I’ve read a lot of books on video game history, and I’ve heard a lot of the same stories told several times. Therefore, rare is the story I haven’t heard yet; and here we have a book — the first of three massive volumes, no less — that is absolutely packed cover-to-cover with things I didn’t know, things I didn’t know that I didn’t know, and things I didn’t even know that I wanted to know, but it turns out I’m really glad I know them now.
At the risk of featuring too many PS4 games in recent posts (what can I say, they all have a retro connection or I wouldn’t be talking about them), Sega’s Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (aka Hokuto no Gotoku) was released in the US this week, to the gleeful delight of combined Fist of the North Star and Yakuza fans everywhere. How wide or slim the overlap of that particular Venn diagram is, I don’t really know. But I’m wedged in there myself, and when this game was first announced, my head almost exploded like one of Kenshiro’s unfortunate opponents.
FotNSLP/HnG (it’s a long title either way, I don’t even know how to abbreviate it for this post) is just the latest in a really long line of video games based on the classic manga/anime property, Hokuto no Ken (lit. “Fist of the North Star”), dating all the way back to the ’80s when the manga was current and the show was actually airing on Japanese TV. Some of the games are good; many are not. And out of the dozens of HnK games released, only a handful were released outside of Japan. Let’s take a look at some of the good ones, shall we? (Perhaps I’ll do another post about all the not-so-good FotNS games someday, and call it “You’re Already Disappointed” or something.) (Don’t steal that, I just came up with it.) Continue reading “You’re Already Having Fun”
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age has finally been released in North America. For many of us, this is the first “proper” new Dragon Quest game we’ve gotten to play since the 2010 release of DQIX on the Nintendo DS, as the online installment, DQX on the Wii, wasn’t released over here. That’s eight years we’ve been waiting!
DQIX was a great game, but I absolutely loved DQVIII on the PS2, having sunk over 100 hours into it, and I’ve been waiting for another experience like that. I haven’t played enough of XI yet to determine if it lives up to my memories of VIII, but so far it’s headed that way.
The thing I really love about Dragon Quest, and the reason I’m writing about it here, is its solid connections to the past.
On August 21, 2018, something that nobody thought would ever happen did, in fact, happen: Shenmue I & II were re-released in HD for current consoles and PC. Continue reading “I’m in the Shen-mood”
When I set off on my day-long arcade adventure to visit three arcades in the Chicago and Milwaukee vicinities, I was just expecting a fun day off filled with video games and food, and I figured I could maybe get a blog article out of each place I visited. However, on my way home from the last arcade, late at night, drained of energy and running purely on coffee, I came to realize that although the posts I would write about those three arcades were individual entities, there was also a fourth post asking to be written, relating all three places to each other.
See, what I realized after visiting Galloping Ghost, Level 257, and The Garcade is that there are many ways to approach arcade gaming in 2018, and while all three venues share the common bond of being public video game centers, they each provide a totally different experience. Continue reading “Arcade Road Trip Roundup”
Located in Menomonee (that’s pronounced men-AH-muh-nee) Falls, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Milwaukee, The Garcade is a relatively new joint opened in July of 2017 by local arcade collector Gar Nelson (hence the name). And it’s everything you could want in a classic arcade. Continue reading “Arcade Pilgrimage: The Garcade, Menomonee Falls, WI”
If you have the Dragon Quest Blue Slime controller for PS2 by Hori, released in conjunction with Dragon Quest VIII in 2004, you may have noticed that after 13 years of collecting dust on your shelf, it’s become disgusting. Maybe it’s got a gross, sticky film on it? This is actually pretty common with PVC items such as action figures and other toys, and my DQ Slime controller was susceptible to it as well. So, I’m here to tell you how to clean it up and make it, you know, not totally revolting to touch! Continue reading “Is your Slime slimy?”
Retro Game SuperHyper 