AdrianVG

Sine Mora March 18, 2012 Things you may like if you like Sine Mora: BLACK KNIGHT SWORD. The developers of Sine Mora consider this a "sister game", as the development of the two projects commenced at the same time and they were heavily inspired by its fantastic progress and crazy ideas from month to month. Directed by GhM veteran Ren Yamazaki, Black Knight Sword is a strange, surreal action-platformer with classic roots - actually, the biggest influence behind it was Daimakaimura (Ghouls'n Ghosts). Black Knight Sword will be released this summer - check its Official Facebook page for news and updates!

Thinking about how Sine Mora and Black Knight Sword were considered "sister games" by the developers Grasshopper Manufacture and Digital Reality, and how that nugget of information was only ever shared on the now-defunct Sine Mora Facebook page, as far as I can tell.

Though I'm not very interested in actually playing it, seeing the occasional screenshot and video on my feed, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is the first time I've seen an HD-2D game that didn't immediately feel like an assault on my eyes.

Google with AI buttons

Google without AI buttons

I made a filterlist for uBlock Origin to remove Generative AI features on websites. Includes blocks for
* Google AI Summaries
* YouTube Ask button & chat summaries
* GitHub Copilot
* Facebook AI chat
* X's Grok buttons
* Deviantart DreamUp
* Booru AI images
* And more

github.com/Stevoisiak/S...

YouTube video by RV08 Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes - Bad Girl 8-Bit Music

www.youtube.com/watch?v=96uO...

Another movie I have to check out one day. (www.gamesradar.com/51-things-yo...)

No More Heroes creator Suda 51 praised the game’s unique save method, in which Ico and Yorda have to sit on a stone couch together to save the game. Suda stated that this was his inspiration for saving on the toilet in No More Heroes. “Isn’t the sofa special? It’s soft and comfy, and when two people sit there it saves. In the days when auto-save was still a luxury, I considered [Ueda] my rival for creating such a stylish save point. “I decided to create a new save point that would be as good as the sofa, so I joined the ranks of chair-based save game designers like Ueda-san with the toilet save. One day I’d like to borrow a sofa save too, so if you ever want to use a toilet save, don’t hesitate to ask.”

I learned quite literally mid-stream that ICO's save point inspired the save point in No More Heroes. Fascinating! (www.videogameschronicle.com/news/top-gam...)

Italian DS FSR box (front).

Italian DS FSR box inside (with manual and cartridge).

Italian DS FSR open manual.

Italian DS FSR box and manual (front and back).

Here is my Italian DS copy of Flower, Sun, and Rain that arrived at the end of August. I was worried that it might have become a victim of the recent international shipping mess when the last expected delivery date came and went, but it fortunately arrived the next day. Whew...

YouTube video by Daedron12 Bayonetta 2 - Battle OST 2 - Tomorrow Is Mine (Bayonetta 2 Theme)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_hC...

Adding them back into a new remaster with the title "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat: Now Featuring Characters From The Hit Series Donkey Kong"

Tapping the sign so much from seeing people still misleadingly associate Suda 51/GHM with these projects that I may as well be bleeding from my hand.

YouTube video by BBC John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine – BBC Proms 2014

youtu.be/5LoUm_r7It8?...

Suda has brought up revisiting Michigan on several occasions. Here's an interview from 2009, for instance. Obviously, nothing concrete has happened yet, but at the very least, Suda is rather consistent about the game. www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platfor...

It's actually one of my favorite GCN games, though even a decade ago, I knew it was a pretty clean break from the rest of the series. I also refuse to acknowledge the Wii version since it looks like they thinned it down to a more "regular" platformer.

COCKTAIL 51 ON THE ROCKS Themed restaurants, and especially themed bars, are legion in Japan. The bars are heavily concentrated in the "Golden Gai," a neighborhood in Shinjuku, Tokyo, that is particularly busy at night. Streets loaded with bars can be seen in the animated series City Hunter, or in the video game Ryu ga Gotoku, sold in the West under the name Yakuza. These influences on popular culture are certainly known to Kei Sekine, a columnist, along with SUDA51, on the Japanese website 4gamer since 2012. They both talk about film (which is Kei Sekine's background) and TV series. Kei Sekine is also the owner of an establishment well-loved by SUDA51, and one that inspired No More Heroes: the "Plastic Model Bar."

It was in 2004, one year after the bar's opening, that the two men met. Sekine remembers the genesis of the reference to his establishment in the game No More Heroes: "I suppose that at the beginning, when Suda-san imagined the city of Santa Destroy, he wanted to include a busy neighborhood, with bars and restaurants, like you find in big cities. The design of Santa Destroy was inspired by the American megalopolises, and maybe he found it funny to include a Japanese bar. He definitely said: 'Why not put something that I know well, that's simpler!' So one day I received a phone call from a Grasshopper employee, who told me, 'We would like to be able to use the name of your bar in our next game... is that okay with you?' It was as simple as that!"

One thing led to another, fiction and reality found themselves intertwined yet again. This time, the alchemy took the form of a cocktail... whose name would be Gôichi Suda. Sekine recounts: "I ended up creating a cocktail for him: the 51! It was only him who drank it, and I must say that it was not particularly complex. It was based on gin, with oolong tea, and I added a few drops of angostura. Angostura is a bitter and very strong seasoning, that is particularly popular in England. It makes the gin really agreeable, very sweet. So, that's what we called the 51. When Suda-san wanted to drink something and he didn't know what to choose, he loved to ask for a 52, then a 53... it was trying to get me to invent another cocktail!"

Here's an excerpt from the Travis Strikes Again Collector's Edition book talking about bar plastic model (based on a real establishment) in No More Heroes. The owner Kei Sekine also shares a funny and sweet story about making Suda 51's own cocktail, the 51!
(Apologies for any typos in the alt text)

Final Fantasy VIII ~ ファイナルファンタジーVIII (1999)

Developed by Squaresoft.

Chrono Cross ~ クロノ・クロス (1999)

Developed by Squaresoft.

YouTube video by GhostofTheHeeg 01 N.M.H. The Outer Rim Remix (album version)

youtu.be/13rhrr86_CI?...

Funny story for the NMH3 screenshot here: I couldn't find it saved on my PC, so I looked on my Switch, which has 1000+ NMH3 screenshots. However, I simply scrolled to the bottom for the earliest ones, because even years later, I knew that I must have gone there first thing to check (and I was right)

Grim Fandango (1998)

Developed by LucasArts.

Resident Evil ~ バイオハザード (2002)

Developed by Capcom Production Studio 4.

Chrono Cross ~ クロノ・クロス (1999)

Developed by Squaresoft.

Also helps that I know another big Nolan fan in person and we both can geek out about him!

I've been meaning to do a full rewatch of Christopher Nolan's work for a while, and I keep getting more tempted each day. Part of it stems not just from wanting to watch my favorites again, but also from wanting to grapple with the flicks that didn't resonate with me as much (or cooled on later).

Chrono Cross ~ クロノ・クロス (1999)

Developed by Squaresoft.

It's time.

(To be clear, I'm 100% speculating here as it's also very much possible that the bar wasn't in the overworld, and the Special Thanks may have just been a shout out to a friend. Let's see if I can find something...)

YouTube video by Grasshopper Archives NO MORE HEROES 1.5 (2021 English Remaster)

(I included the link to the English remaster of No More Heroes 1.5 in the alt text there, but forgot to link it in the main text.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJyn...

No More Heroes 1.5 screenshot showing bar plastic model, with the logo being blurred. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJyn1eInwas

Bar plastic model also shows up in the obscure and personally bewildering No More Heroes 1.5 motion comic that takes place between the first two games. Lovikov has a role in its story, so the bar does show up in turn, even if the sign is pretty blurry and hard to make out.

[NMH2 Credits Special Thanks] Audio Inc. Artland Bar Plastic Model Black Belt Jones DC Creek & River Co. Ltd. Crowarts

NMH3 screenshot showing bar plastic model

In terms of the other games, bar plastic model get a Special Thanks in NMH2 despite not showing up; it was likely in the cut overworld, and the model might be there, but I couldn't find a shot in any cut content videos, nor can I check myself. It does show up in NMH3, though you can't enter it.

Somewhat random question, but since you're a big DK fan: did you ever play Jungle Beat on the GCN?