Mortal Kombat caused a huge shakeup in the fighting game genre. MK stood in direct opposition to Capcom and SNK with its button tap friendly, yet accessible special moves and combos in contrast to the complicated joystick motions of Fatal Fury and Street Fighter. Although the character designs were simple, they had well developed backgrounds, making the game’s backstory more fleshed out than the usual “some guy wants to know who the world’s strongest fighter is so he holds a tournament” story we see in 90% of fighting games at the time. The game also featured digitized actors with motion capturing. While it looks incredibly cheesy by today’s standards, it gave the game an unprecedented level of realism for its time. Oh, and there was one other big thing about it…oh yeah, that’s right, the blood. Punches and kicks drew blood, bodies were decapitated, hearts were pulled from chests as they were still beating, spines were ripped out, parents everywhere had fits, and politicians sensed opportunity.

Like many big gaming movements before and after MK, many games sought to imitate what made it special. Rather than presenting gamers with an equally accessible play control scheme or fully fleshed out characters, the companies decided to concentrate on the gore. As a result, we got games such as Incredible Technologies/Strata’s (keep these names in mind as they will come up again later on in the article) Time Killers and the 3DO ‘classic’, Way of the Warrior. While the latter game at least went the extra mile to use digitized actors, the play control and character designs of both games were so bad, that they actually rank among the greatest games of all time (albeit for all the wrong reasons). There were good games that used blood as a selling point as well. Eternal Champions, or rather its Sega CD iteration contained lots of hidden secrets, as well as a fighting game based on real-life styles that was more akin to Street Fighter than Mortal Kombat. Primal Rage set itself apart by not only featuring Dinosaurs and prehistoric apes as its characters, but by having a unique style of control motions that had players holding down the attack buttons while entering the motions. One game that stands in the middle is Strata/IT/Chun Soft’s Bloodstorm. While the play control and character designs leave a bit to be desired, it featured some unique gameplay mechanics which would have made it a classic had they been developed further.

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It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. “Cyber Monday”. As if we didn’t get enough shopping done on “Black Friday”, now there is an online holiday shopping rush. Now it seems we have another opportunity for some early X-mas shopping. Well be that as it may, now that your turkey is digested, I got this week’s $20 Game of The Week for you. You don’t have to wake up early for this one. Also, I got two lost classics this week, so there is no shortage of leftovers either. This week, you’ll get a remake of a classic, a classic remake, and a game that should have been a classic. So click after the jump and be thankful for Powet.tv.
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Remember when Nintendo released Zelda II: The Adventure of Link? Its side scrolling gameplay was and still is a radical departure from the series. The most we would see of another 2-d Zelda are the crapfest CD-I entries, but the less said about them, the better. However, Y’s III, Wanderers from Y’s is pretty close to what another 2-D Zelda would be like. Ironically, Y’s III itself is a departure from its norm, as all prior and subsequent entries are from the top-down perspective (in fact, a 2005 Windows remake of the game is done with an over the top view with a 3-d graphics engine).

The game once again puts players in the role of series hero Adol Christin, as he and his friend Dogi visit Dogi’s hometown of Redmont. Seems some strange things are happening there, and Adol takes it upon himself to investigate. Before long, he gets mixed up in something involving monsters, demons, and such. Unlike the previous entries, this is a platformer with RPG elements. You now have to press a button to swing your sword (as opposed to just running into enemies like in the first two entries), and there is some typical platform jumping. Along with gaining levels, you can equip several rings which grant special powers. Cool boss battles, catchy music, large areas, and an interesting storyline round out the package. Y’s III was ported to several systems at the time of its release, but its most well known port in the United States is the Super Nintendo version, which was released shortly after the system’s launch. Hopefully this should show up on the virtual console in the near future, as Y’s Book I & II, (the Turbografx-16 port of the first two games) is already available on the service.

Veterans day was this past week. In honor of our brave men and women fighting for this country, we have a special $20 GOTW/Lost Classics, centering on games about our military fighting to defend our livelihood. Although one game is more realistic than the other, both of these games are so good, that you will be proud to be an American as you play them. So sit back, enjoy, and remember the sacrifices of our brave men and women, in both the real world and in digital form.

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Vinnk of 4 Color Rebellion and Famicom Dojo has relaunched his Rising Stuff online store with new forums and news articles with a focus on retro Japanese gaming.

In Vinnk’s own words, the new Rising Stuff “will cover classic games and consoles that may have never made it out of the land of the rising sun,” and “will try to cover obscure system like the PC-FX, Wonderswan and Playdia as well as the better-known systems like the Mega Drive, Saturn, PC-Engine and Famicom Disk System.”

This is quite a treat for me, because many of the front-page authors are also long-time friends. Between us we started the unstoppable Midwest force of nature now known as No Brand Con.

So check out the new Rising Stuff! If you head over there RIGHT NOW you will see a repost of the first episode of Famicom Dojo, as well as videos about the 3DO and Playdia. You may even see other a Powet.TV videos pop up there from time-to-time.

Not all games based on movies or cartoons are bad, and when the licenses expire the games disappear too! This is the Powet Top 5 Lost Licensed Games, presented by Keep Playing!

Think I missed a game? Leave a comment and let me know!

For any of you who thought the Sega Genesis no longer has any surprises and is a dead console, prepare to be sorely mistaken. It seems some people haven’t quite given up on Sega or it’s veteran consoles.

A brand new game called Pier Solar, is getting readied for a release. Set to be a huge (for Genesis) 64Mb cartridge, this game is 100% original from it’s story and characters, to its music and graphics. It’s been in the making for the last four years roughly, and is supposed to be coming out on Christmas Eve of this year, barring any delays like what pushed it back from its original Oct. 29th release date. Considering this is basically a game that was originally meant as a homebrew, a fully-working game capable of being played on a Genesis being the end result is epic.

Pier Solar is orginated from the Sega homebrew community of Eidolon’s Inn in 2004. Started as a small effort to bring the members of the site to virtual life in a little RPG, time has passed and the game has grown into something much more. Now Pier Solar is on it’s way to hopefully become a Role Playing Game maching all other great classics of the 16-bit era…..

A working demo is available for play on the game’s website. The game itself is available for pre-order in two different packages with extra goodies.
http://www.piersolar.com/

Earlier this week, I featured the actual Mega Man 9 as the $20 game of the week, so now here is the game that would have been Mega Man 9. After releasing Mega Man made a phenomenal 32-bit debut on the Saturn and Playstation with Mega Man 8, Capcom went to work on one last 16-bit Mega Man game. It wouldn’t be just a patchwork job though. Capcom pushed the limits of the Super Famicom (or SNES as we know it over here) to its limits in ways which have not been achieved even with Mega Man 7 or the first three Mega Man X games. The game would be one of the last 3rd party games released on a 16-bit system, and what a game it would have been. Unfortunately, this was 1998, well after Nintendo killed off Super Nintendo support in the US. Thus, the game saw a Japan-only release, and until recently, the only way players could see it was via emulation (which Powet does not condone by the way) or import. Even then, you had to be able to read Japanese in order to understand the story. Thankfully, along with GBA re-releases of other games in its 16-bit catalog, Capcom decided to bring this game over with them, giving North American fans the chance to experience one of Mega Man’s finest adventures of the 16-bit era.

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