Random Hoo Haasthe blog with the guff

Tales From Storage: The VCR Fandango

Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 11:03 am Comments Off on Tales From Storage: The VCR Fandango

I finally dragged myself across the finish line for Some Games I Played In 2022, and the one for last year is close to being done too. Did I ever mention that was published? It still needs some editing but you can read what’s done, if doing such a thing is something you would do.

The sprites section got updated, featuring stuff for Black Tiger, Block Legend DX, Brutal: Paws of Fury, Dino Quake, Escape Goat, HeroQuest, Looney Tunes Collector, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Neutopia 1 & 2, Rampage, Saint Seiya on PSP, Snow Bros., Trog, Wizorb, and a bunch of Bomberman games.
I think I might’ve made some minor tweaks to the sprite tutorial too? It’s due some updates to better explain some of my processes (and probably repair some links knowing ROMhacking.net is going offline shortly, oh no), but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In between fatigue and crises and other fun surprises, I’ve been trying to do some spring cleaning this year! Ostensibly in the hopes of making a push on all the guff I need to scan and get it out of the house (with the unspoken intent to probably sunset my scanning ambitions, because I’m too exhausted to keep up this line of work!), but just having less crap in the house doesn’t hurt either.

One of the things I uncovered was an NTSC VCR I’d imported from the States, and you better believe I wrote several thousand words tangentially related to that subject.
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BHB: Big Honkin’ Bombs

Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 7:17 pm Comments Off on BHB: Big Honkin’ Bombs

Updated with some Scans & Bits, including the last remaining chapters of Sly Cooper, the final episode of Mutant Turtles ’96, the missing episode of Crash Bandicoot Dance! Jump! Daibouken, a few more scraps of Dr. Mario-kun and Shogakukan’s Sonic the Hedgehog, and all but the intro of the short-lived Advance Wars manga.

Under the cut: waffling about the story of Bomberman games, and the one story that actually made a good impression on me. Riveting stuff, I know.
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It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad (Bomberman) World

Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 9:21 pm Comments Off on It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad (Bomberman) World

The Bomberman Shrine Place updated with coverage on Bomberman World, featuring a look at its quirky regional changes and smorgasbord of unused stuff, and also a translation of an interview from the Bomberman Maniax book. This game has been long, long overdue some coverage on the site, and it came about because I wanted to get into the ol’ map-making lark again. Nobody had made any for it yet!
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More talkin’ ’bout manga peeps won’t care about

Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 1:39 pm Comments (2)

I don’t want to make this a routine, but you might have guessed (because I’ve become incredibly predictable ever since I exchanged my personality for nerd-ass obsessions) I bought another Japanese gaming magazine for the sole Bomberman comic in it: the August 2007 issue of Fami2Comic.

It’s kind of interesting comparing this to the Dengeki Nintendo I also acquired for the same silly reason; despite being an offshoot of Famitsu, the hot shot magazine whose reviews were taken as gospel for years until people realised, huh, they sure do like bribes, don’t they, Fami2Comic feels like the definition of “second-stringer”. You look at that other blog post and the games its manga were based off, and there wasn’t a game there that wasn’t some manner of international success. Fossil Fighters probably ranked higher than Bomberman during that period in terms of awareness and popularity! (during that comic’s run there was only ONE Bomberman game on shelves… in Japan, Europe and Australia only. welp!) There are four years between the two issues, mind – Dengeki’s lineup might’ve been trash when this one came out for all I know.
I thought it’d be amusing to do another quick looksie at the manga Fami2Comic has to offer, and it’s probably the only spotlight they’ll be getting on the English internet anytime soon, so why the heck not.
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Talkin’ ’bout manga peeps don’t know about

Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 2:25 pm Comments (1)

I’ve been buying an obscene amount of crap from Japan the past few months. Most of it is “research material” (Bomberman books, natch), but I also pick up toys, manga, magazines and other doodads; whatever I can get away with saying “it’s for the website, honest!”
Some of the most interesting buys are magazines, if just for the sheer variety of content in them. I may have bought four issues of Gamest just for the prototype Metal Slug coverage in them, but they’re full of great arcade games I’ve never even seen before. Likewise, I picked up an 1986 edition of CoroCoro Comic just for the rare City Connection manga in it, but there’s stacks of bizarre crap in it like old toy ads, Famicom Rocky, and an short-lived manga that’s never been collected anywhere else, Solar Dog Zero (太陽犬ゼロ). I’ve been sliiiightly tempted to track down the rest of it, but I’m juggling enough foolish endeavours as it is. (a Bomberman website, really?!?)

One of my current focuses is trying to track down all the Bomberman manga, seven of which have never been collected into volumes of any sort, so I have to track them down in the original anthologies or magazines. I picked up an issue of Dengeki Nintendo DS recently (which you’ll probably know the name of if you’re in the Pokémon scene, it’s usually plundered for screens and reveals when a new game is announced) just for the Bomberman story in it, but I was surprised by the number of game-related mangas inside, most of them I’d never even known of before! Full-page A4-sized manga, too!
I thought I’d look them up and see how many are catalogued or even recognised on English fansites. Doing so only made me angry. There’s nada! Not a blip of information on most of ’em! It’s like they don’t even exist! (which is a bit understandable when only one of them got a collected edition) So just for a larf, I want to spotlight the manga in Dengeki Nintendo DS’ March 2011 issue and take note of what coverage they have online.

Hoshi no Kirby: Pupupu Hero
星のカービィプププヒーロー

A cheery bit of light-hearted Kirby fluff; in this story, Kirby teams up with Mr. Frosty against Dedede in a downhill bobsleigh race, though Lololo and Lalala block their path with an icecube maze. Kirby also makes these horrible kissy lips whenever he sucks stuff up and I hate it.
This ran from January 2008 to May 2013 [src], before reviving in Dengeki Bazooka!! as Hoshi no Kirby: Ultra Star Deluxe (星のカービィ ウルトラスーパーデラックス) for a run lasting October 2014 to April 2016. [src] It was also lucky enough to get its complete Dengeki Nintendo run collected in two volumes, though good luck finding them!

Kirby fansites have barely acknowledged this – Kirbytraum has a button for it but no link or info yet – though given how there’s eleventy-billion manga out there I can’t blame them. However, @hitotsunoneko‘s fansite Masked Knight steals the show – not only has it got scans of ten of the stories, it even has fan-translations for the first seven! This is a really good start for online recognition, but it’s gonna go downhill from here.
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ONM Remembered – #431

Thursday, November 24, 2016 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #431

“● Surreal levels ● Bizarre heroes ● Tonnes of challenge”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 69 (June 1998)
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ONM Remembered – #413

Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #413

“Bomberman Plays With A PlayStation”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 66 (March 1998)

ONM Remembered – Never Reached The Shelves Week, day 5

Friday, August 23, 2013 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – Never Reached The Shelves Week, day 5

“The characters and set-pieces you encounter are so adult-orientated that we can’t explain many of them without being banished to the top shelf of your local newsie.”

from N64 Magazine issue 41 (May 2000)
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ONM Remembered – #129

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:00 am Comments (1)

“5 TOP NINTENDO SWEETS”

from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 64 (January 1998)
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ONM Remembered – #97

Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #97

“LIGHT THE FUSE AND STAND WELL BACK!”

from N64 Pro issue 4 (February 1998)
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