Messages

16

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: February 24, 2024, 04:02:58 pm »

zagato blackfist has awesomely fulfilled a long-standing request of mine, maps for the totally rad NES game, Totally Rad!

Also as requested, the cutscenes with all the dialogue are included, because it's way cool slang that is essential to its whole vibe.  No mention of Totally Rad can go without referring to its bodacious text!  No duh, am I right?  But colour-coding the text is a really dope choice I hadn't thought of; wicked!

The game came out in 1991, and I made maps for it in 2005 before giving up on it.  That's 14 years.  I'd said a few times that I probably wouldn't get around to it, but that it would still be nice to see it mapped.  Then, 19 years after that, it finally has!  Still surprised it took so long (as the game is totally decent), but in any case, it's all done now!  Gnarly!  Tubular!  Awesome!  Way Cool!  ...And other such '80s/'90s surfer/valley girl slang.

Thanks yet again for fulfilling a request, zagato!

17

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

« on: February 17, 2024, 10:17:37 am »

As you can see, I finally released my "One Minute of Music from EVERY SNES Game (US & Canada)" video!  This is why I needed the music.

18

VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)

« on: February 17, 2024, 10:16:09 am »

You've probably seen/heard my "One Minute of Music from every NES game" video, but now here's the next one... "One Minute of Music from every SNES game (US & Canada)"!

Excluding Super Copa (a reskin of Tony Meola's Sidekicks Soccer which apparently came out in Mexico, not just South America and some Central/Latin America countries as I previously thought), there are exactly 720 games that were released for the Super NES in North America, and 720 minutes (12 hours) happens to be the current maximum length of a YouTube video.  That was one of the reasons I felt it was too fitting to not make, and this easily is my longest video ever.

I'd actually been working on this on and off since the NES one, usually as a way to keep myself from burning out when I needed to step away from other video projects.  It's been sitting on my hard drive, completed for a while, and figured I might as well get this out there.  It's hard to know how many actual hours it took, but there was a LOT of cleaning up of box art.  Most are originally from The Cover Project, but hundreds of those still needed a few obvious scratches to be removed and for the black background to be made solidly black.  This may be the cleanest Super NES box art on the 'net!

This and the NES music video are great to have running in the background while you do your work.    Hope you enjoy this!

19

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: February 16, 2024, 10:12:28 pm »

zagato blackfist, no stranger to NES mapping, submitted maps for Cowboy Kid today!

Though many of my requests include popular games that I'm surprised haven't been mapped yet after all this time, some games are on the list BECAUSE they're obscure, like this one.  Cowboy Kid is a rare NES game that plays somewhat like The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja / Ganbare Goemon games.  Though while those games are very Japanese, Cowboy Kid is very Western... the Japanese title is literally "Western Kids".  Like the Goemon games, there sure are a lot of buildings you can enter... zagato's maps will help with that.  Anyway, I'm glad that a rare game gets some maps, it means that more people can see and experience this game!

20

Map Requests / Re: Sega Genesis Mini 2 - full map set

« on: February 09, 2024, 09:37:09 am »

I whipped up that list quite quickly, so it's quite possible I made some errors and I didn't have time to look into some details.

-Like how/if the Genesis and Sega CD versions of the two Ecco The Dolphin games are different.
-Or how the bonus games are enhanced, and if the Space Harrier II maps we have count, or if the enhanced version needs its own maps.
-It looks like Rainbow Islands Extra is a Japanese Mega Drive game.  Haven't checked to see which other games, if any, are not originally North American releases.
-Not sure if the green "O"s (to mark completed map sets) are all correct.  Also have some blue "?"s for some that I am not sure if they are actually complete.

If any Genesis fans see any errors to be corrected or things to be tweaked in the listing, definitely feel free to let me know.

21

Map Requests / Sega Genesis Mini 2 - full map set

« on: February 09, 2024, 09:30:02 am »

G.E.R. mapped about 1/3 of the Genesis Mini, and has since requested a topic for the games on the Genesis Mini 2.  If a request topic is what is necessary to keep up the momentum, then here this is!  This time around, besides the Genesis games, included are some Sega CD games, and various bonus games (unreleased or enhanced).

SEGA GENESIS
X After Burner II
X Alien Soldier
X Atomic Runner
O Bonanza Bros.
X Clay Fighter
O Crusader Of Centy
O Desert Strike: Return To The Gulf
O Earthworm Jim 2
X Elemental Master
O Fatal Fury 2
X Gain Ground
O Golden Axe II
O Granada
X Hellfire
X Herzog Zwei
X Lightening Force: Quest For The Darkstar
X Midnight Resistance
X The Ooze
? OutRun
? OutRunners
O Phantasy Star II
X Populous
X Rainbow Islands Extra (J)
X Ranger-X
O The Revenge Of Shinobi
O Ristar
X Rolling Thunder 2
O Shadow Dancer
O Shining Force II
? Shining In The Darkness
O Sonic 3D Blast
X Splatterhouse 2
O Streets Of Rage 3
X Super Hang-On
X Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
X ToeJam & Earl In Panic On Funkotron
X Truxton
O Vectorman 2
X Viewpoint
X Virtua Racing
O Warsong

SEGA CD
X Ecco The Dolphin (Sega CD)
X Ecco: The Tides Of Time (Sega CD)
X Final Fight CD
X Mansion Of Hidden Souls
X Night Striker
X Night Trap
X The Ninja Warriors
X Robo Aleste
X Sewer Shark
X Shining Force CD
X Silpheed
O Sonic The Hedgehog CD


BONUS
X Devi & Pii
X Star Mobile
X Fantasy Zone
X Space Harrier
? Space Harrier II
X Spatter
X Super Locomotive
X Vs. Puyo Puyo Sun

22

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: February 08, 2024, 08:49:46 pm »

John Brain, Genesis fan for life, has contributed maps for Daze Before Christmas (Au)!

I originally requested the Super NES one, but the Genesis one is apparently pretty much identical.  But only released in Australia for some reason... (where Christmas is in the summertime.  Hmmm.)

There really aren't many Christmas games, especially on consoles, so this is a nice one to have mapped.  Thanks again for supporting that Genesis page, John Brain!

23

VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)

« on: February 07, 2024, 09:11:42 am »

I surprised my brother with over 50 gifts related to Mega Man 2!  There are some expensive and obscure items here - bet you haven't heard of all of these!  Even I didn't know about some of these things until I had to research this stuff, so I was buying stuff from the summer all the way to Christmas (and even after).  I don't think many other NES games have had close to this many rereleases!

24

VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)

« on: February 07, 2024, 09:08:05 am »

I finished watching the Japan vlog series today. I liked them very much. Very great musical selection, so much content flowing together by the great editing and it was just so much fun to watch them. Thank you for creating this series.
I think day 10 was easily my highlight just by how the longer like-one-take interaction scenes made me feel as if I was there with you in these spots.

Thank you for the compliments, Grizzly!  Sometimes when I'm staring at video timelines while editing and having to rewatch the footage over and over, I forget how interesting it might be to someone else who's seeing it fresh, or I'm overthinking and recalling all the other ways that I could have edited it.  I'd like to think I'm steadily improving, but I can never really know how people will like the editing, or the content in general.  Thank you for commenting on the musical selection, I provided the names of all tracks I used because I hope people will notice that most of the songs I chose for the situation based on the name of the track besides how it fits, musically.

Day 10 is also my favourite because I got to hang out with someone cool!  It was nice to be able to surprise my brother with Shizuka Anderson's appearance.  I'm glad she and Ellie were cool about being on camera, and afterwards they said they really enjoyed that video!  Glad to have their approval.  I like the recap at the end; I tried to make the credits interesting.

I'm glad people enjoy this series.  I hope they get more views.  The only real downside is that they put me almost half a year behind on the videos I have planned to do, but thankfully, in a way, 2023 was a quiet year for things that I want to review.  Still a bit behind, though...  On that note...

25

Maps Of The Month / 2024/02: Spyro: Year Of The Dragon (PSX) - G.E.R.

« on: January 31, 2024, 09:40:24 pm »

Spyro: Year Of The Dragon

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to G.E.R.'s Spyro: Year Of The Dragon (PSX) maps.

In the "Year Of The Dragon", which comes around once every dozen years, new dragon eggs appear in the Dragon Realms.  The evil Sorceress sends the Rhynocs to invade the land of the dragons and steal the eggs, planning to obtain immortality.  So Spyro ventures across the Forgotten Realms to recover them, with the aid of his old and new friends.

Spyro: Year Of The Dragon was originally released in the year 2000, which was, indeed, the Year Of The Dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac, and as it has a twelve-year cycle, 24 years later, it is now the Year Of The Dragon again (if you are reading this between Feb. 10, 2024, to Jan. 28, 2025).  Though any time should be a good time to recognize G.E.R.'s hard work, as G.E.R.'s name can be found across many generations of consoles and, besides Spyro: Year Of The Dragon, G.E.R. has also mapped the other games in the original Spyro trilogy back when it was a PlayStation-exclusive series.

If you need help scouring the Forgotten Realms, G.E.R.'s 75 maps of the various areas of Sunrise Spring, Midday Gardens, Evening Lake, and Midnight Mountain can certainly be of value to you on Spyro's third adventure.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this PlayStation classic, G.E.R.'s Spyro: Year Of The Dragon (PSX) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for February 2024.

26

Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: January 19, 2024, 01:24:55 pm »

Danilo Dias, designer, programmer and artist for Odallus: The Dark Call, has submitted maps for... Odallus: The Dark Call!  Nice to have a creator submitting their own work!  Thanks, Danilo!

I think it need a new request - for Sega Genesis Mini 2 full mapset. Can you create a new theme on the forum with full game list and them status (complete, incomplete, not exist)?

Considering it.  Been busy lately.  Do you think there is a lot of interest in it?

27

Map Requests / Re: Mega Man Maps

« on: January 04, 2024, 10:34:15 am »

Is this an unofficial PC-port of the game, that based on J2ME emulator + .jar game files?

The page goes into detail about how they were able to extract the games and make them playable.  They never refer to the files as ROMs, but they do bundle them with the DoCoMo Java (DoJa) emulator, so it is therefore described as emulation rather than directly porting them to the PC.

It's pretty cool how things like these can be found and preserved so that they might not be entirely lost.  Makes you wonder how many things have gotten lost and forgotten because they're not popular or interesting enough, or worth the effort for someone to figure it all out.

28

Map Requests / Re: Mega Man Maps

« on: January 03, 2024, 09:19:53 am »

Protodude's Rockman Corner: Japan-Exclusive Rockman Cellphone Games Dumped, Playable Now!

On that page, RockmanCosmo, the leader of a team called SciLab Secrets working to preserve lost Rockman games for Japanese mobiles, announced eight Rockman games (including games based on the classic, Legends/Dash, and Battle Network series).  There's also a link there for easy installation so you can get right to them.

Better yet, here's a link where you can download a later package that also includes Rockman Tennis.

(As I'm working on videos about my brother's Mega Man 2 haul at Christmas, plus another video where he plays all the games that relate in some way to Mega Man 2, I'm particularly interested in Rockman Pinball and Rockman Tennis.  Those games are exactly what you expect them to be.)

Some of those are mappable.  I don't know how much interest there would be, but I think that their obscurity alone is probably a good reason to consider doing so, to help prevent these curiosities from being forgotten/unknown.

29

Maps In Progress / Re: My mapping projects

« on: January 02, 2024, 11:26:05 am »

Ah, okay.  Just curious.

The Super Star Wars games are interesting to me personally.  Growing up in the '80s, I was certainly aware of Star Wars, and probably saw them then, but might have been too young to remember or "get" them.  In the Super NES days, I rented games very often, and I certainly rented and enjoyed the Super Star Wars games.  These awakened the interest in Star Wars for me, so I watched the movies again, but now was old enough to understand and appreciate them.  So my true Star Wars fandom actually started, in a way, with the Super NES games.  Looking back on them, they do have a bunch of weird inconsistencies and creative licenses when compared to the movies, which are easy to criticize, but if not for the games as a whole, what would have made me a Star Wars fan, if at all?  Would it have been Shadows Of The Empire?  Or the Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace film?  Would I have even wanted my mom to line up for seven hours to get tickets for it?  (I mean, she did, but only because I was a Star Wars fan already by then.)  It would be weird if it was the prequel trilogy that would make me a fan... and would that really?  Not to be a bandwagon hater of them... but I think I have more "cred" to say that I've been a fan since the time of the original trilogy (even if by the Super NES games it was already the '90s and closer to 1999's The Phantom Menace than 1983's Return Of The Jedi)...

That said, I know the Super Star Wars trilogy has its fans, so it has always been odd to me that all we have after all this time are just two unmarked maps from the early areas of the first game by Will Mallia.  If there are technical challenges with these games specifically, I suppose that might explain why we don't have more, but I hope one day that changes.

30

Maps In Progress / Re: My mapping projects

« on: January 02, 2024, 08:07:38 am »

Some good choices there!

Looks like you got most of your 2023 planned maps done.  Great job!

But does that mean you gave up on Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back?