I promise to keep this blog about video games, but I think I should touch on my other main passion in life, sports. I wanted to talk about this in order to explain why I don’t always have time for gaming and blogging. Afterwords you might be wondering how I have time for anything else in my life, especially gaming. You might understand a little more if I preface this by telling you I don’t watch any TV shows or Movies that are not related to sports. I used to as a kid, but as time went on I felt shows and movies were declining in quality at the same time as my interest in sports was rising. I will watch documentaries (sports, history, culture) from time to time as a means to learn more then entertain. I enjoy watching just about all sports, with the exemption of racing of any kind. This hasn’t always been the case, and my favorite sport has changed along with the times. Thankfully the world of sports has always been, and will, be an integral part of the gaming world. As my taste in sports has changed, so to has my video gaming habits. I figured it would be easiest to give a brief history to show how I got to where I am now.

I’ve already touched on how most of my earliest memories have to do with video games. Well sports take up the other parts of my early memories. I’ve been told I’ve been watching sports with my dad since before my memories even exist, going back to before I was even one years old. I was born in Colorado, but my parents were from Michigan and my dad graduated from Michigan State University. I have been watching MSU football and basketball as long as I can remember. Nearly 29 years later I make it a point to watch as many MSU games with my dad as possible. Another thing I inherited was a love for Detroit teams in all sports, something that was made easier when we moved back to Michigan when I was two. This is the foundation of my love of sports, and I will always be the biggest fan of the teams I inherited from my father. This type of fandom inheritance is truly what makes sports special. Even had I stayed and grew up in Colorado, I’m sure there would always have been a soft spot in my heart for my father’s teams. Something that I would’ve past down as well.

As I got older my dad became busier with work and had to limit himself to watching Football and MSU basketball. This lead me to venture into the unknown by myself in learning all of the other sports. As I became a kid there was three ways to teach me all of these wonderful sports. The first, of course, was watching them on TV. Announcers try to do a good job of explaining the rules of the game during every telecast. Just by watching the athletes and listening to the announcers I had a good base of knowledge for the four main sports shown in America at the time; Football, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey. The second way of learning was to actually go out and play the sport, ether with friends at the park or in an organized league with the help of your parents. I had played a little of everything ether at school recess and gym or at the park across the street from where I grew up. The first sport I got into a league was baseball. I would go on to play baseball for twelve straight years, even making the Varsity squad at my High School. I had a great knowledge of all the sports, but I wasn’t as athletically gifted as I would’ve liked to be. My parents actually met each other doing musical theatre as teenagers. They gave me a great musical and creative gene, but that athletic gene was missing for the most part. I tried, but couldn't hang in the running and athleticism required to play sports such as basketball, football and soccer. I had skill in each, but it was just too much to handle. Thankfully the third way to learn and enjoy sports came to me in the form of video games.

I’m pretty sure punch-out would’ve been the first sports game I’ve ever played, and to this day it would probably be in my top 25 sports games of all time. As a real young lad I got into baseball the most, so a lot of my NES experience was with games such as R.B.I. baseball. While they might not make you run faster or hit harder, video games are a perfect tool to teach the ins and outs of each sport. As in any video game, there’s a certain trail and error in learning how the rules of that game work. This is no different in sports games, except that this time you can take what you learned and apply it to real life. These little things learned go a long way in making you a better player in the real life sport but also makes watching and following the big leagues that much more enjoyable.

Once I got to the SNES, one of the first games I owned was NHLPA ’93. Kind of a weird name for a game, but this was a huge step in learning more about sports. This game had no NHL license to use the real teams, such as the Detroit Red Wings, giving me a red colored team called Detroit. Actually at that age, it didn’t even occur to me that it wasn’t the Red Wings. The NHLPA title comes from the fact that the game did have a license to use all of the real life players names, giving you the real line-ups from the 92-93 NHL season. I now have a great base of knowledge for each sport, but here’s a fun to play video game that teaches me all about the players. Who everyone is, what they do and how good they are. Soon after, most every sports game I would buy would include real teams and players, and as graphics improved actually had players likenesses.

I could always remember a basketball game I played in the arcades that was unlike any other game I’ve played before. It took the game of basketball but changed the rules so that there were no such thing as fouls no matter what you did. This was a whole lot of fun to take something I knew and throw a huge twist on it. I could never find that arcade game, but a few years latter I would pick up NBA Jam for the SNES. I could tell this wasn’t the game I had played before, this was so much cooler and actually had real NBA teams and players. I would find out years later the long lost arcade game was made by the same people who would go on to make NBA Jam. That game was called Arch-Rivals and within the last few months I picked up a copy for the NES.

So at this point, I’ve played both simulation and arcade types of sports games. At least I thought I had played simulation, as my mind was truly about to find out how close you could make a game to real life. I can remember having the very first Madden NFL game back before it had a number after it, named John Madden’s Football. While it was no Tecmo Bowl, it was a fun game that set the stage for bigger and better. Somewhere around Madden ’96 for the SNES it started adding more and more to the game. It had a season mode with real life schedules, that lead to playoffs and the Super Bowl. It also introduced a create-a-player, where for the first time you could put yourself in the game. There would be a few mini games to complete, such as things you would do at the NFL Combine, giving your created player attributes biased on your performances. This would combine two of my favorite video game genres, Sports and RPG.

My Madden love would fall off in the coming years but was replaced by it’s little step-brother, NCAA Football. As much as I love professional football, college football is the best. There’s so much history, passion, local pride and pageantry. From the bands to the fans, everything just seems a little more personal and less corporate (well no so much anymore…moving on). These college football games would have dynasty modes taking the old formula of playing one full season over and over, into the new age of multiple seasons, one after another in the same mode. This would add all sorts of amazing intricacies such as recruiting new players each season. This type of mode would change your gaming, as you now act as the players, the coach, management and the team owners. This gives you insight into just about every aspect of each sport.

Through the teen years into adulthood in becomes harder and harder to play or organize a game with your buddies. The world of online gaming brings back these childhood memories of playing sports with your friends. The game that I have played the most as a teammate with my friends has been the Fifa franchise. As I grew up, I wanted to know as much as I could about every sport. I’ll watch the grand slams of Tennis and Golf. Even Olympic sports get the spotlight every four years, leaving me able to name off the all time greats in figure skating, swimming, gymnastics and all kinds of random sports. My love for the Olympics was especially strong because of my love of history and countries. Another sport that always intrigued me because of it’s worldwide appeal was Soccer. Unfortunately, there was never really anywhere in America to get soccer on TV. I would watch the world cup, but something that big couldn’t be understood watching a few games every four years. In about 2002, Fox Soccer Chanel was made available and I was able to watch English soccer for the first time. In a time where I had already “conquered” mostly every sport, here was one that had a huge following that I knew hardly anything about. There was an appeal to learn but there was also a huge opportunity to choose my own team for the first time ever. Here I had hundreds of teams from multiple leagues where I had no family inheritance, no regional preference or rivalries. It was a completely clean slate that I didn’t even know I had wanted. Somewhere around that time is when I first played Fifa, and was forced to pick an English team to root for, so that I can pick them in Fifa. After doing some research I went with Bolton Wanderers. I love a good underdog, and Bolton has had the most years in the top division that has never won the title. In a way it reminds me of my Detroit Lions. I figured if I become a fan now and they ever do win that title, I’ll be just as happy as the fans living in Bolton. Through the next ten years or so, I tried to learn as much as I could, and as it turns out, I would need that knowledge. On Xbox 360, Fifa would show me how cool online gaming could be. I got together with some other soccer fans who I worked with, and we all formed a team online where we each control our created player, battling other teams online. This keeps the RPG elements of leveling up, and gives you that feeling of being on a sports team like when you were a kid. I’ll do a whole blog on Fifa at some point. As of right now, it is the game I play the most, trying to at least get a few long sessions in, every other week.

I haven’t even touched on how I feel professional wrestling is a sport, and probably has been my favorite for 20 years now. I can do another blog about that some other day, but I spend 20 or so hours a week watching different wrestling companies. Just to give an extreme example of the amount of sports I watch, I’ll give a little run down of what I watched in the last week. I’m pretty much always watching multiple things at once, up to three at a time with the help of two TV’s and a MacBook. The NCAA college basketball tournament started this weekend. In the four days it’s been on I have watched parts of every game, 48 in total. While watching basketball a busy weekend of soccer was going on, from leagues all around the world. I watched multiple games from England, Spain, France, Italy, Russia and the USA. I would say somewhere around 40 in total, all week long. After that long weekend of watching a hundred games, I needed to catch up on any wrestling I may have missed, about 8 hours total. These may all seem insane, and I’m not going to argue, but it is truly what I am passionate about. Someday I may create a sports blog as well, but for now I will be focusing on this video game blog. I am currently playing both games that I’ve wrote first impressions about (Persona and Crisis Core) as well as Fifa with my friends when they’re on. Since the RPG's take longer to play through I will be continuing to try to play a few NES games or anything I can play through in a single day, so that I can blog about it. Sometimes I think I put my brain on overload with the amount of knowledge I seek, but even if half of it goes out the other ear, I should be retaining most of it. Thank you for reading and game on!

A lot of people are probably writing their first impressions as we speak (write? read? huh?) on the just released Final Fantasy Type-0 HD for the PS4. Today in America gamers all over are flocking to get the first glimpse of Final Fantasy XV… I mean play the HD port of a PSP game only ever released in Japan. Unfortunately my funds for games is very low right now, and I will not be playing Type-0 for at least another month. I had the money, but chose to help out my family. My sister bought the wrong laptop online that she needed for work, and the online store had no return policy. I stepped up and gave her the $750, but in return I got a brand new MacBook Air. Having this MacBook has allowed me to start my blog, as well as enjoy numerous streaming options. I had a couple of buddies from my crew excited to grab the game today, which lead me to regret not having the money for it. Fast forward a few hours this morning and I came up with a brilliant plan to subside my Final Fantasy fix. I was able to borrow my friend’s PSP along with Final Fantasy VII - Crisis Core. For years I’ve long been out of the handheld video game scene. For whatever reason I stopped playing them after the Game Boy Color. I didn’t even play that very much, most of my handheld experience is with the original, yellow and black screen, Game Boy. Final Fantasy VII is, and probably always will be, in my top five or ten games of all time. Everything about FF7 is gold in my eyes. I long for the days of games that perfect. I enjoyed VIII, IX and X almost as much, and had a blast going back and playing the classics. Then XI came and solidified my hatred for MMORPG’s. XII showed me that more people, then I care to admit, enjoyed XI. Giving us a single player MMORPG that made me shudder. But XIII made me appreciate XII so much more. Thirteen is crap. Let’s move back to VII now. They’ve had quite a few products come out over the years. The only thing I got into of the new age VII stuff was the movie, Advent Children. I wouldn’t say that the movie was bad, but I will say that I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen it once. Never played the Vincent game ether, but wouldn’t be apposed to trying it. That bring me back to Crisis Core. I had heard that it is similar to Type-0. Type-0 basically takes the battle system from CC, but gives you a party to control instead of just one person. This seems like the perfect choice to both curb my appetite and prepare me for Type-0. I can’t remember too much chatter about CC. I’m not sure if it was well received or not, but frankly these games are usually at the mercy of the eye of the beholder. What I do know, is that the story takes place seven years before FFVII (which I’m sure isn’t a coincidence) and stars Zack as a young member of the Shinra special forces, SOLDIER. That’s enough to get me pumped up about it. My handheld bias held me back from enjoying plenty of great games through out the years, let’s find out if this was one of them.

Overview

Before you even get to the title screen, an amazing opening video plays. It seems to be a quick montage of the things to come, featuring a cast of characters that are very familiar to FFVII fans. You see Zack, the Turks and oh my god, Sephiroth. Any game with Sephiroth must be good… oh wait he was in the fighting game with a quest mode, Ehrgeiz… Once you select new game, you’re given the option to play normal or hard right at the start. I looked it up and sure enough the options for difficulty were only made available for the North American and European versions. After selecting normal, I was treated to a cutscene that instantly took me back to 1997. This opening had the exact music and look of the original’s (The train part not the part with Aerith). A train is traveling very fast as Zack drops out of a helicopter onto it. He has his commander, Angeal with him, as they start to get attacked from Shinra soldiers. This doesn’t make sense as SOLDIER is part of Shinra, but it is soon found out that it is only Wutai forces in disguise. I’m guessing this was done to complete the tribute to the original game’s opening, when Cloud battles Shinra forces. Very cool! After watching the great looking cutscene, you jump off the train to have your first battle. The tutorial screen spells it out simply enough for you. You move around, there’s a block, evade and action button. The action button is scrolled through with the L and R buttons. Your options are attack, item, special attack or any of the spells that you have equipped through Materia. Wow materia, where have you been for the last 17 years, I missed you. Anyone who doesn’t know how materia works, it gives you a way to level up your spells independently, as well as equip them on and off, leaving plenty of depth and verity. The battle comes at you hard and fast, which is my number one complaint to real time RPG’s. In turn based I have plenty of time to think and more importantly soak in what is happening. The controls for battle are smooth and easy to understand. The problem comes in where there’s a ton of stuff going on, and even 30 battles later, I have no clue what they mean or how they happen. There’s some kind of spinning slots wheel that turns as you battle and stops sometimes to maybe give you some kind of benefit. Every now and then a super big slots thing comes up that seems to act as your limit breaker, but again no clue what, why or how. By defeating enemies you get SP and maybe some Gil or an Item. It seems experience points are nowhere to be found. I looked it up briefly as to not completely give away all the secrets and I’m still confused, and a little concerned. For everything I’ve seen the only way to level up is to get the slots to come up with the numbers 7-7-7. SP has something to do with the slots and the limit breaks, but at this point I’m at a wait and see approach as I play. I try to rack up the combos, gaining as much SP as I can and hope for a 7-7-7. I really hope I’m missing something and my leveling up isn’t biased solely on luck. I’m also already starting to get a sense of FFXIII with the liner gameplay and maps, as well as the real time combat, please god no. Even if it gets even more like XIII, just the fact that It takes place in the FFVII universe will be enough for me to enjoy it. I’m really trying to get with the times and embrace the new age of action RPG’s.

So far I’ve really enjoyed Crisis Core, even though the battles are confusing. The voice acting and cutscene graphics are very well done, and add a layer of depth to the world of Midgar. Already the story is intense, as I already know how everything plays out. It is very awkward to be working for Shinra as they wage war with the Wutai over the extraction of Mako from their lands. Zack, don’t do it! Early in the game you already run into Sephiroth, who is about to kill you before you find out the whole beginning was just a training simulation, kind of like the X-men’s Danger Room. These training missions come into play though out the game, as bonus side missions found at save points. I was sent to my first mission and stopped right before a boss. I figured if I went much further, it wouldn’t be a first impression anymore. I can’t wait to dive back in. If you’re like me and waiting to play Type-0, I would recommend playing Crisis Core first to get into the battle system. Thanks for reading and game on!

From one end of the extreme to the other! Last time I went hardcore obscure with the Japanese only title ‘Hissatsu Shigotonin’. This time I will focus on one of the most iconic video games in the history of the medium, none other then Super Mario Bros. What can be said about this game that hasn’t already been said… absolutely nothing. Everybody has played this game at some point in their lives. Everyone knows the iconic music, levels, gameplay and cast of characters. Mario has been in literally hundreds of games, before and after this one, but this is his launching point into stardom. One of my favorite topics in video games is trying to piece together a timeline of video games. I seriously thought about going in order of these non-canon timelines for the Mario series, but that could have gotten very complicated and is something I can cover in depth at a later date. We first saw Mario in the arcade game ‘Donkey Kong’. This became one of the first games ported for the new NES (Famicom) in Japan along with it’s sequel ‘Donkey Kong Jr.’. The latter game actual saw Mario in the antagonist role, as he had kidnaped Donkey Kong leaving his son Jr. to save him from the evil Mario.

Mario’s wicked ways seem to stop at this game (unless you count mercilessly stomping hundreds of creatures) as he becomes the protagonist again in ‘Mario Bros.’, not quite yet super and joined for the first time by his brother Luigi. This game, also originally released in the arcades, had our two plumbers defeating creatures that have appeared in the Brooklyn sewer system. At same point around this time Mario and Luigi find themselves traveling to the Mushroom Kingdom through the Brooklyn pipes. This sets up the Mario Bros. for their first console only adventure, skyrocketing Mario and the NES to the top of the console world and was a major force in the industry getting through the video game crash earlier in the decade.

Overview

Super Mario Bros. was developed by Nintendo and released on September 13, 1985 in Japan and later that same year in North America. There are no differences between the Japanese and American versions, as both used english (called romanji writing in Japan) for the minimal amount of text. In a radical change from Mario Bros., which was heavily combat biased, Super Mario Bros. was a side-scrolling platformer. The genre was popular at this point, but truly exploded after this masterpiece. The game is about navigating your way though each level, avoiding pits and enemies, while collecting power-ups to make you stronger and gold coins and 1-ups to give you more lives. One of the main ways of combat is to jump and land directly on top of an enemy (as long as they don’t have spikes). This is an easy to understand but difficult to master, just like the rest of the game. The very first level acts as a tutorial for the rest of the game. It starts out with a goomba (the weaklings of the franchise) that you quickly find out hurts you if it touches. The first power up comes quickly after and is almost unavoidable. This is to teach you that even though they look similar, goombas are bad and mushrooms are good. This easy to understand gameplay is the selling point and what made it so popular among everyone young and old.

Super Mario Bros. has plenty of depth and secrets to keep you coming back. Random pipes through out the world will take you to secret areas. Any random block might have a power up inside of it, or even a vine leading to a secret cloud area. The most famous “secret” is in the 2nd level (1-2) you can actually get on top of the level, running next to the scoreboard. If you take this all the way past the normal end point you will find an area with three warp pipes. These pipes will allow you to advance straight to ether world 2, 3, or 4. This is a great touch, in the day of no save systems or even passwords, allowing easy passage past about a third of the game.

The story goes that Mario has traveled to the Mushroom Kingdom, where he quickly finds the land troubled and in chaos. It appears the evil King Koopa (Bowser) has kidnaped Princess Toadstool (Princess Peach) as well as turned most of it's citizens into blocks (don’t smash the blocks Mario!). Mario must travel to eight castles, each taking 3 levels to reach. You seem to defeat Bowser in each castle, only to find that he is not dead nor is the princess in the castle. You quickly begin to hate Toad, as the little toadstool seems excited to inform you at the first 7 castles “Thank you Mario! But our Princess is in another castle!”.

What a D.B. Thankfully once you finish that 8th and final castle Toad is nowhere to be found. You have successfully rescued Princess Toadstool and have brought peace to Mushroom Kingdom (for now). The simplicity of the story and gameplay truly created a mainstream masterpiece, that stands the test of time. This game is one of the few retro games that hasn’t aged a bit. You can have just as much fun with it today as you did then.

My Experience

If you had an NES back in the day, more then likely you got this game bundled with the console as part of a 2-pack with Duck Hunt. This is how I got my game. Years later when I made my second purchase, I had to have the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo. There’s no telling when I first played this game, but it was most certainly one of my very first. This was the perfect game to introduce me into to the world of video games. It was so user friendly, it might be the only game in history that I played with my mom (years later she would play Rock Band as well). I played this game to death, which I might have been stuck doing wether it was good or not. This is something Nintendo thought through as they packaged it with the console. They knew if you were a kid that only had one game, it better be damn good. What they gave us was a timeless masterpiece that made me fall in love. Every game played after this one would be held to the measuring stick of fun that it brought. Of course with most NES games, I’m pretty sure I never beat this as a kid. I’m sure I must have seen someone beat it along the way. Some of my favorite memories are as player 2 which gave me the first glimpse of Luigi. Green was always my favorite color and I enjoyed the change. These were made extra enjoyable, as player 1 would be someone older who could show me the ropes. I would learn a lot, but one thing I never perfected was the turtle shell glitch to get you hundreds of extra lives. This blew my mind as a kid, who recognized for the first time that in some games the rules could be bent or exploited. There was a certain spot that you could get caught in an endless loop of landing on a turtle shell, racking up points and lives the whole time. Because of that trick, I thought the older girl that did it was the coolest person I’d ever met. I was never able to do it myself, so I never had that crutch to help me beat SMB at such a young age. Just the other day, I got through the entire game for what I believe is the first time. The fact that I remembered everything in the first 6 worlds like it was the back of my hand, only to have the final 2 worlds be completely foreign to me, confirms my thought that I’ve never beaten it. Getting through those last 2 worlds as an adult was a great experience. It took something old and put a new coat of paint on it. Almost makes me glad to wait this long to play those levels, which are an increase in difficulty. Again I must reiterate how much this game hasn’t aged a bit. Super Mario Bros. was made 30 years ago, and I truly believe if it came out as a new game today, it would sell millions of copies.

Rom Hacks

Speaking of taking something old and putting a fresh coat of paint on them, there’s a little thing on the internet called Rom Hacks. Anytime you’re talking about roms, hacks, and the internet, it could be bringing up the dirty word that is piracy. There’s a lot that could be said, but I think the end all be all is that if you own the game, your should be fine to download any of these. I have this one covered, as I got the game with my NES, bought it again in 2015 and also had it on the SNES game Super Mario All-Stars. Some time in the late 90’s there was a community online that started working with Rom editors. These rom editors would allow people to hack into the code of these roms, leaving the possibilities endless. You can use these to translate games, change colors or sprites, or change so much of the game that you create a new one. These fan made games would soon flood the market, and just like the video game industry of the early 80’s, created a large amount of crappy games. You really have to do you research to find what hacks are worthwhile, but the ones that are will blow your mind. There are some really amazing fan made games out there, that breathe new lives into the originals. Some of these take advantage of the fact that you will be playing on an emulator that has a save state function. With the ability to save your game at any point, a lot of these games are made very difficult, but not impossible if you’ve done your research to avoid “unbeatable” games. Some only change the sprites but is the exact same game. Some keep all the sprites but change all the levels, giving you a new game on par with a sequel or expansion. While others change everything, so that it keeps the gameplay principles but has brand new characters, story and levels.

Bowser vs Wario (Rom Hack)

I’ve played through quite a few rom hacks of Super Mario Bros., the good, the bad and the ugly. Some are so bad that it’s only a few minor changes to the same test level over and over again. In each one like that, you rescue the princess without any trouble and in under a minute. Frustrating to say the least. On the other side of frustration, the good side, is a bunch of really challenging side quest hacks. These will require a lot of save states, as every jump, twist and turn could easily bring death. It’s a lot of fun to take Mario to the extreme, and will test your gaming skills and patience. However, there is one rom hack, out of the hacks that I played, that stands above the rest as the best, Bowser vs Wario.

Bowser vs Wario takes everything that is great about SMB and makes it look, feel and play even better. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, displaying the true power of 8-bit graphics. Everything on display has been improved to show greater details. The blocks that you can’t destroy while being small even show damage now after hitting them with your head. The story is very vague, and pretty much nonexistent. There is no need for a story however, as the game speaks for itself. The player controls Bowser, who has been given amazing and original looking sprites. You start out as baby bowser, and turn into King Koopa himself, by collecting a Boswer head power up. Bowser controls pretty much the same as his Mario counterpart, but has a distinct waddle, which is a nice touch. He jumps a little bit higher creating new gameplay right off the bat. All the levels are brand new, and full of fresh enemies. The koopas have been turned into wind up Wario heads. Gold Coins transformed into Koopa Kions with K’s on them. Ghosts will now be flying above throwing spiky ice creatures that you can’t stomp on. Even the hammer bros. have been replaced by the sunglasses wearing mice from SMB2, who throw bombs instead of hammers. The game follows the three levels to get to a castle formula. Inside of each castle you will battle Wario, who is huge and misshapen.

This time it is a random Koopa who tells you, in a very scared fashion, that Mario isn’t at this castle. The story seems to have Wario kidnapping Mario, with Bowser set to find him ether to save or kill for himself.

This is a must play, and truly shows the power and enjoyment of rom hacks. Thanks for reading and game on!

My blogs will be jumping all over the place, covering many different topics in video gaming, stretching from popular topics and titles to the most obscure. This is an example of the type of obscurity I will be featuring, an RPG game released only in Japan for the Family Computer or Famicom. The Famicom may sound obscure it’s self, but is just the name for the Japanese version of the NES. A name changed for the rest of the world that I agree with. My brain has a clear distinction between consoles and computers and that would’ve most certainly messed up my head. If you’ve heard of this game before, you are probably Japanese and will laugh at my attempts to understand this game. For American gamers around my age there’s a good chance the first country you ever heard about other then the USA was Japan. Everywhere you looked on the NES and it’s games it said “Made in Japan”. This coming from someone who basically lives right down the street from Canada. There has always been a certain mystery and romance when it came to Japan, a feeling that still exists in me today. There is a totally badass community online that translates games into different languages and of course Japanese to English is the most popular. Hissatsu Shigotonin sadly is too obscure even for them to have made a translation, making this a truly difficult, if almost impossible game for me to play. Any Japanese only RPG will be difficult as they usually have more text then any other kind of game. The story won’t be there for you, menu’s are impossible to navigate, and it will take a lot of trial and error in getting through to the next part. Why blog about this game at all you might be asking? Well, one of the reasons I choose this site was to help write wiki pages for obscure games. My biggest tool in researching these games is google translate on Japanese websites, such as their version of wikipedia. Anyone who has tried to translate Japanese before knows that even in english the sentences are very hard to make out. This is a challenging but fun process and a great way to unlock more mysteries of the gaming universe. all right, let’s get to the game.

Overview

Hissatsu Shigotonin roughly translates to Deadly Work People. I found this name to be pretty strange, but once I started understanding what this game was all about, it made sense. It was released December 15, 1990 exclusively in Japan for the Famicom. It turns out Hissatsu Shigotonin is actually biased off of the popular Japanese historical drama TV series of the same name. The story of both focus on a group of ordinary "work people" who live double lives as assassins. It is an alternate Feudal Japan history (1603-1863) featuring fictional characters with elements of a parallel world. You must uncover a mystery though out the game, which comes though the story in episodes like the TV show. The player controls Nakamura Mondo, a fictional character who is also the star of the TV show. The game is biased on the original 84 episode run/first season of the TV series from 1979-1981 but features characters all the way up to the game’s release date. The show continues to this day with Assassins as a subtitle. This seems like a really cool concept for a weekly episodic series. The story has an almost assassins creed feel. I’m sure the idea of everyday people turned into warriors has been around in stories forever, but the setting and time period makes it stand out. Japan’s feudal era is one of the most intense of all the time periods in earth’s history. It was a time of Samurai, Ninja and technology that eventually killed off said Samurai and Ninja. One of the biggest draws of the era is the is the fantastic culture that knew of the outside world, but worked hard in maintaining isolation making them truly unique. The main character, Nakamura Mondo, is a corrupt cop known for accepting bribes who is disrespected by his superiors, and mother-in-law. He ends up bringing together a group of people that have all been wronged in some way, formed to solve mysteries and assassinate targets. The heroes play by the same rules as the villains, as they are not afraid to use underhanded tactics to get the job done. Each episode of the show usually climaxes with the killing of the target, sometimes in an almost humorous manner such as a flower through the skull. I was able to find a random episode but no dubs or subs, which is a bummer since I wanted to learn more of the story. It seems to hold up well to time, has a campy feel to it and comes off like a live action anime. Check out this trailer for one of their many movies to get a better idea of the style, think Al Bundy the Samuri and his gang of misfits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbJh875TVH0&list=PL42D1C1A0C6AAFC2E&index=1

Work People

Nakamura Mondo - A corrupt cop who thinks for himself, gets crapped on by everyone in his life. A pretty average middle aged man with a Robin Hood sense of heroism.

Kajiya no Masa (Blacksmith of Government) - Went from being a florist to a blacksmith when called upon. Has has had many lovers that usually end in tragedy.

Kumihimoya no Ryu (Dragon of Kumihimo-ya) - Craftsman, who despite thin feminine features and bright flashy clothes, is actually a tough roughneck.

Kazari no Shu (Decoration of Xiu) - A decorator who likes to hide and attack from the shadows. Joins to avenge murdered best friend.

Yuji no Shamisen'ya (Yuji of Shamisen shop) - Sells Shamisens, a bow and string instrument.

Nenbutsu no Tetsu (Iron of Nembutsu) - Ore miner who has mastered the art of Judo Grip attacks

Oriku (Acrostic) - He is the son of Yuji. The word acrostic is a type of poem.

Nandemo Yanokayo (Do-Anything Kayo) - A jack-of-all-trades, he co-owns a pawn shop.

Nishi Jun'nosuke (West Order Koresuke) - Son of a doctor, goes to medical school.

Gameplay

Just a friendly reminder, no english in sight here folks. The opening is pretty sweet, with the theme of the show playing in all it’s 8-bit glory. It shows each member of the “Work People” before taking you to the start screen. The game looks great, being a later game in the NES line-up. Coming out nearly 7 years into an astonishing decade long run for the Famicom. Japan got the Famicom in 1983. It wouldn’t be rebranded as the Nintendo Entertainment System for release in America until over 2 years later. This was actually a strategic move that payed off big time in the long run. A little thing called “The North American Video Game Crash of ’83” would’ve been a death sentence for the upstart console. Leading up to the crash, in America more and more games were being released everyday. A lot of them being done in a rush by amateur game makers. This caused the market to be flooded with crappy, broken games. Imagine an app store’s game section nowadays but without a way to search by most popular or best rated. The game credited as the proverbial straw the broke the camel’s back was the massively hyped, rushed P.O.S. that was E.T. for the Atari. The game tops almost every list of worst games of all time. To make matters worse, millions of copies were produced, in anticipation of high sales for the popular E.T. franchise. Word quickly spread of the broken game and millions of copies went unsold nationwide. Companies were forced to eat the money and they literally buried hundred thousands of unsold E.T. cartridges in a landfill in New Mexico. Long thought to be an urban legend, the copies were found in the landfill in 2014 by people making a documentary. Even when the NES did release in America in late ’85, it was only though F-A-O Schwartz stores in New York and Los Angeles at the beginning. Once people started hearing about it, there would be an address to write into. Nintendo would then send you more information about the console, including a line-up of future games. Once there was a demand, the NES had a full nationwide release. Nintendo saved the american video game market, something we should never forget. Anyway, this is the gameplay section for god’s sake… but I knew I wasn’t going to make it far in this game. The story starts with what looks like a kid bullying townsfolk, not really sure. Then it goes to a Final Fantasy 1 style, overhead view of a room. Looks as though Mondo is getting nagged at by his wife and mother-in-law, a common theme of the show, that is pretty funny. Soon a man shows up to tell me something and takes me to an office. At this point you can walk around the room that you are trapped in, and talk to each person. No clue what is being said but there are multiple options to chose when talking and it’s pretty much unplayable. He’s done it ladies and gentleman, that’s as far as I can get. I’ve clicked every option on all 5 people in the room. Nothing changed, and I’m just stuck in this room. That sucks, but pretty much knew how that was going to play out. Between figuring out how cool the show is and seeing just a little bit of gameplay I’m left wanting more. Sadly this game will probably never get translated, unless I learn how to code and translate it myself. Here’s the YouTube video of everything I did in the game. It seems I’m not the only one that can’t get out of that first room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdtLF5xf-bs

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed trying to uncover this mystery as much as I did. It may be strange to write about a game that I can’t even play, but learning about the show was well worth it. I will be doing other Japanese only games in the future. Sometimes with a full translation, sometimes the game type doesn’t really need translating, and others will be unplayable just like this one. I’ve wanted to uncover Japanese games for quite a long time, and I’m really glad I started. Thanks for reading, and game on!

Now yesterday I claimed to have played nearly the entire library of Playstation 1 RPG’s. I’m happy to say I may have exaggerated slightly, as there are plenty of them left out there for me to discover and explore. This leads me to starting up the Playstation 1 RPG 'Revelations: Persona’ today. I’m sorry to say I have never played this, or any other games in the series. The Persona series has spawned many games, anime, moves, soundtracks and millions of fans worldwide. Persona is in fact a spinoff of a much larger series of games, ‘Megami Tensei’ (Translates to ‘Rebirth of the Goddess’). The Megami Tensei meta-series is actually biased on the novel series ‘Digital Devil Story’, and has gone on to become part of the Big 3 of Japanese RPG’s along with 'Final Fantasy' and 'Dragon Quest'. Just like Final Fantasy, each game in the series stars different characters and stories. Unlike FF, it all takes place within the same universe. The universe is also radically different then most other RPG’s, as it takes place in modern or near future Japan (reminding me of Earthbound which is always good). with the story having a strong occult, or paranormal knowledge theme. Every game deals with characters who can communicate directly with demons (both good and bad), and will battle and recruit these demons throughout the series. Persona as a side series is different because it deals less in demon recruitment to do your battles, instead giving each character Personas that dwell inside, essentially acting as your magic throughout the games. I purposely do not know a whole lot more then that, as I would like to experience the rest for myself. I have no clue why these games were never on my radar. I have nothing against anime style or paranormal and demonic stories. I’ve have actually enjoyed anime’s on the subject such as ‘Death Note’ and ‘Bleach’. The reason I’m choosing now to finally get into the Persona series is the hype for the upcoming Persona 5, due sometime this year. The thought of a current generation JRPG is exciting and I would love to try and catch up before I play the fifth edition. That being said, let’s get into it!

Wow, I missed hearing that old Playstation 1 start up sound, so much bass! Load times….DIDN’T miss that! After a bit of opening flair, the game stars out in what seems to be a classroom with a group of teens standing around with no teacher in sight. Right off the bat I’m happy. I love a good slow beginning to my RPG’s. I understand sometimes the story calls for some major battle at the beginning (which is almost a guaranteed loss or tragic event), but unless the story is that you have no memory, I want to be able to get inside of my main character’s head and world. Give me a reason to care before I just start swinging away.

Right away, I’m soaking it all in. It’s funny to be playing 32 bit graphics when I’ve ether been playing NES or PS4 lately. Also I should mention this game came out in 1996 and It’s possible this was Atlus’ first game made with polygons instead of sprites. I like the look of this game, it’s very SNES looking while at the same time showing off it’s power with detailed surroundings. Each room is independent on the screen with a psychedelic background able to be seen behind it. The beginning does a great job of establishing the setting and characters. First thing I notice however is the extremely american names for the teens and also a token black guy. Sure the uniforms are clearly Japanese but it seems all the names and places have been given the good ole USA makeover. God I hate that, not all Americans are xenophobic, and a lot (like me) take pride in learning other’s cultures and customs. I just had to look it up and sure enough, not only were all those things “localized’ but one character was changed into an African-American complete with ebonics, yeesh. You can completely tell that his character looks nothing like his portrait when he talks.

Anyway, hopefully that won’t effect the game too much, and I can always look up afterwards anything else that was changed or missed. The story, through the lines of dialogue to read (love it), quickly picks up as our teens pass out after doing something which seemed like calling of a spirt. A little too confusing to put into words at this point, but soon enough they wake up in the schools infirmary (complete with busty nurse). They all seem to be fine, but must walk on their own to the hospital, to just make sure. The controls on the D-pad take a little getting used to. It has the Resident Evil style of motion i.e. you move like a tank. To make matters worse, every room seems to be on a diagonal slant making in confusing if right or up moves you up. I grab my first item from a box and leave the infirmary to be shocked that my screen has switched to a first person view.

Did not see that coming, but not a bad thing at all. It doesn’t seem like I’ll be fighting in this mode, just exploring. Of course as I love to do, I explored the entire school top to bottom before heading out to the hospital. That hospital part was reminded to me over and over by my other party members, which I actually enjoy. Having them mock me for exploring and gossiping when I had a task is a great little touch in these kind of games, where you talk to every town member while the world is about to end and you have the only cure. I would hate to be on a time limit, but having party members niggle me is perfect. Every time you enter a room, you go back to the third person view, able to talk, and search every nook and cranny just to get the “nothing” text over and over (again, love it). I spent about 45 minutes around the school, getting even more soaked into the game world. Once I decided that I found everything possible, I finally left to the school on my journey to the hospital. What I found for the city/overview screen, immediately after leaving the school, literally made me laugh out loud then and now just thinking about it.

Just look it it hahaha! I understand it ’96 but come on, you could at least match the color of my outfit and put hair and a face on that thing! I have a hard time thinking 10 year old me wouldn’t have said the same thing. I don’t play RPG’s for the graphics though, story and battle systems are what it’s all about. So I found the hospital after traveling all over town, just to be told I’m going the wrong way. Can you give me a map or marker then please!? Most of the city looks the same, is mostly bare and everywhere seems to have an unseen dog barking at you (good times). One of the other main points in going to the hospital was to see a friend of ours. Turns out she had been then over a month now, due to some kind of “visions” or something. We only talk to her for a minute before she grabs her head in pain, we leave the room, an earthquake hits, and mother effin zombies appear in a rearranged version of the hospital (sweet).

The first fight is automatically controlled. The main character quickly eliminates of the zombies with help of his inner “persona”. Earlier I forgot to tell you something, but I’ll just leave it here. When the teens passed out at the beginning, they all seemed to have the same dream. The vision you see is a pretty cool looking CG video of a man in a mask, first asking for you name. I looked up the name, and found he didn’t have one, but in the anime his nickname was Noa (which I quickly found out didn’t matter as every other name had been changed/localized). The masked man then tells me (through voice acting not text) about everyone’s face is a mask which masks all of our true inner selfs. Really cool speech, a lot of which I complete believe in. This makes me very excited to explore this theory in depth as the story unfolds. These inner selfs seem to be the titular Personas, that act like summons and magic as well as the depth of the story. Right after I kill the first zombies, I find a save point and get my first random battle. Here it comes, I’ve liked everything I’ve seen so far (whether I laughed at it or not) and this is the final test. I’ll go in order top to bottom on this turn biased battle complete with different formations. Top is battle, you’ve got your sword, gun, defend. Middle is Personas, everyone has one spell at this point some attacking, some healing. Then we get to the prize of this gem, something I haven’t heard about but I’m guessing is a big draw to this game. The option is Contact, and it kicks ass. It seems once you lock into that option, you're committed to it until something happens (a party member get possessed, you drive them away, bribe, get gifts, ect. Each party member has four set options for contact, ranging from serious to silly, words and actions. Target which type of enemy you want to talk to (it groups them together) and get them to react in one of four categories, Happy, Eager, Scared and Angry. Depending on what you do, you will fill one of the categories up. This adds a ton of depth and charm as the interaction between party members and enemies is great.

They sold me, I’m 2 hours in (20 minutes for a speed runner) and I can’t wait to go back. That’s the sign of the perfect first impression! I'll give my review at a later date and maybe check back in as I play. Thanks for reading and game on!

Hello, my name is Kyle and this is my first attempt at a Blog. I have wanted to start one for awhile and decided this is a great place to start. I have a number of different passions and hobbies so it was tough to pick one topic to start with. Video games seem to be a good choice since it can combine my passions. My other options were any number of sports but especially soccer and pro wrestling. If I enjoy this, those might be the next blogs but for this one I will concentrate on Video Games only (unless of course it's a sports or wrestling video game, oddly enough some of my favorites).

Me and My Video Game History

Second Generation

I was born in the summer of 1986 and for the most part my first memories are of video games. I guess I should mention that I surely had some version of Atari at the ages of 2-3. The memories are very vague and I only know that I did play it, I did get an old one that broke down from an extended family member, and that I never wanted a controller like that ever again. There are zero games that I remember and I considered it the grandpa of video games from that point on. The desire to unlock the mysteries and games of Atari is very low in me. Maybe someday...

Third Generation

I like to think it was my 3rd birthday, but it might have been my 4th. I must have been a good boy because I unwrapped the N.E.S. complete with Mario/Duck Hunt. I know that I had played and enjoyed the NES before this with my older cousin's and more then likely asked for one of my own as they lived 4 hours away. I'd put my NES years somewhere between 1989-1993. I know that I owned Mario 1 and 3 at some point as well as TMNT, Punch-out, Iron Tank, Ninja Gaiden, Bubble Bobble and Monster Party. I'm sure there was others I owned as well, but of course it was limited to a few B-day and X-mas games here and there. The meat of the NES experience were the trips to Blockbuster that almost became a weekly occurrence every Friday from about 1990-1997 (rented old wrestling tapes as well as a game or two). The goal of this blog is to go through each game as I play it so I will give more experiences and thoughts about each title as I go through them. I can tell you I played the crap out of the Mario's, Punch-Out was my favorite and I loved games with a cartoon or movie license (swear words to gamers everywhere). Of course it being the NES and me being 3-8 years old, the games were hard, I mean really HARD! The prime example being TMNT 1. I swear I probably played the underwater level 10,000 times, never to beat it. I had actually seen my older cousin do it, so I knew it could be done, plus I saw that he got to drive around the TMNT van after that stage. I wanted that van so bad! I'm not sure if I ever beat an NES game, I might have but the memories are hard to unlock.

Forth Generation

Of course at some point while I was enjoying my NES, thinking it was the greatest thing in the world, I stumbled upon an SNES ether at a friends or my cousins'. Mario World was the best game I'd ever seen. The gameplay and most importantly those graphics. My god, I knew nothing about technology and how it improves. There was never a connection in my head that the NES was the improved version of Atari and that the cycle would never stop. That was an eye opener. Eventually, I think it was for my 7th Birthday, I got an SNES of my own. There are so many great memories of the SNES. The deepest and most enjoyable list of games on any console ever in my opinion. This is where my true love of video games would develop. Later on I would learn that other companies made consoles as well. I took Sega as being 2nd rate, without any real knowledge, going as far as to think I was lucky (not better then) over anybody who had a Sega. Also I started really getting into the same genres that I continue to enjoy today, RPG's and Sports. Wether it was Madden, NBA Jam, Final Fantasy II (IV) or Chrono Trigger, I was hooked and never let go. This was probably the hight of my fighting game faze. Street Fighter II was so good, and man I couldn't get enough Mortal Kombat, and the cult SNES classic Killer Instinct. It was tough to ever leave this console, but it was inevitable. I had become hooked on bigger and better just like most everyone else. I thought the graphics of Donkey Kong Country could never be beaten, only to watch it quickly beaten over and over. Then one day my best friend at the time showed me this new way to play games and any thoughts of nostalgic feelings or Nintendo brand loyalty were completely gone. I wanted my games on a CD. Looking back those 3 years or so of SNES where some of the best times of my life. Sadly each time I would move on to the next console I would sell my old stuff to buy new.

Fifth Generation

Perhaps it was the timing of coming out first. Perhaps had I been older I would have wanted to wait for the next Nintendo. All I knew was Playstation was here and I needed one. Somehow in 1996 I was able to save up enough money from odd chores to buy a Playstation. I remember NBA Shootout was my first game of choice. This was around the point that I started really paying attention to the Video Game community. A big part of that was through Playstation Magazine. The big draw of Playstation Mag was the demo-disks they would include. Giving you a free look into the latest games before you made your trip to blockbuster. Things would change forever in my gaming life the moment I saw Final Fantasy VII.... ok I'll admit it right here... I played FF7 for the first time at my friend's and couldn't get past the first boss and didn't pick it up for almost a year. There I said it... that doesn't mean I'm not still a fanboy who thinks it's a 10/10 perfect masterpiece. That game had everything, and as a reader of books, truly made me feel I was living and acting out a book. This was the coolest media form I had ever seen! I could gush all day about it, but I'll just say that this set into motion my golden age of RPG's. While I'm confessing, WRPG's or Action-RPG's are fun and have a place in gaming. Good ole turn biased JRPG's is what I'm into (anything close to FF Tactics is amazing as well). I think I went through the entire PS1 RPG line-up. My hidden gem is Saga Frontier (not the 2nd one) a pretty standard RPG in terms of gameplay, with a difficulty that put some off. The selling point was the fact that you picked your character from the main menu, each one giving you a separate story or chapter, eventually all leading into one big story. Never beat it, but it never leaves my memory as far as innovative story ideas. Eventually I shared an N64 with my sister and got to experience classic games such as Zelda: OoT and WWE No Mercy. I wish I had the means at that point in my life to enjoy both consoles for what they were, but there is zero regrets as I enjoyed the RPG selection of the PS1.

Sixth Generation

By this point I'm wired into the gaming community and was all over any details of the brand new Playstation 2. I saved early and often, and through some luck and persistence, was about to find a website that still offered a PS2 pre-order. You better believe I got next day shipping and had one of first PS2's in my city. I took pride in having a PS2 one day before Blockbuster set up their rentals for games. Something I planed on, getting Madden 2001 and Smugglers Run delivered with the console. Soon to be followed by craptastic RPG's Eternal Ring and Summoner. Even with the starting crap for RPG's there were plenty of classics. FFX of course but also .hack, Suikoden, and Xenosaga. This marks my first taste of Online Gaming. The two games I remember playing online at the beginning were Everquest and SOCOM. I guess this is a good time to mention that I've never been into computer games very much. There's something about the lack of plug and play combined with not being on the couch in front of the TV that got to me. I understand it's slightly different now, but I still have no desire. SOCOM was my first time online gaming and overall it brings a lot of good memories. I have a love/hate relationship with shooters and military games. Nowadays it's really only hate, but back then I was more accepting. I enjoyed finding all of the games glitches and exploring the world of online gaming. It was fun then, something that I feel is gone, as I only play games online with my friends now. Everquest quickly made me hate MMORPG's and FFXI only solidified that thought, as well as make me wonder were Final Fantasy was headed, only to be solidified by my distain for FFXII's gambit system, yuck! Just like PS1 I eventually got the secondary console, this time the XBOX (sorry Gamecube) I enjoyed XBOX's internet a little bit more then PS2's and really got into Halo as well as Star Wars KotR and Jade Empire. It was at this point I decided WRPG's weren't too bad and that I better get used to it because my golden age of JRPG's seemed to be dying a slow death. I can't remember what the deciding factor was, but I never even thought about getting a PS3, it was XBOX 360 or bust.

Seventh Generation

I wasn't as lucky this time around in getting a console on launch day. I did however get some info from a co-worker who had a 2nd job at Best Buy that if I showed up when they opened the next day there will be 360's that the general public won't know about. So I got mine a month after launch as well as Madden, Kameo and Perfect Dark. I sold Perfect Dark right away and I never sell new games (just years later when they're worthless DOHH!), Never got around to beating Kameo, and this would be the last Madden game I owned. Not a great start! I was however immediately hooked on this new concept of a Gamerscore. I remember right away people were upset at the fact that as a number it was nothing tangible such as a reward points system. I on the other hand loved that I can now call myself the King of Gaming among my friends, or at least try to be (I was). RPG's at this point seemed to have abandoned me, Shooters had become all the rage and my least favorite genre. Even my trusty Madden stopped being played after a decade long run. So what was I playing?? Basically any non-shooter, but even sometimes them, that I could play co-op with a friend over the internet. As we get older as kids into teens then adults, it's hard to get people together for anything, let alone gaming. Well thanks to the internet, gaming with your friends like back in the day was back! Especially effective for me, seeing as my best friend at the time had moved over 1000 miles away. Not only did we game together more then we ever did then when he was living down the road, it turned my video game console into something more then a machine that plays my games. It was a social and media hub like I'd never imagined before. I started using the voice chat as just a means to hang out with my buddy. We would watch sports or wrestling as if we were in the same room. I even hooked the video chat up once to show my TV that was showing a wrestling PPV that I bought so that my friend could watch as well. I also burned every single one of my cd's to the XBOX (to be used for menu music and wrestling entrance music among others) as well as watch movies from apps like Netflix and YouTube. Things had changed indeed. Not once in the 8 years of having XBOX 360 did I start wishing for the next console. They had done a great job of keeping it fresh. But of course there will always be a day when the biggest, best thing ever will change my mind.

Eighth and Current Generation

If I was a hermit I think for sure I would have gone with the XBOX1. I mean giving up my 8 years worth of Gamerscore was a little too much to even think about it. But there it was, the last generation brought your friends into your everyday gaming life, and if I wanted to keep my friends with me I would have to make the jump back to Sony. I love my Playstation 4 and I'm so glad my friends made the switch. Yeah the last gen was about showing you that your console can be so much more then games. I was onboard 100 percent, but at the end of the day it really comes back to games, otherwise just get a smart TV. FIFA (as my gaming and console tastes change so does my taste in sports) takes up most of my time, but I have already enjoyed the instant classic that was Dragon Age: Inquisition. Things are looking up for my beloved JRPG's as well. Please god, don't let Final Fantasy XV let me down!

Emulation Project

This all leads me to my latest project. I recently have been getting back into retro video games. I have a local trade store where I bought an Retron3 3-in-1 NES, SNES, and Genesis. While I would love to grow my collection for real, it was just getting too expensive and time consuming. Then under strange circumstances, my sister bought the wrong laptop and couldn't return it online. To help out I bought it from her. So I took my newly purchased MacBook Air and have been turning it into the Ultimate Emulator. I'm not the most tech savvy guy in the world, thus my love for consoles over computers, but I did my research. Figured out how to use my wireless PS4 controller through bluetooth. Got it hooked up to my big TV thanks to a simple cord purchase (thanks Tim). I've got emulator program OpenEMU going, the all in one 2nd-4th generation console emulator. I'm taking my time as I go through the complete list of games to add to the list. I'm starting with the list of games released for the Family Computer (Japan's version of NES) trying to get as many of them with the translated roms as possible. I still add the American versions of Japanese releases when applicable. This will give me an idea of games that had American only releases when I get around to that part. I've already learned a ton about the Famicom and Japan in general while doing this (though my knowledge of Japan is more then the average American thanks to games, anime, wrestling and sports as well as my love of history, countries and cultures). I started a few weeks ago and the list is growing everyday. I'm not entirely sure how this will play out. I'm thinking I will play some games periodically as I build my list. I also really want to go through them on this Blog in chronological order starting with NES (Maybe someday Atari) I will use this blog to update my game collection progress, review and generally talk about retro games, as well as my current gen gaming exploits. Thanks for reading and if you have any ideas to make this Blog better, please get ahold of me. Thanks for reading and game on!

-Kyle_is_1derful