📉𝙇𝙤𝙬-𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮 📈𝙃𝙞𝙜𝙝-𝙍𝙚𝙨

The Sound Test option shows our protagonist, a cool girl with a short green top and denim shorts and also green gloves and knee pads, looking like a member of the roster of a fighting game. She's just arrived at Las Vegas (population 12, a dingy post-apocalyptic little town) while driving her silver pickup truck with a logo saying "CASINO QUEEN" with some cards on the side. The Sound Test option currently plays the track "KISS THE HACKER" which is hacking your emotions with smooth jazz.

Our hero finds the hidden entrance to the casino in this dusty old town of Las Vegas, pushing the steel door and finding a genuine castle inside full of ways to steal money from you.

A lady in a sexy dark purple swimming suit with bunny ears welcomes you to the Baccarat table, looking kinda sad and confused as she sees you randomly throwing stuff around and loosing all of your money without even asking how the game is played.

A polished steel background with giant black letters spelling out "DATT JAPAN", which is a perfect description of this game. One little tidbit though is that this company also later developed the photo editing game/software for the Nintendo 64 called Mario no Photopi. How about that!

Virtual Casino (Saturn) (1996)

2/2

Playing a Seven-Card Stud Poker, I kept raising for $100 after each card (I think that's how it's played) and got to this state of affairs at the moment... I think I'll be fine? I mean I got a pair of sixes, right? The best part of playing poker in this game is the chill jazz and a woman's soft voice whispering sweet nothings to my ear, stuff like "one pair", "two pair", "three of a kind", "you win", "you loose" as if they're just random lyrics to this freeform jazz.

I threw a few blue tokens randomly on the roulette, but as soon as I saw it spin I just left the table. It was making me dizzy.

I was really hoping the slots would be 3D as well but they really went cheap with it and left it 2D. Hey, at least there's an adorable little hamster drawing in there and that's enough.

I tested my luck on the Blackjack table and have been constantly doubling down and didn't notice the numbers have been going into the minus. The screen displays the word "INSURANCE?" with a Yes/No choice. I guess there goes my insurance money!

Virtual Casino (Saturn) (1996)

1/2

I've known about the game (and the previous original on 32X) but I've never played it before and I was honestly blown away at how well it holds up, how good the controls are and the production values and cinematic feel of the whole thing. I'll definitely play through it now!

A close up shot of the gang made out of three blue Feather-I Type As as they're preparing to jump, leaving green swooshes and circles and sonic boom shockwaves in space because they're cool like that.

Visiting an asteroid field that's used as the harvesting station for all the Accel Gates, shooting down the harvester ships and destroying their four engines aligned in a plus-shape in beautiful chunky explosions.

A closeup of the red Feather-I Type B ship carried by the Kite support craft, a special two-seater and has an additional turret, enabling two players to play together, one flying the ship while the other manning the weapons.

A sweet distant shot of your ship just flying by and destroying large frigates like it's no big deal, doing drive bys and flying through the inferno that ensues.

Stellar Assault SS (Saturn) (1998)

4/4

A cockpit view at a large purple enemy ship, looking kinda like a sci-fi key, accompanied by a few smaller alien fighters as they're all about to be rained upon with rockets and lasers and cool anime shit.

Your squadron is being supported in the nick of time by a green Feather-III, carrying a giant rocket payload, unleashing it at the asteroid that's currently being flung at our dear ol' Earth with the hopes of destroying it into a thousand pieces.

On the other side, the red Feather-I Type B approaching the Accel Gate for a fierce and devastating attack, trying to destroy the gravitational weapon once and for all.

The payload manages to destroy the asteroid but creates a new problem! Hundreds of large asteroid chunks are still on a collision course to Earth so you need to play a good ol' game of Asteroids and destroy all the pieces until there's nothing large enough to not burn in our atmosphere.

Stellar Assault SS (Saturn) (1998)

3/4

Your ship being loaded onto the Kite support craft as you're preparing to disembark from your mothership. Did I mention this game is cool as all heck?

Doing a hyperjump to your next destination within the confines of our solar system, with space becoming light gray and completely covered in white and gray speed lines swooshing and rotating all around you while your wingmen are cracking jokes and trying to stay cool.

Not a lot of time for joking and japing as the enemy fleet is ganging on you as you're flying towards the blinding sun, unleashing a swarm of seeking missiles about to blow up a little alien ship.

A cool behind-the-ship view action shot of your blue Feather-I Type A furiously descending into an enemy frigate, a purple arrowhead-shaped ship with two spikes in front, shooting one of the spikes as it flashes and is about to explode. Another cool thing about this game is that you can gradually destroy bits and pieces of larger enemy ships and structures, with end spikes like these being the weakest and easiest to destroy.

Stellar Assault SS (Saturn) (1998)

2/4

The Earth fleet with a giant gray battleship that looks like an upside-down aircraft carrier with two smaller blue frigates, vigilantly defending our home planet from an unknown alien invader that keeps reappearing every two years with stronger and more advanced tech, so this time we managed to track their fleet in our solar system and are preparing for a recon mission. I should add that this game renders in a smaller, wide-screen window so I've cropped the images accordingly. Also, this game rules, is incredibly cool and controls surprisingly well, and also there's an English patch that includes full English voice acting (which is really well done) because there's A LOT of chatter in this game.

A cool hero shot of our fighter wing, the Feather-I Type A, a blue and gray fighter ship with neon-blue sharp wings on the sides and top and bottom, flying through an explosion after blowing up a purple enemy ship.

A giant alien structure, basically a ring with four red spikes going outward, like a sideways crown, commonly knows as an Accel Gate, which uses gravitational force to sling entire asteroids at Earth as a cheap but effective weapon, with the giant rock being equipped with additional nodes to adjust the trajectory.

A first person cockpit view of the Feather-I Type B (indicated by the red HUD), currently being held by the Kite support craft (its red nose poking out at the top of the screen), a slender carrier vehicle capable of high speeds, hyperjumps and reconnaissance sensors. You're following your wing of two additional Feathers and are currently briefed on the mission at hand.

Stellar Assault SS (Saturn) (1998)

1/4

A cute little low-poly rat from Metal Gear Solid (PS1).

An adorable little rat from Street Fighter EX2 Plus (PS1).

An awesome long ratso from Nightmare Creatures (PS1).

I wish I knew how to make a game but I've taken some screenshots of low-poly rats over the previous months so maybe it can serve as an additional inspiration because I wholeheartedly support this endeavor!

Creating more diversions to divert from the previous diversions by shooting down enemy helicopters over some snowy mountains and bringing some warmth to the unwelcoming icy landscape.

One of the final missions bring you again closer to home, tasking you to "DESTROY CRACK HOUSES" in a possibly South American urban area. The twist is that you're fighting video game piracy.

You track down the house of one x!xB0N3RM4ST3R420x!x who bragged on Xbox Live chat one day that he's "modding" Xbox360 consoles so you unleash like a dozen rockets and blow up his house and half the neighborhood.

The final mission, a flight above the clouds, gunning down weather balloons and flying through an orgy of airplanes and helicopters, a fever dream of your own making as you battle it out to leave the best chopper standing. There can be only one!

Black Dawn (PS1) (1996)

3/3

Turns out, the hostages you needed to save were the entire floor of Pierce & Pierce, Mergers and Acquisitions from the business card scene in American Psycho. You contemplate unleashing your machinegun at them...

Another mission in the cold snowy mountains with big orange letters saying "CREATE DIVERSION", so obviously you unload the entire Norwegian Olympic skiing team right in the middle of enemy territory.

An aerial view of your chopper just blowing up some enemy radars and helicopters in the middle of Central Park with the rest of the city looming in the distance beyond a thick gray fog.

Flying suuuuper low under the radar, just over a wide jungle river, your mission being the recovery of Corporate HQ's missing GoPro cameras they just littered all over the untouched wilderness.

Black Dawn (PS1) (1996)

2/3

You're a part of a covert Black Ops organization that fights terrorism and saves lives with a helicopter, so naturally your first order of business is to blow up some cop cars.

A hacked but cool over the shoulder (over the tail?) view of your chopper, raining down some rockets at some towers that are just standing there on a snowy island, shooting molten balls of lava at you, so naturally your report will say it was self defense.

An unhacked third person chase view (the game has a bunch of predefined cameras) of your chopper just raining down hell in a handbasket, blowing up tanks in a desert at night, lighting up the surrounding area with the massive explosions and making all the enemy helicopters scramble in disarray.

Your itchy trigger finger kinda went too far as you were taking off, shooting down what looks like a white civilian Cessna. Listen, it was flying just over your covert HQ tent.

Black Dawn (PS1) (1996)

1/3

The game's got a couple of unlockable characters, one of them being the infmaous Oda Nobunaga, wearing his green shirt over only one shoulder, exposing his right arm (and nipple) to our collective delight while swinging his spear above Cao Cao's head who narrowly avoids the swing by tilting his head sideways and snapping his neck in the process.

Two fierce warriors, Zhao Yun and Zhou Yu clanging their weapons together as Zhou Yu does a sort of a fencing stance with his hind leg propped up, ready to do a poking strike.

An interesting mechanic in the game is that both opponents can strike an attack at the same time, unleashing a cascading clash of combo clangs, emitting a blinding flash from the colliding weapons. However the even more blinding flash is the flashing of Sun Shang Xiang's bare bottom, dizzying the baldy Dian Wei.

Another one of the unlockable characters is a big (yet chibi) Toukichi aka Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the peasant-samurai who was once Nobunaga's sandal holder that managed to rise through the ranks and after his master's death take his place and finish the unification of Japan, here hilariously depicted as a huge chibi Japanese lord with a big head and fully untextured polygons aside from his angry cartoonish eyes.

Dynasty Warriors (PS1) (1997)

4/4

The eternally loyal and courageous Guan Yu in his full green dress and headband with his mighty pointy beard and mustache, flailing his Crescent Glaive and doing a graceful green swoosh, slicing Zhao Yun with fearsome precision.

The burly Xu Zhu about to swing his giant lollipop weapon at Zhang Fei, looking him straight in the eyes like "you're about to be in a world of pain, buster".

The Phoenix Palace is the stage of battle between Zhang Fei and the sly Chancellor of the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao himself, who is doing a crouching sword stab while his opponent dodges and tries to poke him from above with his spear, both missing their targets and unintentionally creating an accidental renaissance painting.

Your boy Lu Bu, the mightiest warrior of his time, a tall and imposing fellow and the final boss of the game, sporting a glorious red armor and white pants while swinging his Ji haldberd with a crescent blade on the shap side, this time deciding to use the dull wooden end to bonk Zhang Fei in his nuts, creating an electrifying explosion and possibly popping Zhang Fei's family jewels.

Dynasty Warriors (PS1) (1997)

3/4

Zhou Yu, the "gallant and noble warrior with an imposing fighting style", wearing a cool white outfit with awesome golden boots, doing a classic wuxia flying twirling attack above Zhao Yun's head, waving his Ancestral Sword with a golden swoosh and completely missing his opponent. Looks cool as hell though.

Taishi Ci, a "hot-blooded but old-fashioned warrior", wearing a cool traditional Chinese soldier uniform with white and black armor and red trims and details, wielding two "Steel Tusks", metal batons that seem to be emitting electricity, looking like modern shock batons, electrifying Xiahou Dun and sending him flying while shining a red glow between the fighters.

Bald weirdo Dian Wei, "nicknamed "Evil Comes," he was the fiercest general in Cao Cao's army", abstains from using his massive battle axe, instead lunging his face into fair Diao Chan's pelvic girdle, doing whatever pervy thing he's got on his mind.

A beautiful sunset lake with the even more beautiful Sun Shang Xiang, wearing a pretty pink outfit while wielding a sharp sword,doing a one leg stand while pointing said sword right at Dian Wei's face, taunting him and preparing for a stab.

Dynasty Warriors (PS1) (1997)

2/4

Zhao Yun, one of the Five Tiger Generals and often the brave hero protagonist of many Three Kingdoms legends, flailing his Spear of Shadow around, making beautiful dark blue swooshes and hitting the eye-patch wearing Xiahou Dun who is barely blocking the swooshes with the curved blade of his Sword of Spectrum. Xiahou Dun's ingame description tells the story of loosing his eye: "After an arrow pierced his left eye in battle, he gouged the yeball and swallowed it shouting, "How could I lose a gift from my parents?!"" What a badass.

A beautiful lake with a couple of towers, surrounded by a colorful forest sets the stage for the battle between the young Lu Xun who is wearing a lovely purple outfit with many dragons on it and a similarly lovely purple hat, trying to defend himself with his dual Phantom Swords from the attacks of Diao Chan, the beautiful court dancer with her long puffy trousers, flailing her maracas (Enchanted Maces) with great efficiency.

A blood red sky filled with the flames and smoke from the distant battle (looks like it might be The Battle of Chibi or "Battle of the Red Cliffs", which is also the subtitle and setting of Capcom's brawler Tenchi wo Kurau 2: Sekiheki no Tatakai aka Warriors of Fate) while two fighters are poking each other with sharp objects. The poker this time is Zhang Fei, the fierce, burly warrior with mighty eyebrows and even mightier mustache, wearing a red hat and pants and poking with his wavy Cobra spear blade at Lu Xun, successfully trimming his sideburns with great precision.

Lu Xun standing on some grassy patch near a beautiful blue lake, looking dumbfounded and holding his blades in a cross fashion as if to repel evil Christian spirits, the reason being the rotund Xu Zhu, Cao Cao's bodyguard and a warrior of amazing strength and stamina who was also known as courageous but simple-minded and lethargic, earning the nickname "Slow Tiger" or "Tiger Fool", is bouncing on his giant lollipop-looking weapon (basically a ball on a stick) and using it as a pogo stick.

Dynasty Warriors (PS1) (1997)

1/4

Happy Birthday! 🎉🎂

Just a bonus image of the character select screen with Jill & Rats because those rats are weird and quirky and adorable!

Vatlva (Saturn) (1996)

4/4

Just the most massive mess of fire and explosions, including the famous explosion from that Pyromania CD used in like every video game ever.

A tropical beach with the orange tractor and gray tank comically hiding behind two palm trees on each end, using them as cover while exchanging fire.

A sort of sci-fi generator slash oil rig platform looking arena with a central cylindrical hole with some pipes leading to a central generator with the customary red glass eye (to let you know it's destructible) and a mess of vehicles creating green warping effects and explosions and I've no idea what's going on but it looks great and even better in motion.

The snowy arena being devastated by a huge explosions, burning down the trees and it's just mayhem and destruction and won't anyone think of the rats!

Vatlva (Saturn) (1996)

3/4

Two RC-Car looking vehicles chasing each other around an oil rig flame stack, responsibly shooting explosives and dropping bombs around it in a safe and considerate manner.

The tank and pink hover jet just exploding the track and field to bits while an orange tractor looking vehicle is just waiting behind a yellow sidelines structure, not really wanting to get involved in this heated internet argument.

The airfield landing strips getting pulverized with a big explosion and a blue destructive shockwave radiating from its center while the battling bozos aren't even flinching and continue to shoot at each other as the sky is turning red.

A beautiful snowy wonderland with two landmasses floating over a blue gradient chasm of non-existence, connected only by a flimsy looking stone bridge while a blue car and a pink jet are fighting each other. If you look closely, you'll see a pack of four rats running around on their hind feet, looking all pixely and adorable! One of the many funny details in this game is that if your vehicle is destroyed, your pilots are still there and you can run around with them, getting run over and bonked around. So yeah, one of the pilots is a pack of rats!

Vatlva (Saturn) (1996)

2/4

Vatlva is a curious and beautiful arcade game developed by Ancient (Yūzō Koshiro's game dev company, the man famous for the Streets of Rage 2 OST and the devs of the Beyond Oasis games amongst other stuff) about colorful characters piloting all sorts of vehicles, tanks and mechs and battling it out on wonderful top-down viewed arenas, with up to six players on screen at the same time! It's hard to see or take screenshots of this game because the action is so frantic and the camera zooms in and out often so the actual pre-rendered vehicles are hard to see amongst all the fireworks and explosions, this time set on a few intersected landing strips and there's even a rocket just waiting there to be blown up!

A less conventional arena, this time a track and field track with a huge gray tank and a little pink aerodynamic jet with a huge cannon on top, duking it out and exchanging rocket fire while absolutely wrecking this year's budget for the Olympic Committee.

The pre-rendered character select screen with a green rocky field and a nuclear blast in the background. The select cursor is currently hovering over the gray tank, piloted by Cosmo & Gomes, two weirdos wearing red berets with a little skull emblem on them. Cosmo is a thin, ghoulish looking dude with long white hair, resting his hand on his friend's head while the chubby round Gomes is licking a green lollipop with his eyes wide open and looking like he's about to murder that candy.

A nice tiny tropical island with a lot of beach and palm trees is being wrecked by a blue car, an orange tractor, a white quadrupedal spider bot a gray tank that's just sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the dust to settle to swoop in and take all the glory.

Vatlva (Saturn) (1996)

1/4

Thank you! 🙌

Thank you so much! Yeah I had a nice time and had some cake (with lots more to spare 👀) so it's pretty good! 💖

Thank you and happy birthday to you! 💖

Oh I assure you my knowledge of the game's lore is minimal to negative at best 😅

Hi personal promotion man here, it's my birthday so I'm doing a little stream, feel free to hop in but don't have to but anyway hey!

Thanks!
It's always a treat for me to hear that people enjoy my ramblings 😅

Indeed it is! Which makes him stand out even more when the other enemies in the game are pixel art drawn, like that vampire lord guy.

Jumbling Jim being startled by a tiny little green kobold that's only slightly more green than the rest of the ground so it isn't surprising that Jim didn't notice him, so he grabs his sword and starts swinging wildly.

Jim, all dressed up in a nice metal armor with a shield and sword in hand, at the gates of the vampire's mansion with a sign saying something to the effect of "you'll die if you go inside".

However, there's just some annoying bats, a nice grandfather clock and three shiny chrome full suits of armor with spears and shields, looking like they'll come alive at any moment. Jim looks like he just pooped his pants, possibly because he did.

Turns out ol' vampire guy is a freaky pervert that likes to flash his visitors, currently doing just that by spreading his arms in a T-pose and showing off his glowing boobs and dingle dongle, the glowing orb of light almost blinding Jim who's trying to cover his eyes with his shield. The health damage was significant but the mental damage - devastating.

Virtual Hydlide (Saturn) (1995)

4/4

Jimmy Jams strolling the wild countryside, full of dirt, shrubs and grass, covered in a mystical mist and some mountains rising in the distance. Turns out one of the trees is a bit more lively and likes to run around, showing its sharp teeth and delights in munching on unsuspecting bumbling oafs, like Jim here.

Jimmy looking around left and right as if to cross a busy street (there's no street, and also it's a medieval magical land so no cars either) because he saw a circle of upright monolithic stones surrounded by peculiar red plants and in the center, a glowing pink crystal, serving as a teleportation point between other such crystals, probably existing in a quantum entangled superposition and some such. When not teleporting, the pink crystal can be found at its house and serving as a shopkeep for his daily job. Even quantum pink crystals need to eat you know!

Jim just being excited to run through an ancient thick forest. Often times this game can look really nice in a chunky, gritty kind of way.

Mr. Jim rummaging through the vampire's private coffers, going through every room and trying to find some gold amongst all the underpants with little pink bats on them.

Virtual Hydlide (Saturn) (1995)

3/4

Jimmy boy running around the graveyard, swinging his puny dagger and somehow managing to explode a zombie, with all of its yellow gunk and entrails gushing out of its newly created orifices.

Jim Jam inside the vampire's mansion, inside a fancy room with huge indoor windows that look out into the hallway and a glass orb on a pedestal. It's not the best view in the mansion but it'll do.

Jim stumbling into a peculiar ordered formation of trees, neatly growing side by side in several straight rows and hearing a jingly sound originating from one of the trees. Could this be...

It is! It's a fairy! I neglected to mention that Jim is on a quest to defeat the evil demon Varalys who coincidentally turned the princess Ann into three fairies, which honestly scientists still haven't even begun to investigate what magically separating your consciousness into three separate entities does to your psyche. I'm sure the princess will be fine.

Virtual Hydlide (Saturn) (1995)

2/4