RGN Feature Article: Monthly Round Up
April Round Up - PART ONE: Gaming
There have been quite a lot of posts over our first month in operation, averaging close to 1.3 posts per day we are trying to quickly establish ourselves as a substantial gaming resource, one that can’t be easily be clicked through in an hour and then not changing for years. We search for new content by scouring the internet daily, we aim to post weekly at the least, currently we are posting several times per week. In a month worth of news blogs we report about many different subjects and examine many different games. I encourage readers to go through all news articles made during the month to make the most of all our available content. However some of you may want to supplement your reading with monthly highlights of our best games and content. This news post is called a “Gaming Round Up” where I’ll talk about games that we have looked at or mentioned in our articles. This way the reader can be reminded of the games we reported on, can go look at the article and also have a suggestion of a game to play this month. You will also find other noteworthy news that we reported on during April. So make yourself a hot cup of tea or other relaxing beverage put your legs up and relax with this enjoyable re-cap of last month’s gaming news.
BS Treasure Conflix (Super NES Satellaview) [ENG]
This is a great example of a Square Enix game that only Japan had the chance to obtain back in the day, and even then it was only in digital form. This one was translated some 2 years ago now however I’ve only just got to playing it and have been surprised at how engrossing a mini game can be. The Satellaview had new games every week that were downloaded onto flash cartridges of very limited capacity so games were made to be quick and short. This game keeps this time restraint in mind while still giving players a taste of the time investing nature of the gameplay which RPG’s offer. It delicately balances these conflicting goals and restraints into a well made and enjoyable sub 10 hour game. The main character is a air-ship pilot and treasure hunter. He uses all his skills, knowledge and expertise to investigate, decipher, locate and discover the mysteries and legends surrounding the planet’s lost and hidden treasures and artifacts. The world in which all this takes place is a parallel universe of earth but this planet is a much smaller.
There are only a few towns and civilization settlements in the whole world that you can visit. Some are even hidden settlements that may have existed for a very long time without being discovered. As a treasure hunter you are in competetion with other treasure hunters and also air pirates who prey on freight and treasure hunter ships for money, cargo and treasures. Luckily your ship is far from defenseless as you have access to shields, weapons and bombs to defend your ship with not to mention evasive actions utilizing engine and steering. Guide “Voice” free-lance treasure hunter on the planet Walden through an important mission to find the “Cloud Gate” for client “Gilmore” and find out how the destiny of Walden is tied to the events surrounding this ancient artifact. I don’t want to give away too much more about this game, since it’s so short you are better off just playing it and finding out for yourself. Being a BS-X game you have to load it through the BS-X Bios (ask in comments if you need help). As far as Satellaview games go I’m going to rate this game…
PLAY LENGTH 5-10 hrs. GAME SCORE 82 out of 100
Another great game that officially never made it outside of Japan as it was distributed strictly by an in-store kiosk-based flash cartridge pay-per-download system. A Japan-only franchise of 7-11 type convenience stores called “Lawsons” were the sole distributors of the “Nintendo Power” kiosk game download systems. Unfortunately not many Japanese gamers even got to experience this game however an English patch came out in 2019. This is a unique game, an adventure game which are rare on the Super NES. The first half of the game you are exploring a wondrous space colonized world investigating a mystery about the robot “Slader” that you inherited. So the first part of the game is very relaxed as you take in the vibes and atmosphere of a unique and enthralling world. You won’t have to deal with any action for a fair while but it won’t matter as just exploring the world and interacting with people at a nice casual pace is so entertaining and exciting. The way the story is written it keeps you hooked and you won’t want to stop playing as you’re curiosity will always want to find out what’s in the next area or screen.
If you don’t like adventures or graphical novel type games then maybe this one isn’t for you. This game is like an interactive movie or story however you get control over how the narrative develops. Though interactions are fairly limited, like most adventure games they have managed to make quite a few of the in game choices affect the storyline and the game’s ending. For example at the very end there is a major battle between an alien race and the elite human resistance, which of course you are of course battling in. You have a choice of who your partner will be for the final standoff and this choice will directly affect what happens after you finish it. There are other key decision points earlier in the game, like the raid and who you choose or don’t choose to help you rescue the hostage. For more information on this game please see the news blog article where I go through the game with a bit more detail but with hopefully not giving away too much information so you have some motivation to play the game yourselves. The romhacking.net website has access to the patch which can be applied to the Japanese SFC ROM file.
PLAY LENGTH 3-7 hrs. GAME SCORE 91 out of 100
This is a game that I personally have gotten a lot of enjoyment from, during many hours of playtime. Like the rest of the games listed here, the key core themes are immersion, atmosphere, exploration, character building and storyline. The other two games examined aren’t the normal type of game which mostly consists of fast paced action based gameplay but are instead story and exploration based. The world is static and has a narrative, storyline and a reason for everything. The world in Boku no Natsuyasumi encompasses relatively modern-day Japan, taking place during August 1975 (Japanese school summer vacation) in the small sea-side town of Tomifumi. “Boku”, meaning “I” or “me” in Japanese, is the actual name of the player’s character a typical japanese nine year old boy. Boku’s mother is in her last term of pregnancy and to make it easier on the parent’s, Boku is sent to live with his Auntie and Uncle over school summer vacation who run a country sea-side island lodging.
Furthermore Boku is planning on making the absolute most of his vacation without the ever watchful eye of his parent’s dictating what he can or can’t do. His Uncle is looking out for him but gives him a great deal of freedom to explore all day, only finding Boku for dinner each day. While the town only consists of about 3 to 5 houses, there’s a whole undersea world to explore, more than 150 bugs to collect, about a dozen insects that can battle, 25 collectible bottle caps, many side quests and character secret missions to discover. You basically have entire days with nothing to do, as kids do, except for explore and do whatever you like so you have the entire island village to run around with and explore in. There are only a few people in this entire community so you get to know them on a fairly deep level if you are determined to keep digging. So there are some real deep and emotionally moving stories as some of them have been formed from deep connections that took entire life’s to build. Some of the islands secrets are surprising and can catch you completely off-guard. There is a lot of gameplay value here, you can set the in-game timer so a day lasts a lot longer, approximately 25 mins as opposed to 5 or so that is default. To make it more atmospheric I recommend making the days as long as possible, also you are less rushed and free to explore at your leisure so you don’t overlook any secrets. Even after you finish this one you will want to play it again to try and discover something new. The simple graphics are the biggest fault, everything else about this game is great. Bit of trivia here this game wasn’t the first game in this style, Famicom Bunko is game that follows a very similar storyline with many other similarities such characters and the game mechanics
PLAY LENGTH 10-50 hrs. GAME SCORE 94 out of 100
Additional RGN April News
Well that makes up most of Part 1, in the next part we will look at some more games. The last section of the first part is going to consist of some of the other news where we aren’t specifically focusing on a game for review purposes. Firstly the newly released FPGA Gameboy Color, the “ModRetro Chromatic 1st Edition” had completely sold out of it’s colored shell range, including Logan Paul and Japanese themed units. All units sold by ModRetro have completely sold out and are now only available from GameStop in the USA. I found a small stock of them for sale at dragonbox.de but that 66 unit pre-order sold out very quickly. RGN managed to secure a Chomatic Inferno CIB! Speaking of selling out on pre-order the surprise de-make of the century “Farming Simulator 16-bit” Limited Edition has sold out approximately 2 week before the ship out date, the 14th of May which is just around the corner now.
The game is still available included as part of the Deluxe Edition set which also comes with the soundtrack CD which is said to be very good. However it costs a bit extra, more than what most people want to pay as you can tell by the sales (just over half sold so far) but these will go soon too as people will want to secure themselves the coveted green cartridge! Another big title that just finished it’s pre-order stage or at least it’s kickstarter campaign. Straynaus is still taking late pledges / pre-orders on the multi-system programmed “Cronela’s Mansion” as long as people still want them and will stop only when demand slows to zero. It’s due to come out November, so still quite a long wait but we can fill some of our days farming on the Sega Mega Drive in the meantime!
There’s a few more things that I’ll go into in Part Two but there is one more major bit of news I forgot to mention and that is the launch of The RetroGame.News YouTube channel with about half a dozen rare retro video game footages film clips uploaded and made available for viewing. Please take the time to explore our YouTube channel at your leisure and learn about the interesting development history of LucasArts The Dig, a rare CD-i game published by BP as well as a Japanese exclusive CD-i game. If you are in Australia then don’t forget that our online webstore has opened for business with a couple rare games stocked already. I could tell you what they are but why not got have a look at the store yourself. International shipping will be available soon hopefully. Please contact us for helping you with all your retro gaming needs. We can help collectors and gamers of all experience levels to satisfy their retro gaming needs.
Relevant Links
- Fan’s Translate Last Nintendo Power Game [https://retrogame.news/final-nintendo-power-game-gets-translated/] RGN mini-review and article on the translated version of “Metal Slader: Glory”.
- Kickstarter Game Inspired by Maniac Mansion on NES get’s Multi-System Physical Release in 2025 [https://retrogame.news/kickstarter-game-inspired-by-maniac-mansion-on-nes-to-get-multi-system-physical-release-in-2025/] RGN article about Cronela’s Mansion as the kick-starter campaign just ended.
- Farming Simulator Get’s a 16-Bit De-Make for Sega Mega Drive [https://retrogame.news/farming-simulator-gets-a-16-bit-de-make-for-sega-mega-drive/] Essential info first posted near the start of the pre-order period, Limited Edition now sold out.
- New Aftermarket Gameboy Color Released – The ModRetro Chromatic [https://retrogame.news/new-aftermarket-gameboy-released-the-modretro-chromatic/]
