Embrace the Weirdness: In Defense of TMNT 1 on the NES

I feel like, as with many games released during the NES's lifetime, there have been these waves of popular opinion, thanks largely to the internet, where a game that was liked at the time is ripped apart, then everyone talks about how awful it is, then later on everyone kind of pulls back and realizes that maybe it's not that bad. The most extreme case of this happening was probably E.T. on Atari 2600, which at the time of its release I used to enjoy playing, but gradually it became known as the 'worst game of all-time'. Now I feel that people have backed off a bit and realized that there are far worse games, and that outside circumstances meant that it merely wasn't the game that was loftily envisioned by Howard Scott Warshaw at the time. I feel like the first game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has had a similar rollercoaster ride of sentiments, and I'm not sure where people usually fall now on whether it's good or not. I'm not sure if I can objectively say that it's one of the best TMNT games of all time, but it certainly still one of my favorites.

Read more →

The Guardian Legend Fansite

I just stumbled across this site today and thought it'd be fun to share. I've been slowly making my way through The Guardian Legend for NES. This is a game that I've heard the title of, I've seen the box art, but I had never played and had absolutely no idea what kind of game it was. It's been a fun surprise discovering this genre mashup of vertical shooter and blaster master style top down…

Read more →

Taking Game Boy Camera pictures has never been easier!

the website on a phone

The Game Boy Camera was a super underpowered camera add-on to the Game Boy that released in the late 90s. Even when the peripheral was new, the camera tech in it was very outdated, with all your pictures coming out in very low quality black and white pixelated images. And yet it was still awesome to play around with. The limitations also gave the photos a unique look to them, and you'll still find people playing around with Game Boy Cameras today.

Read more →

This Celeste/Mario mashup rom hack is pretty amazing!

I'm always on the lookout for an interesting new rom hack of a Super Mario title. Some of them give you new levels with some graphical changes and it makes it feel like you found some DLC for a classic game, while others make big changes like new powerups and abilities that make it seem like this could almost pass for a sequel that just never got released. Celeste Mario's Zap & Dash! is another category, in which so much as been changed that it's not even a sequel to Mario 1, it's an entirely different game!

Read more →

A Journey into Dreamland: Little Nemo on the NES

About a month ago I was introduced to the YouTube channel of Hungry Goriya, and I honestly don't know how I hadn't heard of them before (proof that the YouTube algorithm must be awful)! They had a video called 9 NES Favorites (So far), and the way she spoke of these games made me want to really try them for myself. Not try as in fire up the emulator and play for a few minutes and put them away kind of try, but really sit down and try to learn these games. Two of them on the list I had finished already, Kid Icarus and Darkwing Duck, and I'd only played a few of the others.

Read more →

Nintendo Power Reviews Issue 2

Welcome to the second Nintendo Power review. Looking through issue one was a lot of fun, but to be honest I've looked through that issue a ton of times. I'm kind of looking forward to the next few issued because I'm a lot less familiar with them. It's September/October 1988, the NES is the hottest thing around, so let's see what the pages of Nintendo Power had to tell us. Read along on Archive.org.

Read more →