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That is well-deserved to be in the "Maps of the Month" lineup, and fits well with October's usual spooky antics, and in the 20 long year gap, time-wise, but not release wise, because that and Belmont's Curse's dates are a bit distant by almost 2 months.

Well, to say, its second DS game stood very well among others, especially with Koji Igarashi's involvement. In quite a time when Metroidvanias were very little, this game sure rocks as one of the best.

Although, I could notice the castle's map isn't quite longer than others; I mean, it is the DS we're talking about. The extra memory from it past the GBA's, and more from the DSi, would've made the map at least a bit larger to make it more sprawling. If Castlevania had one more DS entry after Order of Ecclesia, I would definitely see its map made larger than OoE's, even more if it was a DSi exclusive game, on a Game Card, that is.

Still, Portrait of Ruin is a very fun Castlevania game, and while many of us have good memories of it, the Metroidvanias that came by kinda filled the void for those missing more new Castlevania games in that fashion. Even the 3DS could've had new 2D Castlevania games after the DS games that might've been brilliant. Imagine if we had those.

But, of course, Konami's release of the newest Castlevania game in so long is sure to be good, too.

As a fond Trine series fan, I enjoyed the games from the first to the more recent Trine 5, and I was looking forward to Trine 6, the soon to be latest game in the series.

However, I came across recent news about that game. After its demo launched, and many players feeling... unsatisfied of its present state and specific mechanics that derived from what they enjoyed in many past games, it got delayed, by 6 months, after being close to its former release date, which was September 2026.

For those at VGMaps that don't know, Trine is a 2.5D series created and developed by Frozenbyte, stationed in Finland. It features three heroes, Amadeus the Wizard, who mainly does boxes, Zoya, a thief who prefers to be called an entrepreneur, and Pontius, an aspiring knight who longs to fight off evil by becoming one.

The first game, launched in 2009, had them as regular people with their own lives, but in a kingdom that was prosperous fell into darkness because its Old King died with no planned descendant to rule it, and more than just domestic life alone was destabilized, it was under siege by an evil undead horde that took advantage of the madness. At the midst of the mayhem, these people met at the particular spot beneath the abandoned Astral Academy's pile of treasure and laid physical contact of an ancient artifact that dragged them together into its grasp, leaving them unable to leave each other's company. There, they would be later tasked in saving the kingdom from that horde and restoring peace and order in it, and that would be the first of their adventures to come.

After the first Trine did well, Trine 2 was made and launched in 2011, and continued the 2.5D gameplay and placed the now established heroes on a new adventure in a different land, held under siege by a wicked witch and her jealousy of a particular sister... and goblins. Many goblins. It had a story expansion, The Goblin Menace, months later, and gave additional levels focusing on the goblins' attempts to take over the kingdom, with new powers that are retroactively applied to all past levels.

Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power, released in 2015, would follow, but this game went full 3D and featured the backstory beneath the being called Trine and her sister, Rona, and their struggle against the vile sorcerer, Sarek the Deathless. However, an experiment with Steam's Early Access, and underestimating the costs of a 3D game left the story incomplete... and the series on a hiatus.

But, that ended with not only a spin-off set in the same universe, but Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince, released in 2019, and returned to its proper blueprint the previous two games set, and focuses on a particular student seen in said spin-off, Prince Selius himself, whose attempt to learn magic by himself created a crisis involving nightmares manifesting to life, and placing the heroes on a new quest to save him, which leads them to confront their own nightmares in the midst. It received its story DLC, "Melody of Mystery", centering on the Astral Academy's students under deep sleep by a particular music box, and under Selius' guidance, the heroes trek through the students' dreams to save them from the box's influence. Its on PC, but still not on consoles YET. I really hope it can be brought to consoles before anything else happens.

Later, Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy, launched in 2023, and it thrusts the heroes into an evil scheme of royal intrigue and treachery involving the use of mechanical constructs, not robots; completely different, and tarnishing the heroes' name through psychological manipulation and some essence exploitation. With their good images smeared, and allies in danger, its up to the heroes to stop the villains, Lady Sunny, a self-proclaimed royal mistress who seeks dominance, and Lord Goderic, the inventor of the Clockwork Knights, and her criminal accomplice, and come to the rescue... and keep their morale together.

That brings up to Trine 6: Together in Time, and it not only continues the blueprint, but adds in two new characters to add in the hero roster, and have more characters for multiplayer to play, rather than using color-swatched clones of the three heroes, who have fallen into the exact grip by messing with Trine's magic and properties the three heroes still feel, and they will have no choice but to cooperate, whether they like it or not, and save the kingdom from a villainous warlock.

Now, I don't like delays to games for numerous reasons, but in such a case as Trine 6's, I can understand why it is so; there's much revising work to be done to make sure its better than before. Now, its set to March 2027. Honestly, the delay will do that game good. I saw and like how it continues the blueprint, but I couldn't bear to play it in its present state.

So, while we wait, I'll ask you this; have any of you played Trine's games before? If so, what do you like about the series, the heroes, and their adventures?

Some features I'd like to have in an emulator in use for map-making are:

-Not only having the ability to control displaying of individual layers in the tilemap viewer but also the ability to control the priorities.

1) Explain, post an example

I think priorities are referred to render priorities for tilesets and foregrounds, like "FG High" and "FG Low", sprites, and so on.

Remember the bushes in many levels that characters go through, or hide in? The cave corridor walls for indoors?

Yeah. They're the basic examples of render priorities; foliage top, characters and enemies lower, et cetera.

I've been watching Strafefox's YouTube videos about how games were made from time to time. They're really informative, and interesting to learn about how our past games were made. Give them a watch sometime, if you haven't yet. You'll like them.

Other than that, there are other emulators that may need familiar features added, such as MelonDS, VisualBoyAdvance, to make mapping games quite easier. Can't forget them.

LTIan, I know it's super-frustrating that you've been asking for maps of Looney Tunes games for over a decade, and your requests never get fulfilled.

But ask yourself... how does it help your case to demand that ALL map requests stop?

It's not a personal attack on you if other people don't love the Looney Tunes games as much as you do, and others' requests being granted (which is still rare) is not meant to be a snub towards you.

I feel a bit of frustration and impatience about stalled requests, at times, yes, but I'm not that kind of person to go that far to ask such a request as that.

Jon, I think LTIan's feeling a lot more impatient about it, but I still try, at all times, to maintain civility, patience, and hope. So, to me, the frustration about that is not worth being pressured over.

I may as well say this... Happy 15th anniversary, "Go! Go! Kokopolo"!

Yes, its been 15 years since the first game of the chase-'em-up game series was released to the DSiWare, which is August 2011. Already, I hardly see anybody doing celebrations about the series, but I felt like doing it, anyway.

If some of you around the community don't know who Keith Webb is, here's a video about his and Jmac's past endeavors before he did Kokopolo. You can either watch the whole thing from the beginning, or skip to timestamp minute 15:40, where Keith Webb showcases his context about his Kokopolo series.

Here's the video, from the Jmac and Webbsta YouTube Channel, "Who are the Crash Twinsanity Developers??" -

It's been far long since Keith last gave us any word about his latest projects, including his still-stalling development of "Go! Go! Kokopolo DX".

Anyone having any and all active social media channels, please spare some time to contact and speak to Webb about what's been cooking lately, and I still hope to play the third Kokopolo game very soon, because we've been waiting too long.

I think those of you around the VGMaps community, both newcomers and long-time members, may not notice, in case you haven't been informed, but the forums has been recently updated after, well, larger images choked the  bandwidth there and then, and caused our regular connections to become sluggish. Everything else remains OK.

You'll find the layout's been rearranged a bit in the update, which takes a little getting used to, yes, alongside a good sleek, brighter look, but, the usual login procedures remain the same. If you can't seem to find where you're going to log in to post and hang with us, you'll find your way in up at the top of the layout.

When you do log in, if you have unread messages waiting, look for an icon that lets you know when you have them, right at the very top, close to the left, where your logged in name's at, and "My Messages" a little to the right.

Oh, for those wanting to make accounts to join and hang, the "Sign Up" button's located at the very top alongside "Log In", too.

Just thought you needed a bit of context. Hope you don't mind, Jon.

That's all. Have fun, everyone!

Time after time, I kept eyes on Nintendo's state of things, and the people, 'cause, sometimes I get bored waiting, but moreover, I feel more like even though there are people that can't stand Nintendo's latest actions, especially unwisely stopping the 3DS family line and its 3DS eShop, which had loads of exclusive games people bought, but not many paid attention to, many people still went and buy the Switch and its successor, regardless, and don't have the will to stand against that company for such actions, especially when the successor can, and will, break them upon even modifying them. It feels like they're too complacent, conditioned even, to not use their minds and wills to recognize that, not shrug things off like nothing, and take stands.

The main concern is the Switch's already predicted, like many people did because they thought that to be natural, to follow inline and make only numbered successors with no actual additions to stand them out, and that worsens what many thought of. Its like an artificial cycle that seems to cannot break off from, and that's worrisome.

I'll say this as a point of fact, we cannot buy and play all Nintendo Switch systems and its numbered successors and continually play them and remakes of past games, no matter the graphics, over and over forever, and expect Nintendo to do anything just because they're a company that thinks they know best for all.

They also cannot be the only company that does only hybrid game systems for everyone. Think of the dangerous, but preventable, negative consequential factors in reality.

Even the same problems that line has, such as their controllers drifting from too much built-up residue kept carrying on to its "successor", and no matter what, they're still the same, or moreover, much worse than before, with new problems to boot, and Nintendo not willing to really fix them at the players' behest.

Clearly, the current leadership at Nintendo is so closed-minded about preservation and emulation(especially when they're hypocritical about it after attacking it, and people proved it many times. don't get me wrong), and their vision is completely like tunnel vision about the long-term and the future for game systems.

I don't want to be stuck in that rut with a lot of people with no initiative to get out from there. We'll even forget about other true handhelds' histories in that short time and be alienated to not even care about them. I feel they're completely treated as far less unimportant and lower than the third wheel by a lot more that care more for Switch than anything else as gamers that think its the "be-all, end-all for home and portable games ever", with no mention of an actual successor to the 3DS line(which is still not created).

Others made for DS and 3DS emulation, while still needed, can't fill the void the real handhelds left behind if there are no exclusive games for them, and they don't count as actual handhelds. The far more greater concern is the libraries of DS and 3DS' physical games not being preserved for more people to replay them again and showcasing them to newer players to teach them about their histories, not limiting to digital-only games alone. Not to mention the DS and 3DS systems' functionality for their playability at great risk, too.

I mean, think about that. How can I, and a lot of people, continue to keep playing dual-screen only games if there are no proper systems to support and utilize them? Not even accessories for the Switch line can cap that void. Its just not the same like that.

No game is ever destined to be created and played on even the Switch family line forever. Its not realistically logical to do that.

Why, even many game series and IPs(there are a LOT, so you know) that are exclusive to the GBA, DS, and 3DS, especially Heroes of Ruin, Rolling Western, Kid Icarus and Starfy, haven't gotten new installments in long, and Nintendo just sits around and does nothing to continue them; they only focus on Mario, Metroid, Zelda, and Splatoon as major priorities above all, nothing else. NOTHING. Sure, they're popular, but not everything's all about them, nor the whole Switch family.

Oh! Let's not also forget licensed game adaptations. They're part of it, too.

Nintendo DS had 155 million units sold worldwide, and its still a great favorite to a lot of players, but who's to say no other true handheld system can surpass it and mark it as the best-selling handheld system yet? There are possibilities.

I truly hope, and pray, pray, PRAY for actual action and initiative to be done to preserve and keep the future of actual home and handheld gaming to remain enjoyable and creative to all.

King Neptune's Adventure is now fully mapped and was posted yesterday. For those of you who are familiar with this game, and might be wondering how in the actual hell I was able to screenshot the 10th bill, i'm going to share a few things that I dug up in my research.

Color Dreams made a bunch of unlicensed games back in the 1990s. There was some kind of contest to promote these games and get them to sell better. I'm not too familiar with the details of this contest or how you would go about claiming the prize, but I think the challenge in King Neptune's Adventure involved collecting 10 of these dollars that are hidden throughout the game.

I couldn't seem to locate the last several bills on my own, and GameFAQs didn't have this information, so I did some searching and found what I was looking for on another forum.

The community on Video Game Sage figured this out last year. One of their members, 0xDEAFC0DE, analyzed the code of the game and found some absurd conditions that were placed on finding the 10th bill. A very specific number of lives, seahorses, and bombs, as well as the easiest bill to find secretly disqualifying you if you pick it up before the end of the game.

If I hadn't found this post I would have just assumed the last bill was bugged, or doesn't exist, and wouldn't have included it in my maps.

DANG. Seems like wherever any game mapper goes, even you, zagato, there's always more yet to be mapped NES games at every corner, even unlicensed. Oftentimes, I'm still thinking there's no apparent end to them, given these have been made at the NES' popularity peak.

Your search story is quite an exhaustive one, but your effort's been worth the info not many that heard of such games may need to read and hear.

In these days, with Nintendo's very tough game licensing regulations, companies would do so much to create games and make profit, even bypassing around them. Of all those companies, Color Dreams had those ambitions to make them.

Of course, graphically speaking, their quality, pixel art, and designs did came off as... less positive to many public eyes, and, in my perspective, loads of their games' maps are extremely short and small, given their controls were mostly imperfect in response and tightness, and, pretty much, no expansion chips were used to create better games.

Their games, however hadn't sold well, compared to Wisdom Tree's Faith-induced games, which went very well, to say, and their actions were one of Nintendo's strong concerns when it comes to game sales, but no lawsuits ever hit them, period. Even Nintendo stepped off in attempting to sue Wisdom Tree out of backlash from parents, Faith dedicated groups all over, and beyond. Imagine the heat and danger Nintendo would've been in there and then.

Faith is still crucial in life, though, don't get me wrong.

Aside from that, these game companies went well out of their way to flood many markets with their games beyond the barrel full.

[qwert_vs_qwerty]

qwert_vs_qwerty tackles a DS request, for Monster Tale!

I remember enjoying this game, and wondering why not many people talked about it.
A 3DS remake, "Monster Tale Ultimate" was cancelled.  Supposedly a version is or was supposed to come out for the Switch, Xbox One, and PS4, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yeah! It was a very good game! I remember watching its TV commercial as it was broadcast in the months that went as many kids were watching other shows from different TV networks, such as "Big Time Rush", "Ben 10: Ultimate Alien", and the last remaining episodes of "Batman: The Brave and the Bold".

Said to be "The next great DS game", as Nintendo Power quoted, and right in the light of the 3DS' rocky, but mended, run in its debut year.

I can leave its TV commercial video from YouTube to watch for memories, if you and anyone else wants. Here it is.

Still good as I remember watching it.

Dreamrift was supposed to create a 3DS sequel to it, too, but that, and the once-presumed remake of it, also didn't get made, and it was after the Epic Mickey 3DS game was launched. Nothing new was made from Dreamrift, which has still been dormant since.

I enjoyed this as I saw it as a sleeper hit of a Metroidvania.  I played it when it was new, so that was probably 2011, when maybe 2D Metroidvanias like the ones that crowd the indie scene today might not have been common yet.

Well, given such Metroidvanias, like Monster Tale, were not made a lot there and then, the computers' hardware, that had already gotten more powerful to allow developing bigger maps for games, with renderer updates to go, too, and home and handheld game consoles' hardware, while still having really great games, hadn't handled massive Metroidvania worlds, no matter what style and fashion they were made in. Sure, they were large then, but not crazy huge as we see now.

Overall, they're still enjoyable, and etched many great memories to players, nonetheless.

I felt I should share a quaint, NES-esque game series from an indie studio stationed in Brazil, Galope Studios' Ravva.

Oh. I think not many of you in the VGMaps community heard of that fantasy-based platformer game series. Well, I'll give you the rundown and the word-of-mouth spreading about that.

It stars a young owl summoner, named Ravva, who is accompanied by 4 familiar-like companions, each with their own powers the summoner uses to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles across different stages to stop threats coming in that owl's way.

The games are clearly hi-bit in their own way; the graphics are NES based, but the music and sounds were mace with the YM2612 soundchip, a rather mix of flairs of 8-bit and 16-bit aesthetics.

The first game is "Ravva and the Cyclops Curse", where it started.



It puts Ravva on a quest to rescue the summoner's mother, who was put under a curse by a monster called the Cyclops Lord, and its up to the little one to save her by going to his castle and stop him.

The game has 3 stages, that are split into 3 levels; Swampomile Forest, Takenouchi Desert Wasteland, and the Cyclops Lord's Castle With No Name, but the last has 4, the 4th of which is the fight against the beast himself.

Traversing through the levels require good eyes, and keen senses to overcome the many dangers the levels are infested with, and using Ravva's companion powers will surely help the summoner to reach the castle.

There is a hidden ending in the game, but the requirements for it are quite tricky. And a few hidden surprises, too.

Here's some screenshots...







Here's the trailer for the first game, too...

The second game is "Ravva II and the Phantom Library".



In it, Ravva and the companions are thrown into a rather haunted library filled with worlds made of books, the kind that aren't for reading or show. They're portals to actual worlds, each holding a unique boss to face in the end. They're challenging, but fun to face!

After going through the first stage, The Forgotten Forest, you get to select the 6 stages that are all books with portals to their worlds.

The game features Ravva's companions being able to become combo forms to unleash incredible powers to blast away enemies and blockades. There's many to find and use!

The main villain herself can be fought after finishing off all the worlds, and like the previous game, it has a different ending, but the requirements are different.

There may be a few clever nods to select games you could find(one of the stages has a Bounce Man callback! its neat!).

Here's the sequel's screenshots...







And the trailer for its launch...

And now, here comes the third game in the series, "Ravva III and the Netherworld Train".



The new, upcoming sequel places Ravva on another new adventure; this time, to save the summoner's father by traveling through the land of the dead and its many deadly landscapes by using the one vessel that can help the little one around; the titular Netherworld Train itself!

Expect to seek out surprises and dangers beneath the new stages the game holds, because in this adventure, Ravva gains a new power, to merge with each of the 4 companions to inhibit new forms and utilize new abilities!

Here's Ravva III's screenshots...









And its recently made trailer...

That game's not yet released, but I have a feeling it will be very soon. The previous 2 games are out, so give these games a try!

The games are all made with Aseprite and Tiled, and they run in the engine, Unity, to let you know.

I also have a few behind-the-scenes images about the games' stages, enemies and bosses you should look...

































The first was made in paper, but the rest were made digitally, through Clip Studio Paint, as I've looked into.

There's another game Galope Studios' been on the bakc burner time and again; the long-awaited platformer Meawja. IT showcases a ninja cat overcoming many obstacles across different stages to take down evil.

I'll give you a screenshot of that game that has its title for proof. Here it is...



Bear in mind, that studio's only got very few people(fewer than I thought, actually), and yes, their games take quite long to release, because they only have very little full-time people brought in to work on them. Hopefully with more attention and people purchasing them, it will help bring in more full-timers to lighten their load.

Here's Galope Studios' website's and social channels' links for those who want to visit.

Galope Studios' website - https://galopestudios.crd.co/

Galope Studios' YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@GalopeStudios/featured

Galope Studios' Twitter/X Account - https://x.com/GalopeStudios

Galope Studios' BlueSky Profile - https://bsky.app/profile/galopestudios.bsky.social

For the mappers, should you purchase them, feel free to map their levels out, so more people can feel ready to traverse them.

If you're eager to play them, give them a go! I'm having some fun with them.

[single]

I've only played a little bit of Zero but wasn't it a remake only in terms of general story etc. It was a reimagining of the same events but with its own gameplay, levels etc. I think people are too quick to throw it in the pile of Starfox 64 remakes - to fit the narrative that Nintendo has kept making and remaking SF64. I'm not defending Zero - I don't like the gameplay and it's disappointing that it is the same story but I wouldn't group it with the 3DS game and this new Switch 2 game, which are actual SF64 remakes.

Well, the fact is Star Fox 64's story is still the one game that gets retold over and over again, yes, even Zero holds a sorta shared backstory, and not a single new Star Fox game has set in anything new and original for the series, not saying gameplay wise, including new stories that are supposed to bring new main villains, perhaps new ways to resurrect Andross so he can recommence his revenge on Fox McCloud entirely for his defeats, and even explore new solar systems with many new planets past the Lylat System that should guarantee new adventures for the team.

My thoughts have been that Nintendo has clearly no coherent vision on actually moving Star Fox forward with anything new and original after Star Fox Command and Star Fox 2, the only games that went forward from past games' events; they're obviously lacking actual creative thought in their devs' and their teams' outputs. They just keep cashing in remaking Star Fox 64's story over and over again. Nobody wants over-flooded same story re-tellings.

To be precise, from my memory of reading now and then, there's no actual true final boss and ending for Command, only multiple endings that don't actually set up anything for any new Star Fox game, regardless of outcome.

Regardless of how many positive reviews its got, less than negative, actually, disappointment is what so many people are feeling now after they were still expecting new entries, including me.

[George s]

George s has mapped the twelfth arcade game that I've requested - and it's Spider-Man: The Videogame!

It's a fun four-player beat-em-up that I don't hear many people talking about.

When I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall, there was a cleaning checklist for the arcade machines. Whoever made it listed Spider-Man: The Videogame as "Spider-Man: The Best Game Of All Time" or something, I always thought that was funny.  It's a specific memory that probably not many people have, but, there we go, some of my requests are indeed personal.  But Spider-Man is popular... right?

Thanks again, George s!  You're the best!  Especially when it comes to mapping arcade games!

Might as well also point out that until June 14, Gravity Circuit is free to claim on Steam, so if you're a PC gamer, why not go for it?  It's an indie game that's 8-bit in style but plays much like Mega Man X.  It's free because the sequel was recently announced, so they want to build excitement for it by giving out the original for nothing.  Of course I bring it up because it's one of the games on my requests list, in the (long) PC section.

I wonder if one day I should split up the PC section into "retro-style indies" (usually platformers) and "point-and-click adventures" since most games there are one or the other... any thoughts about that?

Good story to share, and I like that Spider-Man arcade game's been mapped out. I haven't heard of it much. Looks real nice as a 4-player beat-em 'up. Wonder if Riot City(yes, its an arcade game, not the TurboGrafx-16 CD port, Riot Zone) may be up for being mapped.

I'd say this, do subsections to clear up clutter PC games and for "Retro-Style Indies". Would that help? There's loads of them, so they should at least have it.

SERIOUS?? Gravity Circuit 2?! Wow! Looks like Domesticated Ant Games really went into it in creating the sequel to that hit Mega Man-inspired robo-fisticuffed game, and it is Cable, the Power Circuit, one of the former renegade Circuits, partnered up with Kai for the adventure? I thought for sure he and the other Rebel Circuits were kaput in the first game. Oh, why worry? They're all robots; of course, they can be rebuilt and reprogrammed to be cleaned of any corrupt coding and influence.

This had me into a brief thought. I had thought that when a game is a success, the company and team responsible for it would take the chance to utilize its momentum to create a sequel, as it was with the case of Ratchet and Clank 2, though, in Gravity Circuit's case, the time was spent doing many updates to smooth things, especially the tiniest of cosmetics.

I mean, I have no problem with them, but its the rather absurd, slow pace of them is what bothers me, and stalling time to create its sequel while the success momentum's still hot and rolling. A few more onboard would've at least kept the pace for updates steady while the sequel gets made.

If anything, I'm still really expecting the sequel's stages to be longer and have actual unique mid-bosses in them, including the opening stage, at least a minimum of one, I have no problem with some having more than one as mid-stage mid-bosses, and they don't have to be fought in one stage more than once with slight difficulty increases in their destined arenas(yes, I do know Mega Man does it in their games; I've been though them, but that doesn't mean Gravity Circuit should do that same bit, and it shouldn't), before facing its end-stage boss, with actual health gauges and battle themes of their own, and its finale not having a set of less than 4 stages, at least. Slightly above 4, maybe. I can handle any great challenge, and lately, I just feel like I want to be challenged on these kind of games, past and present; 2D Sonic, Mega Man Classic, Gunvolt, whichever.

I do remember seeing a Twitter post as a request of the rest of the game's stages needing to have mid-bosses in them, because it only had 2(Trace and Bit's stages, actually), one user, @JunyangLiu_Math, posted that to Domesticated Ant Games' account, but the reply was they unfortunately didn't do so, because it would have taken a bunch of time to retrofit one for each stage that doesn't have them. I formerly thought that would be done by updates, but they do have a point. I felt that would rather be used for the sequel. Hope anyone can send a line about that to them, if given time. I'm all up for thrashing loads more of them.

Here's the reply post's link from Domesticated Ant Games' Twitter account to look at - https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1674094880501399553#m

At least, its continuing its own hi-bit pixel art style, but now with more free moving parallax background layers. That's what many games and companies should keep on doing, because pixel art still shares it unique universal appeal to a lot of people, especially us, since we grew up with them. Anyone trying to dissuade, demoralize, and discourage us for it and downplaying that is plainly calling cop-outs, and its a big time-waster on their end.

Unusually, letting the original become free of charge, on Steam? I find it odd for that choice to be made... Actually, its made that for a limited-time, so, yeah. Also, have more people bought that game on consoles besides Steam?

Very astute you figured that out. I was astounded about that discovery, I'll admit.

To be honest, upon watching Strafefox's videos about how past video games were made before the vast tech upgrades, the tileset amounts, then-expensive memory amounts for in-house dev workstation computers, and memory bank switching were very minimal and common in their time, and the NES carts were quite minimal in space, even with expansion chips to up its capabilities by notches, never very close to even half of a Gigabyte for a game, it is justifiable to see such bypasses had to be compromised to meet within the very tight limits of the NES then.

Still, your boundary breaking to gather the whole view of the maps in that game were rather impressive.

I can leave such videos for you to watch later, if you want. Maybe you'll learn much about those limits and bypasses people utilized then.

How Video Games Were Made, Part 1: Graphics(revised in 2018) - Narration: Chase McCaskill -

How Video Games Were Made, Part 2: Workflow - Narration: Steven Kelly -

Video Game Development Throughout the 80s - Narration: Steven Kelly -

This was the first anime I watched with subtitles when I got my hands on a VHS tape (eps 13-16) back in early 2000. I liked it so much that used one of the bad guys for my online name.

The SNES version was already on vgmaps but I definitely wanted to map all the other Rayearth games, including this. Saturn emulation wasn't quite perfect yet so this was a bit of a challenge. The emulator used was Yabause because I couldn't get BizHawk to take 1:1 screenshots of Saturn games. Despite all this, the only map that I think needs to be touched up in the future is Crimson Underpass.

Was Yabause successful in doing 1:1 screenshots while you were mapping Magic Knight Rayearth after BizHawk couldn't? If so, that's good you made that choice. Perhaps many more Saturn games could be mapped with that emulator.

Really love its vibrant pre-rendered graphics, though. I can only guess Softimage 3D, Lightwave 3D and Alias Power Animator did the work for that amazing style. Makes me think of how such an aesthetic as that could be recreated, but only for the foregrounds, of course. For graphical styles, I enjoy different palettes and tastes; can't stick to just one alone.

Really nice to see that game receive the Maps of the Month honor, and I'm very sorry it didn't sell well for the GBA version.

It's a very nice game, even though the maps are very... well, short and small, not that I'm complaining, because I'm well fond of long/large maps, and try to gradually adapt as I find and play through another one when able.

Guess the staff didn't utilize some more extra size space in it to make them reasonably long or large, even with their hardware already more than strong enough to create such large stage maps.

Perhaps when more people buy it, thanks to LRG's re-release, and look up on its maps to get by, maybe they'll understand and appreciate it more to warrant a sequel with more longer stages and plenty more challenges to overcome... at least, we can hope.

Well, at least, Spanettone put effort into mapping that underappreciated game, and that mapper has our thanks.