Retro Live 2017 - issue 2

THE GAMER
DIARIES
1997 - 1998
The Nintendo 64 era was upon
us, yet James and I continued
to persevere with the Super Nintendo.
The internet was providing
us with a plethora of ROMs that
we could download and try on
the Super Wildcard. James and
I had enjoyed The Legend of the
Mystical Ninja, otherwise known
as Ganbare Goemon in Japan,
but we now had access to the
sequels. While the original title
was a 2.5D game, the sequels
varied in their approach. The second
and third games in the series
began as traditional platformers,
though the fourth title is similar to
the first. The sequels introduce a
giant mecha Goemon, making it
feel like it was inspired by the Super
Sentai / Power Rangers series.
They were a little confusing,
but quite fun.
I have already mentioned my interest
in anime, and thanks to
import reviews in the pages of
Super Play magazine I knew that
many anime based titles were
never released in the west. Now
that we had the magic of the dial
up modem, James and I could finally
play some of these classic,
and not so classic titles. One of
the ROM sites was heavily promoting
Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle. It
was the release for this particular
site. We decided to download it
and give it a try.
Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle is the second
fighting game on Super Famicom,
and while it is vastly superior
to the first, it is quite inferior
to the third. Graphically it looks
quite nice, but at the time I had
no idea who the characters were.
It would be several more years
before I discovered the animated
series. In the meantime we tried
to enjoy the game. It’s a typical
Street Fighter 2 clone, and it was
the first of many that we found.
The biggest problem was that you
have to push a button to jump.
As well as that, the game felt a
little sluggish, and after Street
Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting sluggish
clones were definitely not
acceptable.
Another anime that caught my
eye was Dragon Ball Z. I had already
heard of Dragon Ball, but I
couldn’t honestly tell you where.
The anime started in 1985 and
official and bootleg merchandise
had been released all over
the world, so it’s possible I stumbled
upon something dodgy that
had Goku’s face planted on it.
James and I tried the Super Butoden
series, and found them to
be somewhat of a mixed bag. Super
Butoden 1 looked nice, and
it elaborated on the standard 2D
fighter by allowing you to fly in the
air. If you backed right away from
your enemy the screen would
split and you would keep moving
backwards. This meant that
you could put a lot of distance
between yourself and your opponent,
allowing you to charge
energy or attack from afar. The
Ki blasts looked good, when we
managed to execute them, but
the gameplay felt very rigid.
The game engine for Super Butoden
2 felt looser, though the
game was similar to its predecessor
in every other way. I remember
the character select screen
having a bunch of blonde people
and a big green guy. The Super
Play review mentioned that he
was called Piccolo, so I tried him
out but found him too slow. We
played this one for a bit longer
than the previous title. The third
game in the series is pretty much
the same, but with different characters.
With the Super Butoden
games out of the way, we moved
on to Sailor Moon.
I had watched Sailor Moon on
Agro’s Cartoon Connection in
the years prior. I was aware of
the story, an the game followed
the first arc as closely as a Final
Fight clone could. The graphics
were nice and colourful, and
they reflected the source material
nicely. The game looked like
Sailor Moon, and for a semi fan
it was a joy to play. Each of the