Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Evil Desires of Dr. Sparkle




Sadly, warlock powers are missing from Platoon.










Air Man has bizarre taste in exterior decoration.






Guevara/Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare rather obviously features Fidel Castro.


Pro Yakyuu? Satsujin Jiken!




Roller Ball








Shoukoushi Ceddie



Moero!! Pro Soccer/Goal!


Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium '88

This game seems strangely familar.


Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu



Tarot Uranai




Anonymous said...

Woah woah woah, a new episode already?! What's the world coming to?

Downloading ASAP. This is not something I had expected!

Alysandher said...

My my, this popped up pretty quickly. Your effort's expedience enthuses me.

Cornervizion said...

Happy 40th Episode Doctor Sparkle! I'll be downloading this shortly.

Discoalucard said...

Hey, isn't that baseball game the one that the Capcom guys were developing as their "day job" before devoting the rest of their waking hours to Mega Man 2? Was always curious about that. Looking forward to watching this!

xerxes said...

Oh yes, the weird BPS Tetris! Its backward-ass control scheme is (in my imagination) the Elektronika 60 original.

For the record, I saw the Matrix the day it came out, and LOVED IT. I thought it was a spoof of some kind. Only later did I understand why the goateed fellows two rows behind me were so disturbed by my laughter.

Raffa said...

As usual, happy, happy, happy, joy, joy, joy!!! Thanks Dr. Sparkle.
Maybe its time to relax now for a few days, we wouldn't want you to have a NES breakdown ^_^

360 Trooper said...

Oh Jesus, a game based on Legend of Galactic Heroes. You know, I liked the anime for the story, but it's about as action-packed as watching someone else play Stratego.

Samael said...

Akira is only famous in America because it was proof that animation for adults could compete on a technical level with Disney. The story suffers from being a chopped up recap of the manga - it's designed mostly to appeal to people who already read it.

Further wrecking it for American audiences is the translation, which could best be compared to throwing the script into Babelfish, and then adjusting the results until you could fool humans into thinking the movie was designed for them.

By the way, freezing time works great on the giant lasers in Mega Man 2.

Anonymous said...

Release out of nowhere! Awesome! New Chrontendo is always wonderful. Congratulations on 40 episodes, you're closing in on *two days* worth of content here (if you include Chronsega and Chronturbo, well over that!)

Teal said...

Not gonna lie, I giggled every time you discussed "Fireman"'s stage in Mega Man 2.

(the zippo lighter dude is Heat Man)

Doctor Sparkle said...

DA - Yes, Mega Man's developers were apparently working on Pro Yakyuu... simultaneously with Mega Man 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiji_Inafune

As for "Fire Man," this is what happens when you get old. The first thing to go is the memory. Fire Man has a nice parallelism with Air Man, I guess.

Christopher M. Sobieniak said...

Nice to see a new episode out before my 34th birthday!

Dr. Sparkle said...

Well, it might be worth doing so. The Matrix of course combed it's inspiration from Megazone 23 pt. 1 otherwise, but whatever.

Samael said

If anything, it did at least gave anime appreciation a slight boost in this country.


And yet, some of us love that ol' dubbed version we first saw back then. The Pioneer one is OK, but not my cup 'o tea.

matt.mcneely said...

Another great episode. I especially enjoyed the break down of the controls for Skate or Die with the diagrams perfectly conveying the frustration you encountered.

I have to say I was a big fan of Akira in my youth. I haven't seen it since I was about 16 years old, so I suspect I might find it a bit convoluted and insane these days. Still, I think it features some creative and excellent art, animation, and a distinctive and cool sounding score. You can't take that away from it.

By the way, the green blocks in Super Sprint were, as far as I can tell, supposed to be bushes.

matt.mcneely said...

I just stumbled upon this. I wonder if the artist was inspired by your recent completion of 1988?


Doctor Sparkle said...

Matt - regarding the 1988 illustration, I suppose it's possible. Though it looks like he and I have some disagreements over the release year of WWF Wrestlemania and X-men. Wrestlemania will be appearing in Ep. 41, by the way. Now there's a thought to brighten everyone's day!

kendra said...

Another fun episode!
Since you are coming up to 1989 do you think you might have room at some point to mention one of my Ultimate Famicom Objects Of Lust - the Famicom Titler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Titler
It was released in 1989.
So sexy! So expensive!

qaylIS said...

Oh guys, bashing on Akira, how can you...I just recently saw the movie first time in English, and it still holded up very well imho, though I have seen hundreds of anime while I last saw it (in the far superior german version). That reminded me of a professor I once heard, whos first sentence was that she thought Tarantinos Pulp Fiction is extremely overrated (I saw that too a week ago...it still is a great movie).
Of course this is all subjective, I too heard some people liking Apocalypse Zero or Baldr Force EXE Resolution, which I hated with a great flaming ball of contempt.

Anonymous said...

Another great episode! I wish we lived in a world where someone was paying you to do this, and you could up the output to an episode a week. God...that would rock.

Dan Koch said...

Platoon. Egad, what a disaster. I had that for the C64, but the NES version is somehow WORSE. Like many C64 games (and the NES derivatives they spawned), the best part of that game is the opening screen and music -- haunting and evocative. The trouble only begins once you press the Start button.

It's been about four years since I last saw Akira. The plot itself is impossible to follow, but the animation is still gorgeous, and the inscrutability of the storyline provides a sense of alienation that meshes well with the hypnotic cyberpunk horror of the visuals. Just shut off the cerebral cortex and soak in the images -- analytical thinking will definitely not help your enjoyment.

Thanks for doing this, by the way! I admire the relentlessness and thoroughness with which you've pursued this whole ordeal -- it's an inspiration!

qaylIS said...

I think the narrative in the movie Akira (I haven't read the manga...) is not as bad as most people say. Okay, the first time you see it you're pretty stranded. But when you let some time pass, and discuss it with other peaople, and then see it again, I would say it is a pretty rewarding experience. Not every movie, or story per se, has to unfold completely after the first watching, sometimes you need some time so sort out what message is in it, and what you can take from it for yourself.
But before I start rambling about todays cinema and movies, lets just say: The american live action version which they are doing right now, will suck, believe me. I don't have much hope left in american cinema...

Safe Online Games said...

Your site is good...The kids are interested to play this game..

Safe online games

マタイ・ファーナム said...

finally caught up from your first post, haha.

Your Japanese pronunciation seems to have improved; did you do some studying or something?

it is peculiar; meaning, i steam-rolled through your posts in a month or so. posts that spanned years.

now i must wait for your episodes, for the first time. ha.

Excellent episode, Sir. keep em coming.

elblanco said...

Love it!

It's been a while since a Chronturbo! Had to get my fix here.


Doctor Sparkle said...

I wouldn't say that I have I have been studying up on Japanese, but I am trying a bit harder. My pronunciation is a bit jacked up. On the other hand, my English, French and German pronunciation isn't so great, either.

Weird about the JP spelling of Ocarina. I guess Nintendo didn't care or thought the standard English pronunciation would confuse folks. How often do anyone use the word ocarina, anyway? Probably only when referring to that game.

xerxes said...

I can't believe the way I pronounce "ocarina' is correct (if not official?). Jeremy Parish convinced me otherwise through sheer repetition.

What's weirder is when a nonsense word gets different pronunciations in different countries. Like "Xevious."

PDT said...


It's not Fidel Castro, it's Ernesto "Che" Guevara (hence, the title).


Doctor Sparkle said...

PDT - So you think that is supposed to be Che, not Castro? To me, the facial features don't resemble either of them that much, but the short hair on top makes it look more like Castro. We almost always see Che depicted with longer hair. I'm not sure what to think now.