It felt like a lot of people were sick with something this week so I made a bunch of “Get Will Soon” art to cheer them up. I also played through Earthbound during the week.
I played through Earthbound because I had yet to do that on my twitch channel. I usually stick to Sunday mornings as that’s the best time for me to stream but I made a few evening appearances just so I could get through the game smoothly. Earthbound is one of my personal top 5 fave games and it was nice to share it with an audience. I recommend picking it up and trying it out. It’s not for everyone, but it’s very charming and it will offer you a unique experience not found in many RPG’s.
I would like to get thru Mother 3 at some point but I am not sure if I should do that right away or get good on some of the plans I’ve made with friends for my stream. I also have a few projects I have been working on, but first….
Dank Art
Since it was a slow week for Dank Art I decided to give away a few of them randomly through my twitter. That’s something I really want to keep doing as I don’t think I will run out of Dank Art. Just another reason to follow to get some free Dank Art. You can still check out the very basic gallery I have here to buy any of the past Dank Arts. I do take commissions so if you don’t see the Dank you were looking for I can still make that happen. Send me a message or email me this way
Since I only got to see a few streams this week I only have the Dank Art you see in this one gallery. Everyone was playing Beat ’em up’s- one of my fave styles of video games to play. Macaw took a break from the PC Engine/ Retro PC98 stuff to play a few SNES beat ’em ups that were a bit more obscure such as Dark Water and Legend. He finished Legend on stream to reveal a top quality ending screen which was totally worth holding out for. Try going for it yourself- it looks like a real fun game to play through. A lot of the games Macaw features on his streams don’t pop up on many other channels which makes the Dank Art harder to interpret if you are not already familiar with the source material. What makes it work is putting the little bird in there which explains why there’s a little Macaw bird in almost all of his Dank Arts. It’s a Dank Artist interpretation of the bird’s experience with the game.
MURPHAGATOR was playing SNES Beat ’em up and did attempts on Sailor Moon. Of course I like this game, not just because it’s a Beat ’em up, but it’s Sailor Moon and I used to be super into that when I was a kid. It wasn’t just the dubbed Anime, I was collecting the actual Japanese manga books and tracking those down at that time in this country was a feat in itself. Sailor Moon has a bunch of great Beat ’em up’s too considering its Magical Girl anime/manga. I used to play this game a bunch when I had my first PC using emulators but I would always choose Jupiter or Sailor Moon herself while Murph was just going thru runs with Venus that night.
Funkdoc was playing thru X-Men Arcade on two occasions this past week to build save states for future attempts. This X-Men game was immensely popular in arcades in the 90’s when it came out with cabinets that featured up to six players with a huge two-screen set up. There are some differences between the North American and Japanese of this game and I highly recommend watching Funkdoc’s stream as he’s always very good at explaining not just the game itself but a bit of the history and information behind it. I’ve mentioned before I am a huge X-Men fan & one day I should share my comic collection in a future blog.
Powerpad Things
For my birthday this year I was sent a copy of “Family Trainer Meiro Daisakusen” for the Famicom system. If you’ve been watching my streams this year you’ll know I’m really into Powerpad games and this game is unique in that its an RPG style game that uses the Japanese Family Trainer pad. I had to do some reading up on the Japanese Family Trainer to figure out what was the best way to play the game.
I had a few ideas about how to play this game, the best way being just buying a Famicom and a Family Trainer Pad and streaming that way. I also toyed around with the idea of buying a Retron 5 to play the game, though my stream needs a new capture card if I am going to capture a HDMI output. The Retron 5 with Capture card alone would be $500 Canadian without a guarantee that this would work. However, I had this idea if I bought a Game Converter & used that to convert the Famicom game could I get away using my North American Powerpad? Trying this method was only going to cost me $60 and I needed a new Retron to stream my NES collection on so doing this was the best first option to try when it came to playing Meiro Daisakusen.
I got my editor Rick to drive his kids and I to the Game Hoard in Georgetown where I had my second chance to pick up Sky Kid which thankfully was still there. I knew from checking them out a few weeks back that they had Retron consoles in stock and he was still cheaper than paying for shipping online. I already bought the Game Converter on eBay (I was astounded at how quickly it arrived!) so getting the Retron was the last piece I needed to try out this crazy experiment.
It works yes and no. Not all Powerpad games work on the Retron 1 or there’s an issue with how I have things plugged in. It’s not really hard to mess up plugging a controller in, but I found that the Power Pad was unresponsive with Super Team Games, but more responsive than I remember using World Track Meet. When I plugged in Meiro Daisakusen it worked with the controller but only the top row of numbers on the B side of the Power Pad would work & I found myself squashing into walls most of the time. It’s a tease to get that far only to see things go splat so quickly :3
By chance I also got The Lost World of Jenny for my birthday as well so I had another Famicom game to test out on the Retron to check if it was the Game Converter or not. It works fine, but often I find that the controls will go slightly weird so there is a possibility that something is getting fuddled up in either the conversion or with the Retron itself. It’s something worth looking into.
Overall I was pleased with my experiment- I have a new NES to play my games on and I have a Game Converter to play Famicom games with. I’m now looking into buying a Famicom and a Family Trainer Pad so I can complete my experience with Powerpad style games.
Summer Days
Theres a heat wave moving through my area and one of the hottest that I can remember. It’s hard to be outside in this weather and already I’ve managed to get sunburned really bad. I can take sun usually well, though I can’t escape sun exposure and I think I got hit by that real bad.
Greg & I went out on Friday to Downtown Milton where there seems to be the best place to go and play Pokemon. I’m not sure how long this Pokemon thing will last for, but it is nice for what it is and we are having fun with it. When we were downtown to catch Pokemon there was a good crowd of people at the pond with music playing just enjoying the evening. It’s a nice thing to be able to get back outside at night and feel comfortable around people just having fun and playing games.
Summer is all about a festival or a country fair happening every weekend at the Fairgrounds. I had to cover a Kids Festival for the Milton Villager Magazine where I freelance photography and occasionally write stories.
I always enjoy a fun fair though I don’t really go for the rides (I get sick) and I try not to go for the midway. I just like to go to community events to take photos and soak up the atmosphere of being around other people. I always manage to get stuck looking after my friends kids but hanging out with kids is actually not that bad. I’m really good with kids and they can be nice if you give them a chance.
Here’s a photo of Squash with my Ninja Boyfriend to close this week out
