I kind of feel back for Neutopia and Golden Axe Warrior. Here I went and stuck two perfectly decent games together in the same episode as a genuine masterpiece, making them look paltry and derivative by comparison. Well, I suppos...
2023-07-19 11:59:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Good day to you!! A very good day, in fact. Today, July 15th 2023, marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of both the Nintendo Famicom and the Sega SG-1000/SC-3000. But I've already covered both of those lineups in exhaustive detail, so instead....
2023-07-15 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Whew, I just landed in Japan after 16+ hours of traveling, and I'm too tired to even make jokes about flapping here with my arms. I also have run out of witticisms about this video! I'm afraid I'll have to let it speak for itself. Anyway, I'm off ...
2023-07-12 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Our journey through the ur-metroidvania's formative decade continues apace with two from Capcom in the form of Strider (not to be mistaken for the cool arcade game) and Willow (not to be mistaken for the cool arcade game). Yes, t...
2023-07-05 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Man, the combination of Japanese proxy bidding services and a favorable dollar/yen exchange rate is one of the few truly positive things we have going in the benighted modern world. It means I can browse around an auction site and spot something u...
2023-07-01 13:28:41 +0000 UTC View Post
A personal favorite arrives this week in Clash at Demonhead. Truth be told, this was one of a handful of games that prompted me to launch this series to begin with. Of course, I ended up not going into the depth I originally intended in t...
2023-06-28 11:36:32 +0000 UTC View Post
I, uh, ended up grabbing a LOT of official video game-related VHS tapes from recent auctions. A lot. Some of these have already been posted on YouTube, including this one, but I've ripped them quite cleanly and upscaled them via Framemeister, so t...
2023-06-26 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Ah, we've reached the deepest depths of the part where the Metroidvania Works timeline-in-progress overlaps with material previously covered on NES Works. Thank goodness these are both stellar games that are always fun to talk about and see in act...
2023-06-21 11:21:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Metroidvania Works continues apace. This week, a rare triple-trouble entry. It admittedly would have been more fun to have paired up the third game in this set—Exile for British microcomputers—with its upcoming counterpart—Exile...
2023-06-14 07:43:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Solid bonus episode this month. Since we've already seen a Lupin III game (way back in the early days of Game Boy Works), I don't need to go into detail on the background of this property as it makes its debut on Super Cassette Vision. In...
2023-06-11 09:09:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Whoa, a video that isn't about Sega Master System? In the Year of Our Lord 2023? Will wonders never cease....
Yes, fulfilling the mandate to take a Sega break and explore the opportunity to publish a book charting the Metroidvania W...
2023-06-07 11:49:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Another month, another upscaled video rip of a vintage Japanese video tape showcasing a classic arcade game. This time, it's Sega's Fantasy Zone. Like last month's Out Run video, this is not a pure longplay but rather a heavily e...
2023-06-01 21:36:45 +0000 UTC View Post![Segaiden 53: Great Baseball [JP] / Satellite 7 / Woody Pop / BMX Trial: Alex Kidd](https://img5.illustratefans.com/storage/10/lh/lo/102843-019e8a33-e88b-7947-a5ed-8a9ec567c63c.jpg)
Good news, friends: No age-gate this week. Although my old-man reflexes do make such a hash of my video footage of these alarmingly difficult games that it might be considered an act of violence worthy of censorship.
With this episode, I've ...
2023-05-31 11:56:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Apologies that this week's episode can't actually be viewed here on Patreon. One of the games here descends from a franchise comprised entirely of porn, and even though I placed little icons to obscure the pixel-art lady nipples so that n...
2023-05-24 11:47:33 +0000 UTC View Post
My boss was kind enough to give me a disused late-model VHS deck he had on hand to attempt another tape rip of the OutRun cassette. Sadly it doesn't support S-video, so this is strictly composite quality, but the color is much more accurate on thi...
2023-05-19 15:10:46 +0000 UTC View Post
A little extra somethin' this month. Recently, some Sega arcade longplay VHS tapes on Yahoo! Auctions caught my eye, and after doing a quick search through YouTube and the Internet Archive, I couldn't find any high-quality rips of the material. So...
2023-05-18 11:24:23 +0000 UTC View Post
You know what I really appreciate about the Sega Master System? Every time something dreadful appears to exist as the Opposite of Fun, you can count on some sort of leavening content to balance it out. In this case, Great Soccer and G...
2023-05-17 11:53:04 +0000 UTC View Post
This month's patron exclusive episode brings us Sept. 1984's Super Cassette Vision releases, a pair of highly derivative titles... which, you know, is about what you'd expect from Epoch. Originality: Highly overrated! Or not. I wouldn't call eithe...
2023-05-14 13:30:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe poll I posted last weekend was only supposed to be open for a few days, so... let's consider it closed. The results have been consistent all along, though: It's pretty much an even split between "more Sega" and "take a Sega break plz." Edging ...
2023-05-12 13:06:43 +0000 UTC View Post
We hit the big 5-0 this week with a breakout title for the Master System: Zillion, a proper, 1987-style exploratory action-platform-combat game that hints at—yes—the metroidvania genre to come in the years ahead. This is not, however,...
2023-05-10 11:56:24 +0000 UTC View PostWell, I've just about reached the end of Sega Master System's 1987 lineup. The question is, how should I proceed from here? The beginning of 1988 seems like a natural break in the Master System's history, with Tonka taking charge of U.S. distribut...
2023-05-06 18:36:40 +0000 UTC View Post![Segaiden #049: Kung Fu Kid & Great Golf [UPDATED]](https://img5.illustratefans.com/storage/9/vv/kd/102843-019e8a33-ea0b-71fc-beae-56d373788494.jpg)
Yet another strong Master System release this week—but not the lead title. Kung Fu Kid is fine, if a bit uneven and needlessly tedious upon replay. And I really like turning lobsters into missiles. It doesn't make any sense, but I like ...
2023-05-03 11:49:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Another big one this week, both in terms of impact and in terms of length. I even talk about the Master System game a little. But really, the topic of Out Run is far larger than can be contained in a discussion about an 8-bit conversion, ...
2023-04-26 11:18:31 +0000 UTC View Post
First of all, let me apologize if this episode seems a little disjointed. Its production bordered on "nightmarish." I wrote it while laboring under a bit of COVID brain fog; I recorded it with defective equipment that caused certain portions of th...
2023-04-19 11:16:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Exciting (?) news, everyone! Another episode of NES Works Gaiden Epoch has arrived as your (timed) exclusive bonus for the month. I suspect this will be the least interesting episode of this entire series, because it tackles three extremely standa...
2023-04-18 00:30:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Well! This is more like it.
Gangster Town may stack its odds unfairly against a single player, but maybe that's OK—it seems like the kind of game you'd want to share with a friend (in cooperative mode, you see?). Rather than...
2023-04-12 11:42:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Brace yourself, because we're about to experience a rare sight: A legitimately disappointing Master System conversion of an arcade hit. Why, such a thing hasn't been seen since the hoary days of My Hero! And yet, Enduro Racer dis...
2023-04-05 12:27:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello friends, I may be offline during my normal Wednesday video post time, so I'm uploading a bit early this week. I know Patreon has a "schedule" feature, but historically Patreon has done a pretty spotty job of informing patrons that a post has...
2023-03-29 00:50:55 +0000 UTC View Post
Sorry this week's post went up a little later than usual—I'm on the opposite coast of the U.S., working my way through Game Developers Conference obligations in an unfamiliar time zone. But there's always time for Segaiden, especially when it co...
2023-03-22 14:24:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Another pair of pleasant surprises today with Shooting Gallery, a game that reads like a weak Duck Hunt knockoff but has far more (1) history behind it and (2) substance than that; and Quartet, a game that defrauds playe...
2023-03-15 11:50:39 +0000 UTC View Post