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31

Maps Of The Month / 2023/01: Willow (NES) - KingKuros

« on: December 31, 2022, 09:22:23 pm »

Willow

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

Queen Bavmorda of Nockmaar is an evil sorceress who intends to rule the world.  Though she wields powerful magic and commands a vast army, a prophecy predicts her downfall.  One of those who could bring an end to her reign is Willow Ufgood, a farmer of the tribe of Nelwyns.  So Willow leaves his family and friends - but meets new companions like the Daikini warrior, Madmartigan, and the tiny Brownies, Franjean and Rool - as he ventures off on this perilous journey to save the world from Bavmorda's tyranny.

Unlike the film that this game is loosely based on, Willow's companions show up only briefly.  Willow usually travels alone in this adventure in the vein of The Legend Of Zelda.  In this vast world - with many similar-looking areas - he could certainly use the help of someone like KingKuros, who has mapped out the world in its entirety.  From the village of Nelwyn to Tir Asleen and Nockmaar Castle and, yes, even the many vast caves in between, Willow might just succeed, or at least not get lost.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this classic fantasy world, KingKuros's Willow (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for January 2023.

32

Maps Of The Month / 2022/12: The Apprentice (CD-i) - Jackster

« on: November 30, 2022, 09:23:49 pm »

The Apprentice

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

Marvin is the young apprentice of the wizard, Gandorf S. Wandburner III.  To complete a series of tasks for his master, Marvin must traverse six sets of stages to retrieve what Wandburner asks him to find.  Will Marvin succeed in this exceedingly cute CD-i adventure?

The CD-i is host to numerous games that feature full-motion video or animation, but The Apprentice looks and plays like a traditional sprite-based platformer, only slightly upgraded technically from what you would have expected from the 16-bit consoles that ruled the first half of the 1990s.  But that's not a bad thing - the game is charming, with its adorable art and superb soundtrack.  It's a standout CD-i title, despite (or maybe because of) its non-resemblance to most other games on that platform.

Each set of stages is presented as a day.  Marvin will climb up five towers for most of these days, though on the second day, he dives down a well.  As you can guess, the platforming action is very vertical.  You certainly couldn't call this a side-scroller.  All the stages, including the bonuses, are only one screen wide, though several screens tall.  And Jackster, who, as of now, is the only mapper to contribute directly-ripped maps for CD-i games, has captured these slender stages for us to enjoy.  The Apprentice needs to be appreciated!  Not just the character, but the game!  There's more to the CD-i than non-canonical Zelda games (though Jackster has also mapped those).

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a great game on an infamously unpopular console, Jackster's The Apprentice (CD-i) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for December 2022.

33

Gaming / If I play a lot of console-style games on PC, am I a PC gamer?

« on: November 02, 2022, 11:39:21 am »

What does it mean to be a PC gamer?

So, here's the context - I'm a Nintendo fan (mostly because of its exclusives), but I definitely play a lot of games on PC. I grew up with a lot of classic point-and-clicks, so I definitely was then in the 1990s, and for a lot of the big-name third-party games now, I play on PC for the graphics and power.

But the kicker is that I don't really play a lot of games meant for, or exclusively for the PC, at least not right now. I don't CURRENTLY play a lot of high-end FPSes/RTSes/MOBAs or those genres more suited for a mouse, aside from point-and-click adventure games. I'm just currently not in the mood for FPSes or RTSes or MOBAs. (I avoid city-building sims because I was once TOO addicted to them.)

If you look at my Steam library, there are a lot of game series that are either better known, or equally known, as console games. Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat. Tekken. Dead Or Alive. The King Of Fighters. Final Fantasy. Resident Evil. Tomb Raider. Batman: Arkham. I plan on playing the recent PlayStation-brand PC games, including Uncharted, Spider-Man, Horizon, God Of War.

I play any kind of game, whether console, handheld, PC, mobile, and despite being a Nintendo fan I'm not going to say no to an Xbox or PlayStation game (especially if they end up on PC). I do play the occasional PC exclusive, I mean, games are games. I don't think I like the term "PC Master Race". But if I'm not playing many PC exclusives, but playing a lot on PC, am I a PC gamer? Because my experiences are almost identical to that of a console gamer.

TL;DR: I play on PC, but not PC exclusives. Am I a PC gamer?

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Maps Of The Month / 2022/11: God Of War (PS2) - VGCartography

« on: October 31, 2022, 09:35:21 pm »

God Of War

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to VGCartography's God Of War (PlayStation 2) maps.

Kratos, a Spartan warrior who serves the Greek gods of Olympus, seeks to destroy his former master, Ares, the God of War.  Guided by Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, Kratos learns of Pandora's Box, an artifact that grants the power to slay a god.  His quest to find it takes him to the Desert of Lost Souls, Pandora's Temple on the Titan Cronos, and even the Underworld, before returning to Athens to exact his revenge on Ares.

This PS2 action game launched the God Of War franchise, a renowned video game series with entries that are often counted among the very best of all time.  Here on VGMaps.com, it is also the first PlayStation 2 game recognized in the Maps Of The Month featurette, honouring VGCartography, a mapper skilled enough to manipulate polygons, and with the thoroughness to mark all the items of interest, creating usable maps for a game in this sixth generation of video games.

So to recognize the effort put into utilizing his divine cartography skills, VGCartography's God Of War (PlayStation 2) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for November 2022.

35

VGMaps Social Board / VGMaps.com featured in Edge magazine (Nov. 2022/#376)

« on: October 18, 2022, 11:23:05 pm »

Featured in another UK magazine (the first time was in Retro Gamer, I believe).  More international recognition!

36

Maps Of The Month / 2022/10: Crystalis (NES) - zagato blackfist

« on: September 30, 2022, 09:47:15 pm »

Crystalis

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

"1997, October 1, The END DAY." So begins the premise of Crystalis. The Great War has ravaged the planet.  Animals have mutated.  Science and technology are shunned because they were responsible for mankind's downfall, leading to a revival of magic and sorcery.  A magician named Draygon combines his powerful magic with forbidden technology in an attempt to take over the world.  You play a hero of the Great War, but with no memory upon awakening from suspended animation.  Will you be able to find the elemental swords and combine them into the almighty Crystalis to take down Draygon?

25 years ago would have been "The END DAY" as explained in the game's opening sequence, but the Great War thankfully didn't happen then, so why not use this anniversary as an opportunity to recognize the mapping of the NES classic?  zagato blackfist has dissected this 8-bit action RPG for us to fully appreciate - shop prices, treasures, and hints written on some of the maps.  This is an above-average size for an NES game - you won't get lost in the various mountains and caves, nor the fearsome Goa Fortress.  zagato blackfist has also mapped the Game Boy Color version!

So to recognize the effort put into scouring the post-"END DAY" world, zagato blackfist's Crystalis (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for October 2022.

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Maps Of The Month / 2022/09: Trip World (E) (Game Boy) - TerraEsperZ

« on: August 31, 2022, 09:13:37 pm »

Trip World (E)

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to TerraEsperZ's Trip World (E) (Game Boy) maps.

In Trip World, peace is maintained by the presence of the Maita Flower on Mount Dubious, where Yakopoo and his grandfather live.  One day, shadowy beings attack Yakopoo's grandfather and steal the Maita Flower, causing Trip World's inhabitants to quarrel.  Yakopoo uses his shapeshifting abilities to traverse five worlds to recover the flower and restore peace to Trip World.

This game, however, never made it around the real world, as it was only released in Japan and Europe.  That means many of us missed out on this great Game Boy platformer, with gorgeous graphics and sweet music, created by Sunsoft in their prime.  Thankfully, TerraEsperZ has captured all of Trip World for us to appreciate visually.

The game is similar to Gimmick!, another Sunsoft platformer from the same year that North and South Americans also missed out on - which TerraEsperZ also mapped!

(Some Trip World trivia: Yakopoo also appears in other Sunsoft games, including Galaxy Fight - as a "mirror match" opponent - and Blaster Master Zero 2.)

So to recognize the effort put into sharing Trip World with the world, TerraEsperZ's Trip World (E) (Game Boy) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2022.

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Maps Of The Month / 2022/08: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SNES) - Will Mallia

« on: July 31, 2022, 09:32:39 pm »

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Will Mallia's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Super NES) maps.

Channel 6 presents "Tournament Fighters", a televised fighting tournament.  It happens to feature aliens and mutants and even... Shredder?  Is it part of some evil plan?  The Turtles will join the tournament to prove they are the strongest.  Or, in the "Story Battle", Karai and the forces of the Shredder Elite have kidnapped April O'Neil and Splinter, so the Turtles will fight through anyone that stands in the way of their rescue attempt.  Either way, prepare for some of the best 16-bit fighting action based around licensed characters, ever!

Interestingly, there are three completely different versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters - the NES, Super NES, and Genesis games are nothing alike, despite all being developed by Konami.  (Will Mallia also mapped the NES version and zagato blackfist mapped the Genesis version.)  They are three separate stories taking place in unrelated settings and therefore have exclusive arenas.  Aside from the four Turtles themselves, the rosters are almost totally unique per game.  The only exceptions are Casey Jones, who is playable in the NES and Genesis versions, Shredder, who is in the NES version, but appears as "Cyber Shredder" on the Super NES, and Karai, a boss character who is playable in the Super NES version with a code, and the 2022 Cowabunga Collection rerelease of the Genesis version.  If any other character is your favourite, you're only going to find them in one game.  While the rare NES game is one of the only fighting games - and among the last few games overall - on the 8-bit platform, the Genesis one may be the first fighting game to have instant replays, and the Super NES version is one of the earliest fighting games to have a "super meter" with its "Ultimate Attack gauge", and the only one to feature online play in the Cowabunga Collection.  All three of them would be of some interest to Ninja Turtles fans.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this tubular tournament, Will Mallia's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2022.

39

VGMaps Social Board / VGMaps's discord server

« on: July 25, 2022, 11:03:42 am »

So, I set up an official VGMaps discord server, finally.

Here's the link:
https://discord.gg/c3nw5SBAaa

If it goes well, maybe I'll link to it from the front page.

40

Maps Of The Month / 2022/07: Pocky & Rocky (Super NES) - MagnetiC

« on: June 30, 2022, 08:58:12 pm »

Pocky & Rocky

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to MagnetiC's Pocky & Rocky (Super NES) maps.

In a world based on Japanese mythology, Shinto shrine maiden Pocky, along with her new friend, Rocky the tanuki, must restore order after the Nopino Goblins seem to have gone insane.  It turns out the Goblins' rampage is due to the hypnotic influence of the evil Black Mantle, who seeks to conquer all of Japan.

Pocky and Rocky traverse six stages on the way to facing Black Mantle in his floating fortress, including a kappa-filled river, a cemetery plagued with tremors, and a battle aboard a demonic airship.  Playing like an arcade-style shooter (unsurprising, as it is a sequel to the Japanese arcade game, Kiki Kaikai), its stages are indeed quite linear.  However, these maps by MagnetiC are due praise for capturing one of most colourful and cutest games on Nintendo's 16-bit platform.  It really dives into the mythology, with kappa and yokai and other creatures of folklore, which gives it even more charm.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this fascinating journey across feudal Japan, MagnetiC's Pocky & Rocky (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for July 2022.

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Maps Of The Month / 2022/06: Atlantis no Nazo (J) (NES) - Jackster

« on: May 31, 2022, 09:15:11 pm »

Atlantis no Nazo (J)

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Jackster's Atlantis no Nazo (J) (NES) maps.

A mysterious island has appeared in the Atlantic Ocean.  Adventurers go to investigate, but are never seen again.  You play Wynn, an amateur adventurer, whose master disappeared there months earlier.  Armed with some dynamite, Wynn sets off to find his master.  Will he also discover the mystery of Atlantis, find lots of treasure, and defeat the evil within?

Atlantis no Nazo (J), or "The Mystery Of Atlantis", is a Sunsoft game for the Famicom - had it been released worldwide, it could have been called "Super Pitfall II".  This challenging platformer includes 100 Zones, but you don't go through them all sequentially.  There are many possible routes to take, and they are not always obvious.  You may have to reveal hidden doors, blast yourself down into hidden warps, or fall down certain pits that aren't deadly - even though they don't look any different from the ones that are.  Zone 1 has a door in plain sight that leads to Zone 2, but jumping over it, you can instead take a different door to Zone 11.  Or, from the starting position, you can drop off the ledge to your left - it looks deadly, but it actually takes you to Zone 33!  But even though you can jump to that much-higher-numbered Zone, it might not actually be the quickest route.  This was designed to be a difficult game, and would certainly be moreso without any guide!

Jackster took a few weeks to map this all out... Just grabbing the screens was already a lot, as there are 100 Zones - and he did them all twice!  Every map here shows a Zone as both unmarked and marked.  That's where the real effort was - marking the maps with all the secrets and helpful information, and he had to refer to a number of sources - various online guides, mostly in Japanese, including scans of a Japanese guide book & a code site with addresses to help access different parts of the game, and watching a few speedruns.  That's a lot of work, and for a very difficult Japanese game that's rather obscure to the rest of the world, but now we have one more resource in English for anyone that wants to solve the mystery of Atlantis!

So to recognize the effort put into consolidating all of the secrets of this mysterious and challenging game, Jackster's Atlantis no Nazo (J) (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for June 2022.

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VGMaps Social Board / Worlds Of Power novelizations of NES games

« on: May 31, 2022, 07:59:21 pm »

Figured I'd share my latest collection accomplishment... I got all the "Worlds Of Power" novels, which are books very loosely based on ten NES games, which I also now have!


Here's a close-up of the first five. I already had the Blaster Master and Castlevania II: Simon's Quest books growing up. At the moment, they're the only two I've read, LOL. Blaster Master's story is actually canon to Blaster Master: Blasting Again on the PlayStation, and I believe some characters/elements are in the Blaster Master Zero series (my brother bought them on our Switch but I never got around to playing them yet).


Here's a close-up of the last five. They stopped doing trading cards with tips after the sixth book. The last two books have bigger but fewer pages.  I mention the censoring of weapons below with a later photo, but notice here that they also removed the horns and rounded the tail of the gargoyle for the cover of Before Shadowgate.


The only one I have that still has the trading card intact inside is Ninja Gaiden.


Here's the mirrored tip on the back. Though if you compare it to the previous photo, you'll see that it's actually the exact same tip at the end of the previous chapter.


Here it is, mirrored (or unmirrored?), if you don't feel like trying to read it while reversed.


Here are all the cartridges and books stacked next to each other.


Here's a close-up of some of the censored art. Actually, it looks like the art wasn't taken verbatim, but rather, redrawn. But they omitted the weapons, so these look kind of odd. What are Snake and Mega Man doing?


I ended up buying two of Ninja Gaiden, because the first one I bought was actually a later print that doesn't mention the trading card. And I was looking for the Bases Loaded II: The Second Season book for a while, as it is the last book and seemingly quite rare. Then I suddenly saw two opportunities to get them, and ended up getting both. Might sell one of them later...

43

VGMaps Social Board / VGMaps.com in a Portuguese YouTube video

« on: May 14, 2022, 02:26:36 pm »

I found this video a few days ago.  It appears to be in Portuguese.  Translating the title and description with Google Translate:

Do you know "The Video Game Atlas"?
Video showing some of this incredible site that is a true almanac of classic games, showing complete maps of several games from the 90's, 2000's and the like...

I might try the Timekettle ZERO Translator I got a while back to figure out what he's saying.  But at the very least, I would guess that he really likes this site!
I left him a comment in Portuguese, but he didn't approve the comment or reply to it yet...

44

Maps Of The Month / 2022/05: Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 (NES) - RyuMaster

« on: April 30, 2022, 09:39:40 pm »

Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers 2

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to RyuMaster's Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 (NES) maps.

It's been years since the original Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers, where they were at the top of their game, and even got Fat Cat put away.  But now, Chip 'N Dale return for another adventure.  Does this pair of chipmunk sleuths still have the skills to crack the case?

Many people regard the original Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers as one of the greatest NES games based on a licensed property.  Games based on existing characters often get a bad rap, but those handled by big-name developers like Capcom are actually great games, not just lazy cash grabs.  The original Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers, and another Capcom-developed Disney Afternoon game, DuckTales, are often revered.  Their sequels are also pretty solid, but not as talked about, because they were late releases on the NES in 1993/1994, when the Super NES had already been out since 1991.  They are definitely worth a look if you want to experience more adventures with Chip and Dale and all the other Rescue Rangers!  RyuMaster's got you covered when it comes to the maps.  Even though the game is more linear, we can appreciate the high-quality NES graphics possible at the tail end of the NES's life cycle.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping one of the last great NES games, RyuMaster's Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for May 2022.

45

Maps In Progress / Curse Of Monkey Island - ESRGAN dither removal and upscaling (complete set)

« on: April 22, 2022, 01:55:25 pm »

Not sure where to put this...  But if anyone ever wanted to put together a map set for Curse Of Monkey Island (and who doesn't love Monkey Island, am I right?) here is an imgur link to some nice, clean, high-res images of every area.

https://imgur.com/a/Plfj7Uo