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16

Gaming / Got 1000 Korok Seeds in The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

« on: September 08, 2023, 09:13:08 am »

Just got the 1000th Korok Seed in The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom.

(If only I hadn't spent three of them, so I could see what having all 1000 on hand would be like.)

I still haven't even started a second Temple... and I'm 185 hours in.

Context: like in The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, there are MANY Korok Seeds found hidden all around the world.  Not all of them are necessary to find, in this game, only about 440some can be traded to increase inventory space for weapons, bows, and shields, and so over 550 of them could be considered "redundant" if you're not a completionist.  Yes, I did have to look up many of these locations; I think it would be even more insane to find them all without some help!

I actually still prefer the more linear Zelda games to the open-world ones, but I figure I might as well really lean into the open-worldness to try to appreciate it as much as I can, and so I am doing everything other than the story, for a sense of being supremely overpowered when I finally do get to it. It is probably the way to get the most fun out of it, for me. The monotonous task of looking up Korok locations would be more tiring and feel more pointless if I did it AFTER doing the main story, so getting that behind me certainly means the game can be more fun now.

I've already maxed out all of the upgrades for all the armor that I think I can get at this point (just don't have a full Zora set, the Charged Armor, some circlets, and the Ancient Hero's Aspect). The only reason why I haven't cleared all 152 Shrines is because I think one needs Yunobo (who I haven't gotten yet) and I'm deliberately avoiding the Shrine that teaches the most basic Combat Training for last. I haven't done a single Flurry Rush yet, and I think it's because I haven't even learned it in this game yet since I'm leaving that Shrine for last.

Wonder if I should trade in these Korok Seeds right away, or enjoy holding all 997 for a bit longer.

And then what's next? Maybe I should get all the Bubbul Gems...

17

Maps Of The Month / 2023/09: Metal Warriors (Super NES) - Spanettone

« on: August 31, 2023, 09:32:20 pm »

Metal Warriors

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Spanettone's Metal Warriors (Super NES) maps.

It's the year 2102.  The Dark Axis, led by the evil dictator, Venkar Amon, seeks to dominate the galaxy.  Planet Earth is in their sights.  But as a "Metal Warrior", capable of piloting a battledroid, you're certainly not going to let them enslave the inhabitants of planet Earth without a fight!

The premise may be your usual sci-fi narrative setup, as seen in any space action game, but the game is more remarkable, even if underrated.  This late-era Super NES game features impressive graphics (the animated mission intros were nothing short of amazing at the time) and the animation and gameplay are both quite smooth, even with all the action.  The "Head To Head" mode allows for some two-player competitive play, where you and a friend can test your mettle against each other by piloting mechs with cool names (like "Havoc", "Ballistic", and "Drache") and hot weapons.  Spanettone has fully mapped the story missions and all the "Head To Head" areas, as well as the secret "?????" mode.  Lesser-known games seem to be of interest to Spanettone as if to shine a light on these hidden gems, and this is certainly a Super NES game that could use some more attention.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this underappreciated 16-bit mech adventure, Spanettone's Metal Warriors (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2023.

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/08: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) - mephea

« on: July 31, 2023, 09:30:07 pm »

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to mephea's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) maps.

No, we're not talking about the 1940s research and development program, directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, that produced the first nuclear weapons during World War II, but rather, Shredder's scheme, involving Krang's alien technology, to lift the island of Manhattan into the sky, and hold it hostage until he gets his revenge on the Turtles.

This TMNT game is a "beat-'em up" like its immediate predecessor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES), and its immediate successor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time (Super NES), but has the distinction of being an original game on a home console not previously seen in arcades.

Though still an arcade-style game, and a linear one, at that, its maps are still useful, if not necessarily for navigation, then for information.  mephea has taken the time to label each "Scene" map with tips, such as what obstacles and enemies to expect.  Her boss strategies can lead you to victory and, for some additional info, see the photos of the bosses' original action figures.  There are the original toys of Bebop and Rocksteady, of course, and Leatherhead, sure, but also Dirtbag and Groundchuck; why not?  The tips were already above and beyond, and the inclusion of these images is yet another nice touch; it's the sort of thing that would be intriguing to see on game maps more often, whenever possible.

So to recognize the effort put into going above and beyond when mapping this mutant mayhem, mephea's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2023.

19

VGMaps Social Board / The real LEGO Super Mario

« on: July 14, 2023, 09:25:49 pm »

I made the "real" LEGO Super Mario today, coincidentally on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Famicom (well, Japan's ahead by several hours, so it has already been the 15th for a while while I was making this).

I learned how to use Studio 2.0 (a LEGO design program), which is integrated with BrickLink, so I could buy exactly the pieces I needed.

The 485-piece build includes 372 1x1 tiles, of which the brown ones were the most expensive, by far.  The other pieces averaged at $0.07 each, but the brown tiles were $0.79 EACH, meaning that despite being 30.7% of the pieces, the 149 of them made up $117.10 (or 82.6%) of the $141.70 it cost.  And that's before shipping, as I had to get the parts from France and Germany.  So it was $181.51 (Canadian).  (I forgot how much customs/import fees were that were in addition to the shipping, so it's probably actually over $200.)

Would have been much cheaper if I adapted this to have a red shirt, blue overalls and white gloves, the modern colours (as seen in Super Mario Maker and the corrresponding amiibo), but I figured I might as well go as authentic to the original sprite as possible.

I'd always wondered why people make pixel art out of Perler Beads or Pixelblocks instead of LEGO (or if they do make it out of LEGO, using the regular blocks with studs on top).  Now I'm pretty sure it's the cost...

20

Maps Of The Month / 2023/07: Mission: Impossible (NES) - mechaskrom

« on: June 30, 2023, 09:52:39 pm »

Mission: Impossible

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to mechaskrom's Mission: Impossible (NES) maps.

"Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to save the American scientist, Dr. O.  He has been kidnapped by 'The Sinister Seven', due to his role in developing a military defense system for the United States.  As you know, our newest team member, Shannon Reed, has been posing as Dr. O's secretary in her assignment to protect him, but she has been taken, as well.  She managed to inform us of their whereabouts, so you should begin your search in Moscow.  As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.  This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.  Good luck, Jim."

You select your usual team of IMF agents - Max Harte (the tough guy), Grant Collier (the tech guy), and Nicholas Black (the master of disguise) - and send them across Europe.  Though the mission begins in Moscow, they will travel to Venice and the Swiss Alps, before ending up in Cyprus.  The Sinister Seven intends to start World War III, so stop their nefarious plans and rescue the good doctor, wherever he may be!

The intel you may need includes mechaskrom's maps of this brutally difficult NES game.  This top-down adventure is about more than just action - you may need help just finding your way.  The manual even calls these areas "murderous mazes"...  mechaskrom's attention to detail means these maps are marked with morsels of information, like what non-player characters say and what switches control.  The mission may be difficult, but at least if you have these maps, it's a little less impossible.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this nearly-impossible game, mechaskrom's Mission: Impossible (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for July 2023.

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VGMaps Social Board / Trying to complete my Super NES music collection...

« on: June 17, 2023, 08:22:38 pm »

As you may have seen in my "YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)" topic, I recently created a video with one minute of music for every NES game:

Naturally, I'd like to follow this up with one minute of music for every Super NES game.  (Or every "SNES" game.)

Though I SHOULD be working on my Japan trip vlogs, it's easy for me to listen to Super NES music when I am multitasking (like updating VGMaps.com or other work) and surprisingly, I'm already 3/4 of the way done with choosing the music!  So though I still need to (re)collect (better) box art and screenshots - easy but time-consuming - most of the hard work is done...

Except for finding the music I'm missing...

The Super NES music files that I do have, I got from just two sites:

http://snesmusic.org/v2/ has lots of .SPC files bundled into .RSN files
https://spc.joshw.info/e/ has them in other formats, like .MINISNSF or .MP3, as well as some unnamed .SPCs not bundled into .RSNs.  (And .OGGs for The Chessmaster for some reason.)

But, at the time of making this post, those sites are missing sound files for these official North American Super NES games...

(EDIT: I will update this list as I find them, but I will leave the originally requested games here, in case others are looking for these soundtracks...)

-(Williams) Arcade's Greatest Hits - found something else to use, since this doesn't have music
-Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 - had to do a workaround to recreate the Asteroids "music"
-Hammerlock Wrestling - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hatWEi697p8&list=PL8AmPARnFwCfPsF2dVSrlvdq9Eup2RvU_
-The Irem Skins Game - I just picked the "Hole Introduction" music and made a .SPC of that
-Jimmy Houston's Bass Tournament U.S.A. - I just picked the "Title" music and made a .SPC of that
-Mario's Early Years: Fun With Numbers - might be the same as the other Mario's Early Years games?
-Mario's Early Years: Preschool Fun - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn6HgtTq0Yk&list=PLHtPDKtqGdF_syGX5S99IYFJ3fpsn04zE
-Michael Andretti's Indy Car Challenge - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HOgE-Sb_Jg&list=PLedxyAusHATGhYKM8jLqV3WArNy1uQHVn
-MLBPA Baseball - I just picked the "Title" music and made a .SPC of that
-NHL '95
-NHL '96
-NHL '97
-NHL '98
-Super Goal! 2 - ripped eight .SPCs, not sure if I have all the tracks
-Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition - got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPa7B21L4mk&list=PLFFF5NK7e6GJZe59S1dzgiqGgaO_qjQF5
-TNN Bass Tournament Of Champions - ripped six .SPCs, not sure if I have all the tracks
-We're Back!: A Dinosaur's Story - Thanks, zagato blackfist!  Also got .MP3s from a YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Nx9njOLnQ&list=PLU7NOYXOjyliApV76lTsRDLx-ZGntW33a

In addition, I assume that Clay Fighter: Tournament Edition has the same music as the original Clay Fighter (though why aren't the vocals for the title song in there?), and that the compilations Extertainment Mountain Bike Rally + Speed Racer In My Most Dangerous Adventures and Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World aren't going to be different than the soundtracks for the individual games, which I do have the files for.  If The Miracle Piano Teaching System is just like the NES one, where there is no soundtrack to rip from the game data because the music comes from the keyboard accessory itself, then I can probably use the same recording that I used in the NES music compilation which was from my own actual Miracle Piano keyboard.

In any case, I'm guessing there are probably technical reasons why there haven't been .RSNs/.SPCs ripped from at least some of these yet.  But, in the off-chance that somebody has music for these games (or can obtain/create them) in some format that I can use, it would be much appreciated, as it would allow me to complete that Super NES music compilation!  And if you do, please contribute to those sites to help build their archives, so that everyone interested in the Super NES can benefit!

Thanks in advance!

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Gaming / McDonald's just released a new Game Boy Color game in 2023 (Grimace's Birthday)

« on: June 13, 2023, 04:21:16 pm »

Grimace's 52nd birthday was yesterday, apparently, and it is celebrated with a few things, but of most interest to us here, one of those things is a retro-style video game.  It's an actual Game Boy Color ROM (made in GB Studio in seven weeks by Krool Toys).  And it is playable in emulators and flash carts!

"Grimace's Birthday" is playable in your browser at:
https://grimacesbirthday.com/

This homebrew game is available as a ROM here (though you should rename the ".gb" extension to ".gbc"):
https://archive.org/details/grimaces-birthday

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/06: Batman (NES) - Chiasm

« on: May 31, 2023, 09:15:10 pm »

Batman

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Chiasm's Batman (NES) maps.

With Michael Keaton returning to playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Flash movie opening this month, why not revisit the NES game "based" on the 1989 Batman film?

Though, when saying Batman (or "Batman: The Video Game") on the NES is "based" on Tim Burton's cinematic take on The Caped Crusader, it is only very loosely.  It does share character designs with it, and the Batmobile looks like it should (in the cutscenes and sadly not playable), and the Joker is naturally the final boss, but there's not much else that is similar.  Whereas the film is dark - both thematically and visually - this game has rockin' tunes and a colourful palette.  Rather than just gothic architecture, jump (and wall-jump) through areas you might expect in a sci-fi adventure, like The Underground Conduit (Stage 3) and The Laboratory Ruins (Stage 4).  In addition to the Joker, Batman will face lesser-known villains, consisting of Killer Moth, the Electrocutioner, and Firebug.

Despite the incongruity to the source material, this licensed game is actually very good, in the sense that it is quite a solid gameplay experience.  Like Sunsoft's other film adaptation, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, it forgoes faithfulness to the film in favour of fun (when not frustrating) 8-bit action.  Sunsoft did incredibly well with the music and graphics in their NES games at this time; see also Blaster Master!  Thankfully, Chiasm has mapped out all of Batman, so we can appreciate these fine graphics anytime here on VGMaps.com.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this good-looking and legitimately good licensed game, Chiasm's Batman (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for June 2023.

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VGMaps Social Board / Just got back from Japan...

« on: May 25, 2023, 09:07:17 am »

I just got back from a week and a half in Japan, which I didn't really talk about online on social media while I was away.

It was a geeky trip filled with stuff like Super Nintendo World, Dragon Quest Island, Nintendo Tokyo, the Kirby Café, the Pokémon Café and Pokémon Centers, and more!  I took a LOT of video and plan to edit four or five vlog videos about it, which you will see on my "JonLeung1" YouTube channel.  It might take a while (HOPEFULLY not too long), but look forward to it!

I do have a lot of stuff to get caught up on, but don't worry, VGMaps.com is certainly one of the priorities.  I have submissions from a few people (I think I recall seeing at least three).  (EDIT: It was six.)  Give me a bit of time to take care of all that.  Thanks for your patience!

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/05: Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon (CD-i) - Jackster

« on: April 30, 2023, 09:09:53 pm »

Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Jackster's Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon (CD-i) maps.

When the land of Gamelon was attacked by Ganon's forces, King Harkinian of Hyrule travelled there to help his ally, Duke Onkled.  But a month passed without hearing from the King, so Princess Zelda sent the hero, Link, to find him, but he also went missing.  So, with Impa's accompaniment, Zelda ventures off to Gamelon to find them both, in her first (though non-canonical) leading role in the series that bears her name.

As discussed when Jackster received the Maps Of The Month honour back in December 2020, the CD-i was released at an interesting time in video gaming when optical disc technology was transforming digital media.  The massive increase in storage capacity meant so much more could be done with games, and that usually meant voice acting and full-motion video.  A licensing deal between Nintendo and Philips resulted in some interesting (and infamous) games on the CD-i, which showcase these new features.  Two of them, Link: The Faces Of Evil and Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon, came out on the same day, and we've already recognized one of them here, so it's time to honour more of Jackster's work.

Much has been said about how bad these games are, so kudos to Jackster for pushing through to bring us these maps, both unmarked and marked.  With the unmarked maps, we can appreciate the graphics of these colourful backgrounds that resemble paintings, rather than tiles bound to grids.  They really are gorgeous in their own way.  And with the marked maps, we can figure out how to get through these games, if we ever dare to see what the fuss is about.  The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is great, but a truly hardcore Zelda fan can say they managed to save the land of Gamelon.

So to recognize even more effort of enduring the infamous CD-i Zelda games, Jackster's Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon (CD-i) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for May 2023.

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/04: Super Mario 64 (N64) - VGCartography

« on: March 31, 2023, 09:21:00 pm »

Super Mario 64

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to VGCartography's Super Mario 64 (N64) maps.

Princess Peach has invited Mario to her castle for some cake.  But Bowser, the King of the Koopas, is up to no good again and has invaded the castle and used the castle's 120 Power Stars to imprison the princess and her servants.  By jumping into magical paintings, Mario can access the worlds where the Power Stars are kept and, by retrieving enough of them, he can open up more areas of the castle, to go to more worlds and find more Stars and, eventually, make his way to a final confrontation with Bowser.

Compared to the 16-bit era, the Nintendo 64 was a major technological leap, and its flagship title, Super Mario 64, is an iconic game that pioneered much about 3D platforming, and 3D games in general, especially on consoles.  Besides proving that 3D games can be accessible and intuitive, it is a solid game in its own right, still quite playable over 26 years later.

VGCartography, one of the regular mappers who isn't fazed by the third dimension, has dissected all of Peach's Castle, and all the worlds within the paintings.  From Bob-Omb Battlefield to Rainbow Ride, every crucial detail is here on these maps - all the Red Coins and Power Stars are indicated, as well as the enemy placements.  For the Stars that aren't obvious how to get from their in-game titles, helpful tips explain further.  Some maps, like Tiny-Huge Island and Tick Tock Clock, have multiple perspectives to display everything in a 2D map.  Thankfully, VGCartography has been able to do a "super" job all around!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping the first 3D Mario adventure, VGCartography's Super Mario 64 (N64) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for April 2023.

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VGMaps Social Board / How to resize pixel art/game footage and keep the sharp pixel edges in a video

« on: March 26, 2023, 09:44:22 pm »

Since I work with video a lot (as you may have guessed from my "JonLeung1" YouTube channel), and talk about games often, I've wondered about the best way to resize pixel art and game footage in a video, without distorting the pixels' edges.  You know, without blurring or smoothing.  Adobe Premiere Pro is made with working with typical video in mind, so the smoothing effect is typically nicer than pixel-resizing, but when dealing with pixels specifically as pixels, as in perfect squares with nice, sharp edges, you actually don't want them smoothed at all.  There doesn't seem to be a visible option to toggle this, however.

I was asking @NESAtlas/Atlas Videos about it, since his channel obviously has game footage.  I'd actually asked about it earlier, and he did offer an ffmpeg solution, but before he could remind me of the details, I stumbled upon Vizual PixelPerfect by Autokroma.  It's a plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro, and it seems to do what I need.

Once installed, when in Adobe Premiere Pro (I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro 2022), and editing a video, go into "Effects -> Video Effects", and now there's "-> Autokroma -> Vizual PixelPerfect". Apply it to the original pixelly clip, then in the Effect Controls, choose "Scale" and set it to whatever size (so, 9.00 was used in the example below), and you can also change "Interpolation algo", but I've left it at "Nearest".

The result can be seen in this screenshot (taken in VLC Player) of the outputted 4K clip.  The original footage was an uncompressed 256 x 224 .AVI from EmuHawk, but now it has been scaled up by 9 by Vizual PixelPerfect to be 2304 x 2016 pixels.  If you zoom right in with an image editor, you can see it's not actually PERFECT; there's a pixel-width of distortion at most, maybe I missed a setting, or maybe that's a VLC thing?  Anyway, it's certainly the simplest solution that is good enough for my purposes.

You can click on this example image to enlarge it and see how well it turned out:



(This particular clip I'm using is from Mario's Time Machine (Super NES), and just from the dialogue alone, you can probably guess why it will show up in an upcoming YouTube video...)

Also, if you're curious, the original video, being an uncompressed .AVI, is 123 MB for only 12 seconds at 256 x 224.  After running it through Adobe Premiere Pro with no editing, just resizing by how I described it above, to the largest integer to fit within 4K (3840 x 2160), the output is an H.264 .MP4 which is only 19.3 MB.  That's over 6.37 times smaller for an image now nine times larger (in both dimensions, so actually 81 times larger), which is really an improvement by a factor of 516 in terms of pixels-per-byte (and that's not even counting all the pixels used for the empty space).

I'm posting this here as a reminder if I ever need to reinstall Adobe Premiere Pro, and from what I've seen on the Internet, might answer an often-asked question that is not answered enough.  There are a lot of people now that do YouTube videos with game footage, but not everyone does it this cleanly, so I'm spreading the word.  Hooray for pixel-perfect upscaling/resizing!

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/03: World Of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck (Gen)-John Brain

« on: February 28, 2023, 09:21:07 pm »

World Of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to John Brain's World Of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck (Genesis) maps.

While Mickey and Donald prepare for a magic act, Donald stumbles and clumsily discovers a strange box.  Thinking it could be useful in their show, Donald steps inside, but disappears, as does Mickey when he investigates.  The two of them are taken to another world within the box, and a shadowy figure tells them they can only escape if they find and defeat him.  '90s licensed character platforming ensues...

John Brain's maps of "World Of Illusion" include the different paths that Mickey and Donald each take.  For some inexplicable reason, they part ways and then reunite in each of the game's five stages.  In the fifth stage, for example, Donald explores an area inspired by the Queen of Hearts' garden from Alice In Wonderland (1951), while Mickey enters a mirror, perhaps inspired by the Mickey Mouse short, "Thru The Mirror" (1936).  There are also areas seen only in a two-player game.  So this whole game, however you play it, is fully mapped for you to enjoy.

With the Walt Disney Company celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, plus Walt Disney World ending its 50th-anniversary celebrations this month, what better time to celebrate the world of Disney games?  The series of "Illusion" games by Sega includes this adventure, originally available on only the Genesis, but now also on the Genesis Mini.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this Disney classic, John Brain's World Of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck (Genesis) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for March 2023.

29

Gaming / Beyond Shadowgate - sequel to the NES game - Kickstarter

« on: February 18, 2023, 10:04:52 pm »

There's a Kickstarter campaign that launched today for "Beyond Shadowgate", a sequel to the NES point-and-click adventure.  Though there have been a handful of Shadowgate sequels (including the Turbo Grafx CD game also called "Beyond Shadowgate", but which is totally different) and remakes since the original, as the creator says, anytime anyone talks to him about Shadowgate, it's always specifically about the NES one.  So this sequel is designed very much like it.

It's near the end of the first day of this campaign, and has already reached its initial goal of $25,000.  At about $33,000, it's halfway to the first stretch goal of $40,000, which will allow them to create a bonus chapter which is an expanded version of Uninvited, and if funding gets to $55,000, there will be an expanded version of Déjà Vu, as well.

There's a demo you can download, as well as two free games by GrahfMetal, "Infested" and "Spectacle", indie games that were clearly inspired by the original MacVenture games on NES.

(Also, I'm surprised we still don't have maps of Shadowgate, Déjà Vu and Uninvited... I remember the first issue of Nintendo Power that I ever got had a Déjà Vu map on the back of the poster, so I know it can be done...)

Anyway, I haven't pledged yet, but I am certainly considering it!

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Maps Of The Month / 2023/02: Kirby's Return To Dream Land (Wii) - G.E.R.

« on: January 31, 2023, 09:45:33 pm »

Kirby's Return To Dream Land

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to G.E.R.'s Kirby's Return To Dream Land (Wii) maps.

Planet Popstar seems to have its fair share of visitors.  This time, it's Magalor, an alien whose dimension-hopping spaceship has crash-landed.  Kirby offers to help fix Magalor's ship, so along with King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Waddle Dee, they set off to recover all of the parts and energy spheres that are now scattered across the planet.

This adventure takes Kirby and his friends across Popstar and then Halcandra, through seven worlds named with alliterative titles (where the first letters appear to spell out a word).  Besides 38 stages of platforming fun, there are also seven challenges based around specific Copy Abilities, the boss rush area known as "The Arena", and a couple of mini-games.  It definitely follows the classic formula for a Kirby platforming adventure - but that's not a bad thing.  It plays great and looks just as good.

Though for something different, Kirby's Epic Yarn was released a year earlier on the Wii, and G.E.R. has recently mapped all of that, as well.  G.E.R. has actually mapped numerous Kirby games, and we appreciate that this love for the series brings us so many beautiful and colourful Kirby game maps, including these ones!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a gorgeous Kirby adventure worth returning to, G.E.R.'s Kirby's Return To Dream Land (Wii) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for February 2023.