Messages

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: What's gonna be the 50,000th Map in VGMaps History?

« on: November 21, 2024, 08:44:05 pm »

The table on Genesis page has shifted in two places - between The Lost Vikings Maps and Lunar: Eternal Blue Maps and after 'M' letter

I remember seeing something strange about that.  For some reason I wasn't able to fix it then, so I put it aside.

I looked at it again just now, and I think I fixed it.

Thanks for pointing out site oddities.

I noticed earlier this year that the maps for Excitebike didn't have the file sizes for the maps - for 17 years!

I'd like to think I do a good job of filling in details, but if that got missed for as long as it has, I wonder what other errors or omissions there might still be.

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Map Gab / Re: Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

« on: November 16, 2024, 09:29:45 am »

And, with Bubsy's "Purrfect Collection" coming up, what better time to do it than that before its launch?

Funny you should mention that... there is actually a related reason why I looked into these Bubsy maps... 

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: November 11, 2024, 04:17:09 pm »

I've requested a BUNCH of NES games, and zagato blackfist has mapped out no less than two dozen of them!  Thank you!

The latest two map sets, submitted and uploaded today, are interesting in specific ways.

First, there's Gauntlet II.  The main reason I wanted this mapped is because it's one of the games featured in Nintendo Power magazine's Volume 19 - the "4-Player Extra" Strategy Guide issue - as one of the games that can take advantage of the NES Satellite and NES Four Score.  That kind of counts it as a Nintendo Power cover game - and I have a whole topic about those.  To see what I have to say about Gauntlet II, see this post specifically.

(Maybe not fully related, but on the topic of Gauntlet, when I worked at Playdium in West Edmonton Mall over twenty years ago, I really enjoyed Gauntlet Legends.  Even though another arcade in the mall had Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, the point is that I could play Gauntlet Legends for free with my benefits.  It's one of those games that lets you save your progress by inputting initials and a PIN.  I managed to build up all four main characters to the maximum level and stats.  Good times.)

The other game that zagato blackfist submitted today is Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland (Homebrew), a game that was released earlier this year for the PC and modern consoles.  It has gameplay very much like Super Mario Bros. 2, and has two different modes - one with a high-res, modern look, and one with a NES look.  And it literally is a NES game, as the ROM is available in the folder if you buy the Steam version on PC.  (Though the game was given for free on the Epic Games Store the week that it was released, that copy did not come with the NES ROM.  I don't know if that has since changed for anyone buying it there now.)  You can put that on a flash cartridge to play on an actual NES, or anything else that plays NES ROMs, which is why it's listed as a NES game.

Like Grimace's Birthday, a 2023 browser game that was technically a Game Boy Color ROM (also mapped by zagato), I wasn't sure whether to call this "unlicensed", "aftermarket", or "homebrew".

They're not licensed by Nintendo for play on Nintendo platforms, but they are considered official products by McDonald's/Nickelodeon, so they feel more "legitimate" than the "unlicensed" term typically feels to me.  I thought I had used the term "aftermarket" before for something, but I might be mistaken as I can't find that term on the main "Directory" page, and I didn't feel like introducing another term, which I might not be using correctly anyway.  "Homebrew" sounds like a small team made it, maybe one person, maybe just a handful.  Even if that was still the case, the backing of McDonald's/Nickelodeon kind of makes it... not really homebrew?

But in the end that last term was the least problematic, so I changed Grimace's Birthday from "(Unlicensed)" to "(Homebrew)" and applied "(Homebrew)" to Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland.  If anyone has any better ideas regarding its classification, feel free to let me know.

This is probably the first time I have requested a NES game that isn't an officially licensed one (at least not by Nintendo), so thank you for indulging me, zagato.

And thanks yet again for all the work that you do for VGMaps.com!

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Map Requests / Re: Nintendo Power - 1988-1996 cover games

« on: November 11, 2024, 03:35:38 pm »

After almost 21 months of inactivity (unless I've missed something), we have more progress on games featured on Nintendo Power covers!

Today, zagato blackfist has submitted maps for Gauntlet II on the NES!

Now, this is kind of iffy in terms of being a Nintendo Power cover.  I had this listed under Volume 19, which was one of the four Nintendo Power "Strategy Guide" issues they put in 1990 as they were transitioning from bimonthly (as in, once every two months) to monthly.  Unlike most other Nintendo Power covers which headline with the name of one specific game, this issue is titled "4-Player Extra", to promote the NES Satellite and NES Four Score, which are adaptors to allow for up to four players to play NES games, instead of the usual two.

The cover image is clearly about NES Play Action Football, but with its title being "4-Player Extra", I figured that for this to count, we should have maps of all the main features in this issue.  So here's the final one of six!

zagato blackfist shared some notes which might explain why this took so long for anyone to attempt to map it.  The Levels after the first five are randomized, plus, they can be rotated or flipped.  There is seemingly no "true" order of them.  He states, "the only function of this map set is to show people what this game looks like."  So, I take that to mean, barring some unlikely coincidence, your playthrough won't follow these maps exactly.  The effort put into this is appreciated, zagato!  And certainly more so with you having to deal with that randomness!

Besides 1990's cover games being completed, all the games featured on NES-related covers are now mapped!

Now the earliest incomplete game is Super Star Wars (November 1992) and the earliest game we have nothing from is Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (October 1993).  Kind of surprised the Super Star Wars games don't have more love.  May the Force be with whoever tries to map those!

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Map Gab / Re: Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

« on: November 11, 2024, 01:12:47 pm »

Okay, the maps are now up here.

Thanks, beltran63!

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Map Gab / Re: Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind

« on: November 11, 2024, 10:16:19 am »

I got a hold of beltran63 via email!

Though he had intended to add items and enemies and water effects, he has not been able to make the time to do so, and at this point, will not do anything more with them.  The landscapes/layouts for all stages are complete, so they still could be of some use.

He is fine with me publishing them as they are, so I will do that soon.


"What could possibly go wrong?"(as said three times within the first minute of the pilot episode of his cartoon...)

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Maps Of The Month / 2024/11: Magical Quest 3: Starring Mickey & Donald (J) (Super NES) - Will Mallia

« on: October 31, 2024, 09:27:40 pm »

Magical Quest 3: Starring Mickey & Donald (J)

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Will Mallia's Magical Quest 3: Starring Mickey & Donald (J) (Super NES) maps.

After pranking their uncle Donald, the triplets, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, hide from him in the attic.  While there, they discover a magical book, which is the gateway to Storybook Land.  The evil King Pete kidnaps the trio and plans to also conquer the "outside world".  The Fairy Guardian of Storybook Land teleports Mickey and Donald there to save its inhabitants from tyranny and to rescue the ducklings.  And so begins another 16-bit Disney adventure!

Playing very much like The Magical Quest: Starring Mickey Mouse and The Great Circus Mystery: Starring Mickey & Minnie (later known as Magical Quest 2: Starring Mickey & Minnie in its GBA rerelease), our heroes venture through a handful of stages of platforming action, with jumping, block-throwing, and utilizing outfits that grant helpful abilities.  But this time around, these skills differ between the characters.  For example, with the knight outfit, Mickey dons heavy metal armour and a lance with a boxing glove, but Donald wears a buoyant wooden barrel and swings a hammer.  So the experience varies, depending on who your favourite Disney character is.

Capcom's Disney games in the 8-bit and 16-bit days are examples of licensed games that are actually good.  While there's always the expectation of using character recognition to drive sales, other developers might try to get away with just putting out a game of subpar quality because they know they'll sell some regardless.  But Capcom, already a big name with a reputation for quality games, maintains that by making polished games, regardless of if the intellectual property is their own or licensed from someone else.

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this bright and cheery animated adventure, Will Mallia's Magical Quest 3: Starring Mickey & Donald (J) (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for November 2024.

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: October 30, 2024, 09:43:00 am »

I'm generally not as interested in aftermarket/homebrew NES games when there are still many official games not yet mapped.  And this particular topic is about my personal requests, of which zagato blackfist has recently been doing a lot of heavy lifting by considering them and mapping them, which is why it comes up a lot when I thank him for each one.  There are not many NES games remaining on my list as of now.  This could change, as I'm sure it wouldn't take much for me to skim through all the NES games and pick out some things of interest I may have forgotten about and then add them to my list, but I'd like to see this batch done before I even consider doing that.  Some of the NES games I had requested I felt were already a bit of a stretch for me to think anyone was even interested.

That's not to say I'm entirely immune to the charms of some new NES games.  I did recently add "Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland" to my list; this is a game that was released this September (just last month).  It can be played with a modern look and an NES look.  But it's not just aesthetics, it really is a NES ROM under the hood!  On PC, on the Epic Games store, they actually gave away the game for free the first week that it was out, which is crazy!  But, at least at the time, no NES ROM is included in the Epic Games version.  But if you get the Steam version, the NES ROM file is in the game's folder, which can be played on any NES emulator or flash cart.  I've got it on my recent-ish purchase of an Anbernic RG35XX SP:



And literally just a couple nights ago I got the last of four endings in the PC game "Beyond Shadowgate", which is now also on my request list.  It's a true sequel to the NES classic, not to be confused with "Beyond Shadowgate" on the Turbo Grafx CD, which was meant to be a sequel but whoever got the rights changed it from its original version.  This newer one is the version intended by the original creators.  While not technically a NES game, the interface is pretty much the same.  The window where the action takes place is still 112 x 112 pixels.  While the original game's resolution is 256 x 224 (as are all NES games), this one is 400 x 225.  The extra pixel of height making it 225 pixels means that it's a multiple of 9 pixels, hence, it has a 16:9 ratio for modern displays.  The extra width is for some background specific to the area (sort of like a Super Game Boy border), or the hotkeys on the left and the mini-map on the right, but otherwise certainly feels like a NES game.



But you see, I'm interested in Rugrats: Adventures In Gameland because the coexisting modern/NES styles is neat (I'm not even a Rugrats fan at all), and I'm interested in Beyond Shadowgate because it's a modern sequel to a NES game and retains its aesthetics and gameplay (though mouse control is nice).  I'm not throwing shade at any other NES games being made these days, it's just that if they don't have an interesting hook to make it worth my time, when I have an 8-bit craving, I'd rather be playing classic NES games that I still haven't gotten around to.  Yes, even I haven't played every NES game... (I'll get around to Battle Of Olympus, Magic Of Scheherazade, and Rygar one day, really!)  There's been discussion before about how realistic it would be to see every official NES game mapped, which shows mappers are generally more interested in prioritizing that over newer games.

(You mentioned the homebrew NES game "Böbl", which has been mapped here.)

And has been suggested many times before, specifically to you, Cyartog959, if you love these new NES games so much, or other games on other platforms you've mentioned, and really want to see maps of them, you could map them yourself...  As I've said, it would be nice to see you at least try, but (disappointingly) you never actually seem to consider it.  If you have the desire for them, put some drive into it.  As in actually making them, instead of just expecting others to do so.

Cyartog959, I appreciate that you are passionate about maps, and discussion is a good thing, but consider making a different thread for your own requests or if you feel you have lots to say about a particular topic (like NES homebrew/aftermarket games).  This one is about my personal requests, which is admittedly self-serving, but that's what this one is.  My requests I think are generally reasonable and skew towards popular games, if you're wondering why these are steadily getting done.

We can continue this discussion in another thread, and good luck with your own mapping endeavours, if you do get into it.  I'm sure there are many people that can help you here on these forums if you need assistance.

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: October 29, 2024, 10:02:17 pm »

Though appreciated as always, it's hardly a surprise that zagato blackfist smashes another NES request!  The Incredible Crash Dummies I know is an unusual request, but there we have it.

There are a number of different platforms with The Incredible Crash Dummies games; some are similar and some are different.  The NES one, as far as I know, is unique.  I could have sworn that the Game Boy one was similar, but upon checking the screenshots on MobyGames, it's not.  But the Game Boy game is similar to the Game Gear and Master System ones.  And the Super NES and Genesis ones look like each other.  And the Amiga one looks like the one for the 16-bit consoles but with different backgrounds for some reason.  It's kind of confusing.

Speaking of confusing, The Incredible Crash Dummies is featured in Nintendo Power, Volume 48 for May 1993.  Its feature is right before Super Turrican for the NES, which did not end up getting a North American release.  When The Incredible Crash Dummies is summarized in the "Now Playing" section at the end of the issue, it's erroneously titled "The Incredible Crash Test Dummies".  That's right, the "Test" shouldn't be in there, at least in this context for the brand of the toys and media at the time.

I wasn't big on action figures as a kid (unless you count Transformers?), and I was probably of the age when I should grow out of them, but for whatever reason, I recall my brother and I having a handful of these toys.  I don't recall what the appeal was for us, but there we go.  I'm pretty sure we had Spin, Daryl, Spare Tire, Skid The Kid, and one of the vehicles, though I'm not 100% sure which one.  I think it was one of the bikes, as I never did get one of the cars, which is odd.

Didn't expect to be going down memory lane when it comes to the toys.  But, anyway, remember to wear your seatbelt.  (The YouTube animator "TheOdd1sOut" says something to that effect at the end of many of his videos, doesn't he?)

Thanks again, zagato!  Not many NES games remaining of my own personal requests...

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Map Gab / Re: Sega Genesis Mini - full map set

« on: October 19, 2024, 09:11:06 pm »

Though this has been considered done for a while, there have been some fixes and improvements to the maps of Monster World IV (J)!  They were actually submitted a few days ago but I finally put them up today (I was on a trip, sorry about the wait).  Thanks again, Cleeem, George s, and ScHlAuChi!

The Sega Genesis Mini 2 - full map set request topic doesn't seem to be doing as well, though...

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: October 08, 2024, 07:34:31 pm »

zagato blackfist is takes down another NES request!  Well, actually, it's a Famicom one: Power Blazer (J).

I wanted maps to be able to compare with the Western version, Power Blade, but it's really so different that I really wonder if they should be considered variants of the same thing or as two separate games.

(Both versions of the sequel, Power Blade II / Captain Saver (J), actually are the same, other than the language and the title.  Since the Japanese audience wasn't familiar with "Power Blade", Taito came up with the new name of "Captain Saver".)

Thanks again as always, zagato!

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2015/10: Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (PSX) - Revned

« on: October 02, 2024, 05:06:01 pm »

Time does indeed fly.

I was alerted to the fact that today is the game's 27th birthday (at least when considering its North American PlayStation release date).

Kind of crazy that a third of that ago (9 years) was when this was honoured for the Maps Of The Month.  But, as you said, Revned, and corroborated by the file dates, you sent in the maps of the Inverted Castle (or, I put them up) on November 15, 2014, almost a year before that.  So we're soon coming up on the 10-year anniversary of your completed Symphony Of The Night maps!  And it was cool that other people were able to help out a bit on the first castle.

I still tell people that the FULL map (of both castles together) is my favourite map on all of VGMaps.com.  You've really done something here that hasn't been topped.

I really wish that, since Konami recently released the Castlevania Dominus Collection (bundling and rereleasing the DS games) on the Switch (and other platforms), it seems like Konami is intent on rereleasing so many Castlevania games on the Switch - except this one.  So I know many Nintendo-only gamers that have missed out.  I keep telling them that I recently replayed this on my phone - it's for dirt cheap on both Android and iOS, and EVERYONE has a smartphone... so there's really no reason to miss out (assuming they have a Bluetooth controller compatible with their phone).  Maybe I'm overestimating the number of people willing to play it on their phone, but come on...  Konami should take the hint (assuming that their Advance Collection and Dominus Collection sell well enough) to release the game that put the "-vania" in Metroidvania to an audience that would be receptive to it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say happy 27th birthday to this awesome game.  Revned's hardly around anymore, but if you read this - thanks again!

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Maps Of The Month / 2024/10: Sweet Home (J) (NES) - zagato blackfist

« on: September 30, 2024, 09:30:26 pm »

Sweet Home (J)

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to zagato blackfist's Sweet Home (J) (NES) maps.

Hoping to recover some valuable paintings, five filmmakers explore an old mansion owned by a famous artist.  They soon find themselves trapped, as the ghost of a mysterious woman threatens to eliminate all trespassers.  Will you be able to solve the mystery of the Mamiya mansion and escape with all five characters alive?

"Sweet Home" is based on, and developed alongside, the horror film of the same name, though the game is generally considered the better of the two.  This Japanese Famicom exclusive horror RPG is a landmark video game, paving the way for survival horror.  It would be the inspiration for Resident Evil, also by Capcom.

zagato blackfist has carefully mapped out the twisted and dangerous mansion in great detail.  Its over 100 doors are labelled, and its many items are described.  To get the best ending, you'll need as many of your team alive as possible by the end, and referring to zagato's efforts here might be your best bet!

So to recognize the effort put into mapping this influential horror game, zagato blackfist's Sweet Home (J) (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for October 2024.

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VGMaps Social Board / Re: YouTube channel! (JonLeung1)

« on: September 29, 2024, 08:54:02 am »

Today's the 28th birthday of the Nintendo 64 (at least by its North American release date), so I whipped this Short up real quick.

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Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests

« on: September 26, 2024, 09:50:16 pm »

zagato blackfist is really whittling down my NES/Famicom requests!  We've got Captain Skyhawk and Transformers: Convoy no Nazo (J).

I've always though Captain Skyhawk's unique look was intriguing, with that sort of isometric thing looking on.  Also, he looks like a typical pilot in a typical fighter jet, yet... he can go into space?

And of course, I've always been a Transformers fan.  Though "Convoy no Nazo", starring Ultra Magnus, isn't that good...  I still appreciate the maps, don't get me wrong!  But gameplay-wise, it leaves a lot to be desired!  This is a Japanese Famicom exclusive - I've always wondered why no Transformers game came out for the NES.  After all, both Nintendo and Transformers were very popular and had their peak from the mid-80s and into the next decade.  It seems like it would have been a perfect match.  Ah, well.

Thanks again for coming through, zagato!