Design - Samurai Pizza Cats cartmodd custom cover art

This is the cover & label I did for yet another cartmodd. This one was for a Pal fan-port of the unreleased Japanese-only Samurai Pizza Cats game.

I adore this one!
Very fun Mega Man-like title. Glad I can finally play it on my own Nes instead of emulation!
Please! Do not ask for these! This was a personal job, not outsourcing the work to other people. If you want me to work out something for you, I will do so for money only~

Design © Eyz 2012.
Game and work based on a propriety © Tatsunoko
Not for commercial use!

Design - Earthbound cartmodd & custom cover art

I'm going to upload some graphic design work for a change.
These are several cover arts I did for personal cartmodds.

This is a custom label & cover I designed for this Nes fan-translation cartmodd a buddy of mine did of the unreleased Mother 1/Earthbound 0 game.

Here's some more pics of it on deviantArt:

The whole package

With some info

Please! Do not ask for these! This was a personal job, not outsourcing the work to other people. If you want me to work out something for you, I will do so for money only~

Design © Eyz 2012.
Game and work based on a propriety © Nintendo
Not for commercial use!

COOLAPE Wednesday - Hardcore

Link for the full comic on CoolApe:
http://www.coolape.org/comic-eyz-hardcore.html

And you thought other RPGs were difficult...

YOU NERD

'nuff said.

Gamin' NEWS! Resident Evil: The Mercenaries trailer

Here's a trailer for Capcom's latest easiest $$$

The game will be a stand-alone spinoff on Nintendo's new 3D DS, and more exactly a remake of the Mercenaries mode from Resident Evil 5 with content from RE4's Mercenaries as well.

Oh and some concepts/ideas/characters from past game.

If you ask me, this looks like something that should be offered in a bundle with the upcoming other Resident Evil game for the Nintendo 3DS.
(like, say, a whole minigame mode, using its own musics and character models, was offered alongside Sonic & The Secret Rings on the Wii)

Here's some pics now, the game will be released later on near summer probably:

And the trailer from Nintendo's 3DS event:



Looks, well graphically nice, but like a bargain bin kind-of-game nonetheless!

VGR Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti

In anticipation for the release of the brand new long-awaited Splatterhouse sequel, I propose you guys and gals a review today of one of the lesser known episodes of this slasher horror videogame series!

The new episode, after changing development team 2-3 times already, will finally be launched on November 23, 2010 (if you live in America that is... which I don't - surprise! for those who didn't knew that) and later this month for Europe and Asia, depending which country you live on.

Custom cartmodd done by RetroZone. Thanks guys!

VGR: Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti
From Namco
Played on NES
Also available on /

Type Sidescrollin' platformer
Year 1989

After the original Splatterhouse's release, and while working on what would be the future home console release of the arcade game on PC-Engine (TurboGrafx-16 in the US), the Namco "Splatterhouse" team tried to pass Splatterhouse on different supports...one, the NES port, which ended up as this parallel episode.

Wanpaku Graffiti is not an adaptation of the first original game.
It is actually its own lil' episode.
The title, Wanpaku Graffiti, means "Silly SD!" (Wanpaku = naughty; Graffiti = chibi artstyle)
It's as the title implies a parody of Splatterhouse done in a super-deformed design.

It was actually a Famicom exclusive (Japanese NES), but since the game was already entirely written in english (apart from some elements like the title or the credits), some guys managed to finish it and the game I own is actually a cartmodd (an homebrew release)

"Rick!! Help me!!" Familiar characters, a familiar setting..yet, this isn't your regular Splatterhouse game.

The story plays out like this:
Rick is dead.
Jennifer, mourning on his grave implores the sky to have him back.
Suddenly a lightning strikes!!
Rick arises from his grave!
So does an evil spirit nearby, the Pumpkin King!!
The Pumpkin kidnaps Jenn and along the way brings back a lot of demons and monsters.
Now it's up to you, Rick. Help Jennifer, fight for her, bring her back and defeat the Pumpkin King!!

Rick is once more equipped with the Terror Mask to help him be able to fight his way through all the enemies he will have in his path.

D'awwww~ Chibi Rick is so cute! Look at him, cutting monsters with his lil' axe!

As you can see, it doesn't exactly follow the original game's storyline. (but there's a reason for that!)
The game looks pretty similar to the original Splatterhouse, it does use many similar settings, the woods, caves, the mansion, the lake and even the church!!

But this time the game is closer to a platformer, the only Splatterhouse to really feature challenging platforming sequences not just pits to jump over.
The game is less of a beat'em all since the enemies die easily now.
There isn't a lot of your usual Splatterhouse weapons to choose from. Mostly the axe and a shotgun parody in the form of fireworks.

 The creepiest boss EVER DONE IN ANY VIDEOGAME TO THIS VERY DAY!!!

The game isn't super-super challenging at first. But over the time it grows a heck of a lot harder!
And it's not really that long, it took me a lot less time to finish than the original Splatterhouse trilogy.
It's 7 levels long.

But there's still a lot of surprises to find.

The gameplay, simple yet quite precise, is fun enough to make this one of the most solid experience I played on the NES.
The game is quite pretty to look at with some of the more colorful sprites I've seen on the NES (yet some pretty empty backgrounds some times, to balance and not slowdown the experience). The sprites and characters are pretty big on the screen.
And the music is pretty fun, catchy, like the original Splatterhouses!
Some pretty creepy tunes as well as some more funky tracks.
There's more varied music than some other classic NES games here!

There's a LOT OF BOSSES!!
Rick starts from his grave, in the cemetery, goes through the woods, find his way back to the local town, travels to the West Mansion and there explores a lot of rooms.
And all along his way doesn't run from the monsters but goes on purpose to every house, cabin and cave to confront the resurrected monsters and destroy them!
The enemies, unlike in later Splatterhouse games, aren't original creatures but rather parodies from various horror classics!
In fact, the whole game is full of parodies!
Rick resurrects like Jason in Friday the 13th Part 6 Jason Lives, finds a zombie-lookalike Michael Jackson dancing on a a fake-Thriller sounding tune (pictured in the screens at the bottom), has an Exorcist boss, a Jeff Goldblum/The Fly with teleporting machines and fly accident and all, and many more references and parodies!!
It's fun, always surprises and is a nice touch for a chibi-Splatterhouse parody!

 The Aliens boss parody is pretty neat too. A girl, in a lab, seems to be asleep...

So, it's a Splatterhouse for kids??
I wouldn't say that exactly!
The references are obviously meant for adult horror fans.
And the game features some very creepy stuff that, had the game be "more realistic" like the rest of the Splatterhouse trilogy, would given the game a 'mature' tag.

Suddenly, SPLOTCH!! tons of facehuggers will come out of her belly and you'll have to survive
(I know, in Aliens, it's chestbusters, but this a parody, right?)

Sometimes the game even gets quite creepy in its atmosphere. The woods-level has almost no music, just an eerie atmosphere and will have you on your toes!

 

...finally, the girl just wakes up like nothing. And walks away. °___O

And even if the game doesn't feature blood, it still is quite graphic, in a Looney Tunes sort of way~

Anyway, the game offers plenty of challenges.
You only have a couple of lives (the health bar is similar to Mega Man's) with wich you only can continue a couple of times...then it's game over and start from the beginning of the stage. (and in some later longer levels will prove difficult)
But you can augment you health bar by killing enemies. There's a maximum number of kills to do to upgrade your life, in a sort of RPG-esque way. Then a new number appears to increase even more your life and so on.

The game uses a passworld feature, like Splatterhouse 3 later on would, to continue your progress.

DUN DUUN DUUUN~

It's a great episode, faithful to the series, yet in a completly different spirit.

The game makes you think it's a parody all along...then near the ending...TWIST! A surprise!
Yes, Wanpaku Graffiti features a triple ending twist, even Shyamalan himself would be put to shame with this.
At the end, Rick defeats the Pumpkin King and then...
(only read if you won't be able to get this game one day, and you're sure you'll never play nor beat this game)

Spoiler:

Someone says "CUT!"
Yep, the whole game was a movie! The director approaches Rick and Jenn, thank them for their good work...And they go away, leaving the mask behind.

But wait! That's not all!

Spoiler:

The Terror Mask comes to life!! He starts wrecking havok in the movie studio!!!

The game also offers some replay value, with secrets to discover.
There are two hidden levels to find through two secret doors, which will bring Rick to extra levels. One taking place in Japan and the other one in Egypt. Finding your way through both will have Rick meet a "princess" who can offer a magic orb. Each orb will add a little epilogue to the game.
The first one:

Spoiler:

And it was all only a dream! All this was only a strange experience happening in Rick's mind. Rick and Jennifer were resting on the grass...

But the 2nd orb adds:

Spoiler:

...on their way to the West Mansion from the very first game! The original tagline appears and Wanpaku Graffiti was really a... prequel!!!

Overall, with all these surprises in the end, the content of the game and its quality..this makes Wanpaku Graffiti a "must own" for any fans of the series!

Like I said, the game may seems quite easy at first sight, with pretty short levels, but as you play it, it grows on you and becomes a full fledged adventure on its own.

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti is very different from the other episodes, the gameplay has very little in common with the original games, but its qualities, fun and surprises ranks it amongst the best NES games I've ever played!

Plus there's just not enough videogame parodies nowadays.

'Hoping some of this episode makes it into the 2010 Splatterhouse game, one way or another,
this is a must for horror, Splatterhouse and 8-bits platformer fans alike!

I give it:

 2.5 / 3 Invaders!

VGR Felix the Cat

And finally, here's the very first NES review on teh blog.
I wasn't going to review your usual super-popular gaming franchise or cult game.

Instead I went for a little game by Hudson that didn't really made people talk about it either back then or nowadays.

Warning: Review for Retrogamers and game collectors, since this is exactly the kind of game you can only play on the original system and won't be republished nowadays on the digital market :/

VGR: Felix the Cat 
From Hudson Soft
Played on NES
Also available on Game Boy


Type Sidescroller plateformer
Year 1992

Felix the Cat is one of the very first cartoon animated characters.
He was created around 1919, a long time before Looney Tunes or Mickey Mouse came out to be.

I won't hide it to you dudes and gals that Felix is actually one of my favorite characters of all time.
The lil' guy managed to survive the various eras.
Cartoons came by, times changed, animated styles evolved and yet, Felix still survived along the years.
Even if he isn't as present nowadays he's still remembered by many, adults and kids. An icon, it has been long since Felix felt in the public domain. Now, anyone can use him, royalties free. He still appears on many merchandising items, shirts, bags, any country, everywhere...like Mickey only Felix doesn't require any approval.

His last cartoons were the Twisted Tales of Felix in the 90s and more recently, Baby Felix, an anime from the 2000s.

Even so, with such a long running "franchise", it is a bit weird that so few games of Felix have been produced over the years.. (maybe because of the lack of profits people would make on his marketing image, since anyone would be able to also use him around such game if it would be produced...).
Apart from a pretty bad Playstation 1...wasn't there a more successfu gamingl entry for the grandpa of all animated cats?

 The objective is simple. Felix don't answer to hostage-takers.

The evil Professor kidnapped Felix's girlfriend, Kitty, once again!
He wants to steal his famous magic bag of tricks.

But Felix isn't going to give it up easily. So he goes after the Prof himself.

The plot is simple. Basic you'd say.
And that's all I require from a fun ol' school sidescrollin' platformer.

A bag, that's all he needs to explore all the 8 large worlds and defeat all the enemies and bosses on his path.

The game looks like your standard late-8-bits plateformer.
Colorful, decent sprites and well done (animation and gameplay)
Felix controls sort of like Mario. He jumps with A. He can however also attack with B.

It's not a super long game. Not because of its content. But difficulty-wise.
It's quite easy, at least once you try it once or twice and get the hang on Felix's control (more on that below)
The game is composed of 8 worlds, each made of 3 sub-levels. (well, there's actually a 9th world but since the 8th is also shorter I don't really count it as a separate world)

Across his path will be a dozen of different enemies and at the end of any world, a boss. One of the Professor's minions.

Power-ups! Power-downs! Magic Felix is on the scene!

So what's this game gimmick you're asking me?
It's all in the health/lives system.
Felix doesn't use an health bar like most games back then like, say, Mega Man.
Instead he uses an hybrid system which is basically a mash-up of both Mario and Sonic's health system.
Basically, Felix can die if he's harmed once. Like Mario, he needs a boost/power-up.
Like Sonic, he can grabs something that powers him and will be lost at once if harmed.
Hearths.
Felix grabs one and, like Mario again, will be transformed into a powered up form. Grab another hearth, another better power-up. Etc, etc... Get hit, go back to the previous form. If harmed in the basic non-powered-up form, you die!

Understood?
Anyway, Felix has many powered-up forms.
A magician, a tank, a plane, etc... I'll let you discover them by yourself.

There's also Felix's head to collect in the levels. For score and upgrades. Every 10 collected, you'll win an hearth/power-up.

The game also throws at the player various original segments, to shake things up and for the experience. It never gets dull nor repetitive that way.
There's the usual "walking"-type levels. But also "flight" levels, "swiming" levels (like in most 80s/90s games) and "boat" levels. Each come with their own transformations for Felix and with their own set of enemies/obstacles.
Also, there's little bonus rooms (sort of like the underground rooms in Mario Bros) in the form of Magic Bag Rooms.
In brief: it's a pretty decent platformer who tries to offer an original, even if simple experience.

Overall, it's a wonderful game, well deserved entry for the wonderful cat!

I really like this game!
Sadly, it's super simple, specially if you're used to good ol' games of the same era.
The levels are many, and even a bit long sometimes, but too simple.
Felix's power-up system is original but it gives him such an edge on enemies... :/
The bosses can be tricky sometimes.

The more powerful Felix gets (and the more layer of lives he adds), the clumsier he plays and attacks enemies...which is a nice trick to balance the difficulty (or else, Felix would grow stronger and more invicible each time).

If you find it in a bargain bin, garage sale, in second hand, anyway, get it!

Try it!
For Felix fans and 2D platformer lovers~

I give it:

 2 / 3 Bruces!