Picture 1996: the SNES is taking a last, glamorous bow; Square is busy polishing the meteor-sized hype rock called Final Fantasy VII; and Nintendo is boxing up its belongings for a polygon-flavored mansion on the hill (the N64, complete with 64-bit hot tub). Yet, in that exact twilight, an inexplicably sentient wedding cake named Bundt wobbles down a […]
How many Super Nintendo carts kick off by letting a sentient tree slap you around, follow that with a thunder-powered warthog waving a butcher knife bigger than a Buick, then demand you swap a flopping carp for a pogo-spring just to keep the plot moving? Exactly one, and you are staring at it. Young Merlin feels like
Young Merlin (SNES) – Thunder Pig, Rainbow Water and the SNES Acid-Fantasy We Misfiled Read Post »
Why did Nihon Falcom, usually the straight-A student of late-eighties action-RPGs, suddenly flip its carefully annotated notebook onto the cafeteria floor, swivel the camera ninety degrees, and let Adol Christin pogo across the screen like a red-haired Mario who has just discovered power-metal vinyl and tighter jeans? We already know the boring corporate explanation (creative
Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (SNES) – The Day Adol Went Full Platformer Read Post »
We already know this, yet I can practically hear you playing coy behind that tab: Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel is the Super Nintendo cartridge that looks like a normal side-scrolling mascot, then whips out a shuriken, belly-flops through the sky, and claps your expectations harder than a 300-page shōnen cliff-hanger. “Aero the Acro-Bat’s edgy rival gets his
We already know this, but I will say it anyway because the world keeps forgetting: Zool: Ninja of the “Nth” Dimension on Super Nintendo is what happens when Sonic the Hedgehog drinks three cans of Surge, slams into a piñata factory, and decides the shattered candy shards are adequate camouflage. Bizarre premise? Absolutely. Underrated? More than a
Zool (SNES) – the Gremlin Ninja Who Crash-Landed in a Sugar-Coated Fever Dream Read Post »