StarTopic Jeremy Parish's Video Works series |ST|

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This week's public video takes us back to the early 1980s with not one but two arcade conversations by Konami in their Ultra Games disguise. Q Bert is familiar but frustrating since home consoles didn't exactly have a comparable control scheme. Gyruss got more care in the port but also has frustrating control issues. Patrons get two Segaiden episodes, both in 1988 with one on After Burner and Penguin Land, the other on Alien Syndrome and Aztec Adventure. It appears that Friday the 13th for NES is this year's Halloween entry (the game is not bad for a licensed game or an LJN published game).

 

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1988 opens with a bang on the Master System in this week's public video. Afterburner on Master System is like NES's Top Gun with harder dogfighting but no difficult carrier landing sequences. Penguin Land is a follow up to a SG-1000, and the only game in the Penguin series that the US got. Both are good games. Patrons get two more Segaiden episodes, one on Alien Syndrome and Aztec Adventure and the other on Global Defense and Zaxxon 3-D (both games essentially stuck in the 1980s). Patrons also got a Patron-exclusive video on three more Gakken TV Boy games, two that take cues from Kaboom! and Robotron 2084 respectively, and one that is a licensed port of Konami's Super Cobra.

 

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This week's public video is on the Master System port of the arcade game Alien Syndrome which winds up being different from the arcade version and Aztec Adventure which just winds up as another game that just doesn't wind up working. Patrons also got another video on Global Defense and Zaxxon 3-D and some other video that is coming later today.

 

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This week's public video shows us two Master System games that are stuck in the 1980s in terms of culture (Global Defense/S.T.I.) and technology (Zaxxon 3-D). Jeremy mentions that Sega is in the midst of a transition in 1988 as Japan would see the 16-bit successor to the Master System: the Mega Drive late in the year. Patrons get two NES Works 1989 episodes: one on Kung Fu Heroes (a bad game) and Bandai Golf: Pebble Beach Challenge (a golf game, it does the job) and the other on Ninja Gaiden, a NES classic and a highlight of Winter 1989.

 

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NES Works returns with this week's public video which has Culture Brain's NES debut, Kung Fu Heroes, which is a bad game which also rips off Super Mario Brothers sound effects, and also there's Bandai Golf: Pebble Beach Challenge, which gets the job done. It's not that different from other golf games, but it does feature the Pebble Beach course which gives it a unique hook I guess. NES Works appears to continue on until April 1989. Patrons get two NES Works episodes, one on Ninja Gaiden, a classic, and the other dropped on Friday the 13th fittingly enough, and that would be the ambitious failure that is Friday the 13th for NES. Patrons also received an exclusive video on the last of the Gakken TV Boy games.

 

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This week's public video gives us the first of 1989's heavy hitters on the NES: Ninja Gaiden. It elevated cut scenes as part of video gaming, and showed that Tecmo was one of the top-tier NES third parties. This is a difficult game, but also one that has a certain flow that pushes you to play it fast. I loved this game as a kid, and it still mostly holds up (the final level checkpointing is bad though). Patrons get two more videos, one on Friday the 13th, an ambitious but very flawed game, and the other is a NES Gaiden video on Konami Wai Wai World, which is a little rough but a good antecedent of their later parody games.

 

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Halloween brings us a special one, as this week's public video is Friday the 13th, Atlus's ambitious horror game that failed. This game gets a lot of hate, the LJN label contributes to that, but I'd take this over Dragon Power or Karate Kid any day of the week. Patrons also got a NES Works Gaiden video on Konami Wai Wai World and will get another video at regular time tomorrow.

 

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This week's public video fills the annual Castlevania slot with Konami Wai Wai World, an odd Famicom game from 1988 that brings together Konami heroes as well as Dr. Cinnamon of the Twinbee series. Simon Belmont, Goemon and Mikey from the Goonies as well as King Kong team up. Patrons also got a NES Works video on Marble Madness and John Elway's Quarterback and we're probably getting another NES Works video on a pair of mediocre to passable sports games this weekend.

 

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This week's public video shows us two arcade ports from British game devs Rare. Marble Madness is a port of an Atari arcade game, and it definitely highlights Rare's loves as a dev: isometric perspective and tunes from David Wise. Shame that NES didn't have a trackball. John Elway's Quarterback is a port of the Leland arcade game Quarterback. It's a middling sports game with no player or league license, it's worse than Tecmo Bowl and better than NFL Football. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on the duo of sports games that is Track and Field II (which does appear to be a March 1989 game) and World Games, the other on Mappy Land and Dance Aerobics, two very 1980s games.

 

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We get a double dose of Olympics style games on this week's public video with Konami's Track and Field II (which March 1989 date seems to track. Fandom has a June 1989 date. Wikipedia says March 1989 sourcing Computer Entertainer) and Milton Bradley's World Games which is a port of the Epyx computer game. Both have events with control schemes that are difficult to figure out, and Track and Field II essentially requires a turbo button for some events. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Mappy Land and Dance Aerobics, the other on The Guardian Legend, a sleeper hit from Compile.

 

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This week's public video has two games that haven't particularly aged well from the 1980s, they're good games though. Mappy Land, a Namco game published by Taxan has Mappy do the Mario. Dance Aerobics is a Power Pad game, and so is tied to a peripheral that is stuck in the 1980s. Patrons get two NES Works episodes, one on The Guardian Legend, one of the bangers of 1989 from Compile and Broderbund and the other on Fist of the North Star and Mystery Quest, two uninteresting bad games from publisher Taxan.

 

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This week's public video is on The Guardian Legend, a hybrid of shooter and action rpg from developer Compile (who should be well known to Works series regulars) and publisher Broderbund. This was a sleeper hit as Jeremy explains. Patrons also got two more NES Works episodes, one on the pair of mediocre games from publisher Taxan, Fist of the North Star and Mystery Quest, the other on Legacy of the Wizard, which is the fourth in Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer series. It's a proper Action RPG (tunes by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro). Patrons also got an exclusive video on the Super Cassette Vision games Comic Circus and Milky Princess. Jeremy also got mentioned in the Hbomberguy guy video as one of the people that were plagiarized by Filip Miucin.

 

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This week's public video gives us two mediocre games published by Taxan, one is Fist of the North Star which was Hokuto no Ken 2 on the Famicom by kusoge champion Bear's and Shouei System. Black Belt is still the better game. The other Taxan release is Mystery Quest, which plays like a worse Milon's Secret Castle. Patrons get two standalone NES episodes on good games, one on Legacy of the Wizard, the other on the Adventures of Lolo. More bad games on the horizon though (maybe Jekyll and Hyde in Episode 121?)

 

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This week's public video is the NES version of Dragon Slayer IV, the game Legacy of the Wizard, which may have been developed by Nihon Falcom. This was the second game in Nintendo Power's "What Is An RPG" feature and the game is part of the Switch game Namco Museum Archives. It is definitely a fascinating NES game. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on the Adventures of Lolo, a good puzzle game from HAL, and the other on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Amagon, two bad games about men who transform.

 

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This week's public video is The Adventures of Lolo, which was a puzzle game from HAL and a pretty good one too. Patrons also got two more NES Works episodes, one on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Amagon and the other on Predator and Taboo: The Sixth Sense.

 

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This week's public video is two bad games that feature men who transform. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a mess and AVGN has covered much on that. Amagon is cruel but some people apparently like it. Patrons get two more videos, one on Predator and Taboo The Sixth Sense, neither are good but both are interesting though, and the other video is a NES Works Gaiden video on Tengen's first unlicensed NES game, Tetris.

 

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This week's public video finishes off April 1989 on NES with two interesting but not particularly good games with Pack-In Video's Predator, which is ambitious and uses a neat technological trick for Big Mode, and Rare and Tradewest give us Taboo The Sixth Sense which is the first non-game on the NES, a tarot card program. Patrons get two more videos, a NES Works Gaiden video on Tengen's Tetris and a NES Works video on two action games, Airwolf and Operation Wolf. Bonus discussion on the Vietnam war and its effect on 1980s movies and cartoons.

 

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This week's public video marks the beginning of Tengen's unlicensed NES carts with their version of Tetris. The legal saga over Tetris has definitely been covered on YouTube by the likes of the Gaming Historian. Jeremy also puts the Famicom version of Tetris by Bulletproof Software (Henk Rogers's company) in context. Patrons also get two more NES Works episodes, one on Airwolf and Operation Wolf, and the other on Hydlide, an historically important game that was very outdated by 1989.

Threadmark 117 - NES Works 123: Airwolf and Operation Wolf
Threadmark 118 - NES Works 124: Hydlide
Threadmark 119 - NES Works 125: Monster Party and Street Cop
Threadmark 120 - NES Works 126: Hoops and Shooting Range
Threadmark 121 - NES Works 127: Mega Man 2
Threadmark 122 - NES Works 128: Super Dodgeball
Threadmark 123 - NES Works 129: The Adventures of Bayou Billy
Threadmark 124 - NES Works 130: Desert Commander and California Games
Threadmark 125 - NES Works 131: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Threadmark 126 - NES Works 132: Thundercade and Guerilla War
Threadmark 127 - NES Works 133: Dragon Warrior
Threadmark 128 - Game Boy Works Vol 2 001: The Game Boy
Threadmark 129 - Game Boy Works Vol 2 002: Tetris
Threadmark 130 - Game Boy Works Vol 2 003: Baseball and Super Mario Land

 

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On this week's public video, we have Airwolf and Operation Wolf, two video games with wolf in the title. Neither is particularly good, and Jeremy puts Airwolf in context by discussing how America was dealing with things after the Vietnam War. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Hydlide and the other on a pair of Human Entertainment and Bandai games, Monster Party and Street Cop, the latter being a Power Pad game.

 

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This week's episode is about an historically important game that just landed with a thud in 1989, Hydlide. This is essentially Zelda's grandparent if you consider Druaga as Zelda's parent. Hydlide also has an AVGN episode on it. Anyway, patrons get two more NES Works videos, one on Monster Party and Street Cop, the other on Hoops by Jaleco and Shooting Range by Bandai. Also patrons got a timed exclusive video on the Casio PV-1000 and the games Pooyan and Super Cobra.

 

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This week's public video has an epic intro, and is about a pair of Human Entertainment and Bandai games, Monster Party, which is a cult classic on NES and shows us that Human could make good games, and also Street Cop, a Power Pad game that has doubly badly aged, in terms of being bound to an accessory and presenting us with a cop protagonist who walks a beat and serves up some police brutality to keep crime down. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Hoops and Shooting Range, and the other on Mega Man 2, a banger of 1989.

 

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Filler, that's the theme of this week's public video with Jaleco's Hoops and Bandai's Shooting Range. Hoops is also somewhat good. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Mega Man 2, a banger, and the other on Super Dodgeball, which was the first of the Kunio-kun sports games and the first Sony Imagesoft game published for NES. (I'll edit in Super Dodgeball for June since I somehow missed that).

 

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This week, we have Peak NES with Mega Man 2, one of the best games of 1989, and one of the GOATs of NES. Great controls, memorable chiptune soundtrack, awesome weapons (Metal Blade), and mostly great bosses (Airman, the huge Dragon boss). Capcom was in peak form for NES in 1989, and they weren't done as far as bangers on NES in 1989 (DuckTales is still to come). Get equipped with a great game. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Super Dodgeball, and the other on The Adventures of Bayou Billy, which had great music and a cool concept but gets dragged down by its extreme difficulty. There was also a Patron exclusive Casio PV-1000 episode on Tutankahm and Amidar.

 

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This week's public video gives us Super Dodgeball, Sony Imagesoft's first published NES game and the first Kunio-kun sports game on the console. Technos Japan developed a fairly good game here. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on The Adventures of Bayou Billy, and the other on Desert Commander, one of the first strategy games on NES, and on California Games, which was the last port of Epyx's Games series on NES.

 

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This week's public video is on the notoriously difficult The Adventures of Bayou Billy, one of the lesser Konami games on NES, although it is technically impressive. You can see the start of anti-rental strategies with this game. Patrons get two more NES Works videos, one on Desert Commander and California Games, the other on Konami's big June 1989 game through their Ultra Games disguise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 

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This week's public video gives us two very different games from two different publishers. First, we have Desert Commander by Kemco, which was a game in which you play as Erwin Rommel in the Famicom version. This was thankfully changed in localization as the 1980s is where we'd at least brutally kill Nazis on film as opposed to seeing them pop up and courted at CPAC. And also, California Games by Rare and Milton Bradley, the last of Epyx's Games series ported to NES. I won't be missing them. Patrons get two more NES Works episodes, one on Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the other on Micronics and American Sammy's Thundercade (bad) and SNK's Guerilla War (good). Looks like we are going to get to Dragon Warrior earlier. RIP Toriyama (and RIP Iwata).

 

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This week's public video is about Konami's big June 1989 game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yes, it's under the Ultra label but it's pure Konami. I always had trouble getting past the dam level. The leadup to the Technodrome sounds like a nightmare. Currently 1 other NES episode is available to patrons: one on Thundercade and Guerilla War, the other one delayed slightly for technical reasons but will be 33 minutes long. New Patreon exclusive video on the Casio PV-1000 games Dig Dug and Warp & Warp, two underwhelming Namco ports that would get better versions on Famicom.

 

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This week's public video presents a bad arcade port by Micronics with Thundercade which is just a bad game, period, and also SNK's Guerilla War which was their best NES game to date, and a good game. The story got sanitized for the US removing any mention that the playable characters are Che Guevara and Fidel Castro who are fighting to free Cuba from the despotic Batista. Patrons got two more videos, both long, one on Dragon Warrior for the NES, the other is the first video on Game Boy Works Vol. 2 with a video on the US launch of Game Boy, marking the 10th anniversary of Game Boy Works and the 35th anniversary of Game Boy. More US-centric redoes of Game Boy games we got in the US to come starting with Tetris.

 

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But Thou Must watch this week's public video on Dragon Warrior, the 1989 release for North America of the game that had so much influence on 8bit games from 1986 on, Dragon Quest. Thanks Satoru Iwata and Akira Toriyama for what you had brought to this release. Patrons get two videos on Game Boy, one a look back at the system 35 years on (and 10 for Game Boy Works), the other a revised look at Tetris, the pack-in game for North America.

 

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This week's public video covers another big event in August 1989: the Game Boy's American launch. And so we get a timely video on both the Game Boy's 35th anniversary and on the 10th anniversary of Game Boy Works. It looks like the next month is Game Boy Works videos. Patrons get two more videos, one on Tetris, and the other on Baseball and Super Mario Landl

 

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This week's public video brings us the pack-in Game Boy game for the US launch: Tetris. This is the version of Tetris I played as a kid. Always nice to revisit it. Patrons get two more Game Boy Works videos covering the rest of the Game Boy launch with Baseball and Super Mario Land on one, and Alleyway and Tennis on the other. And in another week, patrons finally see Jeremy's journey to triangle jumping in Eurasia. Patrons also got a Patron exclusive video on the Casio PV-1000 maze games Turpin and Fighting Bug.

 

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This week's public video gives us a look back at Baseball and Super Mario Land, two games that brought portable adapted versions based on Black Box games of 1985. As always, Mario gets more of the screentime. Patrons get two more videos, one on the rest of the US Game Boy launch with Alleyway and Tennis, the other getting us back to NES, where Capcom gives us Strider for NES.