In the realm of video games, where digital conquests and high-score battles unfurl, few documentaries have plunged so compellingly into the heart of the joystick-clutching human spirit as The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007). Director Seth Gordon, like a maestro conducting an orchestra of arcade cabinets, orchestrates a symphony of competition, camaraderie, and controversy that rivals the most enthralling narratives of epic quests.

The King of Kong revolves around the entangled lives of two determined men: the unassuming underdog Steve Wiebe and the reigning Donkey Kong champion Billy Mitchell. The stage is the arcade realm, the arena - a bygone era's nostalgic caverns of digital escapades. The narrative twine of Wiebe and Mitchell weaves through twists and turns as intricate as a classic game's labyrinthine pathways.

Enter Steve Wiebe, a man whose affable demeanour and quiet resolve belie a steely determination. The film introduces him to the throes of life's challenges - a lost job, a dwindling sense of purpose, and a drive to prove his worth. Enter Donkey Kong, the pixelated challenge of a generation. In Wiebe's eyes, the game symbolizes a shot at redemption and reclamation of his dignity.

Gordon captures Wiebe's journey with an empathetic lens, painting him as the quintessential everyman, an avatar of hope for us all. His journey becomes our journey, his fervent button presses echoing our own aspirations for achievement. The camera captures the tension of each attempt, the sweat-drenched palms, the furrowed brows, and the exultant smiles that punctuate triumphant moments.

On the opposing side of the joystick stands Billy Mitchell, a figure shrouded in controversy and charisma. With a shock of dark hair and a sense of unwavering confidence, Mitchell embodies the essence of a self-made champion. However, there's more than meets the eye, and Gordon masterfully peels back layers to reveal a character as complex as any classic game's final boss.

Mitchell's charm and arrogance draw a thin line, one that invites the audience to ponder the thin boundary between greatness and hubris. It's an aspect that Gordon handles deftly, intertwining Mitchell's unwavering devotion to the arcade legacy with a tinge of scepticism about his methods and motivations.

The documentary excels in its ability to craft a tale that transcends the confines of its arcade cabinets. As Wiebe and Mitchell duel for the title of Donkey Kong champion, alliances are formed and rivalries fester. The enigmatic figure of Roy Shildt, a self-proclaimed villain of the gaming world, adds a layer of intrigue that rivals the most convoluted game plots. Shildt's inclusion serves as a testament to the rich tapestry of characters that populate this real-world saga, each more captivating than the last.

Gordon's narrative prowess is at its zenith as he guides us through the intricate chess match of high-score submissions, technicalities, and psychological warfare. The viewer becomes a part of this grand game, our emotions tethered to each pixel that scrolls across the screen. When Wiebe's efforts to dethrone Mitchell are met with bureaucratic resistance, it's an affront not just to him but to us all, a visceral reminder of the barriers that often obstruct the path to glory.

The King of Kong doesn't just chronicle a rivalry; it delves deep into themes that resonate beyond the realm of arcades. Ambition, camaraderie, sacrifice, and the eternal quest for validation are the warp and weft of this cinematic tapestry. Gordon stitches these themes into the very fabric of the film, ensuring that it resonates with both gamers and non-gamers alike.

At its core, the film speaks to the human need to excel and to be recognized for one's achievements. Whether it's Wiebe's relentless pursuit of a high score or Mitchell's desire to maintain his status as a legend, the drive to etch one's name into the annals of history is a universal trait. In this regard, The King of Kong is not just a film; it's a mirror reflecting our own desires for significance.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a remarkable cinematic achievement transcending its pixelated subject matter. Gordon's direction, coupled with the compelling characters and a narrative that unfurls with the precision of a well-played game, make this documentary a triumph in its own right. It's a testament to the power of storytelling to turn a seemingly niche topic into a universal parable of human ambition.

As the credits roll, one can't help but feel the weight of the journey undertaken by Wiebe and Mitchell. Through the digital haze of Donkey Kong's levels, through the maze of emotions and rivalries, emerges a tale that is as much about the pursuit of dreams as it is about the limits of human endurance.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a modern-day fable, a narrative gem that showcases the indomitable spirit of its characters while serving as an allegory for our own quests for greatness. In its pixelated heart, it encapsulates the essence of what it means to be human - to strive, to struggle, and to find meaning in the pursuit of the extraordinary ultimately. This film, like the games it portrays, will undoubtedly etch its name into the annals of cinematic lore.

I got some really nice feedback for my review of Segagaga, so I thought it would be somewhat cool to share some pics of the collector's edition.

I bought this in 2007 on eBay for about €150 at the time. I was going through a big importing games from Japan phase, and it's when I bought the vast majority of the Dreamcast games that I own, I even bought a second-hand Japanese Dreamcast.

Any questions about the edition, please ask.

In the ever-evolving tapestry of video game history, certain consoles emerge as true pioneers, leaving an indelible mark on the industry's landscape. One such groundbreaking device was the Nintendo Famicom, short for Family Computer, which debuted in Japan on July 15, 1983. Often heralded as the progenitor of the modern gaming console, the Famicom revolutionised home entertainment and set the stage for Nintendo's triumphant journey in the realm of interactive entertainment.

Nintendo, a company with a rich century-long history, rose to its prominent fame over the past three decades, largely thanks to an extraordinary 8-bit console that launched in Japan forty years ago. Born out of Nintendo's ambition to capitalise on its successful arcade business, it achieved unparalleled domination in the gaming industry. During its peak, the Famicom reigned supreme in the Japanese console market, gracing nearly every household with children, becoming a symbol of Nintendo's ubiquitous presence. Developers coveted the opportunity to create games for this console, willingly foregoing other formats. If a game didn't bear the Nintendo name on its casing, it simply didn't matter.

Initially called the "GameCom," the Famicom acquired its iconic name thanks to a suggestion from system designer Masayuki Uemura's wife. The console went through various ideas during its development, including the concept of a powerful home computer with a keyboard and disk drive. However, it ultimately took the form of the now-familiar red-and-white wonder. The colour scheme was reportedly chosen by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi after he saw a billboard advertisement featuring those same hues.

Despite aiming to create an affordable product for maximum profitability, Nintendo's designers were meticulous in selecting components. One of the system's two hard-wired controllers featured a microphone that could influence gameplay. Nintendo even manufactured the Famicom's cartridge connectors internally to maintain quality. The inclusion of a seemingly unnecessary "eject" button was attributed to Uemura's belief that children would find the mechanism enjoyable to use, even when not actively playing.

The addictive nature of the Famicom caught its designer by surprise, as most young players were more interested in the games than fiddling with the eject button. Despite an early setback that necessitated a complete recall (instigated by Yamauchi to safeguard the company's reputation), the console became Japan's top-selling gaming system by the end of 1984. With popular arcade conversions like Donkey Kong and Popeye, the Famicom created a sensation. However, it was Shigeru Miyamoto's release of Super Mario Bros. in 1985 that solidified the console's dominance. By the time of its release, the Famicom had already sold over 2.5 million units in Japan, a success that prompted Nintendo's expansion into the North American market, still reeling from the 1983 video game crash.

Ironically, Super Mario Bros. was initially seen as a swan song for the Famicom, as Nintendo was preparing to launch the Famicom Disk System. This peripheral, an add-on device, aimed to facilitate cheaper game production and allow players to reuse rewritable disks. Despite a strong push in development, including notable exclusives like The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Kid Icarus, the Famicom Disk System did not meet Nintendo's lofty expectations. Reliability issues plagued the peripheral, and as memory prices dropped, larger and cheaper cartridges rendered the benefits of the system obsolete. The standalone Famicom regained its prominence as Nintendo's primary focus, and the release of Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1988, arguably the console's most significant title, was only available on cartridge.

The Famicom's absolute dominance in the Japanese market led third-party developers like Square, Namco, Capcom, and Konami to willingly surrender their freedom to create games exclusively for Nintendo's hardware. These developers willingly agreed to stipulations preventing them from producing software for Nintendo's competitors. This move effectively stifled Sega's attempts to challenge the Famicom's reign with its SG-1000 and Mark III consoles. Nintendo's firm grip on the Japanese gaming industry led to dramatic profit increases for many third-party publishers, solely attributable to their presence on the Famicom. This solidified their loyalty and strengthened Nintendo's position.

While many publishers benefited from this situation, not all were content with Nintendo's immense power and control. Namco founder Masaya Nakamura publicly expressed his discontent, which led to a public dismissal from Yamauchi himself. Facing the potential loss of the substantial profits generated from their partnership with Nintendo, Nakamura and Namco reluctantly renewed their agreement. However, Namco later became one of the first publishers to support rival systems such as the PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive.

Following the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Western version of the Famicom, in North America in 1985, Nintendo's stature grew even further. The NES experienced the same level of success in the United States as its Japanese counterpart did at home. Developers once again found themselves locked into agreements preventing them from releasing games on other platforms. Nintendo of America even introduced the NES10 chip to combat the threat of unlicensed software, ensuring that quality games were the sole offering in the market.

By the time the 16-bit era arrived, the Famicom and NES had found their way into approximately 60 million households worldwide. This remarkable achievement, considering the industry's relatively small size at the time, cannot be understated. The Famicom birthed many of Nintendo's iconic franchises and established a third-party publishing model that still persists. However, the rise of download services like the iTunes App Store and Google Play suggests a shift in power, empowering developers rather than hardware manufacturers. Nevertheless, the Famicom, along with Nintendo, played an instrumental role in shaping the video game industry, propelling it to its current size and stature.

I started writing again...

For the first time in years, I feel that writing itch and now love the feel of stretching it. I've written a few video game reviews here, most of them are reviews that I started a few years ago and for one reason or another didn't finish, most of them just stopped after the first or second draft.

I've decided to somewhat retire from filmmaking (or at least semi-retire) and focus more on writing. I don't have any real ambitions for my writing, but I just want to write at the moment purely for the joy of actually writing.

So I do hope to blog more here about general things going on in my life. I also will be posting my video game reviews here.

I also like to write about movies and I will be posting my film reviews over on Letterboxd; for more film theory essays I will be posting here about that (feel free to subscribe too).

It feels good to be doing this again. I haven't felt like this since I was posting on 1UP.com, so nearly a fifteen-year hiatus.

This will be a short one...I promise you.

Over the past few years, I kind of stepped away from gaming. Not really games but more gaming culture. Just over two years ago I decided to try the Film 365 Challenge, which is where you watch one new movie per day. I kept doing it for just over two and a half years.

Now that I'm burnt out with movies, well at least watching movies at home. I want to get back into gaming communities and take part in the conversation. Blog more, review more games, and write more articles and essays about games and gaming culture.

So what I want to do in January is start by tackling my backlog and then kicking into Dead Space Remake at the end of January.

To say the Final Fantasy VII Remake was divisive would be underselling it quite a bit, I think. Even to this day, I feel like a lot of people are really unsure what to make of it. I don't see enough discussion around the meta-narrative and what it says about gaming.

Final Fantasy VII grapples with the game's identity and reason for existing in a way I honestly did not expect it to. Fans clamoured for a remake of this game for years, while they were simultaneously ready to pounce on any imperfection, real or perceived, to a potential remake. Square Enix had to grapple with characters who had been flanderized and whose fandom personalities bear little resemblance to the characters in the original story (Square Enix itself is also to blame for this, with how they handled the characters in the extended universe.) For example, in the canon of Final Fantasy VII, Tifa and Aerith seem to resemble the Madonna/Whore paradox (Women being either pure motherly beings or promiscuous sexual creatures). The problem is that their personalities have been swapped in the collective minds of fans. If you play the original games, Tifa in spite of her more "assertive" character design was the demure, almost shy character. At the same time, Aerith was the loud, boisterous woman who started flirting with Cloud the second they met to get what she needed out of him (protection from the Turks.). Aerith is the woman who plainly talks about her past boyfriends with her "hired" bodyguard, whom she is paying by dating. I firmly believe that the reason their character's personalities have seen such a flip in the fandom is due to their character design and Aerith's untimely death.

These characterisations are just one of many problems that SE had going into this remake. Is Cloud the tortured loner who wants to push everyone away and take the weight of the world himself, or the cold mercenary who doesn't give a fuck? Not really, and the original game makes it clear. For lack of better words for him, OG Cloud was goofy. He was a character who unironically used the word mosey, whose bluff of a cold, unfeeling character was obviously seen through by literally every character in the game (Look at those original Avalanche scenes.) and even he admits it's a front to a degree. He is in the midst of a mental breakdown, but that darkness doesn't consume him. He's not the character that you would expect just from cultural osmosis.

The plot was the next big issue. People wanted it to be expanded, but they also wanted the plot to be true to the original, which hamstrings the devs. Before the game was first released, when we saw scenes of Jesse's expanded story, there was a lot of harrumphing of "Why waste time on Jesse? we know she's gonna die early on." People wanted a full game out of Midgar, but they also know the important story beats of Midgar so any changes would be seen as padding to the runtime. It was, in some ways, truly an impossible game to make, and I can understand why they had so many issues deciding on how to tackle it.

In come the ghosts.

These ghosts are, in my opinion, an excellent distillation of the fandom. They show up any time the game threatens to go too out there or stray too far from the plot. "No Cloud, you do need to help with the second reactor mission. It is what you do. It is how the story goes." This culminates with them literally bringing Barret back to life. "No, Barret can't die now. That doesn't happen!". They kind of channel the aspect of obsessed fandom personified by Annie Wilkes in Misery, where things must be done the right way, the way they should be.

I can understand why this kind of meta-narrative wasn't necessarily popular with many members of the fandom, but I love it. I think FF7R works well as a behemoth company looking at a piece of media they do not have control over, that they cannot remake in a way that any large portion of their fandom would come to a consensus over, and instead of trying to thread that impossible needle, saying "We are going to show you why we aren't going to do what you want in the future. Do you want the full Midgar game? Fine, we will give it to you, but you're going to need to reexamine why and what you expected it to be.”

When it comes to media, I don't particularly care about adherence to "Canon". I find that it, at best leads to creatives having to execute someone else's vision rather than their own at best, and a study in mediocrity at worst (See the first two Harry Potter movies for the dangers of a near-line-by-line remake). The original book/movie/game is always going to be there; I want to see what a creative mind can do with the world and setting I love. I think this is why The Shining or Jurassic Park or Who Framed Roger Rabbit work so well. They don't force themselves to keep to the original story for the sake of "it's canon”.

When the remake was first announced, I told all of my friends that what I wanted more than anything was for Cloud to save Aerith from Sephiroth and die in her place. Take one of the most iconic moments of gaming, change it up, shake the game from the safety net of the original game and tell a new and exciting story. While they might not have done that (Yet!), I do think the changes made make for a much more exciting story coming rather than the same story I can play whenever I want. Square Enix has, through their meta-narrative, freed itself from the shackles of its fandom and expectations, and I'm super excited to see what comes next.

Anytime this quote is brought up nowadays, it’s either dismissed outright or treated as a joke, but does the quote have a place in the current gaming era?

It’s easy to look at the quote and say, “Well, a delayed game can still be bad, and a rushed game can be updated, so the quote means nothing.” But unfortunately, despite both of these being indisputable facts, games still get released in incomplete states, which leads to a bad reputation that often persists even if the game is updated to be good in the future.

I could go into all sorts of games such as No Man’s Sky, Sea of Thieves and even Fallout 76 to the extent that they were released in unfinished states, which led to them being panned at first but were eventually updated. While these games do have dedicated fan bases, who enjoy the games for their current state, to everyone else, the first thing that will come to mind is the horrid state they were released in. For most of these types of games, the size and passion of the fan base certainly do not outmatch the outsiders who view the games in a negative light. The only game I can think of that escaped the stigma of its launch disaster is Street Fighter V.

Perhaps the most egregious example of why this quote is still relevant comes from Nintendo itself.

I’m sure we’re all aware of Nintendo’s current practice of releasing games in barebones states and then progressively adding new content over time. I believe the first significant example of this was Kirby Star Allies, which disappointed most fans upon release but eventually got updated with many new characters that made the game feel more complete. Nintendo Switch Sports also seems to be going down this route, which has also been met with backlash from fans. However, two examples stick out above the rest.

The first is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Despite its massive success, many fans were not happy that many features present in previous games were absent from the game at launch, such as art, gyroids, diving, and the roost. While these features were eventually added to the game over time, fans were still not happy. Whenever a new feature was added, people were delighted to see the game feel more complete, but the most common response I saw to these updates was along the lines of “Why wasn’t this in the game at launch?” So despite the rushed game being “eventually good”, its initial barebones release still impacts people's opinion of it.

The second significant example is the most recent; Mario Strikers: Battle League. Once again, fans were not happy with the game being released despite being very light on content, with notable missing characters and stages. And once again, despite Daisy and a new stadium being announced just a few days ago, the most frequent response I see to the update is one complaining about them not being in the game at launch.

There are still consequences to rushing out games and updating them later, and while it’s too early to tell if they’ll be considered “bad forever”, Animal Crossing’s launch is still in the minds of fans two years later; so….

The people complaining about the drip-feeding of content are the minority of the player base. They don’t have a significant impact if they boycott incomplete games. Still, it’s the same minority that seems to believe the quote about delays has no place in the modern gaming paradigm.

To anyone complaining about Nintendo’s practice of rushing out games in bare-bones states, I must ask: would you rather these games get delayed by a year and a half (the time it took for New Horizons to get its last major update) to be released in complete states?

With video games, timing is everything. Whether it's a rhythm game, a fighting game, or even a visual novel, pressing the right button at the wrong time will mess things up. This fact applies to making and releasing games, too: Video game history is littered with almost-sure-fire hits that had solid ideas or mechanics at heart but failed to find the audience another later product managed to grab. Pit Fighter tried to harness the power of digitised sprites in 1990; Nintendo tried to offer stereoscopic 3D graphics in 1995, and the Sega Dreamcast tried to provide online console gaming in 1999. All came up short.

To this list, we must add Double Dragon 3, the 1990 follow-up to two massively popular video games from the 1980s. When it debuted in arcades thirty years ago this month, Double Dragon 3 found itself unmoored from time, existing as a throwback experience that wasn't up to speed with its peers, despite featuring a brand-new gameplay function that was legitimately predictive of video gaming’s future.

Let's take one step back to remember that when Double Dragon and Double Dragon II were new, they were more than just hit arcade games. Double Dragon came to define the "beat-em-up" genre by offering players a chance to team up with a friend and brutalise their way through screen after screen of urban thugs. There was a narrative reason why street gangs had targeted Billy and Jimmy Lee, the titular "double dragons," but to a kid who just put a quarter in the machine, that didn’t matter. What mattered was two-player simultaneous street justice.

Double Dragon and its 1988 sequel were ported to every platform conceivable, from home computers to consoles to LCD handheld systems. Double Dragon, as a concept, was omnipresent for a good two or three years. Double Dragon 3 arrived at the tail end of the phenomenon: A time when the beat-em-up remained popular, but the genre had evolved. By 1990, beat-em-ups had expanded to include up to four players on screen, each with a variety of character options. The most famous of these, Final Fight, included three distinct fighter archetypes. Double Dragon 3 does support up to three players at the same time, thanks to the debut of Sonny—a third Lee brother?—but the only distinction between the three is their garment hues.

However, Double Dragon 3 isn’t limited to the activities of the ever-expanding Lee family, nor is it a simple rehash of the first two games' structure of "walk right, ascend, descend, enter the temple, kill machine-gun toting gang leader." No, Double Dragon 3 takes the form of a globe-hopping adventure wherein the Lee triplets are recruited by a mysterious elderly fortune teller named Hiruko to recover "three rosetta stones" and bring them to Egypt to face "the world's strongest enemy.”

Although the first stage, set in America, resembles the earlier Double Dragon titles, each subsequent stage takes place in a different country and features increasingly fantastic opponents. Stage 2 takes the brothers Lee to China, where the boss appears to be a very tall Bruce Lee; Stage 3 hops the border to Japan, where the trio faces a giant ninja; and Stage 4 consists of a brawl through Italy, where foes are eight feet tall and look like they stepped right off the set of Spartacus.

As players travel the world, a storefront in each stage allows them to purchase upgrades, ranging from life refills and weapons to the all-important "extra guys" who step in if Billy/Jimmy/Sonny is defeated. These extra guys come in three flavours: Shirtless bodybuilders in America, kung fu warriors in China, and karate masters in Japan. The major catch to these shops is that they only accept real-world money. Whether you're looking to learn a new move or pick up a pair of nunchucks, everything costs one credit each.

Is it fair to claim Double Dragon 3 effectively invented micro-transactions in 1990? The arcade business model is built on coaxing customers to jam more coins into the machine, and plenty of games before and since 1990 have allowed players to "INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE." What made Double Dragon 3 unique at the time was giving players a virtual storefront with purchasing options based on pocket change rather than simply relying on the need to continue to prompt a buy-in. When I was a kid, I wasn't taken aback by the system; I was more bothered by the fact that not all purchases were equal in value, yet their pricing was universal. Paying 25 cents for another life makes sense; paying 25 cents for a temporary power boost does not.

Even though we now live in a world where every video game—be it a free app on a smartphone or a $60 AAA-open world experience on a home console—straight-up offers players a means to pay actual money for virtual items, this credit-based item shop in Double Dragon 3 remains the game's most controversial feature. It was so poorly received that the feature was removed entirely when the game was released in Japan. Instead of buying extra men, Japanese players can select their fighter at the start of the game or when they pay to continue. Weapons are again scattered on the ground in-game, as seen in Double Dragon or Double Dragon II, and extra moves formerly sold in shops were changed to unlocked by default.

Yet if we as a society must choose to bury Double Dragon 3, it should not be for its forward-thinking financial options. Rather, excoriate it for janky, choppy animation that was a letdown at the time, never mind 30 years later. The characters move in such a disjointed fashion that it looks to modern eyes like a YouTube video failing to buffer properly or a Twitch stream struggling to keep up with a fast-moving game. But no, Double Dragon 3 looks that way, and it always did.

Double Dragon 3 arrived in arcades almost two years after Double Dragon II was released, yet it feels rushed and disjointed at every turn. The fantasy and international elements are not unwelcome changes, but there's no connective tissue to tie it all together, making it seem random... and that's before you make your way to a hidden underground Egyptian forest populated by walking treefolk who guards a living mummy that transforms into Cleopatra's ghost.

Even the titular "Rosetta Stones" in Double Dragon 3 are a disappointment because at no point does the player use them or even get to see them. MacGuffins in video games are nothing new, but these are invisible items that move the plot forward for no reason. Instead, after each boss falls, Hiruko walks on the screen to proclaim victory and announce the next destination. No one picks anything up or hands anything over. Could it have been so hard to include a small glowing pebble on the screen to indicate a stone was found? In November 1990, I was but a child and a terrible writer, but even I could have come up with a better in-game reason for three Double Dragons to journey around the planet.

I fear I'm coming down too hard on Double Dragon 3 in this column because, in reality, 14-year-old me loved this game. I didn't care about animation frames or that the story didn’t make sense; I cared that it was full of weird characters that I could run and tackle and jump upon until they collapsed and died. Pumping in a dollar or two and beating the game over my lunch break was a regular habit in high school before fighting games took over my world.

If I sound bitter about Double Dragon 3 today, it's with the knowledge that this third game was farmed out to a subcontractor and was effectively the end of the series. Giant Bomb can give you a complete list of subsequent Double Dragon games, including entries released 25 years apart as Double Dragon V and Double Dragon IV (yes, in that order). But, after 3, that was it. Even with the recent resurgence of indie-fueled beat-em-ups and "spiritual successors," no one is clamouring for more Double Dragon.

I don't think we as a society talk enough about Mega Man. Before Monster Hunter, before Resident Evil, and before Street Fighter II, Mega Man was a star on Nintendo’s Famicom (and the NES soon after that). Capcom made a lot of wonderful games for Nintendo's 8-bit console, but none have had the staying power of Mega Man. And this week's topic is a big reason why: Mega Man 3.

The blue bomber's third game in the space of four years cemented the franchise as a pillar for Capcom in the home market. When it debuted in December of 1987, the original Mega Man (née Rockman) was one of the first original games made by Capcom for Famicom; their previous home games had been adaptations of or sequels to arcade releases, many of which were converted to the console by external contractors and often ended up on home computer platforms as well. On the other hand, Mega Man was made by an internal Capcom team led by Akira Kitamura specifically for the Famicom. While it wasn't an immediate hit, the team wanted to develop a sequel so badly that they agreed to make one in-between other assignments.

Mega Man 2 was thus a genuine passion project, finished within a year of the first game and released in Japan in December 1988. It had its share of reused assets, but at the time, it was undeniably larger and bolder than the first game. More importantly, it was the hit Capcom had been looking for: A million-seller that saw high-profile success on both sides of the Pacific. Another sequel was inevitable, and sure enough, in 1990, Mega Man 3 was released to wide acclaim... but not without a few bumps in the road.

To untrained-yet-eager Mega Man fans' eyes, the first three games were a purely heroic ascension from 1 to 2 to 3: Each game adds to its predecessor and increases in size and complexity. But even the quickest glance reveals a much more significant gap from 1 to 2 than in 2 to 3. The original Mega Man has just six bosses (fought in any order, a then-revolutionary mechanic) whose powers can then be used against the remaining robot masters (though it was years later when I actually discovered that), plus one extra tool that must be retrieved separately. Mega Man 2 has eight bosses with three different tools, which are automatically received as players progress. Mega Man 3 has the same, although those three additional tools are now combined into a single robot dog named Rush. The idea of giving Mega Man a cyber canine companion was Akira Kitamura's suggestion; in a 2011 interview translated by Shmuplations.com, he says the numbered items in Mega Man 2 were always “provisional", and he had intended to name them.

Why was Kitamura making "suggestions" for Mega Man 3 instead of implementing them himself? Because he left Capcom, the third entry’s development fell to planner Masahiko Kurokawa (credited under the pseudonym Patariro). Kurokawa had not worked on the previous Mega Man games. Still, he had several years at Capcom under his belt, contributing to other Famicom and NES games like Commando and Strider. Unfortunately, Kurokawa left Mega Man 3 before it was complete, although not in a cruel way; he was ultimately credited in the game’s final release and would continue at Capcom for years—including roles on subsequent Mega Man games and the original Resident Evil.

With these significant staff shake-ups and behind-the-scenes tensions, it is a minor miracle that Mega Man 3 turned out as well as it did. Then again, it has a lot going for it. The game's soundtrack is another winner, despite being the series' third straight game with a new composer handling the music (in this case, Harumi Fujita started scoring the game but had to drop out for maternity leave, so Yasuaki Fujita—no relation—finished the project). Mega Man 3 gave its protagonist a new ability, the power to slide, which gives the game a faster feel. He also acquired a new rival in Proto Man (née Blues), who wears both sunglasses and a scarf, because one accessory is not cool enough.

With Proto Man, Mega Man 3 also contains much more lore than the previous two games, for better or worse. Before 3, Mega Man games did not have a lot of explicit story content: The original game ends with a text crawl about Mega Man winning the battle, and Mega Man 2 opens with a text crawl (over mostly the same music) about who Mega Man even is and why he's fighting. As a kid at the time, that was enough for me to speculate as to why Mega Man looked like a kid sometimes but also had the power to destroy other robots. But 3 kicks it up a notch, with in-game scenes of Dr. "Right" panicking and doling out exposition to Mega man and the player, and the end credits naming Proto Man as Mega Man's "brother." Interestingly, Roll is not called Mega Man's "sister" here even though she's listed right after him in the credits; she is merely a "housekeeping robot."

Regardless of its tumultuous development, Mega Man 3 was well-received and sold more than a million copies, making Mega Man a bankable console star. Capcom would end up making a hexology of Mega Man games for NES, and the series would continue into future console generations. Most recently, Mega Man 11 was released for current-generation consoles and PC in 2018. As for Mega Man 3, it (along with 1 and 2) was amongst the few 8-bit games to be remade for 16-bit consoles with Mega Man: The Wily Wars on Sega’s Mega Drive/Genesis and Game Gear. Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 were then remade again (along with 4-6) for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Mega Man 3 would later be re-released many times over in various Capcom-made collections as well as Nintendo's Virtual Console for Wii, 3DS, and Wii U. Though Mega Man 3 is absent from the Nintendo Switch Online service, modern console owners can play all the classic Mega Man titles via the Mega Man Legacy Collection.

With 30 years of hindsight, I still feel like Mega Man 2 is the apex of his 8-bit adventures—Mega Man 3 is a good sequel. Still, it's also rather padded-out, with four extra stages that force players to defeat all eight bosses from the previous game before finally laying siege to Dr Wily's fortress. Once there, by the way, two of the Dr Wily boss battles are remakes of Mega Man 1 foes, which never sat right with me after the amount of innovation shown in Mega Man 2. Still, every few years, I make a point to go back and play the 8-bit Mega Man games, and Mega Man 3 certainly holds up against most games of the era… it just doesn't quite top its direct predecessor.

I don't know if coincidences are real or if everything we encounter is a deliberate arrangement of events for the benefit of an unseen force. Still, one funny thing I thought of recently is how closely the rise of video games matched the fall of westerns. Cowboys were a staple of film and television in popular culture for decades, lasting well into the 1980s. Still, just as video games grew in popularity, the romanticised image of the Old West held less appeal.

I use the adjective "funny" because cowboys and their clichés are perfect fodder for video games. They always carry guns, wear giant hats (no need to animate hair), spend much time in flat, empty spaces, and solve most problems with violence. If the desert was as black as outer space, Space Invaders might very well have been Cowboys vs Aliens. And what is Moon Patrol but a lunar wagon jaunt with laser guns?

Furthermore, despite the "wild west" is a specific set of tropes based on a vision of America's past, all those movies and hours of television we created spread across the Earth to other nations, making the cowboy a global ambassador for our culture. Some of the greatest westerns were made in other countries by actors and filmmakers who spoke little to no English—and that's not even including all the stories derived from westerns but recast in local historical settings. Akira Kurosawa did not hide his love of American films. When he wasn't adapting Shakespeare or Russian memoirs, his samurai behaved like cowboys with swords instead of six-shooters (though at least one film had both). Kurosawa's work, of course, inspired American filmmakers like George Lucas, who has left an impression on pop culture that can never truly be measured.

I'm laying all this out here because I hope you, dear reader, might comprehend how surprised I was to see Sunset Riders in arcades 30 years ago. Beat-em-ups were everywhere, and shoot-em-ups were just as well-known, but here was a game with all the personality of the former armed with the firepower of the latter. Sunset Riders is bright, loud, colourful, and eye-grabbing in ways that westerns were not to kids my age. That's because the wizards at Konami embraced their idea of how the West was fun in ways no movie or tv show ever did.

While arcade cabinets varied in size and equipment, under ideal conditions, Sunset Riders is a four-player game where a quartet of cowpokes blast their way through hundreds of varmints en route to toppling a criminal organisation, making themselves a pretty penny in the process. The four bounty hunters are all men, but all look very different, with distinct outfits in loud colours. In that sense, they have a lot less in common than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did when they cleaned up the crime-ridden streets of New York wearing nothing but bandanas and their shells.

From a gameplay standpoint, however, the characters fit neatly into two squads: Team Handgun and Team Shotgun. Steve and Billy wield smaller weapons, while Bob and Cormano start with heavier hardware. All players can gain dual-gun and rapid-fire upgrades, so if everyone plays well, there'll soon be four men filling the screen with righteous pink bullets. There are no health bars or armour in Sunset Riders, so taking any damage costs one life and forfeits all power-ups at once. At least there's no need to count your shots, as every gun in the game includes unlimited ammo.

Sunset Riders is a side-scrolling game that urges players to keep moving forward no matter the odds. Action is limited to a single 2D plane, but many levels have bannisters, bridges, or fences that can be scaled in a single vertical leap (think Shinobi or Rolling Thunder). There are also auto-scrolling chase scenes where all the cowboys ride on horses, and bonus stages offer a first-person shooting gallery for extra cash/bragging rights.

While purely a cooperative game (there is no friendly fire, making it in everyone's best interest to Always Be Capshootin'), Sunset Riders does include small, subtle incentives to create the players to compete with one another. The aforementioned bonus stages are one such example, as the hit counts are tracked per individual, with rewards doled out proportionately to the players who shoot the most pop-up bad guys. Boss battles are even more cutthroat, as the game displays how much damage each player dealt with the enemy, and only the top hunter receives the bounty.

If Sunset Riders carry any baggage, it is due to its unfortunate perpetuation of stereotypes from the western genre. All four heroes and most of the heavies are men, with women relegated to background damsels waiting to reward players for their deeds. One stage takes place entirely in a...brothel? Cabaret, maybe? Once the two bomb-throwing baddies inside are slain, ladies strut onto the stage and dance for the boys, much to their hootin' delight.

Native Americans fare worse, as an entire level takes place in their territory, leading to an army of "braves" charging at the heroes to be gunned down. Two of the games' bosses are also Natives, named Dark Horse and Chief Scalpem, and their dialogue is delivered in clichéd broken English. At least the latter is spared execution thanks to his sister running on-screen at the end of the fight to beg for his life. The heroes always agree by saying, "Alright, we won't shoot ‘em", even though they had just finished shooting him many times. With bullets.

Sunset Riders was an arcade smash, and being a 1991 release, it came home to 16-bit consoles at just the right time. While both the Super Nintendo and Genesis versions strongly resemble the original game, each port has its ups and downs. None of the home editions supports four players, limiting the action to two at the maximum. The Super Nintendo cartridge is the most faithful overall. Still, thanks to Nintendo of America's aggressive content standards, all the women in the game are redrawn to sport more conservative outfits. Also, all the cannon-fodder indigenous enemies are removed, and the Chief is renamed “Wigwam."

Much of the original arcade content is cut to fit onto Sega's console, leaving the game with fewer stages and bosses. Two of the heroes are also removed, leaving only Billy and Cormano. The horseback stages are cut, but those assets are repurposed into new bonus stages where players catch items tossed from the back of a wagon. The game generally features more collectables, as enemies (and slain heroes) drop lots of coins and other pickups. Somehow, despite cutting so much from the arcade original, the Native American enemies are still present, and the Chief is still called “Scalpem."

The good news is that no one has to settle for an expurgated cowboy experience today, as Sunset Riders is available for modern consoles via Hamster's Arcade Archives series. This version supports a four-player simultaneous coop and includes unlimited credits, so even an arcade novice can grind their way to the end. I don't think Sunset Riders occupies people's memories like other games of its era (Konami's TMNT, The Simpsons, and next year's X-Men all seem to foster more nostalgia). Still, considering how little we thought about westerns in 1991, it's fantastic fun for four friends. Yee-haw!