Recent Posts

41

Gaming / Re: Mini-Bosses... Favorites?

« Last post by Cyartog959 on May 30, 2025, 11:17:06 pm »

I didn't know they had names. Thanks for telling me.

No problem. Many do have names, all differing on their own design.

Thanks also for the concept art/development doc links. It's always interesting to see the groundwork behind a game.

Yeah. It is. I kinda feel some indie game devs should follow more organized groundwork and pacing for their games and their schedules. It got games out quite fast, even though delays do happen for quality improvement and necessary polish work. I mean, they don't really have to be too tough or strict, but, still, I worry about their games and sequels' development times.

I've only played "Blaster Master (NES)". It has some cool (and big for the NES) bosses for sure. Nice graphics and music too, but it's way too difficult. I also don't like the controls, especially with the Wall 1&2 upgrades. "Blaster Master Zero" looks fun though and something I want to play sometime.

Guess you had a tough time trying to get to the end. Well, there's already maps, so no need to fret about getting by.

Oh, yeah, for a bit of backstory, for those that may like to know, the game first launched in Japan as "Chō Wakusei Senki Metafight", which is Japanese for "Super Planetary War Chronicle: Metafight", and it showcases its own protagonist, Kane Gardener, and the setting is Planet Sophia the 3rd, found in the near center of the Epsilon Galaxy, and orbiting it is the NORA Sattelite, home to the Science Academy of NORA itself, where Kane got trained to defend the planet from evil within Sophia's defense forces.

The backstory's from the game's Jap manual, but it tells quite a lot. Anyway...

Speaking of evil, a large horde of alien invaders, called the Invem Dark Star Army(the name for the series' enemies, blandly called "Mutants" in the localized NES game), has attacked the planet, and the leader behind them is Lord Goez(I kinda felt throwing that title in with his name makes him more villainous as an intergalactic conqueror. "Emperor" is fine, too, but, I went with the former.), and seeks to be the galaxy''s supreme ruler, unopposed.

Having no time to waste, Kane Gardner jumps into the fray with his all-purpose weapon tank, the "Metal Attacker", designed and developed by his obvious lover, scientist of Sophia's defense forces, Jennifer Cornet, and sets off to clean out the Invem Army, defeat Goez and save Sophia the 3rd.

The premise does fit more with the original setting, but the overall endgame goal is pretty much the same. Its only that the localized game has a slightly different story, which we all know has Jason Frudnick finding his pet frog Fred, and undergoing an identical adventure as Metafight's. I think Metfight's original story stands a bit more to me... and it was rather interesting to know some lore beneath it.

The bosses, that are Goez' top monstrous enforcers, they all do have names; Chlameatle, Gizzala, Z-88, Geroll, Lobsgator, Neo Gizzala(the copy-and-paste ice reskin of Gizzala), Fire Geroll, (fire reskin of Geroll), and Skelevenom(the penultimate boss before Goez, or in the localized game, "Plutonium Boss")

The enemies also have names. You can see them from this link, here - https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Blaster_Master/Enemies

The Blaster Master Zero trilogy neatly blends with the storylines of Metafight and Blaster Master together for a more unified storyline, and the palettes are all NES-styled, but clearly Hi-Bit, all the same(no past tech constraints included). The soundtrack and the sound effects, past and new, are all made through Famitracker, obviously, with the S5B sound chip expansion to accommodate Sunsoft's sound chip usage. You can notice that by ear.

I think you'll find the trilogy's gameplay quite enjoyable, the first giving some changes, even including mid-bosses in each area, and a very neat surprise at the end(if you can find all items and upgrades first), and the sequels improving so much more(with more surprises to find, too). Even the sprites from effects and bosses are undeniably big, as in screen-filling big, on some.

Yeah, these games are not yet mapped, but I have no idea of any existing tools/programs that covers ripping Inti Creates' maps... or if any have been made yet, but that's for another time.

Give it a go. You'll enjoy the rides Inti Creates and Sunsoft(the companies behind it by team-up) made. And, enjoy kicking Invem filth!

Of course, if you, and anybody else, too, really want to see the whole bestiaries of the whole trilogy, I've got image links of the trilogy's booklets that cover it. You might need a regular translator for it(just regular, to be exact), because its all in Japanese language. You can post the translated names when ready, too. I have no idea what their names are, either.

[SPOILER WARNINGS AHEAD!]

Blaster Master Zero Booklet, Pages 05 & 06, Enemy - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-original-soundtrack/05%20Booklet%20p%2005-06.jpg
Blaster Master Zero Booklet, Pages 07 & 08, Boss Mutant - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-original-soundtrack/06%20Booklet%20p%2007-08.jpg
Blaster Master Zero Booklet, Pages 09 & 10, Boss Mutant(continued) - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-original-soundtrack/07%20Booklet%20p%2007-08.jpg

Blaster Master Zero II Booklet, Pages 11 & 12, Enemy - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-2-ost/Image007.jpg
Blaster Master Zero II Booklet, Pages 13 & 14, Boss Mutant - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-2-ost/Image008.jpg
Blaster Master Zero II Booklet, Pages 15 & 16, Boss Mutant(continued) - https://kappa.vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-2-ost/Image009.jpg

Blaster Master Zero III Booklet, Pages 11 & 12, Enemy - https://vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-3-ost/Booklet%20p.%2011-12.jpg
Blaster Master Zero III Booklet, Pages 13 & 14, Boss Mutant - https://vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-3-ost/Booklet%20p.%2013-14.jpg
Blaster Master Zero III Booklet, Pages 15 & 16, Boss Mutant(continued) - https://vgmsite.com/soundtracks/blaster-master-zero-3-ost/Booklet%20p.%2015-16.jpg

Honestly, when you find and face Skele-Venom(well, the bigger one, to be exact), you'll find its more monstrous variants, Skele-Veros, and Metal-Veros, quite challenging(I chose to go with those names because they're more original sounding than their generically inputted names, "Skeleton Boss", "Cerbeboss" and "Metal Cerbeboss").

I haven't played "Hard Corps: Uprising", but I took a quick look at some YT-videos and I understand why you pointed out the green lights style. It's everywhere.

You like it? Really accentuates their technological style. Even in some stages.

42

Maps In Progress / Re: New maps from a new member

« Last post by ricardosallin on May 30, 2025, 09:37:55 pm »

Hello everyone!

After finishing some of the maps on my to-do list, I’ve been checking through the list of unmapped games and a few of them really caught my interest. I wanted to ask: is anyone currently working on any of these?

Of course, it’s quite a few games — I expect this project will keep me busy for a few years! But I’d like to avoid doubling up on work if someone else is already mapping any of them.

NES
- Xexyz (This will likely be my next project! It’s one of my favorites. I saw that Will Mallia mapped just the first stage — are you still working on it?)
- Galaxy 5000
- Gemfire
- Gun Nac
- Micro Machines
- North And South
- Puss 'N Boots
- Space Shuttle Project
- Super Sprint
- Simpsons: Bart vs the World
- Klash Ball
- Bomberman
- Bomberman 2
- Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum
- Bad Street Brawler
- Destination Earthstar
- Paperboy
- Predator
- Rocketeer
- Terminator, The
- Untouchables, The

FAMICOM
- CrossFire
- Cycle Race: Road Man
- Fantasy Zone
- Brush Roller
- Circus Charlie
- Ikinari Musician
- Moai-Kun
- Sakigake!! Otokojuku
- Yie Ar King Fu
- Zippy Race

SNES
- Prehistorik Man

ATARI 2600
- Pitfall

PC
- Alley Cat

Looking forward to hearing from you — and happy mapping!

Sallin

43

Gaming / Re: Mini-Bosses... Favorites?

« Last post by mechaskrom on May 30, 2025, 06:19:33 pm »

You mean Maximum Jumbo and Tri-Transforming Wall Walker? Oh, yeah.

I didn't know they had names. Thanks for telling me.

Thanks also for the concept art/development doc links. It's always interesting to see the groundwork behind a game.

I've only played "Blaster Master (NES)". It has some cool (and big for the NES) bosses for sure. Nice graphics and music too, but it's way too difficult. I also don't like the controls, especially with the Wall 1&2 upgrades. "Blaster Master Zero" looks fun though and something I want to play sometime.

I haven't played "Hard Corps: Uprising", but I took a quick look at some YT-videos and I understand why you pointed out the green lights style. It's everywhere.

44

VGMaps Social Board / Hatch Engine Curiosities

« Last post by Cyartog959 on May 30, 2025, 01:59:57 pm »

I kinda have a few curiosities in regards to Hatch Engine's adaptability to frameworks, like the OpenMania Framework, for instance.

I don't know anyone that has prior experience with it, but, does that engine adopt to custom-made frameworks?

I mean, I could only imagine it being compatible with custom frameworks based on those from past games, even indies, carried over from other engines' workings and such.

Well, yeah, anybody can create one, but what steps are needed to do it and have it adapted to a specific game of anyone's choosing?

What I already gathered, Freedom Planet was made in Multimedia Fusion 2 before it upgraded to Clickteam Fusion 2.5, and despite the impressive feats on it, other limitations kept the game from increasing its potential and expanding, as was formerly planed, such as DLC support and a better game patching pipeline, I think. That, and it had a previous map size constraint, regardless of their amounts in any 2D stage.

I already know Hatch is compatible with Tiled's own .tmx format, and it can handle big maps; my one example was Sonic Galactic's Coral Garden Act 1, whose size is, just from one video I've seen a bit after Demo 2's launch, but was taken from before it, 64,000 x 11,200. Unusually long and large being the game's second Zone, but yeah.

Guess it was made at that size to have its map layout designers to create a unique path for Knuckles in Act 2, even including an exclusive mid-Act mini-boss for him to fight. I've tried it, and it was more fun. Don't know if Act 2's one whole big map, or divided into 3 maps.

Video link's here as proof, just for anyone to watch(small advisory, the video has the Act's map layout not yet finalized, so its different from before it got changed for Demo 2's launch) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TviqDQ1lGog

At mark 13:18, look at the level map's size, just below "Camera".

I really felt a bit of exhaustion at first playing it, but, that Act was fun to play through. And, it did take any player about 6 minutes to get to the end and face the mini-boss.

Spark the Electric Jester was also made in CF2.5, and the game was neat for any that played it.

I wonder if such games would be compatible with Hatch Engine by custom frameworks that retains all the familiar workings made in existing engines, but with none of the dragging constraints and outsourcing to other companies for console porting. I also wonder if it can be capable of console porting.

Makes me think of such games as these receiving updated re-releases on Hatch and having additional content built from scratch.

Oh, and the engine's next update is already in the works, 1.4, and I guess, from my recent visits to its Github page, a user there, Lactozilla, is spearheading development now. If anybody's up to it, volunteer as contributors to its development.

45

VGMaps Social Board / Re: 3D Art inspired by Level Art / Level maps

« Last post by Cyartog959 on May 29, 2025, 09:13:59 pm »

Apologies for reviving this post, but the airships look amazing. Looks fitting for an airship infiltration.

Believe it or not, there's a rather funny coincidence about the airships' artwork and old-fashioned based aesthetics...

They harbor some strong resemblances of some airship themed stages, mostly likely from Frozenbyte's latest game in their Trine series(never heard of it? its a rather neat series), Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy; the 17th level, The Magnificent Airship, where the framed Heroes of Trine, Amadeus(the timid, but good-minded, box conjuring wizard), Pontius(the eponymous, heroic knight) and Zoya(a rather leeway, but good-hearted, thief), board Lady Sunny and Lord Goderic's(the game's main villains) central airship in their attempt to rescue Amadeus' triplets, Agnes, Julius, and Lucius from their grasp, only to find hordes of the villains' Clockwork Knight Army(the mechanical, construct-themed automatons), and complications, standing in their way, or maybe tiny hints of Sky Battalion from Freedom Planet.

They all look rather captivating. Wonder how more would look good in pixel art and in tilesets?

46

Gaming / Re: Nintendo Console History

« Last post by Cyartog959 on May 29, 2025, 05:19:18 pm »

Well, I'd keep a careful eye about Nintendo, as many people have. Their consoles have been thrilling, but what their plans and "changes" to their next system people have seen stands against physical media and game preservation as a whole.

Those "Game-Key Cards" aren't such an "evolution" as Nintendo wants people to think and themselves claim it to be. I feel, in my perspective, and out of my own great concern, as others that stand for physical media and game preservation that share such concerns, not to mention game ownership protection, so to speak, they're just a mere repeat of what happened to certain games' discs on the Xbox 360 that seems to have full data/on-disc DLC on their games, but haven't; that content in them were locked, and only required a price to actually play them/download from said disc.

I read that kind of story before, but, believe me, it did cause problems to any that thought they had full games.

Why would any game company try to "evolve" their own physical media that speaks the polar opposite of preservation at the behest of game collectors and preservationists all over the world?

Regular discs and carts always work very well, their sizes of which do get increased from time to time, and preservationists have been fighting to protect them.

People that have heard and seen the truth about theses Key-Cards have caused them to be against Nintendo for their anti-game preservation actions, merely mirroring to what happened with WiiWare, DSiWare, and 3DS eShop only games.

Not only that, the way how these cares are, they're trying to create more repetitive steps to playing and switching between physical games numerous more times.

And, people also strongly fear that should Nintendo's servers for that system go off, regardless of any digital game getting delisted from the marketplace in and at any situation, all their Key-Cards are permanently useless. Not everyone has fast Internet connection speeds and routers.

Nintendo, turning a blind eye to gamers and game preservationists, indeed.

Honestly, I feel Nintendo's trying to bankroll the Switch's hybrid console blueprint success quite too much because of its same features... and present management's vision. And, what the successor system offers is still the same, bland experience, in UI, sounds, pretty much as the original.

Since the Gamecube, Nintendo's consoles had their own charm and senses of identity that stood them out as regular game consoles. The DSi was the first handheld to have that kind of charm and identity, and improved on the 3DS. The Switch lacks it, and so is that new system... well, even more, to be precise.

People are advising not to purchase the Game-Key Cards after this. I'm all for preservation, but given the severity of its situation, I'd advise not to. I greatly worry for those people saving physical media.

I pray for things in the gaming industry and the game preservation business to sharp turn a 180 for the positive...

47

Gaming / Re: Nintendo Console History

« Last post by JonLeung on May 27, 2025, 03:30:51 pm »

With only ten days to go, I decided to FINALLY update the lower-right corner of the image, since we have long had the Switch 2 release date, we also have the original Switch's lifespan until that.  The Switch sales data is now up to the end of March of this year, and while the average daily sales are now less that when I originally posted this three years ago - unsurprising since it's now an average over a longer span of time, and it's certainly slowed down - it's interesting that it is STILL more successful than the Wii was.  And by over 5000 more units a day, wow.

This still isn't fully updated into its final form because we don't have true lifetime sales of the original Switch, which I imagine still has a couple years left at least.  And the final Switch game is probably years away yet, too.

The image was made with 4K resolution in mind, so if I wanted to update this to include the Switch 2, I would have to make a larger, non-standard image size.  I mean, that's not a problem, really, but if I'm okay with not trying to make it fit compactly on one screen, then I might as well redesign the whole thing so all the text and images aren't packed in TOO tightly.

And if I did, I guess the two games I would use to represent the launch would be... I guess Mario Kart World and... the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour?  Maybe that's a weird choice but I kind of want to keep the pattern going of choosing a second game that showcases the features of the new console and I guess that game literally does show that.  But if it's digital-only, that might be confusing, since for the game counts I only count physical releases.  And the whole "Game-Key Cards" thing might muddle how people choose to count games...

48

Gaming / Re: Mini-Bosses... Favorites?

« Last post by Cyartog959 on May 27, 2025, 06:12:12 am »

It feels like mini-bosses are a bit overlooked in games and that the "real" bosses are what people remember/talk about. I don't know when games started having mini-bosses, but it feels like they've been around for a long time.

Yeah, and come to think of it, the concept and stock artwork about them hasn't often been seen nor discovered by people yet, but I have this often constant feeling those are around, perhaps left behind in some gaming companies' buildings.

Mini-bosses do have their own right to share some spotlight and attention time as regular/major bosses do.

I can only presume they've drawn them before being programmed into games. Enemies' and bosses' stock and concept artworks are always commonly seen, but the mini-bosses' own artwork are hardly seen. Kinda tough for people to see them as references when they want to draw them in their own styles, gather inspiration to their game projects, or plainly re-draw them for the fandom.

One of Sonic 2's development docs I've seen did have a task list for Tom Payne(image link here - https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/c/cd/S2TASKLIST.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170520184810), at the time when he was working at Sega's Technical Institute division, and the tasks included in the list were to draw up mid-level mini-bosses, 2 in one task, and 2 more in another in-between his other tasks of drawing more enemies in his list, bringing the total of 4 mini-bosses he would have made, meaning Sonic 2 was planned to have mini-bosses while it was under development. But, because Sonic 2's worldwide launch day was closer, I guess he didn't get to create them in time, so the mini-bosses were left out until they were put in Sonic 3 in almost all Zones' first Acts.

Sonic 3's dev docs also feature mini-bosses in in Zones, but the map layouts and minibosses' drawings on paper were placeholder works until they were finalized in the game. They weren't seen until Sonic Origins as gallery unlockables.

The image links I've placed here is for anyone here to see(comments are written in Japanese language, basic translating required)...

Angel Island Zone & Hydrocity Zone Map Layout Concepts - https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/5/5e/AIZHZmapconcept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20220630015849

Marble Garden Zone & Carnival Night Zone Map Layout Concepts - https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/f/fc/MGZCNZmapconcept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20220630020714

Launch Base Zone Map Layout Concepts - https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/c/cd/LBZmapconcept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20220630024106

Death Egg Zone Map Layout Concepts - https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/1/1c/DEZmapconcept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20220630032845

I still feel there's still a bit more than these out there, yet to be seen in full...

Believe it or not, I just kinda know they're still around somewhere, and in need of preservation. Hopefully some people can take on a task to find them and compile them in new artbooks or update current ones.

I was thinking about my favorites and all I could think of was Konami's Contra series. There are a lot of mini-bosses (and bosses) in those games that I like. Two examples:
 -Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis), the big dancing robot in stage 1. It looks cool and also uses the Genesis's tilt layer scroll-trick in a neat way.
  https://youtu.be/3lyv5U9WTBQ?t=2048
 -Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES), the wall climbing robot in stage 3. It's rare that games let you fight a boss while clinging to a wall.
  https://youtu.be/3lyv5U9WTBQ?t=1055

You mean Maximum Jumbo and Tri-Transforming Wall Walker? Oh, yeah.

Despite being a mini-boss at a large size, it was rather very impressive for it to pull of great layer-tilting tricks beneath the Genesis' capabilities, as other bosses did from other games, like those from Gunstar Heroes.

Yeah, I guess it is rare to fight bosses while holding onto walls, but that mini-boss does provide a good example of one. Rather challenging, actually.

If you think of Contra series, and it's fine that you do, there are other games and series that have them. The entire Blaster Master Zero Trilogy from Sunsoft and Inti Creates has them, for one, and they were rather fun to fight.

I don't know if Contra's mini-bosses count though. They're a good example of when mini-bosses are often bigger/worse than the bosses at the end of the levels. It's more like Contra has many real bosses per level rather than a few mini-bosses.

I'm sure they do count, especially the spin-offs, if I could remember any having them.

I can tell that from what I've seen, many mini-bosses from "Hard Corps: Uprising" are more uniquely designed and original in most stages, alongside select past normal bosses were given their technological makeovers to suit their places among Emperor Tiberius' ranks in his Commonwealth Empire army and were re-established as mini-bosses, such as Defense Wall.

If you've not seen them yet, I think you should give them a look. Their designs are rather cool, especially when you can notice their usage of green coloring for their lights.

49

Gaming / Re: Oscar, the Game Series

« Last post by Ethancarte on May 27, 2025, 01:49:18 am »

Considering the historical context and development challenges faced by the "Oscar" game series, how might the lack of cohesive storytelling and character development have impacted its reception and longevity in the gaming community?

50

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« Last post by JonLeung on May 26, 2025, 02:02:33 pm »

zagato blackfist has mapped a bunch of NES baseball games; it seems that probably all of the North American ones are done now.  That's a lot of baseball!
And besides all those, zagato has created maps for Wurm: Journey To The Center Of The Earth, an interesting multi-genre game that few people talk about.  And when they do, they usually have to say that few people talk about it.  Oops, I guess I just did that.

Thanks again, zagato!

Not many left on my NES requests list, but I had to go and add Xexyz.  As I was putting up the Wurm maps, I noticed nearby, alphabetically, that we only have one map for Xexyz, from Will Mallia.  This really surprised me, that I hadn't noticed this lack earlier, so I felt I should put it on the list.  Since zagato is trucking along in the quest to have every NES game mapped, I'm sure it will be done eventually... but I should still mention it.