Weekly Walpurgis~ Wario in 3D

Walpurgis Night is a wonderful time for all things spooky, and seeing how Mario is on everybody's mind lately... Hey, know what rhymes with Mario? WARIO! Back before he was all burps and farts, Nintendo liked to sell Wario as something sinister as this commercial shows. The Virtual Boy had it's faults as YouTubers who never played one will tell you, but it had some good games and this was definitely one of them.

Sound The Red Alarm

Despite it's limitations, I was a pretty big fan of the Virtual Boy. It was the first time I bought a system at launch. Often rushing home after school to get some game time in before flipping burgers at McDonald's. I accepted the systems limitations going in, so they didn't bother me at all. It's something of a skill I've always possessed. You never see me complaining that the coffee is hot. It wasn't a virtual reality experience at all, but I really loved the 3D game worlds. 

Red Alarm was a space shooter game that was clearly inspired by Star Fox, but with wire frame graphics similar to Atari Star Wars. Once you got used to it, it could be quite immersive. With the Virtual Boy's unique controller and ability to generate 3D worlds inside that visor, setting the automatic break was a good idea. I could loose myself for hours flying around and shooting bad guys. That red on black display was pretty hard on the eyes, so definitely needed to look away every so often. I wonder if that's why the kid in the commercial gets beheaded?

Innsmouth no Yakata in 3D

One game perfect for the Halloween season is Innsmouth no Yakata, a first person horror game inspired by HP Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth (and possibly tied to a TV movie based on the book). The game was for the Virtual Boy and only released in Japan. Unfortunately so as I'd have been all over it at the time. 

For the record, if you don't like Virtual Boy games or non- shooter first person games, you're probably not going to like it. These old first person games were my cup of tea at the time however. Not to mention, I love the Virtual Boy. Whenever a horror game was released before Resident Evil, you could expect it to be a bit janky. That just kinda came with the territory. So, I probably wouldn't have minded any of it's issues that game reviewers have.

If Innsmouth no Yakata was a bigger hit on a more popular console, I could easily see the monsters popping up as keshi and sofubi. Official or indie. I could really see them gracing the cover of some weird fanzine or fanblog. Other than this one that is. It's hard for me not to love the look of 'horror' games in the 8 and 16-bit era. Sure, the VB was technically a 32 bit system... but just look at it. 

Strap those VR Headsets on!