NES Works Gaiden

Let's take a break from the world of Epoch to look at an even more forgotten corner of Japanese console history... and, in this case, rightly so. Educational product publisher Gakken really had no business releasing a console just a few months after the Famicom. And certainly not a console that amounted to a stripped-down Tandy CoCo. And absolutely not a console that looked and controlled like... THAT. But we're here to celebrate video game history, both the good ideas and the bad, and while Gakken's TV Boy falls indisputably into the "bad" column of the ledger, the weird little thing wasn't entirely without precedent. And exploring the shape of its short life and meager library helps put other also-rans like Epoch into perspective... and does a lot to explain why Nintendo and Sega emerged from the Japanese console explosion of the early ’80s as the sold survivors. Special thanks to Christa Lee for modding this TV Boy for composite output and allowing for fairly clean video capture.

Well, it's finally happened: Nintendo and Tengen have filed for divorce, in the form of a $100 million lawsuit. But, as it turns out, Nintendo gets to keep the kids. And by "kids" I mean "Tetris." A shame, too, because honestly Tetris turned out a lot better growing up with Tengen—an uglier child, but smarter. Nintendo's had the looks and the charisma, though, and ultimately that's the one people remember. Life isn't fair, but that's how it goes. In addition to exploring the illegal Tengen version of Tetris, this episode also spends some time with the OTHER version of Tetris for Nintendo's console: The Bullet Proof Software release that only shipped in Japan. When we look back on the NES era, it always feels like American kids got the short end of the stick while their peers in Japan got all the good stuff. Well, this is the exception. Tengen Tetris may offer a good argument for being a superior work to Nintendo's take on the game, but both stomp BPS Tetris into a muddy puddle.

Big thanks this episode to Seth Robinson (rtsoft.com) for helping me to secure a complete copy of the elusive Robotan Wars! Our second foray into the epic odyssey that is the Gakken TV Boy brings us three—three!—games in a single painful blow. Well, I guess not totally painful. Admittedly, I can't imagine anyone would actively seek out these three titles in the modern day and age unless they were doing something deranged like trying to cover the entirety of the Gakken TV Boy library in video form, but these cartridges do at least contain competently programmed code... which is more than you can say for many other carts we've look at here. Mr. Bomb puts an interesting (and ultimately hopeless) spin on Activision's Kaboom! (or maybe Atari's Avalanche?). Robotan Wars does its best to clone Robotron 2084 on wildly inadequate hardware. And finally, there's an actual licensed adaptation of Konami's Super Cobra that, for some bizarre reason, appears under a completely different title. Gakke

It's the final chapter of my Gakken TV Boy retrospective series, and now we can all move along with our lives, no better for the experience. You're welcome.

Hello! Want to learn more about Casio PV-1000 and other failed 1980s consoles in Japan? Check out my upcoming book, The NES Era Vol. I: Japan & the Road To NES, available exclusively via preorder at Limited Run Games: https://limitedrungames.com/collectio... The PV-1000 was another would-be competitor to Famicom that vanished nearly as soon as it entered the world. Of all the failed consoles to emerge from Japan in 1983, the disaster that was Casio's PV-1000 seems the most like a massive own-goal. Between Casio's engineering prowess and the impressive lineup of arcade hits their licensing team managed to land, the PV-1000 had all the makings of a hit—a console at least on par technologically with Sega's SG-1000, if not a wee smidge better. But it flamed out on the launch pad, for reasons I can only speculate about in this episode. But if you put aside the system's performance at retail and strictly focus on its software library, you end up with the most promising platform to have tak

Want to learn more about Super Cassette Vision and other failed 1980s consoles in Japan? Check out my upcoming book, The NES Era Vol. I: Japan & the Road To NES, available exclusively via preorder at Limited Run Games: https://limitedrungames.com/collectio... Welcome to the dawn of an entirely new platform. Following up on the Cassette Vision's brief but marvelously weird odyssey, we now have its successor: The more capable Super Cassette Vision, released as a direct competitor to Famicom and SG-1000. By far the most successful (or at least best-supported) of the failed Japanese platforms to follow in the wake of Nintendo and Sega's entrance into the console space, the Super Cassette Vision has enough material to power us through something like a dozen episodes. Although the Super Cassette Vision's design and library feel a lot more, well, normal than those of its predecessor, I'm sure there's going to be plenty of weird stuff to talk about regardless. The games in this episode don't

Atari 7800 is back! Learn more about it by preordering The NES Era Vol. II: NES and the Console Revolution, a comprehensive photographic atlas of every console game released for NES and its competitors—including the 7800—from October 1985 through December 1987. Take a deep dive into the prehistory of NES with this limited-edition oversized (12x12"!) photo book: https://limitedrungames.com/products/... As we wrap 1988 for Atari's flagship console of the NES era, the console finally gets its first third-party publisher. And it, uh, well, it certainly is a thing that existed. Froggo Games' Tank Command is not especially good, but you can kind of see what it was going for? There's potential here... unrealized potential, yes, but potential all the same. Meanwhile, Impossible Mission for 7800 doesn't need anyone to vouch for its bonafides—it was a top-tier Epyx computer classic converted to console in perfect form. Well... almost perfect. Aside from the game-locking bug that makes it imposs

Two more 7800 oddities from the tail end of 1988 with Water Ski, the second and final release from the benighted Froggo Games, and Super Skateboardin', the first 7800 title from Absolute Entertainment, the system's second third-party. That's a lot of numbers. Neither of these games is great by any definition, but at least both are very strange and interesting. And very much about appealing to late ’80s kids! Another strange thing about the 7800: It's proven very difficult to capture high-quality video for the system while also getting accurate sound. Older 7800 videos used FPGA solutions (Analogue Nt Mini and MiSTer) for source footage, and the audio sounded slightly out-of-tune; now that I've moved to real hardware with a GameDrive for RGB output, Super Skateboardin' lacks music but still plays its other sound effects correctly. Apologies for the flaws there—all of this is an inexact science.

Mutually assured destruction: The XE Game System / Missile Command

Concentrated classics: Bug Hunt / David's Midnight Magic / Lode Runner

Oh dear! It looks like the time has arrived for me to begin mixing some additional material into the NES Works/NES Era chronology. Yes, it's a brief sidebar on the Intellivision's short but actually pretty interesting post-Crash existence. If nothing else, the INTV days of Intellivision make for a crisp contrast to the Atari Corp. age of Atari—driven by a very different guiding principle and business strategy that kept an aging chunk of hardware alive well beyond the point that most people stopped caring about it, and which has given the Intellivision a meaningful place in video game history (in part by recording history).

A second INTV-era Intellivision video? How could you be so blessed?! No, but seriously, this episode is capped by the genuinely cool maze-action title Thunder Castle... and even the sports games are interesting thanks to their connection to Mattel's short-lived European branch. These carts really do feel like transitional pieces between two era, resetting the business while keeping the console... well, if not precisely ALIVE, then certainly present.