Author: John Legendoffzelda He may be “the baddest opossum to ever strap on a rocket pack”, but the title character of Konami’s Sparkster is still caught in a strange position with his sole outing on the Super Nintendo. Sparkster’s debut, the 1993 Sega Genesis game Rocket Knight Adventures,…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Finding a groove makes all the difference for wavering creators – they lock in supporters, they put themselves on a path towards further inspiration, then they’re finally able to let their spark of potential glow. And if it’s only a one-in-a-million occurrence, then it just means that…
Author: John Legendoffzelda From the autumn of 2011 onward, my favorite anime series has been the Japanese version of Sailor Moon – and I’ve kept that fact a close secret. I understand that in these times having a favorite anime series is nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s only…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Ms. Pac-Man is a classic, solid golden oldie of video games. But for a lot of people it may seem a little odd that it has an official version on the Super Nintendo, and the original Pac-Man does not. For other people this oddity is offset…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Someone on the Twitter account of Internet personality Egoraptor detrimentally called Konami’s Super Nintendo beat-em-up games “quarter munchers”. Okay, they aren’t wrong, but that person kind of misrepresents a key idea about the way Konami made games back then. Konami wasn’t like Nintendo or Capcom back…
Author: John Legendoffzelda It’s clear that Capcom’s Mega Man 7 would like to be Mega Man X. The fact that both games were made with the same game engine handily symbolizes MM7 wanting to define what Mega Man is on the Super Nintendo. The main appeal of the Mega Man…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Nintendo’s new video game, Super Mario World, was released in North America in August of 1991. Even at first glance it seemed destined to be a runaway hit. It was a good game to start with, but Nintendo really pushed it along its path – bundling copies…
Author: John Legendoffzelda While 1993 was a slow year for the Super Nintendo, Tradewest’s Plok! was especially overlooked. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason why at first glance; the game is a solid, functional platformer, and its look invokes the Kirby series’ balance of whimsy and…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Mickey Mania was Sony Imagesoft and Disney’s gift to Mickey Mouse, a belated present for the guy’s 65th anniversary. I can’t speak for anyone else, but if I were Mickey, I would have preferred that they didn’t get me anything at all. This game is…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Donald Duck received about the worst treatment of the three main Disney characters in the 1980s and 1990s. Consider his peers; Mickey Mouse was able to introduce himself to an entire new generation with three new short features between 1983 and 1995, plus a startling…