Recent Posts

41

Map Requests / Re: Maps to Cover...

« Last post by Cyartog959 on August 02, 2025, 11:15:47 pm »

OK... More I've got in my next list, and many may lean to games that are more mature, licensed based or not. Many are from Xbox and other platforms not visited a bit frequently today.

81 - Shrek/Extra Large (2001/02, Xbox/GameCube) Dev: Digital Illusions Canada, Publisher: TDK Mediactive
82 - Batman Begins (2005, GameCube, GBA, PS2, Xbox, Mobile) Dev: Eurocom (Consoles), Vicarious Visions (GBA), Kiear Games (Mobile), Publisher: EA Games, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
83 - Harm's Way (2010, X360) Dev: Bongfish Gmbh, Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios(from Unlock XBOX '10, finalist entry)
84 - Azurik: Rise of Perathia (2001, Xbox) Dev: Adrenium Games, Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
85 - Shrek The Third Game (2007, X360, Wii, PC, GBA, DS, PS2, PSP) Dev: Amaze Entertainment(PC, Consoles), Vicarious Visions(GBA & DS), Publisher: Activision
86 - Nightcaster: Defeat the Darkness (2002, Xbox) Dev: VR1 Entertainment, Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
87 - Men in Black II: Crossfire (2002, PC) Dev: Wild Tangent, Publisher: Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment
88 - Alien X (2000, PC) Dev: The Groove Alliance, Publisher: Shockwave
89 - Reign of Fire (2002, PS2, GameCube, Xbox, GBA) Dev: Kuju London(consoles), Crawfish Interactive(GBA)
90 - The Simpsons Game (2007, Xbox, X360, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP) Dev: EA Redwood Shores(Most consoles), Rebellions Developments(PS2, PSP, & Wii), Amaze Entertainment (DS)
91 - Pocketbike Racer (2006, Xbox, X360) Dev: Blitz Games, Publisher: King Games
92 - Big Bumpin' (2006, Xbox, X360) Dev: Blitz Games, Publisher: King Games
93 - Sneak King (2006, Xbox, X360) Dev: Blitz Games, Publisher: King Games
94 - Spare Parts (2011, X360, PS3) Dev: EA Bright Light, Publisher: Electronic Arts
95 - Driver: Renegade (2011, 3DS) Dev: VD-Dev, Publisher: Ubisoft
96 - Re-Volt (1999, N64, PS1, Dreamcast) Dev: Acclaim Studios London, Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment
97 - Mad Tracks (2006/07/09, PC, X360, Wii) Dev: Load Inc. Publisher: Numerous(PC, international), D3 Publisher (X360)
98 - MDK (1997, DOS, PC, PS1) Dev: Shiny Entertainment, Publisher: PIE, Shiny Entertainment
99 - New Legends (2002, Xbox) Dev: Infinite Machine, Publisher: THQ
100 - MDK 2 (2000/01/11, Dreamcast, PC, PS2, Wii) Dev: BioWare, Publisher: Interplay Entertainment

I'll think of more again later.

42

Maps Of The Month / 2025/08: Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) - VGCartography

« Last post by JonLeung on July 31, 2025, 09:51:32 pm »

Super Mario Sunshine

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

Mario and Princess Peach, as well as some Toads, fly to Isle Delfino for a vacation.  But when they arrive at the island resort, they find themselves in some trouble.  Mario is accused of splattering paint-like goop all over the island and causing Shine Sprites to vanish.  To clear his good name, Mario vows to find the true villain and clean up the island, with the help of Professor E. Gadd's latest invention: FLUDD, the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device.  FLUDD's abilities of shooting water or being propelled by it will allow Mario to not only clean up the messes, but also to find the 120 missing Shine Sprites in Isle Delfino's nine areas.

What would also help are VGCartography's maps of Super Mario Sunshine here on VGMaps.com!  Each area is beautifully captured, with Shines, Red Coins, Blue Coins, and other things of note indicated with icons.  Even if mapping polygonal games is VGCartography's forte, it's still always impressive to see these kinds of maps here on VGMaps.com.  In fact, this is the first map set of a GameCube game ever to be honoured for the Maps Of The Month!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a GameCube classic, VGCartography's Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2025.

43

Maps Of The Month / Re: 2024/12: Sonic X Shadow Generations (Switch) - G.E.R.

« Last post by Cyartog959 on July 28, 2025, 09:09:33 pm »

If Shadow was curious and surprised enough to know why he was sent to specific locations Sonic will travel to in his later adventures, he would've been slightly interested to learn where he would go later. But, knowing Shadow's own nature, he doesn't have time to sight-see later locations or anything Sonic would do. He's only around to find and settle matters with Black Doom, nothing more.

And, whatever memory of future locations Shadow visited will pretty much be wiped away the moment he finishes off that vile intergalactic conqueror and leaves White Space when Sonic defeats Time Eater. Better off he doesn't know about them yet. Trust me on that.

What I'm kinda feeling a bit curious, though, is that most of each stage's Acts were kinda a bit shorter, compared to select past games' stages, and that Classic Sonic's speed was kinda too fast when using Spin Dash, compared to the proper speed in past games. Act 1 in many stages, aside from Plant Wisp, did feel they were over with far too soon than I previously thought.

City Escape's chase with the G.U.N. truck was a bit longer than the original chase from Sonic Adventure 2, yes, but the length was quite shorter, too.

Well, Sonic Forces' stages were underwhelmingly shorter than Unleashed and Generations' stages, too, don't get me wrong, but that was because the focus and time spent at that time was having the updated Hedgehog Engine 2 ready for later games; comparably, about 3 years of work, and 1 year of dev time it took for Forces to be made, aside from its rather slow pre-production work time alongside those spent years. It and the story was rather undercooked, too, proverbially, but that's not the point.

Shadow Generations' stages, other than the 2D and 3D perspectives being flipped, do have more or less their lengths being matched from others'. I would not think of any stage in it being a bit more longer than any of Sonic's past game's 3D stages, even when it runs on Hedgehog Engine 2, compared to Generations' use of its Hedgehog Engine.

On a more comparable note, regardless of version and platform, didn't any of you feel how shorter and different Rooftop Run's Act 2, for Modern Sonic, is, compared to how it originally was from Sonic Unleashed in Act 1, in Daytime Spagonia?

What I do remember is that stage taking reasonably long because of how good it is to see great fast speed across many sections involving using Boost, Quick Step, and Drift. That was so good! I can only guess the level's layouts between Unleashed and Generations were designed differently.

The more memorable setpiece from Rooftop Run was climbing up to the tall clock tower and grinding all the way down and forward, and I felt that in Generations, the tower seemed to be taller, yet the grinding speed was a bit faster compared to Unleashed, as if nearly approaching the ground from the top was faster than before.

I would think the actual stage length was cut down greatly for other additional side content and such to accommodate the anniversary aesthetics about celebrating Sonic's adventures.

Well, given the 360 & PS3's hardware's specs were slightly behind across each other, numerous differences aside, and if they were given reasonable hardware upgrades to better improve their handling on their graphics and CPUs, and if the 360's game discs were that of HD-DVD's capacities for some more bigger games instead(imagine if we got that alongside better reliability chances as better suited console refreshes, too), it seems like it was justifiable.

Overall, Sonic Generations still remains a very fun game, and Shadow Generations couldn't be any more different.

For the true handheld counterpart, on the other hand, should we have a more powerful and new standalone dual-screen handheld system, I would kinda think Silver the Hedgehog would get his own standalone adventure, aptly called "Sonic X Silver Generations", and that new adventure bundled with the 3DS version of Generations would be "Silver Generations", showcasing Silver being thrown into another adventure, and running across different stages from Sonic's adventures, only those truly from the handheld games, like Scrambled Egg, Aqua Planet, Red Volcano, Cosmic Angel, Ice Paradise, Sunset Hill, even Huge Crisis and Pirates' Island, to stop a nearly-forgotten threat that attempts to ruin his future again, which is, of course, Eggman Nega, with particular friends of Sonic's(like Gemerl, Tikal, Commander Towers, and Marine) and brief enemies turned temporary allies(Chief Pachacamac and his soldiers) the Time Eater dragged in, but having no involvement in Nega's latest scheme, would aid Silver's efforts to save the future, and its story would closely weave in with Sonic's approaching battle with Silver for the Chaos Emerald he held.

Well, any story with loose plot threads have to be closely knitted up sooner or later. And, the 3DS version of Sonic Generations only has one stage that represented Sonic's original handheld adventures, and, honestly, its not fair for only having one stage from it while the rest of the stages are from Sonic's past home console games.

Silver, so far, has not received his own solo adventures. It wouldn't be fair for Silver not to have one, right?

It's not entirely impossible for that to happen, too, having that and Silver's own adventure with it. Well, we can only hope.

44

Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/07: Legend Of Mana (PlayStation) - mechaskrom

« Last post by mechaskrom on July 26, 2025, 09:03:37 am »

Most Mana games aren't very satisfying to map because the "rooms" are disjoint (of course a Metroidvania map enthusiast would think that xP), so kudos for putting in all that work and making something interesting and useful!

Almost all the games I've mapped are "disjoint". It's a challenge to find good map layouts for them, but I kind of like that part in mapping projects. It's like putting together a puzzle with weird pieces that don't quite fit  .

I'm pretty happy with the layout of most of the LoM maps except Flames and Jungle. Theirs are really messy, but it was the best I could come up with after spending days trying out many different layouts.

I do have one tiny complaint though - the extra grey pixels in the text that were presumably added to smooth the font out for use at 2x size make it look blurry, and I kept checking if I was viewing the image at the correct zoom ): I think it would've looked better as just a straight Nearest Neighbor upscale without any smoothing. Or maybe even just 1x - the text is more legible large, but the maps are still at 1x and many details are hard to see without zooming in anyway, so the larger text doesn't have much benefit.

I only added grey pixels to the "thin" parts of characters. This made texts more legible when zoomed out (helps with downsampling fine shapes). I prefer maps that can be zoom fitted to the screen and still be used/read while playing the game so I don't have to constantly zoom in/out.

Doubling the font size was necessary to make texts readable even when zoomed out. A 1x font would've been way too small. 1x is what I use in the map title cards if people want to get an idea of just how small LoM's font is at its original size.

I don't find the 2x font with extra grey pixels to be distracting, blurry or too large even at 100% zoom, so for me it's only beneficial to the maps as texts are legible even when zoomed out a lot. Thanks for the feedback though, I'll keep it in mind for future mapping projects.

I've gotten some complaints over the years and almost all of them were about the maps' font: it's too small, too big, too blocky or too blurry. Oh well, it's hard to please everyone.

45

Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/07: Legend Of Mana (PlayStation) - mechaskrom

« Last post by eishiya on July 24, 2025, 08:15:43 am »

Most Mana games aren't very satisfying to map because the "rooms" are disjoint (of course a Metroidvania map enthusiast would think that xP), so kudos for putting in all that work and making something interesting and useful!

I do have one tiny complaint though - the extra grey pixels in the text that were presumably added to smooth the font out for use at 2x size make it look blurry, and I kept checking if I was viewing the image at the correct zoom ): I think it would've looked better as just a straight Nearest Neighbor upscale without any smoothing. Or maybe even just 1x - the text is more legible large, but the maps are still at 1x and many details are hard to see without zooming in anyway, so the larger text doesn't have much benefit.

As for the Junkyard - that's interesting, and I don't think I've seen anything like that either. I think I've seen games with similar-looking sections, sometimes designed to be deliberately confusing, but nothing where some aspects (like the treasure chests) are shared between the "copies".

46

VGMaps Social Board / Re: Awareness for "Go! Go! Kokopolo" Series

« Last post by Cyartog959 on July 22, 2025, 04:15:36 am »

you're probably the only person on the planet who knows the answer to this question (outside of the game's developers), but

how does the game end? i never managed to beat it as a kid, and i no longer have the means to go back and try again. emulating it has also been unsuccessful. i can't find any videos of any gameplay beyond the first 3/4 worlds. the only thing i found is that there's an expert difficulty mode which is unlocked after beating normal mode, where you play the stages in reverse order as a robot version of jinbe. also wondering how that plays out too, do you still fight the bosses in that mode?

Well, I think there are others that have played it, and some did win, but hardly took their time talking about it(there was a Facebook page about the game that had the brief answer to it, though), but...

If "Easy Mode" is selected, you can only go up to World D, Maple Park, and defeat its boss, Totemator, and no farther. You're only treated to a brief "End of the road" ending in it. "Normal Mode" goes all the way to World J, Cloud Garden, where you face Jinbe and defeat him, and it ends the game in victory for Kokopolo and Tatsumo's journey. That is where it ends.

"Expert Mode", on the other hand, I'm afraid there's no bosses to fight, but at the very end, it does have one more new boss fight only in it, only against the duo themselves. And given that the mode does have a different time limit that only gets tighter by going through each world because Mech-Jinbe has an unstable battery detonates if its up, especially with Scratch Meadow, where it is the mode's last world and its tight limit is 1 minute to finish each round, you're bound to face many stumbles, unless you can memorize them very well and try to be as fast as you can, even in reverse order, and mirror-flipped.

Once you do get to the game's actual last fight, which is the only original round that isn't mirror-flipped, all you have to do is to keep on Dash-Slashing Kokopolo and Tatsumo as they try to fight back, as it is that mode's goal for the robot's creator, Jinbe, to deal justice to them(which is obvious why after finishing "Normal Mode"). The thing is, regardless of how much time you spent trying to reach it or gained more time by normal means, even gaining some more by jumping up to get treats from digesting enemies from the SnapSnap Plant, you only get 1 minute for the whole fight until the robot explodes and knocks the duo out, unconscious(they do wake up shortly, though).

The little neat surprise after it is before the robot could deliver its success, the ChompChomp Plant, the giant plant seen in the fight against Jinbe, arrives, and mistook it as its creator and snatches it up in its jaws. You do, though, get to tap the money icons afterward, and by doing so, the plant will try to shake it up, but all it will do is fling out so much money within its body, which is pretty much what's been put into the robot after Jinbe invented it and some more's been collected through its run, and goes all over Kokopolo's territory. Don't know how much, but it was quite a lot, from the looks of it.

That leads to one more ending to see in finishing Expert Mode, where the duo gets to enjoy their time with the loads of golden coins they're spending, leaving Jinbe, at that moment, down and out, and getting his last dealings of scratches from them, which is where the game's story truly ends. Not to worry, the sequel shows he's gotten better and back on his tracks. He can't really stay down from that very long.

I, of course, would've enjoyed a good boss rush mode in the game, but the DSiWare's tight size limits for its games pretty much bars it there. Too bad the 3DS port didn't have it added as a new unlockable bonus, either, but, not by beating "Expert Mode", that would be a bit frustrating. Sure, we do have Time Attack, but that's not the point.

I would've enjoyed beating the bosses back-to-back, but would also enjoy a new treat after finishing that mode under a required fast time. I was thinking more of a "Where are they now?" montage moment for all the defeated bosses that showcases what they're doing now after their defeats. My guess, other than trying to recover from their wounds, judging from the damage they received by the many harsh scratches/self-harming inflictions they took in their battles, many of them taking many different hobbies and choices in their lives.

Well, that's your answer. Hope it helps. Sorry if emulating that game was rough for you, by the way, but don't give up trying. Takes some well-adjusting, but its not impossible. And, more people should have made more videos of it past those 3/4 worlds, too. If only they took the time doing it.

47

VGMaps Social Board / Re: Awareness for "Go! Go! Kokopolo" Series

« Last post by squink on July 22, 2025, 02:23:46 am »

you're probably the only person on the planet who knows the answer to this question (outside of the game's developers), but

how does the game end? i never managed to beat it as a kid, and i no longer have the means to go back and try again. emulating it has also been unsuccessful. i can't find any videos of any gameplay beyond the first 3/4 worlds. the only thing i found is that there's an expert difficulty mode which is unlocked after beating normal mode, where you play the stages in reverse order as a robot version of jinbe. also wondering how that plays out too, do you still fight the bosses in that mode?

48

Gaming / Re: What are the best emulators for directly capturing video?

« Last post by louiseadams on July 17, 2025, 08:56:33 am »

I have watched some of your YTB videos. Interesting. I love your videos in Japan.

49

VGMaps Social Board / Sonic 3 Unlocked, Act Transitions, A Blog Series

« Last post by Cyartog959 on July 16, 2025, 09:33:37 pm »

There may be a load of technical talk here, but I came across an interesting blog series about the depths of how Sonic the Hedgehog 3's coding works, its very interesting details about its coding operations, some oddities, and more of all, the knowledge of how Sonic 3's stage segue from one to another!

The series on that blog, Sonic 3 Unlocked, centers on how Sonic 3's acts instantly segue from Act 1 to Act 2 in a Zone, then to the next Zone via in-game scenes after the stage score tally finishes, the likes of which was from Sonic 1 did so at Scrap Brain Act 2's ending after finishing that act, where the game segues from the results to an in-game scene showing Dr. Robotnik sending Sonic to Act 3, but entirely expanded to encompass the WHOLE GAME, WITHOUT each Zone's Acts fading out and in from one to another.

It's all from the whole game, including its split halves.

For those that don't know what the word "Segue" means, and its applicable to video games, it means to make a transition directly from one section to another. Ergo, finish one level, instantly continue to another without fade-outs.

I was completely AMAZED about how that game managed to pull off such seguing within the Genesis' capabilities! Made me think at times, "Why can't other games like Sonic 3 do that kind of thing?". That kind of thing didn't happen for YEARS, until Freedom Planet later on, which its stage structure followed Sonic 3's act seguing formula, before it got slightly modified as it changed from a Sonic fangame to an indie game, and Sonic Mania would resume it suitably.

The coding was all done by Assembly, mind you. And, I'm kinda sure that kind of stage-to-stage segue coding was replicated into other programming languages, if I could only know how to adapt that kind of thing into said languages.

Well, Sonic 3 Complete's fixes did take care of very minor inconsistencies from music placement in select Acts & such, but still...

It's divided into eight posts, starting from August 28 2017, and ended on September 6 2017. They cover everything on how the Act transitions work, including how Icecap's maps instantly segue to the next before facing the miniboss, Big Icedus, there. I'm sure those who may be interested in seeing the inner workings of its coding.

Here they are, from Sonic 3 Unlocked's blog posts...

Act Transitions Part 1: The Beginning - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-1.html
Act Transitions Part 2: Angel Island Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-2-angel-island-zone.html
Act Transitions Part 3: Icecap Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-3-icecap-zone.html
Act Transitions Part 4: Whither Offset? - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/08/act-transitions-part-4-whither-offset.html
Act Transitions Part 5: Horizontal Underflow - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-5-horizontal.html
Act Transitions Part 6: Deferred Execution - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-6-deferred.html
Act Transitions Part 7: Putting it Together - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-7-putting-it.html
Act Transitions Part 8 (FINALE): Sandopolis Zone - https://s3unlocked.blogspot.com/2017/09/act-transitions-part-8-sandopolis-zone.html

That kind of coding knowledge can be useful when re-adapted to other languages for games that may need that kind of seamless seguing in stages, even their maps.

And it felt too good not to share this with the rest of the VGMaps community, even those that may be thinking of seamlessly making maps from one stage to another for their games... so, I needed to, and did.

Drop by sometime, and give it a good look! You may find this very amazing and interesting to know the process and how you could use that kind of knowledge for those into level designing and more.

50

Map Gab / Re: Eternal Daughter

« Last post by JonLeung on July 16, 2025, 05:30:45 pm »

I recently realized there is a missing key item in the water cave, above mermans (see attachment). It was there at some point, but I mistakenly removed it while patching that area.

I assume the process of updating a map involves sending it again via e-mail? I wonder if it's even worth it.

You absolutely should send in a correction.  We like to have accurate maps here on VGMaps.com.