Game 35: Akazukin Chacha

 

Remember how I was complaining about how the format of the blog makes it hard to write enough stuff to get past the image? Remember how I own this blog, and can do whatever I like, despite acting as if this format is somehow set in stone?

Anyway, the images are centered at the top now, suck it past me.

Right, so Akazukin Chacha. What is there to say about Akazukin Chacha that hasn't already been said? Considering that I can't find any-frickin-thing about this game in English, apparently a lot.

Game 34: Airforce Delta

 It's Konami! That's what I thought when I started this game. I like Konami games! Classics like Kid Dracula, City Bomber, and Whoo Yarth Taar, the gambling game explicitly for kids. Yes, Konami is a classic of gaming, and I'm sure they'll always be remembered as such.

These intros get harder every time, I'm not gonna lie. I really like to ensure that I get beneath the picture with the text, so I have to type quite a bit of introductory stuff. But y'know what?

This is a game where you fly a plane and shoot stuff.

And it's fine! I have some criticisms but I enjoyed my time with it somewhat. It's definitely not as interesting as "Australian puppet what looks like Jim Henson threw up during a bender."

I'm gonna be riding high on that one for a while.

Game 33: Agro Soar

 

Well, we're back in familiar territory here. I'm not talking about "skateboard games starring Australian puppets" or "licensed games that had 4 names depending on which region they were released in," despite how familiar those are. No, I simply mean "extremely bad games." Really, if there's anything I've learned about the Game Boy library over the years, it's that getting two good games in a row was more than just coincidence; it was a god damned miracle.

Luckily, there's at least some interesting things to talk about in this game that I didn't manage to get past level 1 in. I'm talking intrigue, I'm talking vegemite, I'm talking...

Is the text below the image now? Great, I can insert the Read More link.

Game 32: After Burst

 

Folks, we're on a roll. Two good games in a row? That's absolutely unheard of around these parts! 

By the way, on the matter of screenshots, please forgive me as I continue fussing with my format. The screenshot on the left has black bars on top and bottom - that's because I'm playing it on a 240x240 screen that can only take full screenshots. Since the Gameboy resolution is not quite square...we get black bars. Unfortunately, I also captured some of these stretched, so there aren't always black bars. My bad.

By the way, do you wanna see the device I'm talking about? It's the little one in this picture. It's called the FunKey S and it's an extremely stupid, yet amazing, thing that I bought about 3 months ago but only received 3 days ago. Due to it's microscopic size I would guess that it's totally unusable for about 60% of the population, but I (and my tiny hands) love the damn thing. It's just so cute!!!

Anyway, the screenshots aren't perfect but I can't resist playing these tiny games on this tiny screen. It feels very fitting.

After Burst is not exactly a tiny game, but it does rule. It's an odd thing to try and describe accurately. Half puzzle game, half artillery game, half platformer, half action game? That seems about right, yeah.

Game 31: Aero Star

 

You might have noticed that the screenshots look a little bit different than before. Instead of perfect, sharp pixels...they're a little fuzzy. This is because I am increasingly lazy as I age.

Formerly, I would capture the screenshots at their native resolution: 160x144. This is the resolution of the game boy, and is just a bit too small for a modern device. Think "postage stamp on a mattress" and you'll get the idea.

Then, I would take all of these screenshots and apply an IrfanView macro to them that tripled their size but kept them pixel perfect. These 480x432 pictures were perfect for the blog theme I'm using, which is honestly outdated and quite narrow. But they worked.

Now, the first thing is still true - I capture them at native resolution. But now I don't give a shit and just upload them straight to Blogger, and set the size to "Medium". This resizes them using the browser, which does not maintain pixel perfect resolution. Instead, they get antialiased a little bit, because that's how most people would prefer to see pictures. But you know what? I could resize these pictures and post once every 3 years, or I can just upload them right to Blogger and post more regularly. 

I choose the latter. They say that "perfect" is the enemy of "good", but "good" is also the enemy of "just doing the god-damned thing" and I'm shooting for that.

Anyway, Aero Star absolutely rules. It's hard as hell, but it just freakin rocks. 

Aero Star is a shmup of sorts - you have a little ship/car thing, and you shoot bullets towards the top of the screen to blow up bad guys of some description. Neat! Not special.

Game 30: The Adventures of the Smurfs

Did you know that as people age, they shrink? That's why my theory about Smurfs is that they're all extremely old people who read some dubious things about silver curing their illnesses. Hence their inability or unwillingness to remember words, replacing them with "smurf," the fact that they are all genderless (we all know gender dies with age) except for Smurfette (who is literally a construct and not a real Smurf), their terribly-out-of-date fashion, and their endless capacity for unfunny jokes. 

This is not a dig on Smurfs or old people - all of the above is good! I just think it's true.

What, you thought I was going to address a 5 year absence in the opening paragraph? Of course not, you know me.

Well, you probably don't know me all that well if you haven't heard from me at all in 5 years, but hey, that's on me. Suffice to say that I now live in the frigid north of the US, my politics are extremely radical (and tubular), and video games turned me gay. Sort of.

This is not the game that turned me gay though, nor is it my favorite Smurfs game on the Game Boy Color, nor is it much of anything at all! It is, in fact, a collection of minigames tied together by (horror of horrors) a top-down platformer.

Game 29: The Adventures of Star Saver

I'm sick of adventures. Can't I just stay home with a nice cup of tea, a terrible show on the television, and a snuggy? Apparently not. As far as I can tell, there are an infinite amount of games starting with "Adventure." It's endless.

Anyway, here are the Adventures of Star Saver, one of the least fun games I've ever played for this damned project. It's just so...ugh.

But we'll get to that, I suppose.

The Adventures of Star Saver was published (and developed?) in 1992 by Taito, known for such arcade hits as Space Invaders and Violence Fight. A company called "A Wave" was also involved, which is nearly impossible to google thanks to there being many articles with sentences like "a wave of destruction" or "a wave of delicious burning molasses." I guess they made a wrestling game called Astral Bout for the Super Famicom and I'm not sure I could care any less.