An all Sega Game Gear game has just landed on the handheld known as Swabby. This is a game by homebrew developer Hang-On that is available for download via SMS Power, which features a well-known character from the Sega Master System era. Swabby is the one and only creature based on the hidden Snail Maze game that was built into many Sega Master Systems back in Sega’s glory days.
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NG:DEV.TEAM are back with yet another update on their upcoming Neo Geo homebrew release Kraut Buster, a classic run & gun style arcade game drawing plenty of inspiration from the Metal Slug series. Accompanying an all new action packed trailer is the all important release date for those eager to add another AES cartridge to their collection.
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Shopping for video games in Japan can be a wonderful and exciting experience, but the language barrier and incredibly wide selection can make it overwhelming, intimidating or even frustrating for some. If you have you heart set on something, it can be difficult to know where to even start. With this in mind it’s time to put your minds at ease and provide the ultimate guide to finding the bargains and retro gaming gems in Japan.
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For anyone reading games magazines in the 80’s and 90’s Steve Jarratt is well known name. Starting his career working on Zzap 64 he soon went on to be launch editor of many much loved magazines such as Commodore Format, Total!, Edge and many more including Official Playstation Magazine.
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Another day, another incredible ‘lost’ Sega Dreamcast game turns up. This time, it’s the sequel to Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future. Long thought to be only available to those collectors lucky enough to own a Dreamcast development kit, the unreleased Ecco II: Sentinels of the Universe has been released to the internet at large by Hidden Palace as a self-booting CDI.
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As part of an April Fools hoax last year, Hyperkin taunted retro gamers with a mockup of hardware that would allow the use of Game Boy cartridges on smartphones. Although anything but their intention, Hyperkin were left wondering how to deal with the flood of genuine interest in such a device. As a result the Smart Boy was quickly pushed into production to satisfy the unfooled gamers wanting more, with the first units in action demoed at this year’s E3.
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Drop those irons! Or something like that. Cult classic Natsume SNES game Wild Guns is getting a much-needed second chance, as an expanded rerelease on Playstation 4 titled Wild Guns Reloaded.
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Summer is nearly here, which means only one thing for the retro gaming fanatics – it’s time to set your 5am Sunday alarm and go hunting for car boot sale bargains! Excitement aside, are carboots really the gold mine they once were with the value of vintage gaming goods just a click away for your average seller?
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Enix published some terrific hits for the Super Nintendo. ActRaiser, Terranigma, E.V.O…..wait what? What’s E.V.O you say? I’m not talking about the fighting game tournament. I’m talking about E.V.O.: Search for Eden, a hidden Super Nintendo action-RPG about the evolution of life. You are guided by Gaia, the daughter of the Sun and the Earth, to survive and evolve throughout the development of the Earth, while preserving the natural course of life evolution from creatures who wish to take advantage of the powers that come from evolving. Modern games tend to brag on how many years the game spans (remember BioWare bragging about Dragon Age II spanning 10 years?), well E.V.O. spans roughly 4.6 billion years. To say that’s a long time would be a severe understatement. But in actuality, the game isn’t that long.
{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxNLyezO1qA}
The gameplay itself actually spans across five chapters, with each chapter taking place during a specific time period. The Cambrian Period, the Ordovician Period, the Carboniferous Period, the Neogene Period, and the Quaternary Period. In simple terms, you start the game as a fish, then you evolve into a reptile, then a dinosaur, and then you are ready to evolve into a mammal near the end of the game. Evolution in the game is where the role playing mechanics come in. You evolve by killing other creatures. Some creatures are weak and docile, while some creatures are out to kill you. And then there are “boss” creatures who will really test your abilities. The more creatures you kill, the more evolution points you accumulate. You use these evolution points to enhance each of your body parts, leading towards a complete evolution of the creature you are playing. The creatures you can evolve into depend on the chapter you are playing. In other words, you can’t play through the entire game as one strong creature. You will have to evolve into multiple strong creatures to make it to the end of the game. If that sounds too daunting, don’t worry. If you die in the game, then you’ll only have to start the current area you’re in over again at the cost of half of your current evolution points. And you can save your progress on the games world map at any time, so you won’t have to worry about losing so much progress over a single game over. And you can replay previously completed areas (only on the current chapter you’re on), so there’s even some sandbox elements to this game, to help you accumulate evolution points if you ever get stuck.
{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhufVJKGon0}
This game could teach you about the evolution of life in its earliest stages, but this is the furthest thing from a traditional educational game. Although it isn’t an educational game, it is strongly encouraged that you pay attention to all the hints given to you, and to not just skim through them. If you just play through the game without fully understanding the evolution mechanics, and how to survive the current environments, then this game will be very challenging to you right when you confront the first boss. If you do adhere to all the advice given to you, and you use that advice wisely, then the game will be moderately difficult instead of destroy-your-controller difficult. The level design itself, save for a few areas, is pretty generic and straight forward. Sure everything looks nice and pretty, but you won’t have to thoroughly go through most of the areas just to advance the game, or find any special items. The soundtrack for this game is composed by Koichi Sugiyama, famous for his work on the Dragon Quest franchise. Some of his compositions were originally made for the spiritual predecessor of the game 46 Okunen Monogatari: The Shinka Ron, released on the PC-Engine by the same company that developed E.V.O. Those tracks were arranged by Motoaki Takenouchi, who once studied under Sugiyama himself. The music does an okay job capturing the moods of each environment, and the mysteries behind your journey through life. Not to say that every single track in the game is ambient. There are times in the game where you’ll hear more quirky than haunting tracks to guide you on your journey.
{youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXVqMe97hxc}
This game was only released in Japan, and North America. Sorry rest of the world. But if you’re in a country that doesn’t sell this game, and you’re the type that would import games, I would recommend looking this one up. The challenge is (at least) moderate, and thanks to the evolution mechanic, there’s enough customization options to add replay value to the game. The graphics are simple, but not ugly. The soundtrack is nice. Decent, but not terrible. Does a fine job conveying the mood of the game. All in all, E.V.O.: Search for Eden is a fine, yet hidden gem in the Super Nintendo library, with gameplay that would be deemed “ahead of its time” back in the day.
PS: If you’ve ever played I Wanna Be The Guy, then you might recognize one of the tracks in the soundtrack.
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The Nintendo NES is perhaps one of the most influential consoles to date, and there’s just no way to deny that. Many classic and acclaimed franchises were born from this 8-bit juggernaut, and the video game industry saw a huge rise in blockbuster releases following Nintendo’s Seal of Quality. Because of this and many other reasons, the console is a strong favourite among retro gamers today and many fan projects have since surged in tribute to it. Retro book publishers Bitmap Books return once more to take us through a Kickstarter campaign to fund an art compendium book of the Nintendo NES/Famicom.
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