Peetan is a short puzzle game, that is cute right up until the horrific ending.
You fire eggs to catapult chicks to the safe zone at the top of the screen.
24 stages plus a few mini-games.
The gross ending:
16 Likes
Finished Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge. There being no password saves for any point during the wily’s castle portion is very harsh, but there is at least a midway checkpoint if you run out of lives and choose to continue which helps. I technically cheated and put a save state there rather than leave the DS on until I could get back to it, I ain’t gonna lose no sleep over it.
I basically never used any of the weapons except on bosses and I’m not sure how much of a difference it made, although in complete honesty that’s pretty much every Mega Man game for me (except MM2 because Metal Blade). The game got a bit flickery when you accidentally drew and enemy to where another is but otherwise ran pretty well for a GB game and was pretty solid all things considered.
4 Likes
Jesus
2 Likes
I JUST TRIED FOR 5 HOURS TO GET THIS FUCKING PALETTE TO WORK.
I eventually just had to eyeball it and create my own:
[General]
Background0=16772077
Background1=16238079
Background2=12826879
Background3=11176662
Sprite%2010=16772077
Sprite%2011=16238079
Sprite%2012=12826879
Sprite%2013=11176662
Sprite%2020=16772077
Sprite%2021=16238079
Sprite%2022=12826879
Sprite%2023=11176662
if you want to use in Retroarch Ganbatte copy and paste that into a text file name it Default.pal and put it in system/palattes
4 Likes
[General]
Background0=14343636
Background1=16753995
Background2=5091684
Background3=4013373
Sprite%2010=14343636
Sprite%2011=16753995
Sprite%2012=5091684
Sprite%2013=4013373
Sprite%2020=14343636
Sprite%2021=16753995
Sprite%2022=5091684
Sprite%2023=4013373
6 Likes
2 Likes
Aerostar is my favorite shooter on the Game Boy.
It’s a mix of shooting and top down platforming.
9 Likes
Dipped into Castlevania II Belmont’s Revenge
I like the music
I didn’t like the walking speed so I’m using this,
I think I would have absolutely loved this as a kid.
2 Likes
I played this on a used cart I got along with Metroid II when I was in high school. It’s a really good time and a nice pairing with, say, Bloodlines.
1 Like
I wanted to be surprised by games and open myself up to things. Instead of choosing games, I wanted the games to choose me. And so I developed a method. I numbered the list of games and pushed the button on an RNG. I told myself to play just ten minutes of three different drafts. Then, if one of them jumped out at me, I could play it for an thirty.
Here are the results of one cycle…
Tecmo Bowl is a fantastic little sports game. I don’t like football. I mean, I dislike football. However, if I can mentally remove the crust of jingoism and machismo* I find it’s a really interesting sport. Tecmo Bowl is incredibly easy to understand; the ease of early sports games invites my novice brain much more than the modern realism and complexity I’ve seen. It looks like there are only four plays: two passes and two runs. Maybe I missed extra sheets of plays. Maybe that’s all anyone needs to win at football. I love seeing these little guys fall. The teams are named after Tecmo games. I wish Washington had changed their name to the Rygars. There is no Green Bay.
*Sometimes these elements are really funny. Sometimes, players, fans and figures manage to exist outside of them.
BattleCity is a tankmaze game. Enemies always spawn in one of three places so it’s easy to just clear a row and camp. It might be more fun against another human, but really there are plenty* of** other***, more worthwhile options for tank games on our GAME BOY.
*Trax **Cosmo Tank ***Go! Go! Tank
Metroid II is one of the most purposefully and idiosyncratically designed games on the GAME BOY. When I first played this off an used cart 15 years ago, my mind was molded and prepared for this here forum. It diverges from the original in that Samus is a hunter, a killer of parasites that are enlarged to dog-like proportions. While the structure appears to be more linear and SNESified, there are many choices that tilt it towards an older design philosophy, most emblematic being the spider ball. The spider ball allows Samus to cling to the walls and ceilings so long as she is able to touch them while in a ball form. This opens up possibilities for the player and feel like looking beyond the veil, sick and disturbing. Paired with this ability are large, cavernous boxes, the contours of which bubble up and dig in like limestone in a cave. The creators of this world are expecting me to roll as far in the wrong direction as possible. They have laid sentries in my path but also trinkets and boons. The soundtrack, right from the title screen, is a masterpiece. It pierces, grates, gargles and screams. This game is a living creature that is terrified of me and wants me gone.
I’ve used this method once again already, but I’m holding off on that post. Suffice it to say, I think it’s a pretty good way to spend an hour with our BOY.
10 Likes
Metroid II is one of my favorite Game Boy games.
The lower right corner is an ever present HUD element telling you how many Metroids there are left to hunt down.
The game really stresses this is a hunt.
The world feels so big but despite that the game feels hyper-focused:
You are on a mission to kill Metroids and you know exactly how many.
6 Likes
battle city might be my all-rime most-played game boy game. like another game i’ve played a ludicrous amount of, mega drive altered beast, i love that it’s simple enough that you can kind of see past the game into how all the constituent parts are put together (a concept i’ve occasionally referred to on my blog as “purity”). it’s also really atmospheric if you let it become so! the slow movement of your tank and the rumbling noise it makes, hiding behind a corner for the enemy to come into range, etc.
there’s an enhanced version on a namco collection cart released a few years later, which lets you play the game as it was originally released, or a new version with all-new tiny little sprites that fits each stage onto a single screen. (which i think ruins the cheap tension the scrolling in the original version allowed for)
on the subject of american football, a game i really love, and that deserbed a game boy port that it never got is 10 yard fight. it’s simplified to the extent that it’s not so much an american football game, but a mid-80s arcade game themed around american football about running to the top of the screen and avoiding guys
7 Likes
game fucken rules
4 Likes
How am I just now learning you have this blog…
2 Likes
bad seo
3 Likes
I want to close my journey through 1991 with an overview of another Minty Method draft.
Loopz is a pretty good pipe dreams-type puzzler. I think I like it more than pipe dreams because the structures are finite. There’s a Tetris-like pull to risk everything for one big loop. Good tv-commercial game.
Wizardry Gaiden: Suffering of the Queen is Wizardry in your pocket, so it rules. An English translation was made so everyone can enjoy kicking down walls. Romhacking.net - Translations - Wizardry Gaiden: Suffering of the Queen Now that I have a flashcart, I can see myself pocking around in this a lot more.
The real star of this group is Mysterium. It’s an alchemy adventure game from Maxis. It seems like a @Tulpa joint. There are pools of water, mercury, fire, and acid that can transform items into other items. The box art rips. A talking ant gives hints and describes the rules of the world
17 Likes
Avenging Spirit is an action platformer that makes dying half the fun.
You play as a ghost.
You possess an enemy character.
Every time you die you get a brief chance to possess a new character.
As a ghost you can fly through walls and floors allowing you to take shortcuts.
The stages are short and capped off with boss fights.
The game is fun and the pacing is impeccable. There are always new characters to try out so there’s variety and plenty of reason to want to play through a stage again.
15 Likes
No screenshots because I’m playing all of these on a GBA…Create the screenshot in your mind.
R-Type II opens with a miniature play: microscopic figures hurry down elevators and up ladders to outfit the ship for its mission. When I blast off, I’m greeted by the usual waves of enemies that I found in Gradius and R-Type, but everything gets harder once I enter the structure. Enemies burst from the ground faster than I can anticipate. I’m not used to memorizing this much when I play R-Type. After seven minutes, I break through the first stage and the follow up is quite impressive. The second stage is bisected horizontally with space above and liquid below. The ship moves slowly through the liquid; it’s not built for this. Further on, waterfalls push down on my ship and turn an entrance into the structure’s many hatchways into a harrowing feat of constant adjustment.
WWF 2 Superstars had me mashing buttons all over the place, trying to figure out moves. It’s a pretty weak wrestling game because grappling is such a small part of it. It feels like it’s mostly about slaps and kicks. Occasionally the opponent will run against the ropes, but I was able to smack him in the face every time. I was playing as Macho Man Randy Savage. After brutalizing my enemy for awhile, he turned the tables and I was unjustifiably in a position I’d rather not be in.
How many more lands are there for Mario to find? What is the geography of his world? The second Mario Land is, at once, more eclectic and coherent than the last. Each zone has a particular sense of place. I got swallowed by an animal and had to jump through its guts. The inside was filled with materials of varying viscosity. I could jump from saliva and into gelatinous tissue, each having a different pull on me. Mario feels off, but not bad. He is not the Mario of the Famicom or the first Land. He is the Mario from World made slow, yet gifted with extra muscular quads. He can wear two hats and looks at the land with bright astonishment.
10 Likes
Holy shit this looks like a thing I should’ve known about and played 20 years ago
2 Likes