Year of the Animal: Day 231 - The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper

 Today's video takes a look at another one of Taito's incredibly pricey at resale late NES releases: The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper.

Year of the Animal: Day 209 - S.C.A.T. (Special Cybernetic Attack Team)

 Today's video takes a look at Natsume's NES shmup masterpiece, S.C.A.T. (Special Cybernetic Attack Team).

 

 

 

Year of the Animal: Day 170 - Power Blade 2

 Today's video takes a look at Power Blade 2, the incredibly rare action sequel, from Taito.

Year of the Animal: Day 145 - Abadox

 Today's video takes a look at Abadox from Natsume and Milton Bradley.

* A pair of Abadox cheats *

All Power-ups

At the "Push Start" screen, press Up, Down, Right, Right, Up, Left, Right, Down, Left, Up, Start.
Simply pause and unpause the game at any time to gain all power-ups.

 

Invincibility

At the title screen press: A, A, Up, B, B, Down, A, B, Start. When you start the game press pause to become invincible.

 

 

 

Year of the Animal: Day 26 - Dragon Fighter

 Today's video takes a look at Dragon Fighter from Natsume / Sofel

Year of the Animal: Day 16 - Power Blade

 Today's video takes a look at Power Blade from Taito.

How Natsume and Limited Run Games Saved Me A Few Hundred Bucks

 I've yelled about the resell market for retro games for years, and things aren't getting better, but thanks to Limited Run Games, I was able to get two cult classic NES games and saved several hundred dollars in the process. Natsume in the days of the NES were spoken of in the same way that Sunsoft, Irem, and Tecmo were. Natsume developed a number of titles for other publishers, but only published two for the NES: Shadow of the Ninja and S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Squad. Both titles are relentless and masterfully crafted action games. Shadow of the Ninja ranks up there with Sunsoft's Batman and Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden II as two of the best games of this type: straight to the point fast paced side scrolling action platormers. S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Squad is an old school shmup of the most aggressive order. It isn't particularly brutal, but it's definitely a challenge. Much like the Metal Storm unboxing video, I was given the chance to open a classic title in an age where that privilege can cost an obscene amount of money.

 

Oh yeah, I'm back to providing you awesome folks with a chance to have official 8-Bit Animal merchandise. if you're interested in getting a t shirt or a hoodie (with more stuff on the way), hop on over here, and get in on the greatness.

Wild Guns Reloaded Has A Fat Female Protagonist And She's Awesome!!

 

Natsume, as a developer, has always been big on rewarding their small yet hardcore fan base throughout the years. While most know them as "The Harvest Moon people", they are so much more. Their legacy "pre-Harvest Moon" catalog includes some of the greats in the annals of retro action gaming history including "Shadow of the Ninja", "Shatterhand" (published by Jaleco but developed by Natsume), and perhaps one of the most obscure action games of the 16-Bit era, "Wild Guns". For the uninitiated, Wild Guns is a 1994 arcade style shooter in the same vein as "Cabal" or Konami's incredible "G.I. Joe" arcade game. "Wild Guns" quickly became a cult classic and in turn became very expensive in the resale market. Because of the price tag, I had given up hope of getting a physical copy of this game in any iteration, but suddenly, Natsume announced a remake of sorts of the title for PS4 and released a series of trailers for the game as well as the two new characters. While Bullet the dog is fun and cute but not shocking, the other new character, Doris is pretty surprising and actually pretty awesome in a world where some gamers take anything different from the norm as an affront. In reality though, Doris is pretty awesome and also quite important.

 

The reason Doris is important as a character is not because she's the "power" character of the four, or because she's a

female character. Both of those things have been tropes in gaming for a while, but it is a big deal that she's a visibly fat woman. She wears a crop top and throws grenades as her primary ranged weapon. If that isn't the definition of bad-ass, I'm not sure what is. In addition to being a pretty cool character design wise, her character also lacks the weird trope of being tied to a love interest that tends to bog down a lot of character backstories in games regardless of gender. She's a soldier first, and the mission is supreme above all. So, she has something in common with legendary male gaming protagonists like Sam Fisher and Solid Snake, also filed under bad-ass.

With the addition of Bullet and Doris, the playable roster of "Wild Guns Reloaded" is majority woman. That's a rarity in gaming nowadays. Having capable characters in those roles is a great thing in general but having a fat character in one of those slots can do a lot towards filling representation gaps in gaming for big groups of folks who have been long underrepresented in gaming. Now, if we could just get a small update with a playable person of color...

The Summer Of 8-Bit 3.0: Shatterhand

Today's video takes a look at Shatterhand from Natsume/Jaleco.

The Summer Of 8-Bit 2.0: Shadow of the Ninja

Today's video looks at Shadow of the Ninja for the NES from Natsume

Record Of The 16-Bit War: Pocky & Rocky

Today's video takes a look at Pocky & Rocky from Natsume for the Super NES