Load New Week

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was pretty good. Did some shopping with the Mrs and I assembled our new exercise bike. Got some cool stuff as well! The new Ghostbusters movie is coming soon, and with it cool toys! The retro series is continuing with reissues of the original Fright Features figures. I found Venkman with Gruesome Twosome. I hope to find the other three without any trouble. Not to be outdone, Target also had new Fright Features figures from the new movie! Like Afterlife, Frozen Empire Fright Features figures are a more basic/core type figure with the ghost partner figure having the 'Fright Feature'. I picked up Trevor with Slimer. The ghosts this time are stretchy toys that have some GREAT sculpts. This is going to be a fun line. I ultimately missed a few of the Afterlife figures, here's hoping they pop back up with this new movie. Speaking of, never found the vintage Ecto-1 either. Dangit.

There's also a new series of Ghostbusters blind box toys out. The toys are a mixture of Mini Pufts and Slimer toys in a variety of poses. I got a sneaky Mini Puft and looking forward to more. Speaking of, the box is patterned after the containment unit. I also grabbed a Micro Galaxy Squadron blind box from the new series 4. Got a Clone Trooper with a Speeder Bike. I've really got to start covering those more here. I've got quite the armory of tiny Star Wars vehicles thanks to this line. As far as Transformers go, I picked up the Jada Bumblebee mini figure at Five Below. There's 3 more in the assortment, but all they had was BB. Not complaining about starting the series with a favorite. I've got the Energon Megatron and Tasmania Kid Core Class figures on the way allegedly arriving today. Really enjoying how Legacy United is shaping up. I'm very excited about Armorizers. Normally I've got posts scheduled out a few weeks in advance, but rushed out Magneous and Bouldercrash posts as I just want to swim in my love for rock robot toys. Hope you all enjoy content bombing!  

I've got a fun week of content coming this week. Thank you for supporting Zone Base. I've got 2024 in mind to be the best year for the site yet! There's going to be plenty of robots, monsters, and misadventure all year! 2024 is looking chock-full of the kind of stuff this site is all about (I've seen upcoming Halloween stuff, it's going to be great!). If you like what I'm doing, thanks! Please share the site and let's all have a great week! Mutual High Fives!

Generation MSX

This won't be the first time I've wistfully looked at MSX commercials on the site and wished I could have been one of those lucky kids to grow up with one. I'll even admit, the grass is usually greener on the other side of the fence. However, I don't think any amount of realistic thinking or applied rationale could make up for a lifetime of being in awe. Like I said before, thanks to older gaming magazines, there was something badass and punk rock about playing games on an MSX. I fully understand just how stupid that sounds now, but at the time that was the impression that I got because they made it sound just so hardcore. To be honest... I think I was right.

Daiva VI Opening Story

 

Daiva Story 6: Imperial of Nirsartia was added to the Switch Online NES channel a few weeks ago. It's pretty cool when they add random games like this. It gives me a chance to play them for the first time and experience something new that was released off my radar back in the day.  If you're wondering about the 6 in the title, this is the 6th game out of 7. The only one released to the Famicom as it was a home computer (MSX and others I think) series. To appeal to the younger players that the system would no doubt bring in, the game was simplified a bit from it's PC version. The series isn't an ongoing story, but the same galactic war story told from the perspective of other characters in the various parts. 

Game play is pretty fun, but not completely obvious when first starting. Instruction come in handy. You'll need to travel to different locations on a star map and take over them. You'll also need to protect your locations from invaders. Once entering one of these areas the game switches to a side scrolling shooter where you take command of a mobile suit. Progress through the area and defeat the boss to take control the area. At the beginning of this stage, there's a map with three different power ups (health refill, a bomb that kills everything on screen, and missiles to be fired repeatedly from off screen) to be placed where they'd come in handy on the fight. The computer roots of the series is very obvious here as the controls are pure 80's micro computer style. One fire button and push up to jump. That was hard to go back to after all this time.

The jumps can be a challenge as each planet has different gravity. Overall these areas aren't too difficult, but of course they gradually increase as you progress. Also during the star map area of the game, you may encounter other ships. Doing so will put your ship in a turn based battle with them. Daiva Story is pretty fun, but I do wish the game was translated so i could understand the story better. Holding up my phone to use camera translation doesn't always work like a charm and gets old fast. Regardless, it reminds me of those summer nights I'd stay up late playing Star Raiders or StarMaster on my Atari. Good times.

Psychic in a Psycho World.

 

Sometimes a great game will get swept under the rugs of history. Considering how many great games come and go without a sequel, that's not really a surprise. However sometimes the great game might have been seen at one time as something special, so when it doesn't get a sequel and or gets ignored by history... well, it's a little sad. Psycho/Psychic World is one of those games. In those older days of video game magazines, it was one of those games that was clearly one of the more cool ones to be into. Originally released as Psycho World for the MSX2, it was later ported to the Sega Master System and Game Gear as Psychic World. 

I've mentioned before how many game magazines made micro computers like the MSX2 seem like a whole different level of hip. That's probably got to do with the entire vibe. Games like Valis or the MSX2 versions of NES games often got that treatment. Psycho World was in that camp. The MSX2 version was a more robust game than the SEGA version for reasons I cannot understand. Those systems have pulled off some great conversions. I'm not a developer though, so what do I know? I've never played the original, only the SEGA ones, and I think those are pretty great. The SMS game definitely has more watered down graphics, however on Game Gear they were redrawn to fit the smaller display better. Personally, I think it's the better looking of the three.

The game takes place in the year 19XX. Dr Knavik and his twin sister assistants study ESP and it's uses. One day there was an explosion and Cecile had disappeared. Lucia, the remaining sister, is told that experiments with ESP had been performed on monsters. Those monsters now had rebelled and taken Cecile. Lucia is sent to rescue her and defeat the monsters armed with the ESP Booster, which gives her the ability to use psychic powers. Game play consists of action platforming with plenty of running and jumping. Those psychic powers are used as various weapons which are collected along the way. These weapons also serve as abilities to help Lucia get through each level's challenges. 

I've seen some random criticism that the game is a Megaman rip off. I've never felt that way personally, but the graphics are a little similar. The Game Gear version more so than the others. It's a game firmly of it's era without a doubt and the story is definitely from it's time. As a kid, it seemed much more serious than it does as an adult who rolls his eyes at the idea of an employee cleaning up her bosses mistakes. Regardless, it's still a fun game with a cool setting. Perhaps some of those memories of how much cooler those old game magazines would make it seem as compared to others are still lingering. You won't hear much about this game anymore, aside from various play through and the odd blogger (cough). That's a shame, it's pretty great.

We gonna rock on to MSX2

 

I'm sure that I've mentioned it before, but I felt like talking about it. The MSX seemed like one of the most badass things to me as a child. For the record, it's just a home computer. Micro Computers were all the rage back then and I'd often see them in various video game magazines. Of course not everyone had a computer at home back then and getting one was an uphill battle for me personally (that's for another post). Often, it wasn't until at school or the library that I'd use one. I had video game consoles though and my parents liked to support my reading. So I'd usually get whatever game magazine I'd pick out from the store whenever we'd go. This lead to discovering things like the MSX. 

There was something exotic about this computer system that was out of my reach. Other home computers like the Atari ST also had this allure for me. One gaming magazine that I'd read used cool gothy and punk imagery for their sections. For whatever reason, the computer section was given bloody fonts and crazy imagery. Don't ask me why. I wish I could remember the magazines name, but there was a ton during this time. It was a smaller publication that I only got at one grocery store, so who knows. Realistically this might account for some of my impressions that these Micro Computers were badass. These days I feel like tablets are a return to those old micros... and I have a pretty badass one.

Load Up A New Week On Zone Base!

It's Monday and that means another new week here on Planet Zone! I've got some great posts in mind that I hope you all enjoy. Thanks again for reading Zone Base and please share with your friends!

The Goonies Famicom/MSX

Zemmix MSX console

MSX seemed much more exotic that it was when I was a kid. A computer standard popular in Japan and other countries, MSX seemed like gaming wonderland thanks to games magazines of the time. Like other popular with gamers home computers of the time, there was console versions that could be converted into into full versions of said home computer. I guess it was really just a budget friendly way to slide into a system.

I kind of miss those days. Sure now I can grab a cheapo PC at Walmart for a few hundred dollars... or even a basic tablet for under a hundred and cover my basic home needs for a computer. Then it was the wild west and convincing Dad I wasn't just going to play games on it was... aside from the occasional school project I was just going to play games on it. But Dad, that occasional school project...