Topic: JonLeung's Requests

[JonLeung]

We've now got maps for another Japanese-exclusive 16-bit game, Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima (J) ("Marvelous: Another Treasure Island") for the Super Famicom, thanks again to Guard Master!

This is a game that I've heard a bit about.  It is the first game directed by Eiji Aonuma, the director or producer of almost all of The Legend Of Zelda games since after The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, which Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima is influenced by.

Considering Guard Master's recent submissions, it looks like we have another 16-bit RPG mapmaking master!  Keep up the great work!

[JonLeung]

I thought I had Jack Bros. for the Virtual Boy on my list, but apparently not?  Still worth mentioning, since I did ask Guard Master in an email about it, and he delivered!

It's the first Megami Tensei game released outside of North America.  That's a series with many branches, including the Persona games.  What makes it funny is that the box art covers up the face of Jack Frost, who's supposed to be the main character of the whole franchise!  It's like a Mike Wazowski thing...

Anyway, I'm glad we got another Virtual Boy game mapped.  It's been 16½ years since the last time that page was updated, which is more than halfway to 1995 when the Virtual Boy was released!

The Virtual Boy "Nintendo Classics" app is coming to Nintendo Switch Online next month, with several games at launch but more games coming out later this year, including Jack Bros.!  There are going to be two previously-unreleased games, D-Hopper and Zero Racers, so I think there will be at least some increase in Virtual Boy appreciation this year!

Thanks for your continued work, Guard Master.  You sure have been keeping me busy with daily submissions in the last couple of weeks!

[JonLeung]

zagato blackfist takes a step away from mapping NES games to take on the original pack-in game for the original Game Boy, Tetris!

This is one of those games that just about everyone has (being a pack-in game at all), so, of course I feel it was an absolutely must be mapped. (Still waiting on that Keith Courage for the Turbo Grafx 16, though...)

Being Tetris, well, what can you map besides the "well"?  That would have been fine, but we didn't even have that.  And yet zagato decided to bring us the menu and animated scenes as well, because, why not?

Fitting to get this "map" of screens this month... on Facebook, X, Bluesky, Reddit and Discord, I had posted in the last couple of days that February 2026's calendar looks like a Tetris... that is, the four weeks are four perfect lines (as in was in 2015, and will again in 2037 and 2043):

...this assumes you have your weeks start on Sunday and end on Saturday.  Most North Americans do this, but that's not the case in other parts of the world (as I was quickly reminded).

I do think the days of the week match better with numbers if Monday is first!
Mon = rhymes with "one", "mono" means one
Tue = TWO
Wed = 9 letters = 3 x 3 (a stretch, I know...)
Thu = thUR is like foUR
Fri, Sat, Sun = same first letter as Fifth, Sixth, Seventh...

Anyway, that was a little tangent there...

Thanks for fulfilling this Game Boy request, zagato!

[JonLeung]

We've got maps for Spanky's Quest, by Guard Master.

This is a bit of a random request, just because it's a cute game, but anyway, Guard Master stepped up, and even mapped the Japanese version, Hansei Zaru Jirou-kun no Daibouken (J).
It's always curious when there are stage layout changes between regional versions... like, why?  But in any case, Guard Master covers it all!

Thanks for helping Spanky the Monkey, Guard Master!

[JonLeung]

We've got the maps for Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (Taito), thanks to zagato blackfist!

This is the Taito version, not to be confused with UbiSoft's "The Action Game" version.  Seems silly to have two games on the same platform with the same name... and their box art is pretty much the same too, based on the same still from the movie, no doubt opening the door for more confusion.

Thanks as always, zagato!  Can we expect the other Last Crusade NES game to be mapped too?

[JonLeung]

Castlevania Crypt.com has now allowed VGMaps.com to host the maps of Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair!

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the series (the Famicom version of Castlevania came out in September 1986), so it's nice to finally have full maps of Harmony Of Despair, a game that includes past Castlevania locales and characters.

Of particular interest to me is Chapter 10: Origin, a DLC stage based on the entirety of the original 8-bit Castlevania.  It has some modifications, like the underground part being extended and the following stage being reversed, an extra floor added to the purplish dungeon area, among other changes.

Compare it for yourself:

Revned's unmarked Castlevania (NES) map:
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Castlevania


Castlevania Crypt's Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair's Chapter 10: Origin map:
https://vgmaps.com/Atlas/X360/index.htm#CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair


I'll probably be saying it again in the autumn, but happy 40th anniversary, Castlevania!

[JonLeung]

Can we expect the other Last Crusade NES game to be mapped too?

Well, what do you know.  On the topic of comparing things, zagato blackfist came through again by providing us with maps of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (UbiSoft)!

This is the more action-oriented UbiSoft version.  Its palette is very limited, and when you compare it to the Game Boy version earlier mapped by Gennadiy_Master, it appears they just made the Game Boy one first, or with it in mind, and then just ported it over to the NES, just adding a palette but not increasing the number of colours much (sort of like a Game Boy game on a Super Game Boy).

It's nice to have both NES versions of Tetris, both NES versions of Ms. Pac-Man, both NES versions of Rainbow Islands, and now both NES versions of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.

[dark_lord_zagato]

I was going to comment about what an odd decision it is to port a Game Boy game to the NES with virtually no improvements, but then I noticed this was originally a PC game from 1989.

It was called "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game" and it was released on a bunch of different systems at the same time.

The crazy part is their decision to port the Game Boy version to the NES instead of the PC or even the Commodore 64 versions, which honestly look a lot better. This came out in December 1993 and it's a massive downgrade to games from 1989, for systems that had less powerful hardware than the NES.