NES Online for the Switch includes a rewind feature, as well as save states. I definitely took advantage of that, particularly in the last couple chapters.
I really liked all the pixel art at the end there – a fun montage of all the game’s big events. I wish these stills were included when the events actually happened, to be honest. Would’ve given them bigger impact as they occurred.
I feel like this was the much more common scenario for arcade games back in the day. For example I’ve been playing the arcade games included in Yakuza 0 lately (Space Harrier, Outrun, Super Hang-On, Fantasy Zone), and none of them let you keep going by putting quarters in. I think that’s generally only a beat-em-up thing, and not even all the time for that genre. Maybe some shmups had such a feature (I’d have to look some up), but arcade games were typically more about getting the best score rather than “finishing” the game. KiKi KaiKai definitely fits that mold – sure, there’s the whole conceit of rescuing all seven of the lucky gods, but the storyline is probably not what’s driving arcade-goers to putting in more quarters (or whatever yen coins this particular cabinet would take).
This is always interesting to notice, when going from an arcade release to its home console counterpart. Most ports of that era would ultimately end up being their own thing, even if the two versions of the game looked very similar to each other on the surface.
I’m glad this idea is panning out – I didn’t expect this much enthusiasm. I do have the next month’s games planned already (I’ve been doing a bit of research on them and made some graphics, so I’d like to stick with them), but I’m certainly up for suggestions for future months. Perhaps for June (and every subsequent third month thereafter?), I can take everyone’s suggestions and make a couple polls – one for the “meatier” game, one for the “arcadey-er” game.
For now, there’s still about a week left for April. I’ll be writing up final thoughts on StarTropics and KiKi KaiKai soon, and seeing what high score I can muster in the latter by the month’s end…
GB - Rolan’s Curse (simple looking overhead JARPG stle action adventure, 2 hrs)
Never heard of this one and kinda looks good to me. I’ve looked it up on eBay but there’re few listed and are a tad expensive. It definietely seems a bit of an obscure one. I’ll try to pick one up!
I think I might replace one of my game picks next month with this, actually. I’ve attempted playing this one multiple times over the years, and always get stuck and frustrated within a few levels. But I think it’d be an interesting one to discuss. I’d definitely be using a guide the whole time though, lol.
oh wow. nice i didnt know there was a sega mini and i gotta say looking at the lineup its pretty nice. yeah, many of these are on my list actually.
I save with a crazed frequency because I have a low patience level and tolerance for having to redo things I already did lol.
I definitely cheeseballed Startropics starting around dungeon 2 or 3. While I could have practiced it and the dungeons weren’t very large the fact that the enemies were getting faster and more shooty while I was still as slow and clumsy on that invisible grid was too testy for my patience. I think everyone has a lower patience level now due to the way we engage with technology and social media. It’s more than just age as to why we dont have the patience we used to. That’s one of the things about modern game design versus old is that now you have to be able to have some kind of way to make it tolerable. You can insert things like little one liners upon failure from the player protagonist which are amusing or even small little rewards or other things to make failure part of the experience. Looking back though, there are some games that (if one is in the proper mindset) you can practice and train on a bit, then there are so many other games that just are there to take your quarters then got ported to a home console. When I was young I didn’t really see it that way because I didn’t have the perspective, but its true lol.
I feel like this was the much more common scenario for arcade games back in the day. For example I’ve been playing the arcade games included in Yakuza 0 lately (Space Harrier, Outrun, Super Hang-On, Fantasy Zone), and none of them let you keep going by putting quarters in.
Hmmm… Some of those are and some aren’t. I played After Burner II (arcade) the other day and “Completed” it because I was able to insert quarters. (There is no real ending and it just repeats itself starting at Stage 1 but you can continue where you are) I only played one of the machines on yakuza (probably hang on) but I thought you could insert credits while playing in Shenmue. I remember playing the emulated versions in shenmue and saw a continue screen. Maybe its just repeats the level or just lets you keep playing from the beginning without getting up from it. I cant honestly remember. I was playing after burner and space harrier i think, but I also remember giving up both kinda quiickly. Maybe (for some) these are special versions where you cant continue? Or maybe that was one of After Burner II’s features I dodn’t know about.
Some shooters have a sleazy design where you can insert credits but it rolls you back to the beginning of the level, or halfway. so the tough bits are always gates you cant get past. But when you make a game that is a 1 credit 1 life design it doesnt make you want to stay glued to it the way a cabinet that lets you keep going from where you left off does. The latter probalby is a newer design that would emerge when they looked at what was making more money.
yeah i’m curious what you have planned for next month. I like the idea of games being promoted for the month, its not a bad idea at all. It reminds me of the 'backlog attack’s that had participation a few years ago.
I finally started playing KiKi KaiKai. StarTropics was more in my preferred genre realm, but KiKi is pretty good too. I haven’t used the save function yet but I’ve only done like 4 playthroughs (and I only made it to the first boss at which point I almost immediately died lol). I’m playing the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 version on an emulator (which hasn’t glitched out on me yet) and it gives me three lives before I actually have to start back from the beginning. The visuals are pretty cute and appealing, except
I do not like this snake-necked boy. No no no, we are not friends.
I’ll probably take the strategy of just trying to stay alive long enough to make it to the end as opposed to getting a high score for now. After just a handful of playthroughs I’m already memorizing which enemies appear at what times and the paths they take and such. Wonder if I’ll be able to finish it by the end of April without saving.
The official Sega Genesis Classic has a pretty excellent lineup. I like that they went with not only some of the more popular games that sold well, but also some critically-acclaimed titles that were more overlooked or difficult to get a hold of in some regions. There are quite a few I still need to get around to playing.
Part of the issue is back in those days, games were generally not nearly as long as they are now to play. The arcade model for games was the primary one that devs (generally composed of very small teams) had to work with obviously, so the average game was just 1, maybe 2 hours to play through from start to finish. Few people these days would want to pay $40-$60 for a game they’ll be done with in an hour or two. Games were hard back then in part so that they would last a while. In the early to mid-90s, there was also the concern about people renting games from Blockbuster (et al), beating the games over the weekend, and never needing to actually buy any of them. This led to certain games being made extra-difficult, even in some of their earlier levels.
That is a rokurokubi, which is typically (but not always) depicted as a woman in folktales – she looks like a regular person, up until she suddenly stretches out her neck to some impossible length. I like the sound she makes when she attacks (at least in the arcade version).
I certainly won’t, ha ha. Levels 4 onward get really tough, and it’s mainly just due to the sheer number of enemies that swarm in – and how many of them are shooting projectiles as they do so. I ended up using save states on an emulated version of the arcade game to see what the rest of the game looked like, and it indeed keeps escalating in difficulty (though I’d say the jump from level 3 to 4 is the biggest difficulty spike… up until the last level, which is just crazy).
Ah, thank you for the insight! I will have to look more into the history and mythology behind the game. It could be an educational experience lol, every time I meet a new enemy I learn a new folktale 
I’ll see how far I get before I give in and use save states just for the sake of getting to the end. I also have a big list of other games I want to get to so I won’t be able to dedicate full attention to achieving the mastery likely needed to get to the end in one run lol.
So I just spent a few more minutes playing and I found that if you just run as fast as you can forward without attacking anything unless you need to it’s really easy to get to the first boss and then to the second boss (who I haven’t beaten yet). Also with the version I’m playing if you die during the second stage it gives you one more chance to start from the beginning of that stage again with three lives, but if you game over again you have to go back to the beginning of the game.
I’ll probably try to speedrun essentially to the end of the game lol and once I’ve gotten through it all and know what to expect I’ll do some playthroughs trying to get a good score. That’s if I’m not so battleworn by the time I get to the end that I decide KiKi KaiKai and I need some space lol.
I’ll share some background on the various elements that make up KiKi KaiKai.
Sayo-chan is a miko, which is a Shinto shrine priestess. It is believed that there was a time when they performed spirit possession rituals (like a shaman) in order to deliver messages from kami (gods, spirits). Over time the role of a miko became more institutionalized, and less dramatic. Today you’ll find them helping with general shrine maintenance, running the reception counters, and assisting priests (kannushi) with various ceremonies. The attire of a miko is a white kimono and red hakama, which can be either loose pants or a long skirt (but either way, it’s pleated).
Sayo-chan wields magical talismans called ofuda. In real life an ofuda can be purchased at a shrine as a kind of amulet to hang in your house for protection (or other benefits/good fortune), and will have the shrine name or the name of a kami inscribed on it. When diving into folklore, magic-users known as onmyoji may use ofuda for exorcisms and wards – and then in the world of anime (and manga, video games, etc), they become useful for all sorts of flashy magical attacks. A shrine maiden character in Sailor Moon uses such ofuda, for example. And if you’ve ever played any of the Touhou “bullet hell” shoot-em-ups, you’ll notice the lead character Reimu (also a shrine maiden) is based off of Sayo-chan.
The monsters are yokai, but with a cartooney and cutesy appearance (reminiscent of the classic Gegege no Kitaro manga/anime, or the more modern video games Yokai Watch). The funny-looking ghosts are wearing a triangular cloth bandana called a hitaikakushi. If you’ve ever seen Japanese ghosts in anime, chances are they were wearing one of these on their foreheads. Traditional artwork from Japan depicts ghosts wearing these, but it’s a mystery why.
Tsukumogami are everyday objects that have gained a spirit and come to life. Popular ones to be depicted included the kasa-obake (an umbrella) and the chouchinobake (a lantern). Tools such as these could come to life after a hundred years of use, or through other means (whatever the tale called for). There was a recent anime about such creatures that you can watch on Crunchyroll, titled We Rent Tsukumogami.
Many yokai are depicted in KiKi KaiKai, and some of the more popular ones make it in as bosses, such as the kitsune (a magical fox) and tanuki (a magical “raccoon dog”). There is a great deal that can be said about any of these creatures, since they’ve appeared in tons of stories over the centuries. They’re fun to look up and research – The Book of Yokai is a pretty good introduction for a lot of them.
The seven lucky gods and their cool boat is an iconic image in Japan. Three of these figures originally stem from India’s Hinduism, three from Chinese Taoism and Buddhism, and one from Japan’s Shinto. A traditional story has these seven friendly deities showing up in their boat on New Year’s to bring everyone good fortune. Many cities have a pilgrimage circuit for seven sites (temples, shrines, etc) dedicated to each of them.
Wow that’s so cool! Thanks so much for sharing all this information, it’s really awesome how they incorporated the mythology into the story. Much cooler than if you’re just battling generic ghosts and such. I bet if you made a Youtube video or something talking about this people would be interested lol!
I found my Sega console! Here is the list of games on it:
Yo Mortal Kombat is on here and I didn’t even notice??? I’m not that big into fighting games lol I mostly just played Sonic when I first got it.
That looks like one of the older AtGames plug-and-plays. Those are unfortunately notorious for not having the best emulation, but hopefully it gets the job done for Ecco at least. Still a solid lineup of titles, at least as far as the Genesis games are concerned. Surprised Jewel Master and Arrow Flash made it on there.
Uh oh! Hopefully it holds up for me. Don’t remember having any problems playing Sonic. I checked the box and it is in fact AtGames. They sell them at the store I used to work for and they would be like $80 I think but go down to $40 right before Christmas and just $20 right after Christmas. My coworker got it for me when it was half price for Secret Santa because he knew I’d been eyeing them lol. I had been planning on researching them before buying one but it was nice of him to get it for me anyway.
Either way it’s probably better than trying to play on one of the cruddy browser emulators. I don’t know that much about the majority of these other games so maybe I’ll go through and play a little of some of them to make suggestions.
great write up on the folklore. I knew some of these things (like the shrine maiden and yea it totally makes me think of sailor mars as depicted there) the strategywiki is pretty good for explaining some of these things but you filed in a lot of specifics. i was wondering what the deal with the gods and the boat was. i never actually saw that depiction before.
you got some good ones on this plug n play thingie. Ristar and Chakan and Gain Ground stand out. I haven’t played them but they are supposed to be very good ones.
The thing is, for the KiKi KaiKai enemies listed on the website, most of them have made-up names that differ from the names of the yokai they’re based on. I’m not sure what yokai the fish with legs is meant to be, for example. Or what the little gremlins that latch on to you are supposed to be. It’s possible some of them are just made up for the game though, of course.
The first video game I saw the seven lucky gods in was probably Muramasa Rebirth, at the end of one of the DLC campaigns. That game is filled to the brim with traditional Japanese folklore and religious iconography, so it makes sense.
StarTropics ending spoilers
Going to share my last few screenshots for StarTropics:
I read that with the Tim Curry Pennywise laugh.
I took the liberty of giving names to all the alien kids, who I presume are from Crest of the Stars or something.
I don’t know what he’s doing… but he’s doing it right.
Haha when you put the names with the alien kids for a second I thought you were going to say they are a reference to more mythology 
Tag yourself, I’m feeling like a Zens today
That last screenshot is me when my mom tells me not to overdo it at the buffet lol.
just came across something randomly: Musya. It looks super lore heavy and interesting and based around yokai (i think). and uh oh actually good enough to suggest to the group 
