door creaks, rectangular form standing in doorway silhouetted against the intermittent flashes of lightning
unknown figure shuffles into the light of the room, revealing Tiny Cartridge, risen from the grave
DUDES there’s a slime pet bed now
[via Noisy Pixels, thanks bdorf!]
Hi, everyone! It’s been… four months?! since the last Tiny Cartridge post, which was about a toilet game, and I’ve been dragged out of de facto retirement for an equally important reason. And that reason is Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters And Gain Strong Weapons And Armor. You May Be Defeated, But Don’t Give Up. Become Stronger. I Believe There Will Be A Day When The Heroes Defeat The Devil King.
Now, I have yet to play Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters And Gain Strong Weapons And Armor. You May Be Defeated, But Don’t Give Up. Become Stronger. I Believe There Will Be A Day When The Heroes Defeat The Devil King, and I uh, actually don’t usually go for dungeon crawler things like this, but it’s giving me some Vita nostalgia vibes, and I’m delighted every time I see the title (Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters And Gain Strong Weapons And Armor. You May Be Defeated, But Don’t Give Up. Become Stronger. I Believe There Will Be A Day When The Heroes Defeat The Devil King).
In honor of M-YDMAGSWAAYMBDBDGUBSIBTWBADWTHDTDK, I have a (legally distinct online text game inspired by) a Mad Lib for you! Usually Mad Libs work better if you don’t already know the text, but it should still be fun! And the game probably is too!
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
The wait for Gekisou! Benza Race - Toilet Shooting Star is almost over
After learning about this game, a toilet racer, I am now retroactively spending the last year anticipating its May 15 release.
An exciting toilet racing game that lets you experience a toilet revolution.
Many circuits and toilet racers are waiting for your challenge.
After customizing the toilet and getting your stomach ready, it’s time to start the race!
Can you seriously read the words “toilet revolution” without being overcome by curiosity? And that screenshot with the amazing “weird arcade game” or even “weird WiiWare game that would never be localized” vibes!
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Tozai Games, who memorably brought me Spelunker HD, has announced five volumes of collected IREM games for Xbox, PS5, PS4, and Switch, with big ol’ physical versions coming from Strictly Limited.
This first release comprises Image Fights 1 and 2, and X Multiply, three shmups that I definitely haven’t played and definitely want to. I also, in general, support the release of collections from this very cool, very defunct publisher!
Finally, hi, I haven’t been writing many posts recently. But my 10 year olds are at a coffee shop having a graphic design coworking session, so I’m entertaining myself by sitting in a big fancy coffee shop chair and flailing textually at old games. Life is pretty weird!
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Hey y'all, it’s been a while, as evidenced by my trying to spell “Tumblr” with an O while logging in. Tomblr. Tumblor. Toumblro.
Anyway I’m back with more old games on Switch. It’s becoming my brand and I’m ok with that. Today’s Nintendo Download includes a whole entire Wonder Boy Collection (also on PS4/PS5), with multiple versions of each game including Master System, Game Gear, arcade, and Genesis (not all for every game of course!) and multiple regional versions. I don’t know developer Bliss Brain, and I didn’t play their previous game, the Princess Maker remake. So I can’t speak to the quality of the ports. But as long as they’re not totally busted that’s such a cool collection!
Also on eShop today: Puzzle Bobble™2X/BUST-A-MOVE™2 Arcade Edition & Puzzle Bobble™3/BUST-A-MOVE™3 S-Tribute, a collection of Saturn ports. More importantly, it’s just a king’s ransom of moves to bust and puzzles to bobble. “Enjoy ports of the arcade games Puzzle Bobble 2X and Puzzle Bobble 3, as well as four home console versions released in Japan and abroad, with added original modes.”
Finally, there’s an Arcade Archives port of another Taito classic, The New Zealand Story. I might be doing some shopping as long as my house continues to have electricity!
Keep it locked for infrequent updates about ports of old games onto Switch. I’m… I’m doing my best you guys.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Big news for exactly me: new Arkanoid, from Pastagames
Tiny Cartridge faves Pastagames (Pix the Cat, Rayman Legends, Maestro: Jump in Music) releases a new game today, and… it’s a new entry in a legendary franchise, Arkanoid (that one big NES box I bought when I was like 7, the game that used that cool paddle controller on DS).
Arkanoid Eternal Battle updates the formula with, what else, a battle royale mode?? But also a single-player mode with new levels and new powerups, split-screen multiplayer, and what appears to be an emulated version of the original Arkanoid?
The game is currently on sale for $27, normally $30.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
I’ve gotten a few press releases for SpiderHeck from publisher TinyBuild, but such has been my Situation recently that I made a point to get back to them and then, I don’t know, gone to deal with the toilet that fell apart or adopt kittens (!) or whatever.
Today, the game is actually out on Switch and basically everything else, and I finally scheduled myself a few minutes to watch a trailer and, yall.
There’s been a game about spiders grappling around arenas and attacking each other with lightsabers this whole time? I want to say “and I wasn’t informed?” but I definitely was, multiple times!
You can try this through Xbox Game Pass or for free through Steam until Sept. 26, and like, I want to do that. Let’s try this. It might join the rotation of party games, I think.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Don’t just take it from me, the person who drinks coffee from a Bubble Bobble mug every morning and is on stage 1174 (oh no) of Bub’s Puzzle Blast, a game I only found by accident while looking for a new Bust a Move/Puzzle Bobble.
Look at the above video, with its four-player co-op (including Story Mode), hi-res Bub, Bob, Peb, and Pab, little Miniroons, and so many bubbles. Everybubble, in fact! Puzzle Bobble Everybubble will be out on Switch next year.
New Bubble and/or Puzzle Bobble games aren’t always… good, but I’m getting my hopes way up anyway. Sky high! I definitely won’t survive even a slight disappointment.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
One of the most weirdly unlikely domino-meme developments recently is the one that starts with THQ’s bankruptcy in 2012 and ends with me playing a Sunsoft Famicom game from 1992 on my Switch. But that’s basically what happened?
Nordic Games Licensing bought a lot of the THQ back catalog, then went through a series of acquisitions, later adopting the apt name Embracer Group, and just opened a subdivision called Embracer Freemode to focus on retro games. Part of Embracer Freemode is Bitwave, who is developing a port of Gimmick! for Xbox, PC, Switch and PS4.
This news has Sunsoft re(re)-entering the gaming space, following the last WiiWare iteration. They announced a Gimmick soundtrack release, a port of Ufouria, and a new roguelike game based on the very old, beloved kusoge Ikki.
Simultaneously, the reliable ININ Games announced three – THREE – Ninja Jajamaru-kun collections, compiling the platform games, two “lost” RPGs, and all of the above respectively. I am deeply personally invested in this, if only because NInja Jajamaru-kun was one of the main inspirations behind the brilliant Haggleman minigames from Retro Game Challenge. Preorders for the physical PS4/Switch collections will open on the 21st, and I can only presume that they’ll also show up on the eShop in some form.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Put me on record as a Kunio Liker (actually, I guess across over a decade of writing, I have put myself on said record dozens of times) and my favorite development of late has been the Weird Alternate Kunio. Take the River City Ransom crew and recast them as fantasy wizards, or give WayForward a chance to remake the universe from a different perspective, and I’m down.
So here’s River City Saga: Three Kingdoms, which moves the characters from the streets of contemporary Japan to ancient China, where they reenact famous battles, and help us “learn the basics of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms!” Finally, another subject I may soon be able to kind of sound like I know something about.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
I’m pretty impressed with Columbus Circle’s barebones DIY kits, basically just clone Super Famicoms or Famicoms without cases. You can then put it into whatever container you can imagine, like this toaster!
What Youtuber LimoneWorkshop did, however, is to put the tiny kit into a custom-built miniature Sharp SF-1. And it totally owns.
I’m trying to imagine what I would do with one of these Super Famicom kits, and I think it’s “put it on a shelf and then decide to sell it 3 years later.” But for other people, what a cool idea!
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
Toy company Bandai and video game developer/publisher Namco merged in 2005. Four years later, Koei and Tecmo merged their game-making operations.
Now, the two megacorporations have leveraged Tecmo’s beloved Monster Rancher series and Bandai’s long-standing Ultraman license to create this weird-ass thing, a game where you can use songs or NFC cards to generate monsters from Ultraman shows, then raise, battle, and, why not, merge them.
I don’t think it really makes sense to apply Monster Rancher’s semi-random generation mechanic with an existing set of characters (since, like, people basically would know who they wanted to raise?) and it definitely doesn’t make sense to make an Ultraman game without Ultraman. A lot of dominoes had to fall in just the right way to lead to this ill-advised but also completely awesome outcome.
JOIN CLUB TINY AND OUR DISCORD Support Tiny Cartridge!
