Waltorious Writes About Games

Game-related ramblings.

Tag: History Lessons Page 2 of 9

Console History: Bionic Commando

By

On August 29, 2025

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I’m in the midst of another detour from my nominal timeline for this series. Having reached the first truly 16-bit console role-playing game, Phantasy Star II, in March 1989, I then went all the way back to June 1987 for Glory of Heracles: The Labors of the Divine Hero. I’d originally skipped that because I thought it was a simple Dragon Quest clone, but in fact it has a bunch of interesting ideas of its own. Now, I’m jumping forward to July 20, 1988, when Capcom released Bionic Commando in Japan for Nintendo’s Famicom system (although I played the US port for the rebranded NES, which released in December of the same year). That puts it between Blaster Master and Exile in our timeline. Like Glory of Heracles, I’d originally skipped over Bionic Commando, in this case because I thought it was a pure action game and thus outside the scope of this series. Later, I learned that it had a lot of design ideas that would influence the nascent Metroidvania genre, which puts it in scope after all. Bionic Commando also has another, far more notable claim to fame: it is the first game with a grappling hook as a central mechanic.

Read More

Console History: Glory Of Heracles: The Labors Of The Divine Hero

By

On August 13, 2025

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

It’s tradition, at this point. Whenever I get my timeline sorted out for this series, and start actually working through things chronologically — as I recently did with Out Live and Phantasy Star II — I always find some other games I missed and end up going back to play them. I’m tempted to tell you that this detour will the the last one, but that’s what I think every time. Hopefully it will at least be brief, and then we can head back to 1989.

For now, though, we’re going way back to June 1987, for the Japan-only game Glory of Heracles: The Labors of the Divine Hero by Data East, for Nintendo’s Famicom. That places it a few weeks after Zillion and about a week before Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished in our timeline. I’d originally skipped over Glory of Heracles because I’d heard it was basically just a Dragon Quest clone (indeed, the first two Dragon Quest games, as well as Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord, are the only proper Japanese-style role-playing games to precede it), but then I read that the later entries in the Glory of Heracles series are good, so I decided to play it after all, using an English translation from DvD Translations (who also did the translation for Cleopatra no Mahou). It turns out it has a lot of interesting ideas of its own.

Read More

Console History: Phantasy Star II

By

On June 3, 2025

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I’ve been looking forward to this one. The original Phantasy Star was the subject of my fourth ever post in this Console History series, before I expanded the scope and went back to add in a lot of games that released before it. But it remains one of my favorite discoveries. Sega’s first foray into the nascent console role-playing game genre, Phantasy Star is both a technical showcase for their Master System and a forward-thinking design that introduced many elements that would become genre standards. Its sequel, Phantasy Star II — which I vaguely remembered seeing once as a kid, at a friend’s house — is regarded as one of the most influential Japanese role-playing games ever made. And like its predecessor, it was a technical showcase, this time for the Sega Mega Drive (AKA Genesis), the first truly 16-bit console (NEC’s PC Engine/Turbografx-16 had 16-bit graphics, but an 8-bit CPU). In fact, Phantasy Star II was the sixth game ever released for the system in Japan, appearing on March 21, 1989, only about five months after the Mega Drive itself (and a mere four days after our last entry, Out Live, released on the PC Engine). It also came to the US about a year later, which means American players actually got it before Final Fantasy!

Read More

Keeping Score: Slave Zero

By

On March 24, 2025

In Uncategorized

This is Keeping Score, a series about games and their soundtracks. This entry qualifies as an honorary member of the History Lessons series too. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

When I first started the Keeping Score series, I viewed it as one way to sort through my massive backlog of games. I figured that instead of looking through the entire thing for something to play, I could pick games for which I also had their soundtracks, and write about them both. Before long, however, the series became a place to catch any particularly cool soundtracks I’d stumbled upon, from games I’d played for entirely separate reasons. I’ve been wanting to get back to the original spirit of the series, though, and have finally done so with Slave Zero.

Released in 1999 for Dreamcast and PC by Infogrames North America (formerly Accolade), a year before they were fully absorbed into French firm Infogrames, Slave Zero is an action game about a giant robot attacking a massive cyberpunk megacity. I played a demo of it back then, in the era when demos came on CDs bundled with game magazines, and I thought it was cool, but not cool enough to spend my limited game-buying budget on. The press seemed to agree, giving the game middling reviews. Yet, it stuck in my memory. When it was released on GOG, I picked it up, but didn’t play it right away. When I started the Keeping Score series I noted that GOG’s version of Slave Zero includes its soundtrack, and I considered playing it for the series, but got distracted by other games instead. Now, I decided to go for it.

Read More

Console History: Out Live

By

On February 17, 2025

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Reader, we are back on our nominal timeline for this series once more. In fact, this is the entry that sent me on my latest detour, investigating other Japanese-only games that were translated by the team at Nebulous Translations: Getsu Fuuma Den, Star Cruiser, and Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead. Now I’m back to Out Live by Sunsoft, a grid-based mecha dungeon crawler role-playing game that released in Japan on March 17, 1989 for the PC Engine. That puts it almost two months after Clash At Demonhead in our timeline. It was never officially localized in English, but thankfully I was able to use the fan translation from Nebulous Translations to play it.

Read More

Console History: Shiryou Sensen: War Of The Dead

By

On December 15, 2024

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I’m almost finished with the latest departure from the nominal timeline for this series. It was triggered by finding several interesting Japanese-only games that have been unofficially translated by the team at Nebulous Translations, first Getsu Fuuma Den and then Star Cruiser. This time, however, it’s not my fault! Fun Project’s horror game Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead (Undead Front: War of the Dead, according to Google Translate) was indeed a Japanese-only title that was translated by Nebulous Translations, but it was already in my list of games to play. The problem is that I wrote down the release date of its PC Engine port (March 24, 1989), not realizing that it was originally released for the Japanese MSX2 home computer sometime back in 1987! I’m trying to play games in original release date order, even if I’m actually playing a later port like the CD-ROM versions of Ys I & II or the Genesis version of Hydlide 3: The Space Memories. So I’m extending my detour to cover the PC Engine version of War of the Dead now.

Read More

Console History: Star Cruiser

By

On October 22, 2024

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I’m on another detour from my nominal timeline for this series. The farthest we’ve reached is January 1989, with Clash at Demonhead. But when searching for a translation patch for the game to follow it in the timeline, I found some interesting games translated by the same team at Nebulous Translations that I didn’t have in my list. So I’m going back to play a few. The first was Getsu Fuuma Den, released back in July 1987. Now we’re jumping to May 1988, when Arsys Software released Star Cruiser for Japanese home computer systems. That places it between Ys II and Lord of the Sword in my timeline. Given the focus on consoles for this series, however — and because it’s the version with the translation patch — I played the port for Sega’s Mega Drive console, which appeared on January 21, 1990, and was handled by Masaya Games.

Star Cruiser caught my eye because it’s described as an action role-playing game combined with a first-person shooter, and, well… first-person shooters didn’t exist yet in 1988. There were a few early games on mainframes in the 1970s and 1980s, and the 1980 arcade game Battlezone might qualify, but most consider the first “true” first-person shooter to be Wolfenstein 3D in 1992. Star Cruiser seemed to do a lot of the same things, four years earlier. It even got a console port several years before Wolfenstein 3D released, which is extra surprising because consoles generally didn’t have first-person shooter games, at least not until Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 in 1997. I was curious to see what Star Cruiser is like to play.

Read More

Console History: Getsu Fuuma Den (The Legend Of Getsu Fuuma)

By

On July 23, 2024

In Uncategorized

This is Console History, a special sub-series of my more general History Lessons series, covering console role-playing games, action role-playing games, Metroidvanias, and action-adventure games in nominally chronological order starting in the late 1980s. The chronology is garbled in the beginning as the scope of the series expanded, but it gets more organized later on. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Reader, I must apologize. After a rather disorganized start to this series, during which I kept expanding the scope and going back to add more games that messed up the timeline, I thought I’d made a comprehensively researched list of every game I might want to include. Once I got all caught up with Final Fantasy II, I thought it would be smooth chronological sailing. But while tracking down a fan-made translation for the next game to follow Clash At Demonhead, I ended up on the website for Nebulous Translations and took a look at the other games they’ve translated. It’s not a long list, and yet: I still found a couple of interesting games that weren’t on my list. So I’m going back in time once again.

The first of these games is Getsu Fuuma Den, which translates roughly to The Legend of Getsu Fuuma. Released for the Japanese Famicom by Konami in July 1987, it slots in after Wonder Boy In Monster Land and before Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family in our timeline. That’s actually pretty early, only the 13th game by original release date, which makes its combination of a top-down world map, side-scrolling platforming, and grid-based dungeon crawling all the more notable. It’s likely this game was an inspiration for a bunch of others I’ve already covered.

Read More

History Lessons: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (Part 2)

By

On July 5, 2024

In Uncategorized

Other History Lessons posts can be found here. You should read my first post about Daggerfall before proceeding. Also, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

In part 1, I discussed Daggerfall’s absolutely massive open world, filled with thousands of towns and dungeons, with players free to travel in any direction they wish. It lends an incredible sense of scale to the game, but shows its limitations all too soon, lacking many ways to meaningfully interact with that world. I was left wishing for a modern game to take inspiration from Daggerfall and build a similarly vast world that has a little more to find in it. Let players travel the land, work for different kingdoms and duchies that are vying for power in the region, and stumble upon cool places in the countryside. In short, a game that would capture some of Daggerfall’s early magic.

But there are two things about Daggerfall that remain compelling even after the world loses its charm: designing and growing a character, and following the main story. Let’s tackle those in order.

Read More

History Lessons: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (Part 1)

By

On June 29, 2024

In Uncategorized

Other History Lessons posts can be found here. As always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

I’ve written a lot about Skyrim for this blog, but that’s actually the fifth game in Bethesda’s long-running Elder Scrolls series. The first one I ever played was the second entry, Daggerfall, way back in 1996. It kind of blew my mind back then, offering an impossibly huge world and the freedom to seek adventure in whatever direction I chose. I’ve followed the series since, but never played the very first game, Arena. I’d intended to start there for an eventual set of History Lessons posts about the early games, but then I saw the announcement that the fan-made Daggerfall Unity project — an open-source version of Daggerfall made with the Unity engine, making it easy to run on modern hardware and allowing for player-made mods and other cool features — had reached version 1.0. I couldn’t resist firing it up. I’ll play Arena someday, but not today.

Read More

Page 2 of 9

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén