Category: arcade


Sep
2020

Nostalgia bop for the ages: Marvel Land.

categories: arcade

word count: 184

This was another game that I grew up on, just as obscure as Kickle Cubicle. Although it came out for the Wii’s Virtual Console in Japan, it never came out over here in the United States… and I wish that it had, because I spent hours playing it as a young child, nearly obsessed with the carnival (or was it more of a festival?) theme that it had, trying as hard as I could to get as far as I could in the game in spite of the increasing difficulty. Without using any cheat codes, I could generally manage to get approximately midway through the game, which was ironic because my favorite “fairy” in the game was Sweetie, which was the last fairy in the game that you’re supposed to rescue — in the third world — and I also liked Princess Wondra, who you rescue at the very end of the game, which I could never get to without using our Gameshark. At some point I’d like to play this game as an adult and see if I can finish it. I know it’s difficult.


Sep
2020

All of the games to play, so little time to play them!

categories: arcade, consoles, platformers

word count: 264

Since we have a Nintendo Online subscription (I’m pretty sure that’s what you call “having paid for additional services”, seeing as how they are the cheapest of the three… add-on services, between Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, and definitely worth it for what you can get), Bub and I have been playing Kirby’s Adventure, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Splatoon 2 online with people whenever we’ve had some additional time as a direct result of that. Reacquainting with games that I used to play as a child has been really fun, as has being able to show them to my own child… not to mention getting good at some of these games again in front of said child, much to his amusement and my own delight. As time goes on, I’d also like to introduce him to Dr. Mario, some of the Donkey Kong games, Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Wario’s Woods, and Yoshi. I may also introduce him to The Legend of Zelda since it’s also on here. There are also the old Super Nintendo games, and Kirby’s Dream Course, Kirby’s Dream Land 3, Kirby Super Star, Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, as well as one of the old Mario Kart games, and possibly another Zelda game that we can play together. These are a lot of additional games free with a subscription!

There’s also the fact that a Nintendo subscription is half the price of a Microsoft or Sony subscription now.

I don’t mind continuing to have a Nintendo subscription for this reason, because we have been utilizing ours.


Sep
2020

I caved and bought us a new PC controller, folks.

categories: arcade, computer gaming

word count: 313

Knowing my luck, I’ll find the “old one” within a week of having made this purchase, you all just watch.

I am going to keep this one where I keep our headphone and mic set, that way I know for a fact that it’s not going to grow legs and walk away the same way the other one did… although I had kept that one in the same place for years, and even checked the infamous “mess drawer” in my room (which was halfway organized, to my own credit) thinking that I might have put it in there to conceal it from Bub’s curious hands. Knowing that this could… walk off again if it walked off for the same reason that the first one did, I didn’t want to splurge too much on the second one though. I just wanted something that would allow us to play games on the computer. I mean, we have a lot of Nintendo games, Sega Genesis games, and Super Nintendo games that are boxed up that we can legally play emulated versions of because we own them, and I can introduce them to Bub that way. It would just help to own a controller to play them with, though.

And some of these are games that you can’t play elsewhere, such as Kickle Cubicle (NES) and Marvel Land (Sega Genesis), which were two of my absolute favorite games growing up as a child. I loved those games. If there were any other way for me to introduce them to Bub, such as digitally buying them on some of the newer consoles if they were available there, I would already have done so, but there isn’t. Well, not stateside.

Surprisingly, Bub does not mind playing older games with me.

He’s even played some old Castlevania games with me, to include the very first one that was ever made!


Aug
2020

Nostalgia bop for the ages: Kickle Cubicle.

categories: arcade

word count: 210

This is definitely something that the Gen Z kids won’t get. I was practically raised on this game, though, back when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was the most recent console out. And to tell the truth, I’m surprised that this game hasn’t been included for digital download on things like the Virtual Console for the Wii even in spite of its relative obscurity (I mean, a lot of the older Castlevania games have, even in spite of the fact that the Castlevania franchise is a much more popular franchise, but I’m about to get into why I think it should have been), because the difficulty of the game is right in that sweet spot of making you want to come back and finish it, but not being so hard that you can’t. It is also, to this day, one of the most adorable games that I have ever played… and I’m in my thirties, having practically grown up on video gaming, having seen almost all of the consoles since their inceptions, so I don’t take saying that lightly. At some point in the future, I would just love to be able to snag this game for digital download somewhere, play it, and play it with my child. Enough said.