Author: John Legendoffzelda Capcom in the 1990s was nothing if not a skilled practitioner of genre games and accordingly, their established reputation would seem less believable if their high-concept smashes didn’t come with some good also-rans. The case in point here is their Middle Ages brawler King of Dragons, a…
Author: John Legendoffzelda A great video game presents immaculate execution of its ideas for interactive entertainment. A great video game sequel uses this feat to override its existence as a follow-up. When the sequel re-configures its established gameplay concepts with enough skill and perhaps even some accidental genius, it changes…
Author: John Legendoffzelda In a regular sci-fi scrolling shooter, the sleek weaponized spacecraft being controlled by the player earns power-ups. They enhance the main weapons, or else stick close to the hull and multiply the firepower. Atlus and AI try for a novel twist on this convention with their arcade port BlaZeon,…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Released in video arcades back in 1990, the satirical and gory gun-fest Smash TV only wished it could adequately contribute to the decline of western civilization. Superficially grafting the bad-future aesthetic of The Running Man onto the design of Robotron 2084, the game presented monotonous and static action supposedly made relevant by the…
Author: John Legendoffzelda “Available for your home in 1995, only on Nintendo Ultra 64!” Video arcade customers in 1994 could regularly hear this message rumbling from cabinets of Nintendo and Rare’s Killer Instinct, an assured boast about the game’s longevity and a prediction of Nintendo’s future in the home console…
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: Mongunzoo Mongunoo: Pit Fighter is a baby killing poison. There, that’s all you need to know. Masamune: It has to be done Mongunzoo: Really, Masamune, I have to submit a full review? Masamune: Afraid so Mongunzoo: Can’t we break the rules just this once? Masamune: NOPE! Mongunzoo:…