Clone highs: Battle Vader / New Baseball / PakPak Monster | NES Works Gaiden: Epoch-03
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2024
- Not two but three-THREE!-games this episode. This might be exciting if not for the fact that one of those amounts to a barely tweaked version of a game we've seen before, which originally debuted years before Cassette Vision existed. Props to Epoch for scraping as much content out of that one bit of program code as possible, I suppose.
Far more exciting are the non-baseball titles here, Battle Vader and PakPak Monster. While both blatantly rip off popular arcade games, both also demonstrate that distinctive Epoch quirkiness, compensating for the console's lack of horsepower by introducing some unconventional gameplay tweaks. Both games also have deep roots in Epoch's own pre-Cassette Vision history. Well, maybe not "deep," exactly. But notable.
Production notes:
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Cassette Vision footage recorded from original hardware, modded for S-Video output by Christa Lee of Sound Retro Co. Super Cassette Vision footage recorded from original hardware via legacy RGB cable. NES/Famicom footage captured from @analogueinc Nt Mini; SG-1000 footage recorded from Analogue Mega Sg Video upscaled to 720 with Micomsoft's xRGB Mini Framemeister; arcade footage captured from MiSTer when possible, with thanks to @MiSTerAddons. - เกม
Battle Vader looks like a PICO-8 game, a neat miniaturized version of a classic.
Heck! You’re right.
Your hip-hop name is now Epoch Shakur, Jeremy.
For what it's worth, the manual for Battle Vader says that you're destroying the ships and revealing the ones behind them, rather than pushing them back.
I wound up not liking Battle Vader, mainly due to how the shields worked in the game. They made playing a lot more painful than it should have been.
Yeah, the "revealing enemies" mechanic was mentioned in the Shmuplations interview, but it doesn't read that way to me, so I naughtily went with my gut.
@@JeremyParish Yeah, I get that. It feels like you're pushing them back and it makes more sense visually.
Battle Vader is the first Cassette Vision game I could see myself getting sucked into
I took my Cassette Vision to Long Island Retro Expo this year for the interactive museum section and some kid (probably 10 years old or so?) played it for an hour straight. I was surprised but gratified.
2:17 Best moment of my life
One step closer to Game & Watch Works. Yeah, Space Invaders is an ur-game for both Japanese and American developers. Many early 1980s VCS games took inspiration from the Atari home version of Space Invaders. It's definitely nice to hear about the VCS version of Space Invaders on Video Works. Big Vader looks like fun, Pak Pak Monster less so.
For someone like Jeremy, I think it should be called Game & Works.
I can't say I had heard of the Cassette Vision before this video. But I can say I think that it was an attractive looking console. The 1970s sci-fi contours in white and black really work with the bare metal switches.
Both versions of Epoch Man are fairly ingenious - the home version doubly so when you consider how unique it had to be in order to differentiate itself from a world of other Pac-Clones.
The Battle Vader player fighter silhouette looks a lot like a Star Wars Y-Wing viewed from above to me.
I would argue that LCD games had a good reputation for quality, and that Tiger ruined this reputation singlehandedly.
considering what i've seen from both stuart ashems and the occasional phelous random thing... it was a weird situation all arround
Hey, you got some use out of it! Neat!
It only took like 20 years!
Oh baby, a triple past callout reference. Still fascinating to find these classic titles working at a time before the Famicom.
I find the resolution on the CV confusing. The giant pixels seen on most objects seems to indicate an extremely low resolution, however you occasionally see diagonals (like on the Pac character and the bases in the baseball game that clearly use much smaller pixels to achieve a cleaner diagonal line..?
I think there might be set of "objects" that can construct larger sprites, but they are probably very limited.
I love these weekend videos! Each one is like a bonus stage in your favorite game!
The Cassette Vision is super interesting, honestly. Feels like the precursor to some of the more modern clone "consoles.
Also respect for reppin' old Sleggar Law, very underrated character.
In my humble opinion, the best and most polished arcade games of the Golden era are Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, and possibly Dig Dug. All of these come from Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
The Namco lineage is wide.
The graphics on this console really remind me of the early cartridge handhelds, especially the Lynx, which similarly had 'blown up' graphics due to the low screen resolution.
Tangent : my god does the 2600 space invaders have a lot of game modes.
Three game types One player, Vs, and co-op.
The 2 player types have three diferent varients, one player only one, and all variants had 16 sub varients. 112 different ways to play in total.
All of this not from a menu, but a number system.
And thats nothing compared to Maze Craze.
Epochalypse Now.
Pak Pak Man takes its inspiration from KC Muncher……r-right?
It seems that in the pre-Famicom days, it wasn’t uncommon for LCD and VFD games to outclass their console counterparts.
The Internet consensus that LCD games don’t really count as video games (probably based solely on impressions of Tiger Electronics games) is just wrong.
The Cassette Vision graphics looks like the BBC Micro low res mode.
wow, that's amazing
What's old is old again, Baseball is Baseball.
But I will say it is an ingenious repackaging of the game.
Porting to different platforms really was more demanding in the early years. Nowadays you can make the graphics uglier, while then you had to drastically reimagine the whole game for it to run at all. It strikes me less of the remastering employed by large game developers and more the indie trend of demakes or adaptions (like taking a 3d game and making it 2d, or vice versa.)
Heiankyo Alien
LOL @ 2:17 !!
What was the purpose of all the days listed on the Epoch Man LCD? Did it have some form of clock or watch in it?
Yes, it was an ersatz Game & Watch.
Fuck Yeah Sleggar!
What are the red waves on Epoch Man's screen? Are they just decorative or do they have a gameplay purpose?
Those are the bridges I mentioned. You have to pass below them to complete the level since fruit is hidden under there.
I completely missed that part of the narration.
There was a lot of info packed into this one, it's understandable.
what anime was used in the intro
That's the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979, a really fantastic show. If you haven't seen it, it was made into a good movie trilogy (the first one is a bit rough but the second and third are legit good movies imo) that I'm pretty sure is available on Netflix
Epoch? Mizzurna Falls moment
Criticizing unintuitive linear movement controls? Vim fans are going to be upset!
3:31 What’s going on with the white invaders here? I see a smear to the right of blocks of pixels. I don’t think I’ve seen analog output do something like that.
4:04 charming use of the cassette vision’s ‘italic pixel’ to make up the flying saucer