The world was engaged in a great battle while I was growing up. I grew up amidst the lies and rumors of such things as “blast processing” and propaganda about how Sega “did what Nintendon’t.” It was a crazy time to be alive. The great rivalry between Sega and Nintendo could be a very polarizing issue for many. On my suburban cul-de-sac in Derby, KS, I was the Nintendo authority on the block. I had been a lifelong supporter of Nintendo ever since I received an NES as a young child. I did end up getting a Sega Genesis later on but for the better part of an era, I lived in a one console home.
Being the Nintendo authority on the cul-de-sac, I found a rival and a best friend in my next door neighbor. He was everything I wasn’t. He was the resident Sega kid. I had been living on that street for all of a couple weeks when he moved in. We got along and even though he was a couple years younger than I, we were close friends through the better part of my childhood. Later on, we would be separated and our friendship fell apart but sometimes our own life’s choices would lead to that.
I can distinctly remember arguments we would have about which console was better. I would staunchly defend Nintendo all the way and he would do the same for Sega. Of course we would play each other’s games, and when I finally got a Sega Genesis around 1993 or so, it made for some fun times. I have this feeling that a lot of neighborhoods and kids had their own experiences like this, and I’m sure it differs for everyone.
It is just kind of a weird thought all around. I wonder what would lead some families to become “Nintendo families” and what would lead others to become so-called “Sega families”. I asked one of my roommates about this and he told me he also grew up in a Nintendo family and didn’t have a Sega Genesis until later, and told me that that was just how his family was. Another thing I have considered in this is that most of the families that were Nintendo families during the great console wars were aligned with that side because they had previously owned an NES and found the SNES to be the logical upgrade. I don’t know anyone who happened to own a Sega Master System back when it was a viable platform. No one in the United States really seemed to give a shit about Sega until the 16-bit Genesis came out. It seems like maybe those who went with the Genesis were swayed by the whole “blast processing” lie along with the “Sega Does What Nintendon’t” campaign.
It also makes me wonder how many people who were just getting into video games at that point and initially wanted an NES, and then were convinced that a Sega Genesis was the way to go by way of the aggressive campaign against Nintendo. I really don’t have anything distinctly against Sega, but coming from a Nintendo household I feel like I have a little bit of a bias.
Another thing that can be considered is the type of gamer that would be interested in each console. My neighbor ended up getting into a lot of sports games, and Sega had a pretty strong grip on that market due to their deal with EA to exclusively release their licensed sports games on the Genesis. For many people I can imagine this would be a deal breaker. I know it certainly would be now. As I was growing up, I was never into sports games all that much aside from some of the more gamer neutral titles like NBA Jam or NFL Blitz. I spent a lot more of my time playing platformers and 16-bit RPGs. My neighbor and I had far different tastes but we managed to get along in a world where our favorite consoles just didn’t really co-exist, unless you knew one of those fat, spoiled, rich kids.
I certainly knew a couple of those fat, spoiled rich kids.
Filed under: News Posts, Ramblings, Rants and Raves | Tags: News Posts, Ramblings, Rants and Raves
Hello blog, its been a while. I got into a terrible rut lately and just haven’t had the desire to write much of anything. It has truthfully been pretty awful. I started rethinking the way I wanted to do this blog and I’ve realized I don’t particularly care for just doing posts about separate games the way I had been in the past. It isn’t fun and it seems kind of mindless to just dish out the same kind of material that you can find pretty much anywhere on the internet.
I know that this whole internet thing is full of shitty blogs and this has definitely been on its way to becoming one of them. I hate it and I kind of hate myself for neglecting it for so long, but writer’s block is a bitch.
Things seem to come out a lot better when I A) don’t think too much about it, and B) let myself have some fun with it. I’ve found it is a lot more fun for me to write about experiences and some personal thoughts on these things rather than doing what I’ve been doing. I have much better ideas now and an awesome backlog worth of blog content to get started on.
Get ready, it’s gonna be a large one.
Have you ever played the beginning of a game so much that you just don’t give a shit about that portion? What comes to mind is that whole space station scene at the beginning of Super Metroid. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I have a save file on it that has one minute of time logged and I start right after landing on Zebes. For me, that is where the game really begins. I must have played the space station prologue dozens of times, and over time I have just gotten bored of playing it. Then again, I also generally have Super Metroid down to a streamlined process that I can take down when I just have an hour or so to kill. Aside from some RPGs, I have rarely logged more hours into a game than I have with Super Metroid, and because of that, I just can’t bear to play the intro sequence that often anymore.
So my way of remedying this has just been me leaving that save file, always ready to be copied for a fresh run of the game. It makes the satisfaction of the battery still functioning that much better.
Looking at it, I don’t think I really have any other games that I really do this with. Most of what I play lately has been RPGs and skipping any part of those just doesn’t really feel right.
Okay, I am all moved into my new home and I finally have everything fairly squared away. We’ve been having some weird power surges courtesy of the trees outside needing to be trimmed down considerably so it has been a little bit hectic.
I’m changing my ideas as to how I want to approach blogging on here. I feel like I’m trying too hard to write about some of this stuff and I want to try and cover some areas that are a little more unique to what I’m doing. I don’t really know how to explain it but I know in my head how this thing all goes. I’ve determined I don’t really like doing features all that much. I can easily think of things that are far more interesting than just talking about game series and stuff.
It is a little hard to put it into words right now but I assure you it will probably be infinitely more interesting once I get going.
Regular posting shall resume. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Alright, I figured it would be better for me to say this instead of just disappearing for a couple weeks. I’m in the process of moving out of my parents house into a house with some friends, so updates are going to be nonexistant for about 2 weeks as I try and get everything moved and adjusted and settled in. I hate to do this but I don’t have a lot of time to write things while this is going on so its better than my just abandoning this thing for a couple weeks.
So with that in mind, I will see you in about 2 weeks from my new home!
Oh Twinbee. How I love you so much. This series has never really had a major release in America and I’m not exactly sure why. It is bright, colorful and a lot of fun. Twinbee (or RainbowBell in America) is a vertical shooter developed by Konami for the NES with later incarnations appearing on the Turbo CD, SNES, and the Sony Playstation. To this day only one of the games has gotten an official US release. Moero Twinbee was released in the US as Stinger on the NES.
The game uses a power up system that is pretty unique to the series. Instead of collecting power ups from the enemies, you pick up bells. Upon shooting one of the bells a random number times, the bells will change colors and the different colors provide different power ups. Since the bell color changes aren’t very consistent it makes it kind of a challenge to get the upgrades you want but it adds a certain level of strategy that adds to its charm. It really is kind of a difficult system to get used to and certainly kind of a pain to explain, but once you play the game for a few minutes you get used to it.
The original NES incarnation is far from being the best entry in the series, but its simple sprite art and colorful palette make it rather entertaining to play. The core elements of the series are put in place here and are only made better over later incarnations. Detana!! Twinbee is one of the most well regarded entries in the series and was released for the Turbo Grafx 16. It actually got a release on the Wii via Nintendo’s Virtual Console service as an import title. I feel like it is the Twinbee series at its peak.
I can’t recommend this game enough. I wish I could think of more to say about it but it really just speaks for itself. Go play it in some form. Not-Download it if you have to. Actually, you could import Twinbee Portable for the PSP since it is region free and that is what I’d really recommend doing. At the very least, pick up Detana!! Twinbee on the virtual console. These games are fun and more people should probably play them.
Not very retro, I know, but I went out this afternoon for a while and ended up finding Mega Man X4 for PS1 for about $4. I love this game as I do most of the other Mega Man games, so I’m happy to add this one to my collection. I couldn’t find anything else that was notable but this was a good enough purchase on its own. I like to think that of the Mega Man X series, this is definitely one of the better titles. You can choose between playing as X or Zero and it was the first title in the series to appear on the Sony Playstation. It refined the sprite graphics of the SNES days but retained the 2d gameplay of its predecessors.
I shouldn’t be buying games but it is kind of hard to resist a good game for $4.
Filed under: News Posts, Ramblings | Tags: final fantasy, final fantasy iii, News Posts, Ramblings
After a long bout of frustration, I finally finished Final Fantasy III on DS. I know this isn’t much of a real informative post or anything but that game has been a total asshole and I’ve been struggling with it for a long time now. I managed to finally beat the final boss last night and I slept much better because of it. Will I ever play this game ever again? No, probably not. It wasn’t very much fun, especially by the end of it and it really isn’t a very balanced RPG. Either way, I’m done with it, and life is that much better for it.
I’ve since started on Final Fantasy IV, which even just an hour in is already a much better game. I’m looking forward to getting through FFIV so I can move onto FFV which I haven’t played all that much. It is kind of an ongoing quest but progress is certainly being made.
I’m doing a little tinkering with some things on here, trying to mess around with the comments a bit because I’ve seen that people have tried to post comments and the spam filter is blocking them. I may disable that for the time being and see what happens since it looks like most of the comments are legit. Other than that, I’ve got some things to post. I’ve got part 2 of the Mother feature going up either today or tomorrow and I’ve got another games post or two coming within the next couple days, so content is coming.
Filed under: Finds | Tags: Finds, persona 3, romancing saga, shin megami tensei
A Game Stop opened in my town this week so I decided to check it out to see what they have. I feel like that since it is the only one we have in town, it will be heavily trafficked by the Derby population who are too lazy to drive to one of the numerous Game Stop locations in Wichita. It gives me a little hope and I know that it will probably bolster my PS2 collection a bit. I shouldn’t be buying video games period right now since I’m working on this whole moving thing, but I had a little extra money and got a couple titles that I don’t see too terribly much of now.
I ended up finding Romancing SaGa and Persona 3 FES, both of which were pretty cheap. Persona 3 FES isn’t entirely retro but these Shin Megami Tensei games have a pretty lengthy history and they seem to get rare pretty fast. Romancing SaGa I feel a little more justified in noting mainly because it is a 3d remake of a Super Famicom/SNES game that was never released in the United States. I’m looking forward to messing around with both of them though I have so many games to take down before I can give these two the time I’d like to put into them.
I generally don’t care for Game Stop but at least they have a good selection of cheap PS2 games. I can get behind that.
