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CultureTotal RecallI Still Can’t Believe We Got Tony Hawk (And Jet Set Radio) On The Game Boy Advance, And They Ruled
These days we’re used to ports on weaker systems featuring a few trimmed edges, maybe some muddier textures, some longer loading times. Like, say, The Witcher 3 on Switch. But in the Game Boy Advance days, when games could get nowhere near GameCube (or even N64) visuals, ports had to get inventive. And few got…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 6, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallWind Waker’s Ending Was Incredibly Badass
My kids have started playing Wind Waker recently—for the record, my favourite game of all time—and it’s been a joy seeing them encounter everything for the first time. Gasping at Aryll’s abduction, laughing at the Killer Bees, screaming “this stealth level is the worst I hate it”. I wonder, though, what they’ll make of the…
By Luke Plunkett Published May 5, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallMickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Ghostbusters And A Tale Of Licensing Hell
We all know about games that have had individual licensing issues, and games that have been changed for different markets (hi, Super Mario Bros. 2), but the story of this old Kemco Roger Rabbit title, released on the NES in Japan, is something else. Stumbled upon and shared by the magical kitsune, this excellent video…
By Luke Plunkett Published April 22, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallWhen Konami Employees Got Complaints For Being Too Dirty
I’ve been readingthrough the new book Japansoft: An Oral History recently, and while it’s full of very cool and interesting stories about the earliest days of Japanese game development, there’s one story in particular that’s my favourite. The book is a prettier and more concise repackaging of John Szczepaniak’s excellent The Untold History of Japanese…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 16, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallYoshi’s Island Glitch Causes 25-Minute Pause
There’s nothing funnier to me than enormous bugs being discovered in very old games, and so we come today to this Yoshi’s Island misadventure shared by the ever-wonderful Supper Mario Broth, which when triggered will simply stop your game for, oh, 25 minutes. The bug was first documented online (I’m sure someone out there ran…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 9, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallThe Famicom’s Built-In Microphone Was Wonderfully Weird
There have always been slight regional differences between consoles, but when the Nintendo Entertainment System hit store shelves in the fall of 1985 it had been stripped of nearly all the form and charm of its Japanese counterpart. It was clear that Nintendo didn’t want the NES to be seen as a cheery “family computer,”…
By Ben Bertoli Published February 9, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallDeadstock 1986 Super Mario Bros. Slippers Are A Modern Masterpiece
Imagine, it’s 1986, you’re a grown-ass adult living in Japan and after a hard day’s salaryman/womanning you get home to your apartment, kick your shoes off at the door and slip on these beautiful babies. Now take that thought and throw it in the trash, because these slippers are so beautiful they deserved the treatment…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 28, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallRemembering The Witcher’s Terrible Phone Game, For Some Reason
The Witcher series has produced some pretty good games! Let’s not kid ourselves, though, and pretend every Witcher game has been an all-time great. Because that would mean you, like me, had forgotten all about The Witcher: Crimson Trail, released all the way back in 2007. It was a phone game developed by a third-party…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 19, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallPour One Out For A Lucasarts Millennium Falcon Simulator
Just in case you haven’t suffered enough anguish over the years/decades at the demise of quality LucasArts Star Wars games, let’s look back at a pitch for a game that sounded too good to be true, and so was promptly never made. Before we go any further, let’s be very clear: This was an idea,…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 7, 2020 -
CultureTotal RecallThere Was An F-Zero Novel, And Its Art Sure Was Something
In January of 1992, a novel—not a manga, a novel—was released in Japan based on F-Zero. And anyone used to how the series looked and felt on a console will notice it’s quite…different. With a title roughly translated to F-Zero: And Then, To The Gods Of Speed, these scans and info were all uploaded by…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 26, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallUnreleased Version Of Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Found After Surviving Development Hell
Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor have, with a little help, got hold of what must be one of the most interesting unreleased video games of all time: an early preview build of Sonic 3 that’s quite different from the Genesis game that was eventually released. As Hidden Palace remind us in their report of…
By Luke Plunkett Published November 17, 2019 -
CultureTotal Recall15 Years Later, November 2004 Might Still Be One Of The Best Months In Video Game History
Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2. A big game for sure, but it was just one of many huge and popular games that were all released in November 2004. Those weeks in late 2004 saw the release of World Of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, Metroid Prime 2, Metal Gear Solid 3…
By Zack Zwiezen Published November 16, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallWhy It Matters That Star Wars Jedi Knight Is Coming To Switch
2002’s Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and 2003’s Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy are coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. These games have been available through Steam and GOG, but plenty of players missed out back in the day. A whole new generation of Jedi will get to experience these…
By Heather Alexandra Published September 5, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallA Single Image That Helped Lead To Grand Theft Auto
Mike Dailly, of Lemmings and GTA fame, shared something very cool on Twitter over the weekend: an image he made in 1994 that, in a very direct way, led to the creation of the original Grand Theft Auto He also shared an animated version of the image created for an old talk, which you can…
By Luke Plunkett Published September 1, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallIncredibly Rare 1980s Konami Game Found, Uploaded
Of all the games ever made for the Famicom/NES, few are as rare as those produced for Konami’s QTa adapter, a special accessory that allowed Nintendo’s consoles to play cartridges made as part of a partnership between the publisher and Japanese media giant NHK. Only a handful of games were made, including an educational series…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 28, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallSega’s Logo Is A Different Color In Japan
File this under “things I had not even noticed let alone thought to ask”. Over the weekend, Japanese developer Yuichiro Kitao (I am Setsuna, Crystar) pondered on Twitter why some Sega games had different coloured logos than others. While this could have just been some idle observation, turns out he was onto something: Sega of…
By Luke Plunkett Published August 25, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallThat Time Nintendo Took the Game Boy (and Pokémon) Online
When it comes to online play and digital distribution, Nintendo always seem two steps behind its competitors. But things weren’t always like this, at least in Japan. Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s Nintendo actually brought both the Famicom and Super Famicom (known as the NES and SNES elsewhere) online via powerful console…
By Ben Bertoli Published August 25, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallIt’s Time To Bring Back Suikoden
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is full of political intrigue, massive wars, and multiple perspectives on the same conflict. As the narrative unfolds, I can’t help being reminded of one of the best JRPG series: the fantastic and long-absent Suikoden. Suikoden is a series owned by Konami. The first game was released in 1995 on the Sony…
By Heather Alexandra Published July 31, 2019 -
CultureTotal RecallSega’s Dreamcast Remembered By 8 Of Its Most Important Developers
2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Sega Dreamcast—hence the flashbacks!—and to mark the occasion, the team at Archipel, the same guys behind the excellent toco toco series, sat down for a talk with some of the most important developers to ever grace the console, from Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez) to Yoot Saito…
By Luke Plunkett Published July 7, 2019
