I think this is my best "Geek Fiction Multiverse" video yet! To hype up to this week's release of "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", I take a look at the ten guest characters and show how they are already connected to Mario and the Nintendo universe - WITHOUT using Super Smash Bros.!
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Maxim's Wonder Boy In Monster Land (Master System) maps.
Wonder Land has been taken over by the MEKA Dragon! Having proven his heroics eleven years earlier, when he had saved his girlfriend in the original Wonder Boy game, Wonder Boy is called upon to save Wonder Land which is now referred to as "Monster Land".
Despite being released for the arcade first, this Master System game requires a bit more strategy than a typical quarter-muncher. It's not simply a matter of mindlessly fighting and jumping in a straight path to an end point. You'll have to find shops, which later become unlabelled and then even hidden - to buy and utilize armor, shields, magic weapons, and other items.
While made up of episodic stages, it's not as strictly linear as the original game but also not an open world like its sequel. However, you will still find Maxim's maps handy, especially for the last stage, which is - and here's a word I use a lot here - labyrinthine!
Similar to how Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood's ending becomes the opening of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, here we also see the final area of Wonder Boy In Monster Land appearing at the start of the sequel, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (also mapped by Maxim) - which has been remade as Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (without the "III") for Windows, PS4, Switch and Xbox One. Then there is a spiritual successor to the Wonder Boy series, in December 2018's Monster Boy And The Cursed Kingdom, also for these current platforms, so there's definitely still interest in this kind of platforming gameplay.
So to recognize the effort put into mapping this wonder of a game, Maxim's Wonder Boy In Monster Land (Master System) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for December 2018.
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to KeyBlade999's Pokémon: Yellow Version (GB) maps.
When Pokémon came out on the original Game Boy, Pikachu was not initially considered a "main" Pokémon. You would start the game with Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle, and their fully evolved forms would be featured on the boxes/labels for Pokémon: Green Version (Japan only), Red Version, and Blue Version, respectively. Pikachu is numbered #025 in the Pokédex, and though catchable relatively early, is an uncommon Pokémon to encounter, and gameplay or story-wise, wasn't anything special in particular. But then the merchandising opportunities favoured the "cute" Pokémon such as Pikachu and Clefairy, and it was the animated series that firmly established Pikachu as the series's mascot.
So, not surprisingly, soon came an enhanced version of the original generation of games that was called Pokémon: Yellow Version ("Special Pikachu Edition" on the box), a fitting colour as it is of course the colour of Pikachu and goes well with the other first generation games, which include Red, Green (in Japan) and Blue. Just like in the anime, Pikachu is the only available starter Pokémon and follows the main character around (as opposed to staying in its Poké Ball). Also from the anime, the Team Rocket duo of Jessie and James make appearances here. And as with the different versions of Pokémon, the frequency and availability of Pokémon species is different. Some graphics are tweaked, and enhanced when playing on the Game Boy Color (except for the Japanese version), so despite an overall structural similarity to the original games, KeyBlade999 felt it was worth mapping. This is also the first of the enhanced remakes that the next few generations of Pokémon would have, including Crystal (to Gold and Silver), Emerald (to Ruby and Sapphire) and Platinum (to Diamond and Pearl). And it will be remade yet again, with Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu (and Pokémon: Let's Go Eevee) available for the Nintendo Switch in November 2018.
Though Pikachu is now everywhere with anything that has to do with Pokémon, and a mascot for Nintendo as a whole and even a Japanese pop culture icon, it was this 1999 Game Boy game where Pikachu really started being front and center.
So to recognize the effort put into mapping the first (of very many) games to prominently feature Pikachu, KeyBlade999's Pokémon: Yellow Version (GB) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for November 2018.
A vlog of last month's Edmonton (Comic & Entertainment) Expo. (I was sick on and off with three different things the past few weeks which set me back a bit, yet this was still published on the same day as I published last year's... hmmm.) Here, we get a photo with Amy Jo Johnson, the Pink Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!
Fun fact: The VGMaps font has the letter "I" and the number "1" appear identical, both each as a solid line. Since the convention on VGMaps is that whenever there's a discrepancy between the box title and the in-game title, there's a preference for the in-game title. Hence, the second to seventh Mega Man games on the NES, despite appearing as "2" to "7" on their boxes, are listed here on VGMaps as "II" to "VII". However, Capcom has been consistent with 8 to 11, so "Mega Man II" and "Mega Man 11" would have looked identical in the VGMaps font.
Also, it would have been confusing to have it look like "Mega Man 11" was featured for the Maps Of The Month beginning October 1, since the game comes out October 2.
So choosing this for the Maps Of The Month meant also going back to EVERY thumbnail on the site of a game with a title using Roman numerals and adding the top and bottom lines to make it clear what these numbers are.
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps.
Dr. Wily is causing trouble again! Seeking revenge after his first defeat, Dr. Wily creates eight of his own Robot Masters to counter Mega Man, including Metal Man, Air Man, Bubble Man, Quick Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Heat Man and Wood Man. Can the heroic robot Mega Man defeat them all and put a stop to Dr. WIly's nefarious schemes yet again?
We've featured a few Mega Man games here for the Maps Of The Month honour before, but the only other NES one featured before this one was Mega Man III, which was the first honouree way back in May 2004 (also mapped by Revned)! It is, of course, a little odd that it has taken this long to recognize it, since Mega Man II is by far the most popular of the Mega Man games, making a reappearance on the NES Classic Edition, and more recently rereleased on cartridge by iam8bit.
This is the first time I am honouring two mappers - but not for working together. Revned has fully mapped the six Mega Man games on the NES - and though his maps were certainly more than adequate, he went back and remapped all of them. That's mega-dedication! Rick Bruns of nesmaps.com has also mapped this game, opting to show the placement of enemies. Either way, they've totally mapped this classic from the 8-bit era - isn't it about time we enjoy some more Mega Man?
So to recognize the effort put into mapping a mega-iconic game in an already mega-iconic series, Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for October 2018.
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to King-Hyrule's Holy Diver (J) (NES) maps.
The Black Slayer, the "Emperor Of The Darkness", wreaks havoc upon the world with his black magic and army of followers and creatures. Our hero, Randy, seeks five emblem seals of the King Crimson family, with which he can draw upon holy magic to expel the Black Slayer and his followers from this world.
This platformer with gothic architecture in a medieval setting swarming with monsters may remind you of the Castlevania series, though now with a heavier dose of magic. Though progression is mostly linear, there are a few places where you may have to step aside to another screen or out-of-the-way part of a room, and later on, alternate paths, in order to find bonuses like extra lives and "Mana Extenders" to help you on your holy quest to save the world. And you'll need everything you can get your hands on - especially King-Hyrule's maps which point all these out - because like the early Castlevania games, it also has a ridiculous difficulty level.
Though it was originally only published for the Famicom in Japan in 1989, if you pre-ordered one of the very limited Holy Diver: Collector's Edition cartridges published by Retro-Bit® and sold at CastleMania Games, you'll now be able to enjoy this on your NES! Though this game is described as "holy", you might be cursing a lot, though...
So to recognize the effort put into diving into this difficult and (formerly-) Japanese-only game that deserves a look, King-Hyrule's Holy Diver (J) (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2018.
However, I'm pretty sure there are likely other special characters lurking about, and I may have missed them, so if you see some nonsensical or garbled text (not ZZT's "Castle Of *@#%&!!", but I mean something definitely wrong) in place of something, or any other errors, let me know and I'll fix it. Thanks!
EDIT: Also, now that Project Wonderful's service ended (they managed the auction-based ads) I have purged the code from the pages that had it. I don't know if people had some pages hang up because of that, but if so, it's one less thing to be concerned about.
More 16-bit love! Since it is the 27th birthday of the Super NES, I look at Jeffrey Wittenhagen's "The Complete SNES: Collector's Book & Ultimate Guide - Definitive Edition". What do you guys think of the Super NES library, and do you like books like this?
Yay! A bit late, but here are my picks for the 16 best map sets, as well as the 16 best 16-bit map sets, here on VGMaps.com for its (belated) 16th anniversary! No, the video's not 16 minutes. >_>
This was particularly frustrating because there appeared to be a rendering error. After trying a few more days to fix it with no luck, I decided to upload it anyway - only to find that the error does not appear on YouTube. Sigh. What a pointless delay.
Anyway, here we go! Anyone here going to comment on this?
Here's a clip of iJustine responding to me (at the 8:26 mark). I started this video a few times but for some reason never finished it. I randomly clicked on it, randomly clicked near the end, and then saw that she actually responded to my question. How about that? An almost-missed celebrity interaction, found months later!
I guess you guys don't seem to respond much to my YouTube videos but I should have another one up (hopefully tomorrow or the day after at the latest) that will be VERY VGMaps.com-related.
For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Shiny's Pooh And Tigger's Hunny Safari (GBC) maps.
Tigger and Pooh are out to throw a Thursday Party, but of course you can't have a Thursday Party without honey! (Though really, that just goes without saying, right?) It's time to seek out all the honey pots around the Hundred Acre Wood (which are just scattered about, for some reason)!
Pooh And Tigger's Hunny Safari is a portable platformer featuring Disney's version of Winnie-The-Pooh, Tigger, Christopher Robin, and all their friends. Considering it is on the Game Boy Color, its impressive graphics and smooth animation are even more remarkable. Sure, you would expect video games with cartoony characters to be animated well, but more often than not, they are not as fluid as on your TV on Saturday mornings, though this game does an exceptional job. Shiny, no stranger to the Game Boy Color, has mapped this out for all to see, which is good because, let's be honest, licensed games aren't usually known for their quality, but this one at least looks and plays well! Is it "bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy fun fun fun fun FUN"? Well, it's more so than many other cartoon-based games, at least.
So the recognize the effort put into mapping the Hundred Acre Wood, Shiny's Pooh And Tigger's Hunny Safari (GBC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2018.
VGMaps.com is an archive of video game maps up since May 6, 2002. Optimized for at least 800 x 600 resolution.
This site does not contain commercial ROMs or any other illegal materials. All directly "ripped" game images are the property of their respective copyright holders.
This web site and compass logo are copyrighted by Jonathan Leung 2002-2018.
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