game over'd so many times, but it never feels bad, because the game only wishes to entertain and not belittle.

As an adult you come back to the same game with fondness, puzzled as to why you took so much leisure just driving by yourself in time attack. Was it really just the music? Was the Celica GT-Four just that cool of a car? You come back to the same course and struggle as you normally do, albeit this time with knowledge of how to decelerate and utilize the brake properly. You hug the inside of those corners, you get the drift around the hairpin without touching the embankment, and not a single wall is run into as you make the quick descend through town. That "cool part" of the music that you really liked is now suddenly the victory jubilee as you approach the finish line on the third and final lap. Addiction to the feel of the road sets in, and you find yourself beating the arcade mode and getting the esteemed honor to officially drive on the Lake Side course without the need of that code you found one time on your dad's shitty internet. The Stratos car also becomes yours, best of luck driver, you are now a true master and may access these dangerous assets at any time. You deserve it truly.

It's at this point we come back to Sasaki, who had taken a moment to drive his own car around the mountains to find his spark again to make good-ass driving games, he found the experience so exciting that he based the Mountain track on it and made the very same course that I loved and still do to this day. To transfer that experience to a video game and have it somehow resonate with a six-year old who is now a full grown adult that can handle that hairpin turn with relative ease is a true mark of brilliance, and why Sega Rally stands on it's own as the foundation of all rally racing games and possibly one of my favorite driving games ever made.

Hurrah to you Mr. Sasaki.

Mission Perfect!

Ugh… I was dreading this one, and it looks like those feelings were completely warranted. This is a very strange pastiche of various NES Mega Man titles by an American developer (USA Gold) that clearly had no idea what they were doing. Horribly grating sound effects and music paired with short, amateurish remakes of classic levels and a Megaman that feels as bad to control as he’s ever felt. So many puzzling choices in this one. Megaman can only fire 2 shots at a time instead of 3, and all of the boss weapons reach new heights of uselessness. Just as well, for the first time in the series, the camera scrolls vertically as well as horizontally, making every second of this utterly nauseating. Interestingly enough, you can control the camera by holding down the jump button and using the D-pad as one would in a Sonic game. However, this technique is never actually taught to you, and, because of the unimaginable screen crunch, I’d imagine that most players would jump into nothingness and hope for the best. I’ll attempt to say something nice though: USA Gold had the good sense to make this roughly an hour long, and the graphics are pretty impressive! They’re clearly based on the NES games, but with added shading and some slightly brighter colors. Maybe I would’ve liked The Wily Wars more if it looked like this.

I’ve played some really bad Mega Man games, but, at this point, this one stands alone.

WE HAVE ACQUIRED TECHNOLOGY!

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

-- Ursula K. Le Guin, Datalinks

I watched Terminator 2 tonight and enjoyed it even more than the first one and because I hate myself, I thought I’d give the Japanese releases of Terminator 2 a look. It’s one of two games that LJN published to get a Famicom version, though they’re not credited in this version. There’s also a Game Gear version I’ll be looking at too so hope you enjoy both.

Famicom version

You go through five stages as the T-800 that are for the most part based on important parts of the movie. It skims through a lot of it but it makes sense to do so especially for the short length. The story also follows the movie pretty well which is nice though the way it portrays the story could be better. My only gripe with it is it doesn’t start with the T-800 naked, like what the heck devs? You can’t just say clothes obtained when he is clearly already wearing the ones he stole from in the movie!

The game starts out as a rather poor beat em up with only two attacks. A punch and if you can jump on enemies if you do it off a platform. You’ll want to do the jump if there is more than one enemy ready to beat you up and do punches when it’s just one enemy. It’s simple and easy and it should be easy to do a no damage run of it. You’ll eventually go inside to fight more enemies and then a boss. The boss is annoying because you want to hit and run away each time but sometimes he immediately attacks and I can’t really predict it well and you don’t wanna hit him as he’s attacking. You’ll know you’re doing damage if you see him flinch far back. Hit him enough and the stage is over.

The second stage is a bike driving level where you must avoid walls and the vehicle the T-1000 is trying to kill you with. This level seems rather notorious for the instant deaths but I personally found the level easy once I realized how to get through the doors and shoot the vehicle behind me. I think being in the middle helps a lot? I can’t really say. Though with how easy it is to die and only having four lives and no continues is rather mean.

Sarah Connor has to be saved in stage 3 and you’ll be going through rooms trying to find a card for the elevator and it’s pretty simple enough. The next level is similar as you’ll be going through multiple floors trying to find explosions to put into a dispenser at the top floor and then placing them all on the top floor once you find all 10. It can be a bit tedious but you shouldn’t have too many struggles. Though I don’t get why there’s even a limit to the amount you can hold. The time limit for setting the explosives is also really tight so don’t be slow! A tip I can give is that running from the enemies is easier than always engaging, especially with the T-1000. This is due to only being able to shoot them in the knees (due to a plot point of John Connor saying to not kill humans) and also just having ammo you may wanna conserve. I didn’t even mention how there’s this rating system that seems to give you better guns the better your rating is.

We’re finally here at the factor level and it’s rough. There’s so many things that can hurt you, tough platforming, and so much instant death. It’s not too long of a level but you better hope you had a few lives going into this. Have I mentioned yet you don’t get health back for beating a level? It’s also a pain in the ass to tell what’s foreground and background in this level. You’ll face the T-1000 a few times and at the very end you’ll have to constantly jump on him to push him off the platform and he’s done for. Just get to the end to talk to the Connors and the game is over and you get to see the ending!

Now despite everything the game might have going against it, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever played? I found the game more mediocre than anything. I can tell the team did try to make it a good experience, sure I don’t know their skills and talent but I like to think with more time and money, they could’ve ironed out some issues. I also didn’t really understand some of the criticism like “maze-like level design.” Come on guys, it wasn’t that miserable. I don’t even think the game is good, far from it. It’s just surprising Japanese players think this is like bottom 20 material. I’d easily take this over something like a Micronics game.

The presentation is nothing special but I do appreciate it, sometimes trying to feel more like the movie, like with the red vision of the T-800 with text displayed on the screen. The game’s cutscenes don’t really look all that good, especially John Connor seriously where is half his face? I’m also disappointed the game doesn’t end with the T-800 giving the thumbs up! Where is it?! How do you fumble the bag so bad on that one? The music by Geoff Follin is kind of bland. I don’t feel any positivity about this OST. I swear a lot of it just sounds like noise or just sounds like most Euro composed NES music. I’m not sure if it’s a hot take but was not feeling it at all.

This was a surprise feeling to have. I feel like I should be more negative but guess not. It’s close to being a bad game but ehh I just think it’s mediocre. I don’t think anyone should really play Terminator 2 for the Famicom but it’s not something like Outlanders bad. The game is a little pricey nowadays so good luck trying to get a copy if you want a full collection. At least watching the movie was fun but damnit this movie deserved better.

Game Gear version

This game is just a port of the NES/Famicom version. It was developed by Arc Developments and there’s not much to say besides good god there’s some issues. First off right off the bat, no stage 2. It’s just gone in this version and I assume it’s due to the screen size would probably make it impossible to see stuff coming. Now it’s just a four stage romp which feels lazy. Sadly it gets worse when you get to stage 3 and 4. (3 and 4 as in the ones from the console game)

The enemies can just shoot at you from so far away and it’s so unfair especially in stage four when countless shooters are in rooms. You can’t even shoot back at them unless they’re close to you which is just unfair! It’s no wonder the game has a lot of 1-ups in stage 3 because they probably knew you would suffer. At least you don’t take much damage but expect to take a couple of deaths. They also got rid of any of the parts where the red vision thing displays text to tell you the mission. I’m not even sure if the rating or non lethal shots are even in this port but I still tried to only shoot at the knees. There’s not even any Japanese in the JP version, it’s that lazy!

Another big issue was the bomb placing, the arrow is just bugged and sometimes tells you to place bombs in a place you already set one. The timer is already tight, why have a programming error like this?? The crane hooks in the final stage are also now just generic platforms for zero reason. At least the final boss is easier as you just shoot him a bunch and he falls off the platform, makes me wonder if that was also an option in the console version if I had kept my ammo. You don’t even get to see the ending animated before and still no thumbs up and then the game just goes back to the Sega splash screen.

Not even the presentation can save it as the in-game graphics are about the same and some of the story graphics are the same though for some reason Schwarzenegger looks way worse here then he did on the console version. The music is actually even worse here as while I thought it was bland on the console, it’s repetitive and feels like nothing on the Game Gear, what were they even thinking with this?

This port is just a mess, it’s still somewhat playable but wow is it really not worth playing. Avoid this one like you already have. I can’t believe Acclaim just let Japan have this version and thought that was okay to do. They should be ashamed of themselves. While it’s not the worst Game Gear game I’ve ever played, I can’t imagine this having any fans ever. At least it’s not the 16 bit version but in the end, I just want my 30 minutes back.

In an age before the internet became commonplace, I didn't have as much to entertain myself within the multiple childhood bedrooms I had. A small hand-me-down television of dubious quality eventually made it's way into my possession, albeit with no cable or antenna. Three things kept me company during those rainy lonesome weekends: toys, old video game consoles, and the trio of pencils, crayons, and discarded notebook paper.

I never liked having my room overtaken by the sound of silence, so I would often keep my fan on during even the cold winter nights. The constant noise of the fan wasn't really sufficient when I wasn't actively trying to sleep, so often I would rely on the only thing my television could produce besides static white noise, the music of my video games. This music was something that could either be easily conjured up by the sound test within the options menu, something that I could only hear in-gameplay, or if I'm lucky pausing wouldn't quiet the music. It's the reason a child would do such things like constantly replay a game to the point of being able to no-hit run it, play a racing game to drive on the same tracks over and over, or destroy countless soldiers on the battlefield for an entire evening. It was all due to the cool music.

Sonic 3 and all of it's versions didn't have a sound test, at least as far as I could see. It was quite a bother, because Sonic 2 had this. Why didn't 3 have it? I love the music so much. It wasn't until I came across the miracle of gaming magazines such as Tips and Tricks, Expert Gamer, and the like that suddenly my games would find a new lease on life, and Sonic 3 would perhaps get the most mileage out of it. Go to the vines in the first level, hit left x3, right x3, and up x3. Easy enough to remember. Sure, I get a stage select, but the sound test without any strings attached was what I truly wanted. I didn't need to constantly fight Mecha Sonic as Knuckles to hear the final boss music, even if I did find him super cool. I drew him so much...

Even when I eventually did get cable in my room, there were only like four channels I'd bother watching, and unfortunately I broke my sleep curfew a lot and stayed up like many a kid would, and advertisements would eventually start being shown instead of cartoons, pro wrestling, or stand up comedy. I'd spread my blanket across the floor of my room in front of my TV to either play something or just put music on from something I liked, then I'd draw, play my game boy, arrange my massive stash of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, etc. Was I a weird kid for sometimes enjoying the company of bleeps and bloops or some insane synth-rock music I heard in a fighting game about the anime I would catch after school every day? Maybe so, but music is music regardless of it's origin. For myself, that music represents memories of the journey I have taken through every console's library. Some are just more special than the rest...

I grow older, and I go through changes for better or worse. I live, I learn. Yet, here I am typing up this pointless nostalgia piece to the very music that inspired me to create decades prior, with the sound of the CRT speakers being replaced by some HyperX headphones, and my notebook paper replaced by a digital interface.

Some things never change.

I've been trying to think of bigger blunders humanity has made than letting the Sega Saturn die, shit like the Hindenburg Disaster and the invention of mayonnaise are peanuts compared to this catastrophe.

When I was in the mood to finally fill the massive gap in my Sega console lineup, I had to slap down a decent amount of didgeridoos for a working console and an ODE. It was a big down payment for only one console, but I essentially told myself that all it took was one copy of NA Saturn Bomberman for the entire thing to be paid off. It's insanely fucked up, more fucked up than someone inventing mayo while the Hindenburg was exploding, but these are the hurdles I'm willing to hop over to fix the hole in my heart that's the shape of my missing childhood Sega Saturn. I wanted to experience all the hypothetical final forms of two-dimensional art on my own coffee shit-stained clunker CRT TV, and emulation kinda smelled during that time. Worse than mayo.

I'd imagine there has to be some kind of heavenly timeline where the Saturn survived, and we weren't so quick to ditch 2D. I love my low poly original PlayStation, but if you had crafted a giant colorful sprite of a pizza in this game and made it scale up and down constantly while spinning all over the screen, it'd be second only to an actual pizza, and even then I'd be complaining about my pizza not getting more pixel-y as it approached my mouth, with similarly pixel-y cheese dripping from it ala a TMNT cartoon.

The Battle Mode is the literal life of the pizza party, and they even got a cast of Hudson all-stars to round out the playable characters. Bonk, the Adventure Island guy, that loser from Milon's Secret Castle, and even fuckin' Yuna goddamned Kagurazaka is here. I don't think Konami even remembers they own Galaxy Fräulein Yuna, and it makes me want to dive into the Turbo library a bit more again seeing all these peeps here, who are absolutely not getting let out of Konami's storage locker anytime soon. I mean, christ Bomberman himself didn't even get the common courtesy of an AV collection or any NSO releases. No respect, no respect at all I tells ya. Not even the common courtesy of a reach around. Konami don't give two shits about my man's history, cause he ain't their boy.

The only way you could make the battle mode more fun in this game would be to mod in all the voices from Atomic Bomberman, where all the Bombers were inexplicably voiced by Mr. and Mrs. Bighead and the Red M&M Guy. Maybe a lovely person could do that for me one day...

One day, one day maybe in 2050, Fightcade will have Saturn and 8P support....and the funny voice clips. There it is....the perfect bummer man.....you'd love to see it....

"time for a fuckin' dirtnap ya shitfuck" ~ Konami's last words to Bomberman after Super Bomberman R 2 bombed

Another genre hybrid very early on in the SNES' lifespan, though a lot more subtle than ActRaiser. Each level consists of a beatemup section and a platforming section, the former also including some adventure game elements such as stores and townsfolk to interact with and sometimes minigames to play with them. It all comes together very nicely, with a lovely little soundtrack as the cherry on top that fits like a glove with the feudal Japan aesthetic going on here.

Very pleasant stuff all around. It does get pretty rough in the endgame as far as difficulty goes, and I had to use a guide somewhere in stage 8's overworld, but those aren't really enough to detract from the overall experience. There are of course bigger highlights in the decade-spanning SNES catalogue, but this one makes for a great playthrough if you're looking for something on the quainter side.

Further refinements in addition to 2's small fixes make this probably the best of the trilogy on SNES. The ability to run and the expanded moveset really help this feel like a bigger upgrade than 2 was to the original. It also feels as though levels are less drawn out and enemy variety is improved upon, with at least one new enemy being introduced per level until the final stage.

It seems like it didn't sell well or see great reception though, probably because it was released as late as 1996 in Western regions. I could imagine by that point people would have rather seen a port of one of Capcom's other arcade beatemups, such as Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, Alien vs Predator, or Armored Warriors. Whatever the case, this remains a solid product in its own right. Definitely the best pick for Final Fight at home, but I can't help but continue to prefer the arcade original over it. I think that game sets a crazy high bar for 1989.