#Kusoge

[bison2winquote]

The noise Glover makes when he loses the ball, Glover [N64] (Interactive Studios)

[each-dustbin1]

Your daily Kusoge fighting game character to laugh at

[devileaterjaek]

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Gundam 0079: The War for Earth

Mobile Suit Gundam is one of the most influential anime series ever created, establishing many of the conventions of the mecha subgenre. In the forty-plus years of its existence, there have been dozens of series and spinoffs, but they generally boil down to political drama involving Earth and its space colonies, featuring a super powerful giant robot called a Gundam. Among the many, many video game tie-ins, one of the most unusual is this CD-ROM FMV title, a co-production between Japanese studio Bandai and American developer Presto Studios, the team behind The Journeyman Project titles. It was originally developed for the short-lived Apple Pippin platform, which Bandai was an ardent supporter of, but was also ported to Windows and Macintosh platforms, as well as the Japanese PlayStation.

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[netmomplus]

Massive news for kusoge fans: Ancient Roman for PS1, the worst RPG on the entire console, has finally seen the release of an English patch. What a beautiful day, shout out to everyone who worked on it.

[everygame]

Atlantis No Nazo

Developed/Published by: Sunsoft Released: 17/04/1986 Completed: 01/02/2024 Completion: Finished it via the quickest route.

Everything changed for gaming in September 1985 with the release of Super Mario Bros. in Japan. The design hegemony of Xevious and The Tower of Druaga was no longer the only game in town, and now Japanese designers needed to do more than just make power-ups invisible or hide progression behind obscure actions (though they’ll still do that, even Nintendo just have.)

But Super Mario Bros., what’s the key feature that you can rip off to make sure your game is a success? Is it tight action? No, not that, I mean the original Super Mario Bros. isn’t that tight. Oh, I’ve got it!

It’s warps. Warp zones. Get as many of those in your game as possible and you’re sorted.

I joke, but this does seem to have been the mindset of Japanese game designers as soon as they were tasked with making the “next Super Mario Bros.” with 1986 seeing releases like Atlantis No Nazo, Mighty Bomb Jack, Milon’s Secret Castle and more, all of which make warping around a key feature. What’s interesting is how little research into warp zones as a game feature exists online. Being able to “skip” levels has existed since Atari’s “SkillStep” system with Tempest–does that count as a warp, or does a warp need to be found during gameplay? With what I have to hand here I seem forced to conclude that Super Mario Bros. was actually the first to do it–but I’m not sure if I’m fully convinced.

Anyway, hot out the gates in spring 1986 Sunsoft release (in their own words) “The Game That Surpassed Super Mario” Atlantis No Nazo, which translates as “The Mystery of Atlantis.” (Lotta mystery in April ‘86, I guess.) Featuring 100 levels that are explicitly called “zones” the player takes the role of Wynn, an amateur adventurer/casino developer (I assume) who heads to rescue his missing master from the recently re-emerged island of Atlantis with nothing but an infinite supply of dynamite that causes tiny, crappy explosions (slowly) and a weird floaty jump with next to no air control.

The first thing you’re going to notice about Atlantis No Nazo is it… well, it’s immediately crappy. The controls aren’t great, the graphics are weak even for the era (and never, at any point, feel “Atlantean”) and the level design has you bumping your head off the ceiling from literally the second level. I mean the second level–sorry, zone–is so immediately bad I wasn’t sure it was possible to complete–a monotonous trudge through what seems to be a loop of the same area avoiding snails that take an age to kill. When I finally saw that there is a door in it to the next zone, I was almost surprised.

The second thing you learn about Atlantis No Nazo is that unlike Super Mario Bros. you can’t just play it beginning to end. You quickly begin warping around, and if you’re just trying to beat it by playing as much of it as possible, to enjoy all that lovely ~content~ you are not playing it correctly at all. The goal of Atlantis No Nazo is to play as little of it as possible. You’re trying to find the most efficient way to the end of the game by learning which door gets you where and hoping each time it’s “really far through the game.”

The lessons of The Tower of Druaga remain vital here, because the quickest way through the game is to find all the hidden warps and doors. Throw yourself into the right pit? That’s a warp. Throw a bomb at the right place? That’s a warp. Kill yourself in the right position? You better believe that’s a warp.

Something like The Tower of Druaga has a kind of predictability, admittedly. You have to chew through the entire thing in order, so you know at X level, you need to do Y stupid thing. With Atlantis No Nazo… I almost pity the people who had to map this out, seven lives and no continues at a time. With a hundred levels and countless warps back and forward, any map of the game is a hilarious spaghetti, and there are so many amusingly cruel twists, like levels with no light (so you need to make sure you hit a level where you can get a lamp power-up from first) and levels that just throw you unavoidably to your death over and over–which I really want to believe are inspired by Jet Set Willy’s “Entrance to Hades” but probably aren’t.

As with The Tower of Druaga, I can’t really imagine anyone trying to brute force this game on their own, not least because the final level seems basically impossible without an invincibility power-up that requires you get to the end in one life. I’m sure at the time everyone just bought a guidebook, and once you have one to hand the game goes from “baffling spaghetti” to “execute your plan perfectly.”

The funny thing is, I had quite a bit of fun trying to do that. Don’t get me wrong. The controls are bad. But I became interested in trying to get the “smart bomb” power-up which requires playing level 2 literally perfectly, and I got into it. Of course, I found it hard because I hadn’t realised you could run past the snails when they were under their shells, but I still enjoyed the challenge, and then using that practice to get to the end of the game in one life via the path that takes less than ten levels… it was like signing up for one of those courses where you get to be a racecar driver for a day, but it’s actually a “be a speedrunner for a day” course. You’re never actually going to be a speedrunner, but it feels like you are, for a bit.

So, you know, I enjoyed Atlantis No Nazo once I “got” what you’re supposed to do with it (learn how to play it and then follow a guide book). I don’t think that’s actually… good, but it’s something!

Will I ever play it again? If this was an arcade game, now I know the path I’d definitely try and do it to show off. At home, I’m good.

Final Thought: Atlantis No Nazo is legendary enough to be the challenge in the first “real” episode of Game Center CX, and it was rather pleasant to give the episode a rewatch after finishing the game. You really shouldn’t bother playing this, but you should watch the episode, if you can find it!

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[devileater2]

[lunaticobscurity]

there's a new post up at the world's greatest obscure videogames review blog, and today's subject is an attempt at combining rpgs and arkanoid, with the involvement of a real-life comedy trio, too! go and read about it~!

and please show your support by reblogging this post and maybe also subscribing on patreon to get early access to new posts, lots more screenshots of every game i cover, and various other nice extras :D

[titleknown]

In other news of "Weird fighting games that need a spiritual successor," I found out about this in the comments of one of Matt McMuscles' Worst Fighting Game videos, and holy shit look at this.

[bison2winquote]

After Mr. Hyde loses a life, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [NES] (Advance Communication Co./ Toho/ Bandai)

[each-dustbin1]

Shout out to that person who went through the effort to describe just how bad Potemkin vs Justice is on the Missing Link Dustloop page

[devileaterjaek]

DragonBall GT: Final Bout (PSX) Join our community on //Discord// Support me on //Ko-Fi//

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Devil’s Hunt

Okay, maybe placing Hellbound in a kusoge article was a bit harsh. Sure, the game had a ton of bizarre issues and decisions, but it did nail the basics. But Devil’s Hunt? Oh, there is no other place you could argue this belongs. Devil’s Hunt is an adaptation of the book Equilibrium, an urban fantasy epic and the start of a full trilogy made by one Paweł Leśniak about a normal rich dude ending up in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell. You may have also noticed the name Paweł Leśniak over on the side with him listed as a director. He was a creative director to be exact, and also credited with story and, uh, hang on…*flips through notes* being the CEO and founder of the game’s development studio Layopi Games. It’s important to mention Layopi Games no longer exists and most of its staff didn’t get paid at the end. Devil’s Hunt was going to get console ports, emphasis on “was.”

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[harpgriffin]

Road Runner's Death Valley Rally Review??

Every day for the rest of this month, I'm going to post a review of the previous day's game from KusoGrande's Advent Calendar event. These are mostly not games I could ever finish, so this is more like an experience summary?

This game is awful in so many ways. It's a "go fast" platforming game that constantly punishes you for going fast. Movement uses ice physics - you're constantly sliding too far on momentum. Stopping is horrible. There are precision platforming sections you need to do as slowly as you can because your jump will just carry you right off the tiny platforms. Going fast on a nice roller coaster section? Good luck, you'll probably suddenly get stopped dead by a spiky object or enemy you can't see coming. There's health of course, so you can soak hits from Wile E. Coyote who is constantly interfering in all your blind jumps. And just to rub salt in the wound, every level has a timer! The music is discordant, and the sound design kind of mediocre generally. The art is okay, although it seems like platforms aren't quite the same length in art as they are in code. It's hard to tell with the wacky physics if it's that the hit box is off or just the controls.

[headdunk]

Fortress of Dr. Radiaki (1994) print ad and poster, Zoom Platform