#198x

[bbs-backlog-challenge]

Fin or Bin: 198X

Gonna pronounce it ‘nineteen eighty ten’ just to be obnoxious.

A short and sweet one here so I’ll try to keep the review the same. What appears at first glance to be a compilation of retro arcade-style games is in fact more of a visual-novel type affair, telling a story of wasted potential and feeling stuck, hints of a queer awakening, and finding escape through videogames. The arcade games are woven into the narrative and help push the story along, rather than being the main attraction; if you’re looking mainly for arcade thrills you may be left cold.

The games themselves are all actually fantastic, and will resonate strongly with anyone who was born or grew up in the 1980s (imagine that). It’s honestly a shame they are single-level affairs because they all play wonderfully and are genuinely fun to burn through as the story takes place around them. A Streets Of Rage style belt scroller opens the show but the into-the-screen racer steals it, in my opinion. A lot of care and attention has gone into making them feel authentic to the time period but there’s just enough modernisation to make them playable in today’s world, and of course the difficulty has been re-tuned significantly from the coin-gobbling days of old.

Unfortunately the story ends on a To Be Continued just as things are getting interesting, and the package as it stands is only around 90 minutes long. Hopefully a sequel is arriving soon (though I don’t know if I can stomach another game titled X-2).

Fin or Bin:

I would estimate there is a fairly narrow band of people who will get it, and anyone outside of that band will fail to get it at all. For myself, I’m an absolute mark for this kind of thing. I didn’t have arcades growing up but I did have home computers with arcade conversions and I was catapulted back in time to sitting in front of my Atari ST playing Lotus 3 and messing up all the disks because I was six years old and didn’t know how sensitive they were (RIP Space Crusade). But what I’m really a mark for is the gosh-danged MUSIC!!! 80’s VGM style synthwave tunes is my bread and butter AND jam. It didn’t take long to Finish, and I wish there was some way to replay the games separate from the story, and for some of them to be longer, but I’m definitely on the waiting list for part two should we ever see it.

(Steam)

[primaljort]

When a lowlander says something so stroopwafel you just have to hit him with the Luparic stare

[redsamuraiii]

After playing Streets of Rage 4, I hope they'll make a new Super Shinobi game too, maybe titled : Return of the Shinobi.

As much as I love Ghost of Tsushima and Assassin's Creed, I love an retro type of games which reminds me of old school SEGA games.

What I love about Streets of Rage 4 is that it is something familiar with a touch of nostalgia of the original but new and refreshing.

Imagine if they were to do the same with Super Shinobi, with similar art style and same music composer as the original.

But this time it takes place across all prefectures of Japan instead of going from Japan to America.

Joe Musashi, the legendary Shinobi returns beginning his journey from Aomori Prefecture all the way down to Kyushu.

So gamers feel like they are traveling across Japan themselves, fighting various villains against the familiar backdrops.

First mission starts of at Aomori Castle where the villain ninja, Neo Zeed, attacked his dojo, killed his master and kidnapped his fiancee.

Then he goes to Sendai, the city of Date Masamune, where he fought with his descendant who sides with the villainous ninja.

Then he goes further down to other prefectures, eventually going to Kansai where he fights female ninjas at Dotonbori, Osaka.

Then he goes Nara prefecture to fight a Onna Bugeisha, a female Samurai.

Then the bamboo forest of Kyoto to fight a Yokai disguised as a Miko or Shrine Maiden or Gion to fight a Yokai disguised as a Geisha.

Then he proceed to other places like Aizu, Tokyo, Hikone, Lake Biwa, Mount Koya, Kobe, Chinatown, Himeji, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.

Each prefecture with its own unique songs, theme, villains, backdrops and history.

The final stage is at the city of Fukuoka, going up the high rise building to confront the Neo Zeed himself.

Maybe Neo Zeed is a descendant of a Samurai warlord who wants revenge against the Shinobi's clan since the Sengoku Jidai.

I'm surprised that no game studio have made this by now. There's a lot of potential to develop to get both new and existing fans.

[kingjeremy77]

[cursedprince08]

I actually quite like this game ESPECIALLY the ending game I loved it so much

[mika-shion]

Any of y'all grow up in the 80's?

Wanna know what it was like?

Come explore that world with me and Kid~

[7-7cave]

i love his locs sm; abstract class

he really got the dogs just out, tho

Artist and painter Jean-Michel Basquiat in his studio. New York City. 1985.

[bylrndgm]

If Mike asked Will to be his friend on the first day of kindergarten, that means he asked him in 1976. From my research, I understand that even in the 1970s, kindergarten was for 5-year-olds. So, if Mike and Will were born in 1971, they would have turned 5 in 1976.

Therefore, if this is all true, when Mike asked Will to work together, as friends, best friends, it would have been in 1986, exactly TEN years after he initially asked to be his friend.

I know many might have pointed this out before, but it just occurred to me, and I think I need a moment.

[swedebeast]

Interesting. This recent trend of artists making war games is very much to my liking - in this case by Rifle Infantry, and here is a link to the rules themselves, including two WIP army lists.

[pattern-53-enfield]

The Federal-States Army, by RifleInfantry

[mndvx]

Ian is MEEEEEEE

[cheyenneosis]

lalalala 4 month old reference piece thingy of one of my ppg ocs, Lucifera ! for some funny reason i've become deeply invested in her and my other oc's design/bio so theyre um 3 years in development at this point but if you've seen the older images of her well now theyre outdated as she's had a slight redesign :9 still changing things up but read more for a shortened bio !

Lucifera was born with naturally green skin to a party animal lady turned god fearing woman (she thought she was being "punished" for her ways) she attended a religious school for a while but that didn't go so well and the school eventually just kicked her out due to being a "distraction" (families + staff complaints, other children's teasings of her being disruptive) she got shit for merely existing and had teachings shoved down her throat and became more sympathetic towards the rising evil in Townsville in her teens from everything and would occasionally fantasize about becoming a Gangreen Gang member or at the very least some sort of villain...after getting expelled for getting into a violent fight at school her mother was about to send her off to a boarding school but Lucifera decided to change her looks (finally got out the gothy clothes she bought long before but feared wearing around her mom) then ran away that night and lived on her own for a bit. eventually she'd run into the Gangreen Gang after witnessing them rob a gas station which initially got her in trouble with them until she helped hide them from the Powerpuff Girls. They all then stuck together but ofc got confronted by the puffs every now and then. Another gal would eventually join (Serpentine) and other lovely things would take place, but Luci wouldn't always have things great after all this...more info TBA!

[primaljort]

chasseurs the second you drop smoke:

[littlescaryinternetguy]

Like the swallows returning to San Capistrano.

If you still call tumblr the hellsite you haven’t seen twitter’s recent discourse over whether short women can be loved for anything other than a fetish

[kingjeremy77]

[cursedprince08]

Ngl Out of the Void pissed me off a little bit