Maps are now up, along with a brand new "Mac" section!

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.

Mega Man II

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.

More of The Geek Fiction Multiverse!  I finally connect Astro Boy and Mega Man, thanks to some Switch games!

Holy Diver (J)

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.

[©]

Hi everyone, sorry that it took me a while to get to this.

At some point earlier this year, I'm not sure what happened, but the HTML pages were being interpreted differently.  It's probably on the server side of things, because regardless of device or browser, "©" started appearing as "�".  This was a result of me using "©" itself directly in the HTML code, which, you'd think would be as simple as can be, but apparently not.  So I had to change it to the universally-understood "©" in the code - which if you ask me, is not at all intuitive.  And I don't get why it would suddenly appear as the "�" way despite being fine for 16 years...

I changed the "©" on a few popular pages and as I updated them, but today I finally got around to thoroughly fixing the "©" on every main atlas page.  I also fixed "Pokémon", "Alien³", "720°", Solstice's "Kâstleröck", and the Carmen Sandiego game developer, "Brøderbund".  If you reload the pages they should appear correctly now.

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.

Pooh And Tigger's Hunny Safari

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.

Here's a look at the LEGO set 70917: The Ultimate Batmobile, from The LEGO Batman Movie series.  This took me a while to make, partly because I had other projects, and partly because doing a time lapse was a bit more involved than I originally thought.

Vice: Project Doom

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Will Mallia's Vice: Project Doom (NES) maps.

Detective Hart of the Vice unit investigates the mysterious BEDA Corporation, which is involved in military technology, but also turns out to be a front operated by aliens.  The aliens' "Gel" is a substance used as a drug which has serious effects on humans.  Hart will have to drive, jump and shoot to get to the bottom of this convoluted story and save the world.

Vice: Project Doom is often compared to the Ninja Gaiden series because of its partly animated cutscenes telling a slightly more mature story (by NES standards) and the highly detailed graphics that make up the dark locales that our hero must traverse.  But in addition to the side-scrolling action, the game also features a couple "Spy Hunter"-style driving sections as well as two arcade-style first-person shooting segments.  It really is a underrated game that never came close to being as popular as its ninja-themed cousins on the NES, but is still a comparably good time.

So the recognize the effort put into mapping this "dystopian future Ninja Gaiden with aliens" that deserves to be better known, Will Mallia's Vice: Project Doom (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for July 2018.

Just a fun thing I did.  "Take On Me" by a-ha is one of my favourite songs, after all!

Sorry it's so late, but here's the full vlog of the Calgary (Comic & Entertainment) Expo 2018!  More geeky (but non-vlog) videos are on the way!

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to BumFengShui's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (GBA) maps.

Summer is upon us!  Bust out your boards, or this sick GBA game!

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 was a launch title for the Game Boy Advance way back in 2001. While scaled down from its console counterparts, what is still here is technically impressive for a handheld at the time (and this GBA game is leagues above the Game Boy Color version). The skaters, despite being small because this is on a handheld, have enough detail and are animated smoothly that you can make out what they are doing, be it an ollie or a 900. (Well, if you can make out what is happening at all on the infamously dark, non-backlit screens of the original GBA model, that is...)

Despite being technically 2D, the isometric perspective does a good job of conveying the three-dimensional landscapes of half-pipes and ramps. From the Hangar to the Warehouse, from the streets of New York to a skate park in France, there are all sorts of opportunities to shred and grind and all the other things you can do with a skateboard!

Fun fact: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 is considered one of the best sports games ever, and according to Wikipedia, shares this recognition with Pong, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, NBA Jam and Wii Sports, all games that not-really-sporty gamers (like myself) can, and most certainly have enjoyed. And we can enjoy this game on the go, and also now with a deep understanding of all the skateable areas of this game, thanks to BumFengShui.  Hit all those crates and spell S-K-A-T-E!

So the recognize the effort put into mapping this GBA launch title, BumFengShui's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (GBA) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for June 2018.