Regular person by day, super video game player by night, Gonçalo lives in eager anticipation that the prophecy of a new F-Zero will soon be fulfilled. When not messing about making weird music he can be found with a Super Nintendo pad in hand, replaying a Japanese wrestling game no one has ever heard of.
Review Kaite Tsukutte Asoberu Dezaemon (SNES)
Super shmup construction kit
How would you like to make your own video game? The incredible Super Mario Maker was not the first time a company gave players the tools to produce their own interactive entertainment. In fact, such titles predate the online infrastructure which modern examples of the genre rely on for growth, idea exchange and level...
News Super Famicom Anime Classic Hyper Iria Now Playable In English
Another female bounty hunter
Dynamic Designs strikes again! This time with the help of Matt's Messy Room and right in the middle of E3 2016 chaos, its Banpresto's 1995 title Hyper Iria that is now fully translated to English. This Japan-only action platformer is licensed from Ashi Productions, using characters and settings from the six episode OVA...
News Japanese GBA Exclusive Magical Vacation Now Playable In English
Summer holiday
Brownie Brown might sound like a delicious cookie, but for fans of Secret of Mana it translates into something even more delicious. The company - currently operating under the name 1-UP Studio - was setup by Nintendo from hand-picked ex-Square employees, namely folks that had worked on both Game Boy and SNES Mana titles. The first...
Review Rendering Ranger: R2 (SNES)
Shoot or Die
Are you familiar with the name Manfred Trenz? How about a company called Rainbow Arts? Perhaps the name Turrican will be more relatable? It all depends on how far back you started playing video games, especially in Europe. All three names warranted attention for Commodore 64 and Amiga owners, since they were synonymous with arcade...
News You Can Now Play Super Famicom Exclusive Donald Duck & The Magical Hat In English
(Duck) tales of love, magic and part-time employment
Much like that one Amazing Spider-Man game that never made it to the West, Disney's very own Donald Duck found his way exclusively onto the Japanese Super Famicom with Donald Duck no Mahō no Bōshi - or simply put in plain ol' English, Donald Duck & The Magical Hat. Released in August...
Review Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (SNES)
Never Cling Alone
There are some video games that show up late in a console generation that push boundaries and defy preconceptions on what was considered possible. Resident Evil 4 immediately springs to mind, not only pushing the series to a point Capcom that hasn't been able to match since but also serving as a template to every other game in...
News Obscure Mario Bros. Famicom Disk System Game Gets Translated Into English
It's Kaettekita Mario Bros!
The Famicom Disk System (FDS for short) and its diskettes might have not set Japan ablaze as Nintendo had hoped they would but the system still managed to get a decent library of games, and was also responsible for the debut of both the Metroid and Zelda franchises. One unique title was Kaettekita Mario Bros.
News A Surprisingly Hardcore Snow White NES Game Magically Surfaces
...and they played Happily Ever After
It's OK if you don't recall the movie "Happily Ever After", Filmation's sequel to Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", because it was a terrible flop. We guess people didn't really care for the life of Snow White after the perfect ending of the original tale. There was of course a video game being...
Hell is the impossibility of reason… but it's very pretty
The Super Nintendo (even in Japan) was marketed as a family friendly system, something easily proven by taking a glance at its excellent game library. Despite that, you can find yourself a few horror gems targeted at a more mature audience that naturally never made it out of Japan. KSS...
Review Choujikuu Yousai Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie (SNES)
Now that Star Fox Zero has made transforming space fighters cool again (as if they could be anything but cool, we hear you cry) we take a break from the relentless war raging in the Lylat system and go back to the classic shmup formula on a console that is not all that well known for the genre. Produced by Winky Soft – a studio responsible for a...
Guide Advanced Tactics For Star Fox Guard
Plus info on all of the unlockable extra missions
So you've taken out a few bots and think you're a pro in Star Fox Guard? Perhaps you're ready for our advanced tips, which should hopefully give you the inside knowledge you need to take your game to the next level. We've also included info on the extra missions hidden away within the title. Enjoy!...
Guide Knowing Your Enemy In Star Fox Guard
Fighting foes and besting bosses
We don't know why or from where these bots are all coming from, but we will not let our guard down, no matter how many they send our way. This handy section of our Star Fox Guard guide will tell you how to handle each of the two types of bots. We've broken it down to their model name, HP rating, Speed rating, Threat...
Guide Getting Started With Star Fox Guard
Say hello to your weapons and bases
You might have heard there's a system-wide war going on. You wisely chose to stay at home, juggling remote cameras on distant worlds protecting President Grippy Toad's precious mineral deposits from the onslaught of robotic invaders. But if you think this job is easier than what those fly-boys strapped on their...
Review Shodai Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun (SNES)
16-bit barf
If you were to ask kids in the late '80s and early '90s for iconic NES video game characters, alongside the usual gang of Nintendo, Konami and Capcom regulars, you would often hear the name "Alex". No, not our own Alex "Lovely People" Olney - this Alex was none other than the western version of Kunio, the short-tempered high school...
Review Fire Emblem: Mystery Of The Emblem (SNES)
All Hail Prince Marth! (Yes, that Marth)
Ask any western gamer who Marth is and they will quickly reply something along the lines of "That cool sword-wielding guy from Super Smash Bros." - something that is understandable since the Fire Emblem series that began all the way back to 1990 on the Famicom only reached the West in 2003. But behind his...
Review Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2 (SNES)
Just Saiyan
Dragon Ball Z fever was very much a real thing in the '90s, but this blonde hair, Kamehameha-throwing insanity hit the UK and America much later than the rest of Europe. As such, it might still not be common knowledge that all four of Super Famicom's Dragon Ball Z one-on-one fighting games received PAL localization and distribution -...
Crows of Metal, Soldiers of Sorrow
War never changes. Unless someone replaces tanks with giant walking robots, then it looks much, much cooler yet is still quite tragic. That is exactly the point of Squaresoft's 1995 mech tactical RPG Front Mission. How does a man survive on the battlefield of the future? Canny strategy, pots of money and making...
News Super Famicom Satellaview Title Golf Daisuki! O.B. Club Translated To English
Birdie from Outer Space!
The Nintendo Satellaview was a visionary achievement - attaching a satellite modem to your Super Famicom and having scheduled game downloads was certainly something out of science fiction back in 1995. It achieved a moderate amount of success in Japan and has gathered a cult following among diehard Super Famicom...
The Legend of Alen
When you think HAL Laboratories, you immediately think Kirby. This is natural since it is by a long shot the most recognizable character ever to come out of the Chiyoda-based software house. Yet with over three decades producing video games, it goes without saying that HAL has a diverse back catalogue going all the way back to...
Review Gundam Wing: Endless Duel (SNES)
Bringing a Gundam to a fist fight
Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made quite an impact in the West, with the forty-nine episode anime series getting aired by Cartoon Network which would ensure it became one of the most recognizable entries in the iconic Japanese science fiction mecha series in our part of the planet. Predictably, video game adaptations...
Review Crystal Beans From Dungeon Explorer (SNES)
Do NOT shoot the food
Gauntlet remains a dear memory among many retro gamers. After all, Atari's revolutionary dungeon crawler was one of the best co-op arcade games ever produced and it certainly was no stranger to Nintendo owners with several conversions making their way to NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and GameCube. You will notice a strange...
News Hudson's SNES Action Platformer Kishin Douji Zenki: Battle Raiden! Gets Translated Into English
Get ready to battle
In a period when dubious anime-licensed video games flooded the Eastern markets (or "The Great '90s Import Gamers Nightmare" as we cool kids used to call it) it was often hard to distinguish between good and bad Japanese titles - especially when the cover art featured your favorite manga or anime character in a cool pose,...
Heaven and Hell
There are hundreds of amazing games for the Super Famicom that remain a mystery to Western gamers. Dark Half is one such game, published by Enix in 1996. It is a late generation Super Famicom title that at first glance seems to be your typical JRPG, with the player taking control of Falco, the Paladin (not to be confused with the...
News Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time Gets CD Quality Audio Hack
Cowabunga doesn't even begin to cover it
Prolific hacker DarkShock strikes again, increasing his already impressive list of similar enhancement hacks in the past, this time adding MSU-1 high quality PCM audio support for Konami's stellar SNES title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time. In place of the already quite impressive SPC music,...
