Player Two Start: An SNES-CD Timeline
- Thread starter RySenkari
- Start date
- Status
Ah, yes. For every change made (Polly Klaus, Satoru Iwata), something of equal value must be lost (whoever made RWBY, and Brittany).
Speaking of which, that one show which I keep hinting to is incoming to print in about 3-4 years.
IMO, I don't think FMA as a manga would be butterflied away; yes, butterflies can spread overseas, and they already have. But the chance of making someone who wanted to (and became) a mangaka when they were a child, before the POD, a video game developer, is pretty low.
However, the content would probably be different; hell, anime is already different, what with allowing most of Sailor Moon to hit the United States.
Ah, yes. For every change made (Polly Klaus, Satoru Iwata), something of equal value must be lost (whoever made RWBY, and Brittany).
Speaking of which, that one show which I keep hinting to is incoming to print in about 3-4 years.
IMO, I don't think FMA as a manga would be butterflied away; yes, butterflies can spread overseas, and they already have. But the chance of making someone who wanted to (and became) a mangaka when they were a child, before the POD, a video game developer, is pretty low.
However, the content would probably be different; hell, anime is already different, what with allowing most of Sailor Moon to hit the United States.
THe influence from what video games are popular WILL effect the content of certain anime. I think Full Metal Alchemist will make it but the form it takes will be different, perhaps majorly so. And of course some fully original anime shows TTL will become popular just as certain TTL original movies and TV shows have begun to succeed in the mainstream.
Yas.
Perhaps instead of two brothers, you have a sister to the main character, due to the TTL stronger female cast in video games.
Umm those have been pretty good ideas, let's wait when time come for it, the stuff that was an enix monthly manga so that deserved adress for that detail alone but still coming about it.
The rest if have ideas or suggestion for alternae mangas or anime who be studied and appreciated.
Now that I think about it, with Bandai's closure about a year away. Does this mean Gingaman is going to be the last super sentai series (Bandai's pratically their main sponsor)?
Take notes...will not tell you anyelse because will be an spoiler but if you read into lines...Stay Tuned
I know the butterflies giveth and taketh away; but I'd completely forgotten about any earlier mention of Brittany Saldita dying of cancer...sad now, I liked her.
I know the butterflies giveth and taketh away; but I'd completely forgotten about any earlier mention of Brittany Saldita dying of cancer...sad now, I liked her.
Well she does have 17 years left as of right now in the timeline, so at least there's that.
July 1997 - The Saturn's Year Of The RPG
“Windborn could've been a Super Famicom CD game, certainly. Or it could have been an Ultra Nintendo game. During development, we reached a sort of awkward phase where the game was too advanced for the Super Famicom, but it wouldn't look good enough on the Ultra Nintendo. That was when the decision was made to consider making it a Saturn game.”
-Daigo Ashakawa, president of ArkiTek Software
“On the surface, the Saturn should have been the greatest JRPG machine of all time. No console on the market could do both 2D and 3D so seamlessly. Even with the rise of 3D RPGs kicked off by games like Planetary Probe and Final Fantasy VII, Windborn proved that the Saturn was an incredible system for old-school 2D JRPGs.”
-Alex Stansfield in a blog entry on January 27, 2013
“Tales of the Seven Seas was such a huge success that we had to make another one before we moved on to the Ultra. With the weight of the unknown lifted off of our shoulders, we just did more of what worked the first time. Luckily, it worked for us again.”
-Mark Cerny
“This is a game meant to test the player's mind and courage. The graphics don't need to be cutting edge in order to do that.”
-Masahiko Sato, creator of Intelligent Qube, on why he chose to create the game for the Super Nintendo CD in lieu of waiting for the Ultra Nintendo or designing it for the Sega Saturn
“I think in all the hype over the Ultra Nintendo, people don't realize that Nintendo's still selling nearly a million Game Boys a month. So the right game could do very, very well.”
Matt Bozon, co-creator of Shantae
“With you, I am home.”
-Hane, Windborn
“Remember, stealing without a care is what I used to do. I'm protecting the people of this city now. I....I don't know if I'm up to leave anymore...”
-Dona, Tales Of The Seven Seas 2
-
Disney's Hercules
Dan: 6.0
Shoe: 7.0
Crispin: 5.0 (quote: “A fairly mediocre platformer with little of the movie's charm.”)
Sushi-X: 5.0
Intelligent Qube
Dan: 8.0 (quote: “A wickedly tough puzzler that will definitely test your brains.”)
Shoe: 8.0
Crispin: 7.0
Sushi-X: 7.5
RayStorm
Dan: 8.5
Shoe: 9.0 (quote: “This shooter has some of the best graphics I've ever seen on the SNES-CD. Taito really knows how to squeeze every drop out of this system.”)
Crispin: 8.0
Sushi-X: 9.0
Syndicate Wars
Dan: 7.0
Shoe: 7.5 (quote: “Definitely a decent port, but limited in comparison with the amazing PC original.”)
Crispin: 7.0
Sushi-X: 7.0
Tail Of The Sun
Dan: 6.0
Shoe: 5.0
Crispin: 5.0
Sushi-X: 6.0 (quote: “I like how much freedom this game gives you but there's really not all that much to do.”)
Slaughterbox 2
Dan: 3.5
Shoe: 5.5
Crispin: 3.0 (quote: “This sequel is a big step back from the original and that's a real shame.”)
Sushi-X: 3.0
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2
Dan: 9.0
Shoe: 9.0 (quote: “This game picks up right where the awesome original left off. It remains one of the top game franchises out there.”)
Crispin: 9.0
Sushi-X: 9.0
-reviews of July 1997's SNES-CD games in the August and September 1997 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly
-
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2: The Basics
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2 is the sequel to the pirate-themed 1995 hit Tales of the Seven Seas, published by Sony and devloped by Naughty Dog. The game takes place a year after the first game and features the same seven playable characters: Erick, Dona, Victoria, Creel, Albert, McKenna, and Jack, returning from the first game with largely the same abilities and skills, with a few new ones added in. Graphically, the game is largely the same as the first, though with a few added 3-D effects, the game is considered one of the best looking games to appear on the SNES-CD, and, like the original game, features a CD audio soundtrack and fully voiced dialogue. This time, instead of sailing on a ship for the majority of the game (though the seven characters still have their ship and travel on it from time to time), the game largely revolves around the bustling town of Port Seashell, the characters' main base of operations. Instead of wandering the ship talking to characters between missions, you can now wander the town and visit various places there, which, like in the original game, leads to dialogue trees and potential new missions. This game is a bit smaller in scope than the original, there are around 85 missions total, of which you'll complete somewhere between 20-30 if you take the straightest path through the story. There are once again endings for each of the main characters depending on the relationships formed during the game, though, like the original game, they're all “good” endings for the most part. The easiest ending to obtain and the “canon” ending is Dona's, as the main storyline somewhat revolves around her.
It's a year after the end of the first Tales of the Seven Seas, and Erick and his friends have found a port of call: Port Seashell, a relatively peaceful town that's home to pirates and refugees from all over the seas who are looking for downtown or somewhere stable to live. In Port Seashell, however, Dona has found her mother, father, and younger sister, all of whom she thought had died. The remainder of the crew wants to get back to sailing the high seas, but Dona is slowly reconnecting with her family and is thinking about settling down with them again. All of this is complicated by the arrival of Silverbeard, a vicious pirate captain who is launching raids on Port Seashell in search of information about an ancient hoard of gold that lies buried somewhere on a nearby island. The action of the game largely revolves both around doing favors for townspeople in Port Seashell and stopping Silverbeard from collecting clues to the treasure (and also defending the town). Over the course of the game, you'll battle various members of Silverbeard's crew (and in some paths you can turn them to your side as allies). Depending on how the story goes (and in the canon and most common branches taken by players), one or both of Dona's parents die at the hands of Silverbeard, and Dona's younger sister is kidnapped by him at the end of the story to be taken as his bride, leading to the final confrontation with the deadly pirate in an ancient fortress where the great treasure is buried. After Silverbeard's defeat, Port Seashell is made peaceful once again. Dona realizes that her true destiny lies on the high seas with her friends, and the crew once again sets sail for their next adventure...
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2, despite not QUITE reaching the same commercial success as its predecessor, is still one of the top selling new release games of the year and is fondly remembered as one of the last great hits on the Super Nintendo CD. It's also as well reviewed as its predecessor, with mostly 9s and even a few 10s. It doesn't kick off another huge pirate boom like the first game did, but it does solidify the series as one of Nintendo's best video game franchises.
-
Sonic Fighters
Though Sonic fans will undoubtedly welcome this game, it's a clear disappointment compared to the Saturn's other excellent fighting games. With a rather basic battle system, clunky graphics, and a poor single-player mode, Sonic Fighters seems like more of a quick cash-in than a worthy entry into the fighting game genre for Sonic and his friends. We liked the robust character selection and some of the neat special moves, but if you're looking for a serious brawler, look elsewhere.
Score: 6/10
Hexen
id Software does it again with another outstanding port to the Saturn. The haunting caverns and dark corridors of Hexen look great on the Sega Saturn, and the atmospheric soundtrack is perfect. It plays a lot like Turok but with a medieval twist. Though the graphics won't blow you away like Turok's did, the game itself is fun, challenging, and scary, and another outstanding first person shooter for the Sega Saturn.
Score: 8/10
Shinobi X
While we wish Sega had done more to make this game stand out from the rest of the hack-and-slash beat-em-ups out there, Shinobi X is still a fun, fast-paced sidescroller with lots of different weapons and some killer boss fights too. It's one of those old arcade games that needed an update, and if you enjoyed the original, this is a borderline must-play.
Score: 7/10
Windborn
In conclusion, this is an outstanding, epic RPG that stands among the best of all time. It's worthy of being compared to the classics on the Super Nintendo RPG, and now the Saturn has a classic to call its own. It features beautiful graphics, an engaging quest, a challenging but rewarding battle system, and one of the most emotional storylines we've ever experienced. Make no mistake, this is the game to beat for RPG of the year.
Score: 10/10
-excerpted from reviews of July's biggest Saturn games, featured in the August 1997 issue of Official Saturn Magazine
Windborn – The Basics
Windborn is a JRPG for the Sega Saturn, published by Namco and devloped by ArkiTek, a Japanese software developer (original to TTL) that got its start producing a few obscure games for the Super Nintendo CD, mostly RPGs and puzzle games. Windborn was also originally planned as a late SNES-CD game, but after ArkiTek realized that the game's advanced 2-D graphics wouldn't be possible on the SNES-CD and that the game might become lost amongst the Ultra Nintendo hype, the company switched to developing for the Saturn and signed on with Namco as a publisher. The game features entirely 2-D sprite graphics with animation and detail unparalleled in any console game before, made possible by the Saturn's 2-D graphics chip. It also features about 15 minutes worth of anime cutscenes and a large amount of fully voiced dialogue (which is performed mostly by semi-professionals, though a few voice actors who dubbed anime at the time like Tiffany Grant and Kimberly Yates also voice major characters in the game). The game also features a large soundtrack including two vocal songs, one performed about halfway into the game and the other performed over the game's credits. The game's battle system is largely traditional JRPG fare. There are eight playable characters in all with four spots in the party, three are open spots and one MUST be filled by the character Hane, the young girl whom the others are escorting throughout the story (occasionally Hane is gone from the party and this spot can be filled by someone else, but when she's there, she must be in the party). She's a decent spellcaster and healer, though she's defensively weak in terms of HP and defense stats. If Hane is knocked out in battle, you have a limited number of turns to revive her, if she's not revived by then (the number of turns you can take increases as the game goes on, however, certain enemy actions can reduce the counter), it's a game over. You can use healing items (fairly plentiful) or spells to revive her, if you don't have any of those, the other party members can all burn their turns to revive her as well (however, this can only be used a limited number of times per battle). However, there is a mechanic introduced about a quarter of the way through the game where Hane will fuse with another party member for the duration of the battle (or until the fused character is knocked out). You can do this in almost any battle with any other party member. The fused party member gains a slight stat boost and a unique ability (or in some cases multiple abilities) only accessible through this fusion mechanic. In most major battles, it's recommended to fuse Hane with another party member to gain these abilities, the power of the fused party member exceeds what Hane and the original party member could do alone.
The game starts by introducing the “People of the Wind”, who are given life by the winds that encircle the world and are tasked with nurturing and protecting normal humans and all life on the planet. They live in small, nomadic tribes, watching over people and protecting the weak. However, a warrior prince named Mizashi became very strong and began to conquer all other nations. When the Windborn began to interfere with his conquests, he began to slaughter them, and used his popularity to convince his people that the Windborn were evil and sought to stop all progress, leading to a wholesale slaughter of the Windborn. Mizashi eventually gained enough power to bend the winds to his will, stopping the birth of new Windborn and killing all the rest until there was only one left... a nine-year-old girl named Hane. Hane, however, was captured by a group of mercenaries from Dokaru, one of the last remaining free kingdoms left after Mizashi has conquered most of the globe. One of these mercenaries, Tengu, is the main human protagonist of the story, and when he realizes that Dokaru's king wants Hane's powers extracted through torture, he decides to betray his fellow mercenaries and run away with her, which starts the action of the story. As Tengu travels, he meets with various other people who wish to help Hane. The heroes are searching for a secret underground palace that Hane says holds the secret of the Windborn's power. Meanwhile, the heroes are fugitives, both from Dokaru's forces and from those of Mizashi, who will stop at nothing to see Hane dead. As the journey goes on, Tengu, Hane, and their allies venture to various places around the world, all the while growing closer to this mysterious and precocious girl. Eventually, Tengu and his friends are able to lead a coup to replace the king of Dokaru with a benevolent princess, Asari. However, the night after the coronation, Mizashi overruns the Dokaru capital, and Asari, who Tengu had fallen in love with, is executed (Tengu is about to lunge at Mizashi but his friend Nara, a young woman who ends up being Tengu's true love later in the game, knocks him out before he makes a suicidal charge). The journey continues, until finally, about two-thirds of the way through the game, Tengu's party reaches the underground palace at the same time Mizashi does. After a great battle, the secret of the fortress is revealed...the fortress was the pinnacle of Windborn civilization and was home to King Shaman, leader of the ancient Windborn...but to the horror of Hane and the others, Shaman was a cruel, conquering king who was just as bad as Mizashi, and was sealed away by the gathered peoples of the world, with those survivors of his empire, the few surviving Windborn, vowing to atone for their deeds by using their power to help the peoples of the world. Now that the Great Windborn King has been unleashed on the world, he is seemingly unstoppable. Over the next part of the game, Mizashi and his armies are beaten back by King Shaman's assault, while Tengu, Hane, and their friends try to stay out of their way while scouring the world for a way to stop Shaman once and for all. Eventually, the entire world is overrun, with only Mizashi's capital city holding out against Shaman's forces. Mizashi, at the end of his rope, makes a deal with the heroes: he will use what he knows about the Windborn to give Hane the power to defeat Shaman. With no other options, the heroes are forced to trust them, and of course, Mizashi betrays them, instead seeking to take Hane's power for himself. This leads the heroes to mount an assault on Mizashi's palace and in an epic battle, the party defeats Mizashi and then Tengu beats Mizashi in one-on-one combat, avenging Asari and saving Hane. However, the turmoil allows King Shaman to break through the walls of Mizashi's city, and though the heroes save who they can, the city is overrun and a good portion of its inhabitants are slaughtered. However, there is one final secret that the Windborn kept, and it will enable Hane to defeat Shaman. The heroes make one final assault on Shaman's grand tower, battling his most powerful lieutenants along the way, including a zombie-like remnant of Mizashi, before finally confronting Shaman and defeating him in an epic four-stage final boss battle with four different unique final boss themes. After Shaman is defeated, however, Hane realizes that to truly annihilate him she must give up her life. Hane, after taking a piece of strength from every one of her friends, ascends to her true form as the Windborn Goddess, obliterating Shaman and his evil once and for all. Shaman is destroyed, but Hane is gone, having given up her life to defeat him. Tengu and his friends, though happy to have saved the world, also remember their friend, who, while no longer alive in her human, physical form, still lives on every time they feel the wind floating through the air.
Windborn is known as one of the best RPGs of the year (and among some critics, THE best RPG of the year). It receives immense praise from critics with mostly 9s and 10s, including becoming the first Sega Saturn game to achieve a 40/40 from Famitsu. The game's sales, while mediocre when compared with mainstream Saturn hits, are still strong for a JRPG, with around 140,000 sales in North America, around 90,000 sales in Europe, and over a million sales in Japan. It's concluded that while the game might have sold somewhat better on the Super Nintendo CD, it would not have been quite as good. The game establishes the Sega Saturn as a viable system for JRPGs, and it's only the first major JRPG to be released for the Saturn that year...
-
Meanwhile, Sony's software success continues with Intelligent Qube on the Super Nintendo CD. It's the first puzzle game published by Sony, and it's received excellent reviews from media outlets around the world for its tense, challenging gameplay. The game has the player running around a flat plane as a large wave of blocks of various colors slowly rolls toward them. The player must clear these blocks before they reach the player's character and topple him over, which then triggers blocks to fall off the platform the player is standing on. If he falls from the stage, it's game over. The game then estimates the player's IQ based on their performance. The game's graphics utilize psuedo-3D to create the effect of a large, open plane as the blocks slowly roll toward the player, and though they're relatively simple, the game has been praised for creating a reasonable illusion of three-dimensional space. Though Sony is gearing up to begin releasing games for the Ultra Nintendo, including the platformer Crash Bandicoot at the system's launch, the company still has a strong lineup of games for this, which is largely considered the last year of major marquee releases for the Super Nintendo CD. Other SNES-CD games planned by Sony include Parappa the Rapper, which has the player controlling a cartoon dog who attempts to keep up with the rhythm and lyrics of various music instructors.
-excerpted from an article in the August 1997 issue of Next Generation
-
And while Bullfrog, the company he helped to found in 1987, is launching Syndicate Wars on the Super Nintendo CD this month, a port of the successful PC game, Peter Molyneux says that he plans to leave the company after this month's release of Dungeon Keeper, also on the PC.
“I think I've accomplished just about all I can there, and it's time for me to enter a new chapter of my life,” said Molyneux, who continued to design games over the past decade while occasionally moonlighting as a correspondent for various video game publications. “I'll still be designing games, but they'll be entirely different from what I was doing with Bullfrog.”
When asked if the new generation of console hardware held any promise, Molyneux did heap some faint praise on the upcoming Ultra Nintendo.
“I think the system is designed with big games in mind, big ambitious games and that it'll be capable of handling most of the big computer games over the next few years.”
However, when asked if he would be designing games for Nintendo's new system, Molyneux was somewhat ambivalent.
“I still think the true potential of gaming lies with the home computer. The consoles, even the cutting edge ones, lag a bit too far behind. But if someone gives me an opportunity, who knows? But look at Syndicate Wars on the Super Nintendo CD. The poor thing can barely handle it. It's a shame because the original game was something I'm really proud of. It's good that Nintendo's moving on. Hopefully they've futureproofed the Ultra better than they did their last gaming device.”
With Molyneux moving onto greener pastures and Syndicate Wars launching to fairly tepid reviews, Bullfrog is at a time of transition, but the man who helped start the company says his old team will be just fine.
“They're the best group of guys in the world to work with. This leaving's not a knock on them, I just felt I needed a new challenge. I wish them all the best.”
-excerpted from an interview on Gamespot.com, July 29, 1997
-
With many of the headlines focused on the Saturn and the upcoming Ultra Nintendo, Nintendo's little device that could, the Game Boy, continues to quietly chug along. Having released a new iteration of the console last year, the Game Boy Color, the system's been experiencing a bit of a mini-renaissance. The Squaresoft RPG Sydonia released in April to favorable reviews. The system has also recently seen a couple of adaptations of SNES-CD hits. Deadman Sam's Skeleton Crew is the sequel to 1995's portable Deadman Sam adventure, while VideoVision: Remote Wars is a small-screen version of the 1996 hit that many critics say is even better than the original. Donkey Kong Land 3, based on Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble, releases this fall and looks quite good in screenshots. The game is said to be designed for the Game Boy Color from the ground up, and is planned as the second Game Boy Color exclusive title. The first? This month's Shantae, a platformer/adventure title developed by WayForward, best known for 1995's Nightsquad. Shantae is significantly more lighthearted, it's a fantasy action romp featuring a genie with the ability to swing her hair to battle enemies and gain access to secret areas. The game features graphics better than any previous Game Boy title, comparable to many Super Nintendo cartridge titles and with an excellent soundtrack that takes full advantage of the new Gameboy's Sony-powered chip. What lies beyond for the little Nintendo that could? Zelda fans clamoring for a new portable adventure won't have to wait much longer: The Legend Of Zelda: The Mystic Mirror comes to North America in Spring 1998. And what of Pocket Monsters, the franchise taking Japan by storm? While Nintendo has confirmed that the game will come to North America eventually, news is only very slowly trickling out of Japan, showing that Nintendo's in no hurry to let their portable hit go international. It's likely that the company is holding back news until after the release of the Ultra Nintendo, so as not to let the game get lost in the wake of the new console's big debut. It's most likely that Pocket Monsters will come to the west sometime in 1998. That's no consolation to Japan-watchers salivating at every bit of news of the franchise's success, but it appears that Game Boy Color owners will have no shortage of games to tide them over until then.
-an article that appeared in the September 1997 issue of GamePro
-
Alex Stansfield: Windborn is, full-stop, the best RPG since Tale Phantasia. It's a tremendously epic game filled with adventure, challenge, lots of side-quests and a huge world to explore. It's also a deeply moving story involving fantastic characters. It's a must-play for all Saturn owners.
Brittany Saldita: Yeah, it's just an incredible game. I was blown away by how beautiful everything looked. The animation on the characters and the enemies was just superb. So much detail in all the backgrounds...I mean, this game arguably looks better than Final Fantasy VII. I think if you enjoy that sort of classic style 2-D, this is just about as far as you can go with it. It's incredible.
Alex: And I wasn't expecting much from this game. I liked playing it at E3, but I thought it'd be just another fantasy RPG. I never expected anything like this, especially from Namco.
Brittany: Yeah, they've been on fire this year, haven't they? Usually they just put out games about people punching each other, this is a nice change of pace.
Alex: Well, we enjoy the games about people punching each other, but yeah, this kind of game is something we've never seen from them before and I love it.
Brittany: Is the Sega Saturn really becoming an RPG powerhouse? You've got this game, you've got Blood Omen....
Alex: Remember that old Saturn commercial where they bashed RPGs?
Brittany: Yeah, we've come a long way. Though, you know, they'll bash pretty much anything Nintendo does.
Alex: Nintendo should do a game about breathing if they really wanted to show Sega up. Or a game about pooping. Watch all the Saturn guys going around with their butts clenched, like *scrunches up his face* Saturn does....*groaning* what Nintendon't....nnnnnnggh....rrrrgggh.....
Brittany: *giggles* Sega usually gets better results from doing what NintenDOES rather than what they don't.
Alex: Go figure. I give this game a 5 out of 5.
Brittany: I'm also giving it a 5 out of 5. Windborn is a beautiful, amazing game. FINALLY, a great old school style RPG on the Saturn!
Alex: I love it! *a siren sounds* And you know what that means?
Brittany: Another one for the wall?
Alex: You got it!
*Alex and Brittany, accompanied by Ted, Lyssa, Gary, and John, mount a framed copy of Windborn up on the Hall of Fame Wall*
Alex: And there we go.
Brittany: Windborn, the newest member of the GameTV Hall of Fame. Way to go!
(…)
Gary Westhouse: So what's the verdict on Shantae?
Lyssa Fielding: I like it! Girl's got style, whipping her hair all around like that... *she tries to whip her hair like Shantae's but only ends up with a sore neck* Ooohh, you'd get whiplash REAL easy. *groaning and holding her neck*
Gary: Reminds me of my days headbanging at Metallica concerts.
Lyssa: Yeah, guess since she's a genie she can do that without any lasting health problems.
Gary: That and the way she just constantly swings her hips back and forth, even when she's standing still. Somebody give that girl a hula hoop!
Lyssa: Yeah, she just goes around and around, and around...
Gary: This game kicks a lot of butt though. It looks GREAT for a handheld game.
Lyssa: Easily the best looking handheld game I've ever seen. Holy crap!
Gary: Yeah, it looks like it could be an early Sega Genesis game even.
Lyssa: Well, good graphics don't mean anything without great gameplay, and Shantae's got butt kicking, exploration, platforming, she's got it all. I'm giving Shantae a 4.5 out of 5.
Gary: And I give it a 4. Definitely one of the best Game Boy games of the year.
-excerpted from the July 8, 1997 episode of GameTV
(…)
John Walden: Damn, this guy's got skills!
Ted Crosley: Yeah, but Shinobi X was largely a dud for me. I'll give it credit for taking the great gameplay of the original arcade title and adapting it pretty well for the Saturn, but when you get over the hype of seeing Shinobi back in action, it's ultimately just a run of the mill platformer and a mediore one at that.
John: That's where I'm gonna disagree. Now it's true, Shinobi doesn't tread any new ground, but the ground it DOES tread on is pretty nice. There's lots of cool bosses and the combat's pretty fun. It's a bit on the short side-
Ted: That's another complaint I have. It's eight levels, they're not even that long, the game's largely padded with artificial difficulty that forces you to start the whole game over again if you run out of lives. So you're basically forced to result to cheese tactics that make the game repetitive instead of truly fun.
John: It's a challenge and yeah, sometimes not a fair one. But it looks great, it plays smooth....I think it's a good game! I give Shinobi X a 3.5.
Ted: And I'm giving it a 2.5.
-excerpted from the July 15, 1997 episode of GameTV
Ted: I'm glad to see Tales Of The Seven Seas is back and in fine form. The story, I thought, was even better than the last game, and the graphics got a nice upgrade. There's a lot of 3-D effects now, some great animation, I'm surprised they got it all on one disc.
Alex: I'm glad they did because switching discs would've been a pain in the ass. But yeah, this game's as fun as the last one. There's not as many missions, but it's essentially still just as long of a game as the first one and it's a bit tougher too.
Ted: I noticed that, a lot of the later missions and the boss fights are pretty tough. Whenever you fight one of Silverbeard's minions, you're in for a tough fight.
Alex: And they brought all the old voice actors back, which is really nice.
Ted: And Clancy Brown as Silverbeard is GREAT casting. If you've ever seen The Shawshank Redemption, you know this guy plays a convincing (bleep)hole.
Alex: Yeah, he's fantastic. I can just imagine him spouting some of Byron Hadley's lines at certain parts in this game.
Ted: Well, he does more of kind of a pirate accent in this game, so...Byron Hadley if he was a pirate?
Alex: Which makes him even more dangerous.
Ted: True, though in this game, Silverbeard doesn't beat someone to death for whining and crying.
Alex: Though you at least get the idea that he would.
Ted: Damn right he would.
Alex: So what's your final score?
Ted: I wanted to give it a 5 but I settled on a 4.5 because some of the missions DID get a bit repetitive, which made seeing everything just a bit of a slog.
Alex: Well, I gave it a 4.5 because the combat, while still fun, also does get a little bit repetitive eventually, and that can be a bit of a takeaway from a REALLY long play session. But other than those pretty minor quibbles, it's an amazing game.
Ted: Absolutely an amazing game, definitely recommended and lives up to the first.
-excerpted from the July 22, 1997 episode of GameTV
-
SNES-CD Power Charts: July 1997
1. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Dreams
2. Fire Emblem: Keepers Of The Light
3. Tale Phantasia
4. Terranigma
5. Syrielle
6. Mega Man X4
7. Chrono Trigger
8. Elements Of Mana
9. Harvest Moon
10. Dragon Quest VI
11. Hellstormers
12. Rage 2: The Rage Returns
13. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
14. Super Mario RPG
15. Super Mario World 2
16. Squad Four: Eclipse
17. Commander Keen: The Universe Is Toast
18. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
19. Doom
20. Donkey Kong Country
The Official Saturn Magazine Buzz Chart – July 1997
1. Sonic The Hedgehog 4
2. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
3. Fighters Megamix
4. Sonic Jam
5. Doom II
6. Hexen
7. Ultima: Scion Of Britannia
8. Sonic Fighters
9. Tekken 2
10. Raigeki
-
And Beverly Hills is still in shock and mourning tonight after seven people were killed and 19 were injured in a rampage carried out just after 3:00 PM today. Among the injured is Tonight Show host and comedy superstar Jay Leno, who was hit in the arm and initially reported in serious condition, but is now said to be in good health and good spirits tonight in a Los Angeles hospital, on the way to a full recovery. The murders were carried out by 27-year-old Andrew Cunanan, who was shot and captured by police and is also in a hospital tonight, recovering from his wounds under heavy police guard. Cunanan was still conscious as he was loaded into the back of an ambulance after being shot by police, and when asked why he committed the massacre, he simply responded, “I wanna be famous.”
The Beverly Hills massacre shines an increasingly white-hot spotlight on the matter of gun control, which has been a major part of President Clinton's domestic agenda since the passage of the federal assault weapons ban in 1994. This shooting is the third mass shooting incident in the past 12 months, following the incidents surrounding assassination attempts on the rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls that between them left more than a dozen dead. Now, more than ever, President Clinton is putting pressure on Republicans in Congress to pass further measures restricting the availability of handguns. Conservative critics claim that any more gun laws represent an encroachment on Second Amendment rights, and many Republicans in Congress even want to repeal the assault weapons ban. The debate will surely echo through the halls of Congress into the latter part of the summer.
-from a report on CNN on the evening of July 31, 1997
-Daigo Ashakawa, president of ArkiTek Software
“On the surface, the Saturn should have been the greatest JRPG machine of all time. No console on the market could do both 2D and 3D so seamlessly. Even with the rise of 3D RPGs kicked off by games like Planetary Probe and Final Fantasy VII, Windborn proved that the Saturn was an incredible system for old-school 2D JRPGs.”
-Alex Stansfield in a blog entry on January 27, 2013
“Tales of the Seven Seas was such a huge success that we had to make another one before we moved on to the Ultra. With the weight of the unknown lifted off of our shoulders, we just did more of what worked the first time. Luckily, it worked for us again.”
-Mark Cerny
“This is a game meant to test the player's mind and courage. The graphics don't need to be cutting edge in order to do that.”
-Masahiko Sato, creator of Intelligent Qube, on why he chose to create the game for the Super Nintendo CD in lieu of waiting for the Ultra Nintendo or designing it for the Sega Saturn
“I think in all the hype over the Ultra Nintendo, people don't realize that Nintendo's still selling nearly a million Game Boys a month. So the right game could do very, very well.”
Matt Bozon, co-creator of Shantae
“With you, I am home.”
-Hane, Windborn
“Remember, stealing without a care is what I used to do. I'm protecting the people of this city now. I....I don't know if I'm up to leave anymore...”
-Dona, Tales Of The Seven Seas 2
-
Disney's Hercules
Dan: 6.0
Shoe: 7.0
Crispin: 5.0 (quote: “A fairly mediocre platformer with little of the movie's charm.”)
Sushi-X: 5.0
Intelligent Qube
Dan: 8.0 (quote: “A wickedly tough puzzler that will definitely test your brains.”)
Shoe: 8.0
Crispin: 7.0
Sushi-X: 7.5
RayStorm
Dan: 8.5
Shoe: 9.0 (quote: “This shooter has some of the best graphics I've ever seen on the SNES-CD. Taito really knows how to squeeze every drop out of this system.”)
Crispin: 8.0
Sushi-X: 9.0
Syndicate Wars
Dan: 7.0
Shoe: 7.5 (quote: “Definitely a decent port, but limited in comparison with the amazing PC original.”)
Crispin: 7.0
Sushi-X: 7.0
Tail Of The Sun
Dan: 6.0
Shoe: 5.0
Crispin: 5.0
Sushi-X: 6.0 (quote: “I like how much freedom this game gives you but there's really not all that much to do.”)
Slaughterbox 2
Dan: 3.5
Shoe: 5.5
Crispin: 3.0 (quote: “This sequel is a big step back from the original and that's a real shame.”)
Sushi-X: 3.0
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2
Dan: 9.0
Shoe: 9.0 (quote: “This game picks up right where the awesome original left off. It remains one of the top game franchises out there.”)
Crispin: 9.0
Sushi-X: 9.0
-reviews of July 1997's SNES-CD games in the August and September 1997 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly
-
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2: The Basics
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2 is the sequel to the pirate-themed 1995 hit Tales of the Seven Seas, published by Sony and devloped by Naughty Dog. The game takes place a year after the first game and features the same seven playable characters: Erick, Dona, Victoria, Creel, Albert, McKenna, and Jack, returning from the first game with largely the same abilities and skills, with a few new ones added in. Graphically, the game is largely the same as the first, though with a few added 3-D effects, the game is considered one of the best looking games to appear on the SNES-CD, and, like the original game, features a CD audio soundtrack and fully voiced dialogue. This time, instead of sailing on a ship for the majority of the game (though the seven characters still have their ship and travel on it from time to time), the game largely revolves around the bustling town of Port Seashell, the characters' main base of operations. Instead of wandering the ship talking to characters between missions, you can now wander the town and visit various places there, which, like in the original game, leads to dialogue trees and potential new missions. This game is a bit smaller in scope than the original, there are around 85 missions total, of which you'll complete somewhere between 20-30 if you take the straightest path through the story. There are once again endings for each of the main characters depending on the relationships formed during the game, though, like the original game, they're all “good” endings for the most part. The easiest ending to obtain and the “canon” ending is Dona's, as the main storyline somewhat revolves around her.
It's a year after the end of the first Tales of the Seven Seas, and Erick and his friends have found a port of call: Port Seashell, a relatively peaceful town that's home to pirates and refugees from all over the seas who are looking for downtown or somewhere stable to live. In Port Seashell, however, Dona has found her mother, father, and younger sister, all of whom she thought had died. The remainder of the crew wants to get back to sailing the high seas, but Dona is slowly reconnecting with her family and is thinking about settling down with them again. All of this is complicated by the arrival of Silverbeard, a vicious pirate captain who is launching raids on Port Seashell in search of information about an ancient hoard of gold that lies buried somewhere on a nearby island. The action of the game largely revolves both around doing favors for townspeople in Port Seashell and stopping Silverbeard from collecting clues to the treasure (and also defending the town). Over the course of the game, you'll battle various members of Silverbeard's crew (and in some paths you can turn them to your side as allies). Depending on how the story goes (and in the canon and most common branches taken by players), one or both of Dona's parents die at the hands of Silverbeard, and Dona's younger sister is kidnapped by him at the end of the story to be taken as his bride, leading to the final confrontation with the deadly pirate in an ancient fortress where the great treasure is buried. After Silverbeard's defeat, Port Seashell is made peaceful once again. Dona realizes that her true destiny lies on the high seas with her friends, and the crew once again sets sail for their next adventure...
Tales Of The Seven Seas 2, despite not QUITE reaching the same commercial success as its predecessor, is still one of the top selling new release games of the year and is fondly remembered as one of the last great hits on the Super Nintendo CD. It's also as well reviewed as its predecessor, with mostly 9s and even a few 10s. It doesn't kick off another huge pirate boom like the first game did, but it does solidify the series as one of Nintendo's best video game franchises.
-
Sonic Fighters
Though Sonic fans will undoubtedly welcome this game, it's a clear disappointment compared to the Saturn's other excellent fighting games. With a rather basic battle system, clunky graphics, and a poor single-player mode, Sonic Fighters seems like more of a quick cash-in than a worthy entry into the fighting game genre for Sonic and his friends. We liked the robust character selection and some of the neat special moves, but if you're looking for a serious brawler, look elsewhere.
Score: 6/10
Hexen
id Software does it again with another outstanding port to the Saturn. The haunting caverns and dark corridors of Hexen look great on the Sega Saturn, and the atmospheric soundtrack is perfect. It plays a lot like Turok but with a medieval twist. Though the graphics won't blow you away like Turok's did, the game itself is fun, challenging, and scary, and another outstanding first person shooter for the Sega Saturn.
Score: 8/10
Shinobi X
While we wish Sega had done more to make this game stand out from the rest of the hack-and-slash beat-em-ups out there, Shinobi X is still a fun, fast-paced sidescroller with lots of different weapons and some killer boss fights too. It's one of those old arcade games that needed an update, and if you enjoyed the original, this is a borderline must-play.
Score: 7/10
Windborn
In conclusion, this is an outstanding, epic RPG that stands among the best of all time. It's worthy of being compared to the classics on the Super Nintendo RPG, and now the Saturn has a classic to call its own. It features beautiful graphics, an engaging quest, a challenging but rewarding battle system, and one of the most emotional storylines we've ever experienced. Make no mistake, this is the game to beat for RPG of the year.
Score: 10/10
-excerpted from reviews of July's biggest Saturn games, featured in the August 1997 issue of Official Saturn Magazine
Windborn – The Basics
Windborn is a JRPG for the Sega Saturn, published by Namco and devloped by ArkiTek, a Japanese software developer (original to TTL) that got its start producing a few obscure games for the Super Nintendo CD, mostly RPGs and puzzle games. Windborn was also originally planned as a late SNES-CD game, but after ArkiTek realized that the game's advanced 2-D graphics wouldn't be possible on the SNES-CD and that the game might become lost amongst the Ultra Nintendo hype, the company switched to developing for the Saturn and signed on with Namco as a publisher. The game features entirely 2-D sprite graphics with animation and detail unparalleled in any console game before, made possible by the Saturn's 2-D graphics chip. It also features about 15 minutes worth of anime cutscenes and a large amount of fully voiced dialogue (which is performed mostly by semi-professionals, though a few voice actors who dubbed anime at the time like Tiffany Grant and Kimberly Yates also voice major characters in the game). The game also features a large soundtrack including two vocal songs, one performed about halfway into the game and the other performed over the game's credits. The game's battle system is largely traditional JRPG fare. There are eight playable characters in all with four spots in the party, three are open spots and one MUST be filled by the character Hane, the young girl whom the others are escorting throughout the story (occasionally Hane is gone from the party and this spot can be filled by someone else, but when she's there, she must be in the party). She's a decent spellcaster and healer, though she's defensively weak in terms of HP and defense stats. If Hane is knocked out in battle, you have a limited number of turns to revive her, if she's not revived by then (the number of turns you can take increases as the game goes on, however, certain enemy actions can reduce the counter), it's a game over. You can use healing items (fairly plentiful) or spells to revive her, if you don't have any of those, the other party members can all burn their turns to revive her as well (however, this can only be used a limited number of times per battle). However, there is a mechanic introduced about a quarter of the way through the game where Hane will fuse with another party member for the duration of the battle (or until the fused character is knocked out). You can do this in almost any battle with any other party member. The fused party member gains a slight stat boost and a unique ability (or in some cases multiple abilities) only accessible through this fusion mechanic. In most major battles, it's recommended to fuse Hane with another party member to gain these abilities, the power of the fused party member exceeds what Hane and the original party member could do alone.
The game starts by introducing the “People of the Wind”, who are given life by the winds that encircle the world and are tasked with nurturing and protecting normal humans and all life on the planet. They live in small, nomadic tribes, watching over people and protecting the weak. However, a warrior prince named Mizashi became very strong and began to conquer all other nations. When the Windborn began to interfere with his conquests, he began to slaughter them, and used his popularity to convince his people that the Windborn were evil and sought to stop all progress, leading to a wholesale slaughter of the Windborn. Mizashi eventually gained enough power to bend the winds to his will, stopping the birth of new Windborn and killing all the rest until there was only one left... a nine-year-old girl named Hane. Hane, however, was captured by a group of mercenaries from Dokaru, one of the last remaining free kingdoms left after Mizashi has conquered most of the globe. One of these mercenaries, Tengu, is the main human protagonist of the story, and when he realizes that Dokaru's king wants Hane's powers extracted through torture, he decides to betray his fellow mercenaries and run away with her, which starts the action of the story. As Tengu travels, he meets with various other people who wish to help Hane. The heroes are searching for a secret underground palace that Hane says holds the secret of the Windborn's power. Meanwhile, the heroes are fugitives, both from Dokaru's forces and from those of Mizashi, who will stop at nothing to see Hane dead. As the journey goes on, Tengu, Hane, and their allies venture to various places around the world, all the while growing closer to this mysterious and precocious girl. Eventually, Tengu and his friends are able to lead a coup to replace the king of Dokaru with a benevolent princess, Asari. However, the night after the coronation, Mizashi overruns the Dokaru capital, and Asari, who Tengu had fallen in love with, is executed (Tengu is about to lunge at Mizashi but his friend Nara, a young woman who ends up being Tengu's true love later in the game, knocks him out before he makes a suicidal charge). The journey continues, until finally, about two-thirds of the way through the game, Tengu's party reaches the underground palace at the same time Mizashi does. After a great battle, the secret of the fortress is revealed...the fortress was the pinnacle of Windborn civilization and was home to King Shaman, leader of the ancient Windborn...but to the horror of Hane and the others, Shaman was a cruel, conquering king who was just as bad as Mizashi, and was sealed away by the gathered peoples of the world, with those survivors of his empire, the few surviving Windborn, vowing to atone for their deeds by using their power to help the peoples of the world. Now that the Great Windborn King has been unleashed on the world, he is seemingly unstoppable. Over the next part of the game, Mizashi and his armies are beaten back by King Shaman's assault, while Tengu, Hane, and their friends try to stay out of their way while scouring the world for a way to stop Shaman once and for all. Eventually, the entire world is overrun, with only Mizashi's capital city holding out against Shaman's forces. Mizashi, at the end of his rope, makes a deal with the heroes: he will use what he knows about the Windborn to give Hane the power to defeat Shaman. With no other options, the heroes are forced to trust them, and of course, Mizashi betrays them, instead seeking to take Hane's power for himself. This leads the heroes to mount an assault on Mizashi's palace and in an epic battle, the party defeats Mizashi and then Tengu beats Mizashi in one-on-one combat, avenging Asari and saving Hane. However, the turmoil allows King Shaman to break through the walls of Mizashi's city, and though the heroes save who they can, the city is overrun and a good portion of its inhabitants are slaughtered. However, there is one final secret that the Windborn kept, and it will enable Hane to defeat Shaman. The heroes make one final assault on Shaman's grand tower, battling his most powerful lieutenants along the way, including a zombie-like remnant of Mizashi, before finally confronting Shaman and defeating him in an epic four-stage final boss battle with four different unique final boss themes. After Shaman is defeated, however, Hane realizes that to truly annihilate him she must give up her life. Hane, after taking a piece of strength from every one of her friends, ascends to her true form as the Windborn Goddess, obliterating Shaman and his evil once and for all. Shaman is destroyed, but Hane is gone, having given up her life to defeat him. Tengu and his friends, though happy to have saved the world, also remember their friend, who, while no longer alive in her human, physical form, still lives on every time they feel the wind floating through the air.
Windborn is known as one of the best RPGs of the year (and among some critics, THE best RPG of the year). It receives immense praise from critics with mostly 9s and 10s, including becoming the first Sega Saturn game to achieve a 40/40 from Famitsu. The game's sales, while mediocre when compared with mainstream Saturn hits, are still strong for a JRPG, with around 140,000 sales in North America, around 90,000 sales in Europe, and over a million sales in Japan. It's concluded that while the game might have sold somewhat better on the Super Nintendo CD, it would not have been quite as good. The game establishes the Sega Saturn as a viable system for JRPGs, and it's only the first major JRPG to be released for the Saturn that year...
-
Meanwhile, Sony's software success continues with Intelligent Qube on the Super Nintendo CD. It's the first puzzle game published by Sony, and it's received excellent reviews from media outlets around the world for its tense, challenging gameplay. The game has the player running around a flat plane as a large wave of blocks of various colors slowly rolls toward them. The player must clear these blocks before they reach the player's character and topple him over, which then triggers blocks to fall off the platform the player is standing on. If he falls from the stage, it's game over. The game then estimates the player's IQ based on their performance. The game's graphics utilize psuedo-3D to create the effect of a large, open plane as the blocks slowly roll toward the player, and though they're relatively simple, the game has been praised for creating a reasonable illusion of three-dimensional space. Though Sony is gearing up to begin releasing games for the Ultra Nintendo, including the platformer Crash Bandicoot at the system's launch, the company still has a strong lineup of games for this, which is largely considered the last year of major marquee releases for the Super Nintendo CD. Other SNES-CD games planned by Sony include Parappa the Rapper, which has the player controlling a cartoon dog who attempts to keep up with the rhythm and lyrics of various music instructors.
-excerpted from an article in the August 1997 issue of Next Generation
-
And while Bullfrog, the company he helped to found in 1987, is launching Syndicate Wars on the Super Nintendo CD this month, a port of the successful PC game, Peter Molyneux says that he plans to leave the company after this month's release of Dungeon Keeper, also on the PC.
“I think I've accomplished just about all I can there, and it's time for me to enter a new chapter of my life,” said Molyneux, who continued to design games over the past decade while occasionally moonlighting as a correspondent for various video game publications. “I'll still be designing games, but they'll be entirely different from what I was doing with Bullfrog.”
When asked if the new generation of console hardware held any promise, Molyneux did heap some faint praise on the upcoming Ultra Nintendo.
“I think the system is designed with big games in mind, big ambitious games and that it'll be capable of handling most of the big computer games over the next few years.”
However, when asked if he would be designing games for Nintendo's new system, Molyneux was somewhat ambivalent.
“I still think the true potential of gaming lies with the home computer. The consoles, even the cutting edge ones, lag a bit too far behind. But if someone gives me an opportunity, who knows? But look at Syndicate Wars on the Super Nintendo CD. The poor thing can barely handle it. It's a shame because the original game was something I'm really proud of. It's good that Nintendo's moving on. Hopefully they've futureproofed the Ultra better than they did their last gaming device.”
With Molyneux moving onto greener pastures and Syndicate Wars launching to fairly tepid reviews, Bullfrog is at a time of transition, but the man who helped start the company says his old team will be just fine.
“They're the best group of guys in the world to work with. This leaving's not a knock on them, I just felt I needed a new challenge. I wish them all the best.”
-excerpted from an interview on Gamespot.com, July 29, 1997
-
With many of the headlines focused on the Saturn and the upcoming Ultra Nintendo, Nintendo's little device that could, the Game Boy, continues to quietly chug along. Having released a new iteration of the console last year, the Game Boy Color, the system's been experiencing a bit of a mini-renaissance. The Squaresoft RPG Sydonia released in April to favorable reviews. The system has also recently seen a couple of adaptations of SNES-CD hits. Deadman Sam's Skeleton Crew is the sequel to 1995's portable Deadman Sam adventure, while VideoVision: Remote Wars is a small-screen version of the 1996 hit that many critics say is even better than the original. Donkey Kong Land 3, based on Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble, releases this fall and looks quite good in screenshots. The game is said to be designed for the Game Boy Color from the ground up, and is planned as the second Game Boy Color exclusive title. The first? This month's Shantae, a platformer/adventure title developed by WayForward, best known for 1995's Nightsquad. Shantae is significantly more lighthearted, it's a fantasy action romp featuring a genie with the ability to swing her hair to battle enemies and gain access to secret areas. The game features graphics better than any previous Game Boy title, comparable to many Super Nintendo cartridge titles and with an excellent soundtrack that takes full advantage of the new Gameboy's Sony-powered chip. What lies beyond for the little Nintendo that could? Zelda fans clamoring for a new portable adventure won't have to wait much longer: The Legend Of Zelda: The Mystic Mirror comes to North America in Spring 1998. And what of Pocket Monsters, the franchise taking Japan by storm? While Nintendo has confirmed that the game will come to North America eventually, news is only very slowly trickling out of Japan, showing that Nintendo's in no hurry to let their portable hit go international. It's likely that the company is holding back news until after the release of the Ultra Nintendo, so as not to let the game get lost in the wake of the new console's big debut. It's most likely that Pocket Monsters will come to the west sometime in 1998. That's no consolation to Japan-watchers salivating at every bit of news of the franchise's success, but it appears that Game Boy Color owners will have no shortage of games to tide them over until then.
-an article that appeared in the September 1997 issue of GamePro
-
Alex Stansfield: Windborn is, full-stop, the best RPG since Tale Phantasia. It's a tremendously epic game filled with adventure, challenge, lots of side-quests and a huge world to explore. It's also a deeply moving story involving fantastic characters. It's a must-play for all Saturn owners.
Brittany Saldita: Yeah, it's just an incredible game. I was blown away by how beautiful everything looked. The animation on the characters and the enemies was just superb. So much detail in all the backgrounds...I mean, this game arguably looks better than Final Fantasy VII. I think if you enjoy that sort of classic style 2-D, this is just about as far as you can go with it. It's incredible.
Alex: And I wasn't expecting much from this game. I liked playing it at E3, but I thought it'd be just another fantasy RPG. I never expected anything like this, especially from Namco.
Brittany: Yeah, they've been on fire this year, haven't they? Usually they just put out games about people punching each other, this is a nice change of pace.
Alex: Well, we enjoy the games about people punching each other, but yeah, this kind of game is something we've never seen from them before and I love it.
Brittany: Is the Sega Saturn really becoming an RPG powerhouse? You've got this game, you've got Blood Omen....
Alex: Remember that old Saturn commercial where they bashed RPGs?
Brittany: Yeah, we've come a long way. Though, you know, they'll bash pretty much anything Nintendo does.
Alex: Nintendo should do a game about breathing if they really wanted to show Sega up. Or a game about pooping. Watch all the Saturn guys going around with their butts clenched, like *scrunches up his face* Saturn does....*groaning* what Nintendon't....nnnnnnggh....rrrrgggh.....
Brittany: *giggles* Sega usually gets better results from doing what NintenDOES rather than what they don't.
Alex: Go figure. I give this game a 5 out of 5.
Brittany: I'm also giving it a 5 out of 5. Windborn is a beautiful, amazing game. FINALLY, a great old school style RPG on the Saturn!
Alex: I love it! *a siren sounds* And you know what that means?
Brittany: Another one for the wall?
Alex: You got it!
*Alex and Brittany, accompanied by Ted, Lyssa, Gary, and John, mount a framed copy of Windborn up on the Hall of Fame Wall*
Alex: And there we go.
Brittany: Windborn, the newest member of the GameTV Hall of Fame. Way to go!
(…)
Gary Westhouse: So what's the verdict on Shantae?
Lyssa Fielding: I like it! Girl's got style, whipping her hair all around like that... *she tries to whip her hair like Shantae's but only ends up with a sore neck* Ooohh, you'd get whiplash REAL easy. *groaning and holding her neck*
Gary: Reminds me of my days headbanging at Metallica concerts.
Lyssa: Yeah, guess since she's a genie she can do that without any lasting health problems.
Gary: That and the way she just constantly swings her hips back and forth, even when she's standing still. Somebody give that girl a hula hoop!
Lyssa: Yeah, she just goes around and around, and around...
Gary: This game kicks a lot of butt though. It looks GREAT for a handheld game.
Lyssa: Easily the best looking handheld game I've ever seen. Holy crap!
Gary: Yeah, it looks like it could be an early Sega Genesis game even.
Lyssa: Well, good graphics don't mean anything without great gameplay, and Shantae's got butt kicking, exploration, platforming, she's got it all. I'm giving Shantae a 4.5 out of 5.
Gary: And I give it a 4. Definitely one of the best Game Boy games of the year.
-excerpted from the July 8, 1997 episode of GameTV
(…)
John Walden: Damn, this guy's got skills!
Ted Crosley: Yeah, but Shinobi X was largely a dud for me. I'll give it credit for taking the great gameplay of the original arcade title and adapting it pretty well for the Saturn, but when you get over the hype of seeing Shinobi back in action, it's ultimately just a run of the mill platformer and a mediore one at that.
John: That's where I'm gonna disagree. Now it's true, Shinobi doesn't tread any new ground, but the ground it DOES tread on is pretty nice. There's lots of cool bosses and the combat's pretty fun. It's a bit on the short side-
Ted: That's another complaint I have. It's eight levels, they're not even that long, the game's largely padded with artificial difficulty that forces you to start the whole game over again if you run out of lives. So you're basically forced to result to cheese tactics that make the game repetitive instead of truly fun.
John: It's a challenge and yeah, sometimes not a fair one. But it looks great, it plays smooth....I think it's a good game! I give Shinobi X a 3.5.
Ted: And I'm giving it a 2.5.
-excerpted from the July 15, 1997 episode of GameTV
Ted: I'm glad to see Tales Of The Seven Seas is back and in fine form. The story, I thought, was even better than the last game, and the graphics got a nice upgrade. There's a lot of 3-D effects now, some great animation, I'm surprised they got it all on one disc.
Alex: I'm glad they did because switching discs would've been a pain in the ass. But yeah, this game's as fun as the last one. There's not as many missions, but it's essentially still just as long of a game as the first one and it's a bit tougher too.
Ted: I noticed that, a lot of the later missions and the boss fights are pretty tough. Whenever you fight one of Silverbeard's minions, you're in for a tough fight.
Alex: And they brought all the old voice actors back, which is really nice.
Ted: And Clancy Brown as Silverbeard is GREAT casting. If you've ever seen The Shawshank Redemption, you know this guy plays a convincing (bleep)hole.
Alex: Yeah, he's fantastic. I can just imagine him spouting some of Byron Hadley's lines at certain parts in this game.
Ted: Well, he does more of kind of a pirate accent in this game, so...Byron Hadley if he was a pirate?
Alex: Which makes him even more dangerous.
Ted: True, though in this game, Silverbeard doesn't beat someone to death for whining and crying.
Alex: Though you at least get the idea that he would.
Ted: Damn right he would.
Alex: So what's your final score?
Ted: I wanted to give it a 5 but I settled on a 4.5 because some of the missions DID get a bit repetitive, which made seeing everything just a bit of a slog.
Alex: Well, I gave it a 4.5 because the combat, while still fun, also does get a little bit repetitive eventually, and that can be a bit of a takeaway from a REALLY long play session. But other than those pretty minor quibbles, it's an amazing game.
Ted: Absolutely an amazing game, definitely recommended and lives up to the first.
-excerpted from the July 22, 1997 episode of GameTV
-
SNES-CD Power Charts: July 1997
1. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Dreams
2. Fire Emblem: Keepers Of The Light
3. Tale Phantasia
4. Terranigma
5. Syrielle
6. Mega Man X4
7. Chrono Trigger
8. Elements Of Mana
9. Harvest Moon
10. Dragon Quest VI
11. Hellstormers
12. Rage 2: The Rage Returns
13. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
14. Super Mario RPG
15. Super Mario World 2
16. Squad Four: Eclipse
17. Commander Keen: The Universe Is Toast
18. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest
19. Doom
20. Donkey Kong Country
The Official Saturn Magazine Buzz Chart – July 1997
1. Sonic The Hedgehog 4
2. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
3. Fighters Megamix
4. Sonic Jam
5. Doom II
6. Hexen
7. Ultima: Scion Of Britannia
8. Sonic Fighters
9. Tekken 2
10. Raigeki
-
And Beverly Hills is still in shock and mourning tonight after seven people were killed and 19 were injured in a rampage carried out just after 3:00 PM today. Among the injured is Tonight Show host and comedy superstar Jay Leno, who was hit in the arm and initially reported in serious condition, but is now said to be in good health and good spirits tonight in a Los Angeles hospital, on the way to a full recovery. The murders were carried out by 27-year-old Andrew Cunanan, who was shot and captured by police and is also in a hospital tonight, recovering from his wounds under heavy police guard. Cunanan was still conscious as he was loaded into the back of an ambulance after being shot by police, and when asked why he committed the massacre, he simply responded, “I wanna be famous.”
The Beverly Hills massacre shines an increasingly white-hot spotlight on the matter of gun control, which has been a major part of President Clinton's domestic agenda since the passage of the federal assault weapons ban in 1994. This shooting is the third mass shooting incident in the past 12 months, following the incidents surrounding assassination attempts on the rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls that between them left more than a dozen dead. Now, more than ever, President Clinton is putting pressure on Republicans in Congress to pass further measures restricting the availability of handguns. Conservative critics claim that any more gun laws represent an encroachment on Second Amendment rights, and many Republicans in Congress even want to repeal the assault weapons ban. The debate will surely echo through the halls of Congress into the latter part of the summer.
-from a report on CNN on the evening of July 31, 1997
Last edited:
So without Peter Molyneux, who's going to hype games to lofty expectations that it ultimately fails to deliver on?
I wonder if this will cause Jay Leno to actually retire from show-biz and fully hand the tonight show over to Conan, instead of what happened OTL with the whole Jay Leno Show thing.
Also, I'm surprised that Sony's movie (the acquisition of Columbia/Tristar happened pre-POD) and music divisions haven't made more a push to get their fingers in the Nintendo hardware pie. Maybe they'll want the next iteration of the Game Boy to be able to play movies a'la the PSP and UMD.
I wonder if this will cause Jay Leno to actually retire from show-biz and fully hand the tonight show over to Conan, instead of what happened OTL with the whole Jay Leno Show thing.
Also, I'm surprised that Sony's movie (the acquisition of Columbia/Tristar happened pre-POD) and music divisions haven't made more a push to get their fingers in the Nintendo hardware pie. Maybe they'll want the next iteration of the Game Boy to be able to play movies a'la the PSP and UMD.
I wonder if Sony's entertainment divisions would be more interested in adapting Nintendo's games to movie/tv as well.
At least, I see them getting the distribution rights for the Pokémon movies outside Japan instead of Warner Bros. for the first three films. (In Japan, it still would be Toho of Godzilla fame that distributes the anime films). Sony Music probably also has first rights to produce and distribute soundtrack CDs for Nintendo games.
I didn't see that coming (the Jay Leno thing).
As for Conan O'Brien, one of the things that went against him is that many of the Tonight Show viewers (who loved Leno (1)) didn't like Conan. Plus, his style of comedy was different (Leno's 9:00 show failing didn't help, either) from Leno's; viewers had gotten used to Leno. I blame the NBC execs more than either Leno or O'Brien, myself.
OTOH, this probably butterflies away one of WCW's worst angles: Jay Leno, pro wrestler (yes, pro wrestler).
BTW, does this mean Gianni Versace is still alive?
(1) My mom was one of those fans.
As for Conan O'Brien, one of the things that went against him is that many of the Tonight Show viewers (who loved Leno (1)) didn't like Conan. Plus, his style of comedy was different (Leno's 9:00 show failing didn't help, either) from Leno's; viewers had gotten used to Leno. I blame the NBC execs more than either Leno or O'Brien, myself.
OTOH, this probably butterflies away one of WCW's worst angles: Jay Leno, pro wrestler (yes, pro wrestler).
BTW, does this mean Gianni Versace is still alive?
(1) My mom was one of those fans.
Actually, Peter Molyneux left Bullfrog in August 1997 IOTL as well, so this is as OTL so far. And that is an intriguing idea, movies on the next Gameboy....though it might not be powerful enough to do that, we shall indeed see...
Yes, this is true. So far though, no change on the movie front yet.
He is. ITTL, Cunanan's first act of murder was the Beverly Hills massacre. And speaking of wrestling, it's going to rear its head next update... just a brief moment of it anyway...
Wikipedia states that OTL that he started killing in April 25, killing a friend of his. He then ended up on the FBI's ten most wanted list after his third murder.
So he never went on his serial killing spree and got on the most wanted list ITTL?
Am I the only one who read that summary and thought "But everything changed when Mizashi attacked"?
As say Ry, nothing major in movie front, Nintendo is still burned thanks the infamous Super Mario Bros Movie, maybe in the future but sony division are doing other stuff so far.
On spot on pokemon stuff.
About Movie in future Gameboy line...when people opionion varies in UMD(where a good idea....just badly executed), otl gameboy advance have video player capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_Video (people remind this from twitch play pokemon, i used to have one too) , about UMD and other sony tech...there is a sony propertary tech is perfect for handleds...google about it
Movies, no, but what of TV/animation? OTL we had F-Zero and Kirby animations. And we know ITTL we have a Squad Four anime.
Sony in japan have an anime company? i knew they own animax but that was 2000 onward(here in latam we hate sony how they killed their own anime channel and leave us alone...again) if someone, some butterflies would be interesting, i knew wild arms and arc the lad have ovas, some other would ensure.... the rest so far nothing mayor in that front..unless sony would want an anime channel spearhead by their own games adapation and other licensed animes.
- Status