Remember when Konami was Cool?

When Konami was cool

Unlike today where Konami is recognized as the foil to Hideo Kojima’s “Folk Hero”. There was once a time where Konami was considered cool and innovative,

And part of that time, was in the good old 90’s.

Today I’m going to be taking a look back at 1991 specifically for two very different games, on two very different platforms.

Sunset Riders for the Arcade, and Super Castlevania for the Super Fiacom/Nintendo.

Now in order for me to explain what makes Sunset Riders so great; we need to go back one year, to 1990.

Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninjas Turtles beat ‘em up was enjoying overwhelming success. The staff at Konami soon discovered

That: it was not only the fact that the game was from one of the most popular IP at the time, keeping their machines fat with quarters

But, also the simultaneous gameplay for to 4 players. This being the 90’s, everyone knew the only place to get really good multiplayer was the arcade, and Konami saw this as

An opportunity to start making more multiplayer/co-op arcade games. 

Fast forward back to 1991 and Sunset Riders is released. Directed by Hideyuki Tsujimoto and published by Konami.

Set in the Wild West as a “Run n Gun” (not to be confused with shoot em up. Think Contra, not Galaga.), Sunset Riders features 4 playable bounty hunters: Steve, Billy, Bob, and Cormano. Each of the 4 characters is assigned to one of the control spots at the arcade machine and feature slightly different weapons.

Steve and Billy use revolvers, Bob a rifle, and Cormano a shotgun.

Characters are controlled with 8 way joysticks, a shoot button, and a jump button. Basic, but hey it worked for Contra.

Unlike contra the game featured a slide dodge mechanic rather than laying prone to avoid enemy gunfire.

At the beginning of each stage the players are shown a wanted poster of the stage’s boss showing their bounty value.

The players move through the multi-tiered, side scrolling levels making their way to the boss. The player who deals the most damage against the boss receives bonus points.

There’s plenty of cool power ups like a sheriff star that gives you full auto, or one that grants you a second gun allowing for multi directional fire. There’s even two stages on horseback.

Although the game didn't do anything revolutionary for the genre it was still fun and brings back great memories.

Super Castlevania IV

Unlike Sunset Riders, Castlevania is a series with a storied past and a fantastic legacy. One of the fan favorites of that legacy is Super Castlevania IV.

Directed by Masahiro Ueno, Produced by Kazumi Kitaue, and developed by Konami for the Super Nintendo/Fiacom video game system.

Masahiro Ueno who was the lead programmer was making his first ever 16 bit game. He loved the pure action of the original Castlevania  and wanted to make something similar to it.

This resulted in what was actually a soft remake of the original for NES.

The game puts you back in the boots of Simon in 1691 Transylvania, on his quest to slay Dracula. A lot has changed this time around though especially when it comes to Simon’s arsenal. Among many of the improvements to the actual gameplay:

·     The ability to swing the whip in all 8 directions of the d pad

·     Holding the attack button results in a multi-hit spin attack that also block enemy projectiles. (a staple in the future games.

·     Simon’s whip can also latch on to grappling points to swing across large gaps too wide to jump.

·     Simon can move while crouching

·     The length and attack power of the whip can be increased twice by finding two different upgrades.
          

All of these improvements came to fruition during the development process. Its thanks Masahiro Ueno commitment to making the game less frustrating for players when compared to its 1987 original.

Because the team was so small during the development process; there was a lot of cross pollination that happened between artists and programmers when it came to creating the maps.

Early bosses in the game were also designed to be more user friendly by being easier, and having discoverable weak points that could be exploited with the secondary weapons. Further more difficult bosses were made with detailed attack patterns. Neither of these were possible on the NES original either.

Since its initial release, to this day, Super Castlevania IV is still praised for perfecting the classic formula; and that’s a very good thing.

If it wasn't for Super Castlevania IV, the BEST Castlevania game ever would probably would have never been made.

But that’s a story for a different time.

Image Credits

www.vizzed.com

www.chapleofresonance.com

en.wikipedia.org

http://www.telebunny.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/G10-SuperCastlevaniaIV

1987, the greatest year of video game franchises.

Now of course this opinion is a little biased; being born in 1987 myself, however some of the world’s most iconic and contemporary franchises did in fact make their first appearance in 1987.

Some of the franchises you may be familiar with are as follows.

·         Metal Gear

·         Street Fighter

·         Mega Man

·         Final Fantasy

·         Double Dragon

Some of these franchises were very revolutionary in inventing entirely new genres out of necessity.

Metal Gear 

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (the 11^th Title in the franchise) released recently to commercial and critical success, but perfection needs to start somewhere; and that place is 1987.

Hideo Kojima; one of the greatest game designers in the world, created Metal Gear for the MSX2 home computer in Japan while working at Konami. Although Metal Gear was originally intended to be

A modern military action game, the hardware limitations of the MSX2 only allowed to process a limited number of bullets and enemies on screen at a time. Kojima felt that this impeded

The combat and flow of action.

To get around this, Kojima; inspired by the World War II film “The Great Escape”, altered the game to be based around evading enemy capture. And thus, the stealth action genre is born.

The player controls Solid Snake, a rookie in the Foxhound Special Forces unit. He is sent to the eastern pacific fortress called Outer Heaven to rescue his missing squad mate and investigate a weapon Called Metal Gear.

When a player enters a room it is comprised of a single screen, being patrolled by several guards. The player must use the environment and patrol patterns of the guards to sneak past them. If a player is spotted by a guard in the Screen they currently occupy, one exclamation appears over their head. The player must now fight them or escape to one of the other screens. If two exclamation points appear (either by not using a suppressor while killing someone,

or being spotted on camera/via infra-red sensors), the enemy solider has set off an alarm, and all the in the stage are on alert. Snake must now defeat all the enemy soldiers, or escape through an elevator.  

Regular Grunts weren't the only type of enemy the player encounters, there are also several boss enemies peppered throughout the game. 

Although a trend setter in many ways, multiple bosses and an inventory system were a popular staple in games of that era, and are still used today.

We can only be certain that the next game Kojima creates will also be a trendsetter.

Street Fighter

Street Fighter V is only 6 days away!  This legendary fighting game franchise is finally getting its “come upins” as an e-sport. However, the first game is a far cry from what is about to be released next week on the PlayStation 4 and PC.

Produced and directed by Takashi Nishiyama, and planned by Hiroshi Matsudo. Both would leave Capcom after the initial release of the First Street Fighter to go work for SNK, where they created some of the other popular fighting game franchises

Such as Fatal-Fury and Art of Fighting.

The player begins the game as Ryu; A Japanese martial artist, he’s competing in an international martial arts to prove his strength. Player 2 takes control of Ryu’s Training partner Ken. The Characters are only pallet swap,

Everything else about them is the same.

 

In single player mode, the player must defeat 10 different opponents from 5 different countries in 1 v.s. 1 matches. When starting, the player can choose which country they begin in. You must now use Ryu to defeat two fighters from that country

Before being able to move on to the next country in the tournament. After defeating the first 8 opponents, the player heads to Thailand where the final 2 opponents wait.

The player uses an 8 way directional joystick, and 6 attack type buttons to fight: 3 punching buttons Light, Medium, Hard, and 3 kicking buttons Light, Medium and Hard. 

The player was able to move forward, back, jump and crouch during combat,

And was even able to execute special attacks when entering a specific sequence of directional queues and attack button inputs. 

Street Fighter was a trend setter when it came to not only special moves, but the ability to block, and jump in a fighting game. Street fighter was also the fighting game to set the

Standard 6 button layout, however this was only after Capcom decided to do away with their pressure sensitive attack button lay out (also a first).

The arcade game initially released in two different versions:

·         The Regular Version: table top in Japan, Upright in America, 6 button.

·         The Deluxe Cabinet: two pressure sensitive pads that measure the speed and strength input for light medium and hard.

Design is king when it comes to the success of a franchise and the 6 button layout is not only the standard for Street Fighter (even 5 coming out next week) but all fighting games. The 6 button layout also led to the development of the Home “Fight Stick” and “Fight Pad”.

I can’t wait to get mine next week.

 Image Credits
www.hardcoregaming101.net

www.metalgearinformer.com

http://store.madcatz.com/categories/fightsticks-category/Street-Fighter-5-FightPad-PRO-for-PS4-PS3.html

www.pixlbit.com