Bubble Bobble is one of the all-time classic arcade platformers, so it’s no surprise that it exists in some form on every single console and computer format released in the 30 or so years since.
There are two Flintstones games on the NES – the infamous Surprise at Dinosaur Peak, a late rental-exclusive release in the US which tends to fetch a ton of money, and the relatively common The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy, which gets relatively no attention despite being one of the better licensed platformers on the NES.
Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (or Estopolis Denki) is the first in a series of popular J-RPGs from Neverland and Taito. Being an RPG on the SNES, you can bet it’ll cost you a pretty penny to acquire a complete copy, but it’s worth it.
The heroes of the Bubble Bobble series (and assorted spin-offs), Bub and Bob, are set to be immortalised in plushie form, if eyewitness reports from the 2013 London Toy Fair are to be believed.
No details as yet beyond the fact that they’ll be manufactured by Together Plus, who’ve been doing all sorts of Mario merchandise as of late.
Akira is something of a tragedy when it comes to the video game treatment. Every single game based on the anime masterpiece has been utter shit.
Now you can experience the game that started the tradition of terrible Akira games – the Famicom version. Developed by Taito and released in 1988, around the time of the film, Akira for the Famicom is an adventure game, picking up just after the point at which Kaneda and his gang are captured.
It’s pretty bad – even the notoriously generous Famicom gave the game a pathetic 17/40.
Translation group DankTrans was behind this effort. The game ROM needs to be expanded for the patch to work (due to the English translation taking up a lot more space than the Japanese original), so applying the patch is not quite as easy as normal.
You can get the patch here.
Taito’s Growl (or Runark in its original Japanese release) is a rather odd take on the arcade brawler, given that you essentially play as an forest ranger who deals with poachers with a mix of fisticuffs and explosives. The home port for the Mega Drive lost a bit of the luster of the arcade version, unfortunately.
Taito’s arcade classic Chase H.Q. made the journey home to a myriad of platforms. This particular ad is for the Game Gear release, which was for all intents and purposes identical to the Master System version.
A joint effort between aishsha, DvD and Pennywise has yielded a translation patch for the obscure Famicom RPG SD Keiji Blader. It’s kind of a futuristic take on the classic J-RPG action offered by contemporaries like the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, with a bit of a Super Sentai streak.
According to the translation notes, SD Keiji Blader was meant to be a quick project for the team, but ended up taking them three years. We should all thank them for their dedication in knocking over another Japan only release.
You can get the ROM patch here.
You probably know of Takeshi Kitano, or Beat Takeshi, through his movie roles or the ridiculous game show Takeshi’s Castle. In 1986, he teamed up with Taito to release Takeshi no Chousenjou or Takeshi’s Challenge, a damn near impossible game allegedly borne out of Takeshi’s spite for video games. It’s considered to be one of the worst games of all time in Japan.
And now you can play it and understand what the heck is happening thanks to the efforts of KingMike, who recently released a translation patch for the game.
Have fun.
The Classification Board has posted a rating for a previously unannounced remix of Elevator Action.
Elevator Action was a popular Taito produced arcade game in 1983. However, its sequel, Elevator Action Returns is what we critics call “goddamn amazing.” In fact, I recommend you go and play it right now. I have yet to play the latest game, Elevator Action: Death Parade, though – it’s more of a light gun game with fully functioning elevator doors on the cab! I think it might be at the arcade at Crown Casino. Read the rest of this entry »
