Five favorites: North American GameBoy box art

A couple of years ago, I published a post that highlighted five of my favorite pieces of Japanese GameBoy box art.

This post, of course, focuses on five of my favorite pieces of North American GameBoy box art.

Balloon Kid--I know some of you will look at Balloon Kid's cover art and declare it to be an abomination. And I can understand that--to an extent. Its depiction of the game's pigtailed protagonist is a bit odd, to say the least. The illustration of the giant, bug-eyed fish that's attempting to eat Alice (the aforementioned heroine) is even worse. Still, I like the overall image, thanks in large part to its liberal and adept use of color. I'm also a big fan of the game's bold and subtly creative logo. (Bonus: the entirety of Balloon Kid's instruction manual can be seen here.)

BurgerTime Deluxe--This is one of the few instances where I prefer a GameBoy title's North American box art to its Japanese counterpart. (You can see the Japanese BurgerTime Deluxe's cover in this old post.) Not only that, but I think this particular example of packaging design may be my favorite of all the ones included in this post. I want to say the logo is the star here, but the illustrations of Peter Pepper (he's the guy in the funny-looking white hat) and BurgerTime Deluxe's angry, anthropomorphic ingredients are pretty stellar, too. I even like the purple backdrop that supports the whole she-bang.

Dig Dug--This selection will raise a few eyebrows, I'm sure. It's quite a bit darker than and nowhere near as cute as what most people would expect to see splashed across the cover of a GameBoy port of this Namco arcade classic. That's probably a big part of why I like it so much, to be honest. There's more to it than that, though. I also appreciate the skewed perspective that puts one of the game's iconic Pooka enemies front and center. Admittedly, the protagonist's mouth-tongue-whatever-it-is freaks me out a tad, but I'm willing to overlook it for the rest of what's on offer here.

Mole Mania--This piece of box art really looks like something the designers at Nintendo would cook up, doesn't it? It's stuffed to the gills with cute characters, it's positively doused with pastels and it's got an adorable logo plastered across its top half. Could the artists who created it have removed the main mole's unibrow? No doubt. Still, Mole Mania's cover is a keeper even with the little guy's questionable grooming habits on display. By the way, if you'd like to see how this game's North American packaging stacks up to its Japanese packaging, check out this post.

Wario Land--Full disclosure: I've barely played any of the first four Wario Land games. I can't even tell you why that's the case. I guess I've just always gotten my fill from Nintendo's Mario-centric platformers. Anyway, the Wario Land series' covers certainly aren't responsible for me ignoring its games. The one made for this first entry is a knockout, wouldn't you agree? Some may say it's busy, and I can't (completely) argue against that, but I personally think such a bombastic design works in this particular context.

So, what do you think of these examples of North American GameBoy box art? Do you like them, too--or do you hate them?

If it's the latter and if you can think of pieces of North American GameBoy box art you prefer, let me know about them in the comments section of this post.

Re-introducing: Namco Gallery (GameBoy)

On my birthday last year, I bought myself the trio of games that can be seen in the photos throughout this post.

Even though they arrived on my doorstep shortly after, I failed to photograph them--or, you know, otherwise acknowledge their existence--until earlier this week.



Anyway, the boxes look pretty nice lined up as they are in the shot above, don't you think?

Something you probably can't make out by looking at said photo (unless you click on it to blow it up): the frames featured on each volume's box art include elements that tie in to one or more of the four games contained on that particular cart.



The frame featured on Namco Gallery Vol. 1's packaging, for instance, includes depictions of Mappy's titular police mouse (above) as well as Nyamco (below), the game's antagonist.

(The frames featured on the covers of the second and third volumes include similarly delicious depictions of Dig Dug, Sky Kid and The Tower of Druaga characters.)



The backsides of the Namco Gallery boxes aren't as thrilling as the front sides, unfortunately, but they do give folks a nice look at the colorized versions of each compilation's games.

Just in case you've forgotten which games are included on which Namco Gallery volume, the first one contains pint-sized versions of Battle City, Galaga, Mappy and Namco Classic (a golf sim); the second offers up portable iterations of Dig Dug, Famista 4 (baseball), Galaxian and The Tower of Druaga; and the third consists of Family Tennis, Jantaku Boy (mahjong), Sky Kid and Tower of Babel ports.



My favorites are the most well known titles of the bunch: Dig Dug, Galaga, Mappy and Sky Kid, with the first game's puzzlerific (no, that's not a real word) "New Dig Dug" mode alone being worth the price of all three cartridges, in my humble opinion.

This portable re-imagining of Dig Dug is the only one of the above-mentioned ports to earn a North American release, by the way. I've wanted to own a complete-in-box copy of it for ages now due to its striking box art, but price-gouging eBay sellers have kept me from realizing those desires.

See also: a previous post with a bit more information on the Namco Gallery games

Five arcade classics I wish had been ported to certain handhelds

You may be wondering what prompted me to write this post. Strangely enough, it came to mind while I was playing the Game Gear port of Namco's quarter-munching classic, Mappy, last week.

While admiring the quality of the adaptation, I couldn't help but wonder why Namco ended its Game Gear ports with Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man. What about Warp & Warp (aka Warpman), The Tower of Druaga or Dig Dug?

That line of thinking then led to me to ponder why some other arcade classics--like the five detailed below--were never ported to the following handheld systems despite the fact that they would've been perfect fits (or at least interesting fits) for each other.

Baby Pac-Man (DS or 3DS)--I've wanted to play this half-Pac-Man-game-half-pinball-machine oddity at home ever since I encountered it in a local arcade as a teen. I can see why it never earned a console conversion, of course, but a DS or 3DS version could've been (or could still be) magical. The question is: who would develop and publish it, Bally Midway or Namco? (My guess: neither!)

Detana!! TwinBee (WonderSwan Color)--For some strange reason, the folks at Namco only made one game, Beatmania, for the WonderSwan, and even then it was for the original black-and-white version of Bandai's niche-y handheld rather than its colorized follow-up. Why they never ported this pastel-coated cute 'em up to the WonderSwan Color is beyond me, as I have to imagine a lot of gamers would've enjoyed playing it with their portable of choice held vertically.

Dig Dug (Game Gear)--I'm sure the powers that be at Namco had their reasons for not green-lighting this handheld port, but for the life of me I can't fathom what they may have been. After all, the company's portable re-imaginings of Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man are about as spot-on as could've been expected. (By the way, I also wish Namco had made and released a Game Gear version of Marvel Land--even though its graphics would've had to have been downsized and simplified quite a bit.)

Don Doko Don (GameBoy Color)--Don Doko Don has long had a place in my pixelated heart for all sorts of reasons, which is why it saddens me that Taito never released a handheld version. Although the GameBoy Advance could've received an arcade-perfect port, I think I'd actually have preferred to see one that was more of an homage to the original (a la Bubble Bobble for Game Gear), hence my call for it to be made for the GameBoy Color instead.

Mr. Do! (Neo Geo Pocket Color)--I don't know about you, but I think it would've been awesome it someone had brought this Dig Dug-esque game to SNK's brick-like handheld in some form or fashion--especially if they'd updated the graphics a bit like ADK did when they remade Make Trax for the system (after renaming it Crush Roller). Instead, NGPC owners were given a million pachinko simulators. Not fair!

Getting to know: Namco Gallery (GameBoy)

Remember how I posited in this recent post that the GameBoy version of Dig Dug never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun?

Well, it seems I was wrong.

Thanks to a helpful bit of cyber-sleuthing conducted by my Twitter pal Brian (aka iamnotagoomba, aka the guy behind the Japanese 3DS tumblog), I now know that the GameBoy version of Dig Dug was released in Japan--just not as a stand-alone title like it was elsewhere.

Instead, it was included on the second of the three Namco Gallery games that hit Japanese store shelves back in 1996 and 1997.

Each of these portable compilations contained four titles. The first Namco Gallery featured ports of Battle City, Galaga, Mappy and Namco Classic (a golf sim). The second included Dig Dug, Famista 4 (baseball), Galaxian and The Tower of Druaga. The third, Family Tennis, Jantaku Boy (mahjong), Sky Kid and Tower of Babel.

The fascinating thing about these ports is that although they're pint-sized--not to mention black-and-white, or rather green-and-white--versions of their arcade and console counterparts, they look and sound and play as much like the "real deals" as is possible given the hardware.

That's even more true when you stick one of the Namco Gallery carts into a Super GameBoy peripheral, as doing so injects each game with various amounts of color while also surrounding them with some pretty fabulous borders (see the screenshots placed throughout this post for evidence).

After dabbling with each of them over the last few days, my favorite so far is the second release--thanks mostly to the "New Dig Dug" mode that's included in Dig Dug.

The others are nice, too, though; especially the colorized versions of Galaga, Mappy (above) and Sky Kid.

See also: 'Four GameBoy titles I'm surprised never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun'

Four GameBoy titles I'm surprised never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun

You may have heard--you know, at the bar down the street, in that dark alley outside your apartment, over on that cesspool of social interaction (I kid ... for the most part) known as Twitter--that I've got GameBoy on the brain at the moment.

OK, so it's really been on my brain for the last eight or 10 months.

Anyway, as a result of my, er, obsessive thoughts (for lack of a better word) on the subject, I've been discovering and re-discovering all sorts of "gems" that were released for Nintendo's first handheld, including the four discussed below--each of which I was surprised to learn were never released in the system's home country.

Balloon Kid--I know this one was released in Japan eventually, but that didn't happen until 10 years after it appeared elsewhere, and even then it was only released (for the GameBoy Color) as part of the Nintendo Power flash RAM cartridge system. Which is a shame, as the GBC version of Balloon Kid (called Balloon Fight GB in Japan) is top notch and its packaging surely would've featured some awesome art.

Buster Bros--I only recently discovered that this odd, Capcom-developed action game had received a GameBoy port (courtesy of Hudson Soft). Shortly after, I discovered--much to my dismay--that while it was released in Europe (as Pang) and North America (as Buster Brothers), it never made it to Japan. I find that kind of strange, especially since similar games like Tumblepop and Snow Bros. Jr. saw the light of day in that region.

Dig Dug--This may be the worst offender of the bunch, as the "New Dig Dug" mode included in this portable release is all sorts of awesome (as well as hair-pullingly frustrating at times, it has to be said). Also, a Japanese release of this game would've allowed me to compare and contrast its cover art with that of its North American counterpart (which I actually find to be more than acceptable).

Update: shortly after I published this post, someone brought it to my attention that both of the above-mentioned Dig Dug games were included in the 1996 Japan-only release, Namco Gallery Vol. 2, which you can read about here.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters--Full disclosure: I've barely spent any time with this one over the years, despite the fact that the original Kid Icarus is one of my all-time favorite NES games. Of course, the main reason for that is I've heard some terrible things about it. So, maybe it's a good thing Of Myths and Monsters never earned a spot on the shelves of its country of origin?

See also: 'You really need to try these three GameBoy titles, if you haven't already'

It's really too bad Namco never released a console port of Tenkomori Shooting

Earlier this year, when my husband I visited one of Seattle's best hang-outs, Full Tilt Ice Cream--which not only serves up some wonderful ice cream (I'm looking at you, salted caramel) but also offers patrons a slew of pinball and arcade machines--I encountered a game I'd never seen or even heard of before.

That game: Tenkomori Shooting, a curious, Namco-made coin-op that first appeared on the scene (in an extremely limited number of North American locations, I'm sure) in 1998.

I didn't sit down and play this shmup-centric mini-game collection on that occasion, but I vowed to do so the next time we visited.

Apparently it wasn't meant to be, as I quickly discovered during our next ice-cream outing that the powers that be at Full Tilt had replaced Tenkomori Shooting's PCB with that of some other, far less interesting game.



That fact didn't depress me as much as you might think, as I was pretty sure the title must have been released for the PlayStation (in Japan, at least) at some point--meaning I could just go home, head to eBay, and order a copy for my collection. Heck, it even looks like it might have been made using Namco's System 11 arcade board, which was based on the Sony's hardware.

So, imagine my surprise when I found out it wasn't released for Sony's first console--or any other console, for that matter.

Thankfully, MAME's always an option, so if I get desperate for some Tenkomori Shooting action, I can go that route.

And I may just do that sooner rather than later given some of the curious-looking mini-games that are included in this arcade release--like the amorous one shown at the 3:00 mark in the video above, or the sushi-focused one at 3:34, or the Dig Dug-inspired one at 4:17.

Have any of you spent time with Tenkomori Shooting--either in an arcade setting or in your own homes (via MAME)? If so, what did you think of the experience?

Who's up for more Pac-Man? (Hint: I am! I AM!!!)

Those of you who followed my lead and answered in the affirmative should be happy to hear that the fine folks at Namco Bandai just announced--well, a few days ago--that they're prepping a digital compilation that'll be called Pac-Man Museum.

Which titles will this collection include? According to this press release, it'll feature "classic Pac-Man titles as well as newer arcade releases, allowing gamers to play through the evolution of Pac-Man from his humble beginnings from 1980 through 2008’s Pac-Man Championship Edition and 2010’s Pac-Man Battle Royale."



Unfortunately, all of us 3DS, PC, PS3, Wii U and/or Xbox 360 owners are going to have to wait until sometime this winter to get our four-player Pac-Man Battle Royale on.

In the meantime, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 owners with copies of Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX can look forward to downloading a free update this summer that'll add a slew of new content--including "additional DLC mazes, music and graphics including classic Dig Dug and Rally-X sprites"--to this day-go digital title.

(Via joystiq.com and tinycartridge.com)

You had me at 'geeky retro video game pillows'

On the one hand, I'm glad that the gal behind the raindrop23 etsy shop is on vacation right now, as I really don't need any more gaming-related paraphernalia taking up space in one of our home's few closets.

On the other hand, I like her quilted pillow covers so much that I'd be more than happy to hand over my credit card and say, "Give me one of these and one of these and one of these," if that were possible.

Here are the pillow covers I'd buy if given the chance, by the way:

I also like a number of the Bob-omb, Fire Flower, Mario and Kirby pillow covers she's created.

Regardless, I love the different patterns and textures that raindrop23 puts to use while producing these functional pieces of art.

(Via gameswithboys.tumblr.com)

The Great Gaymathon Review #62: Banana (Famicom)

Game: Banana

Genre: Puzzle

Developer: Victor Interactive Software

Publisher: Victor Interactive Software

System: Famicom

Release date: 1986

I have kind of a funny history (well, it's funny to me anyway) with Banana. For the longest time, I thought it and Takara's rather lackluster-looking platformer, Banana Prince, were one and the same. Then I came across (on Famicomblog) a photo of this game's packaging that made it clear the two titles were unique entities.

As for what prompted me to give this oddly named Famicom game a go: Well, the aforementioned packaging, which features an adorable mole wearing white gloves and what appears to be a pair of blue jeans, certainly got the proverbial ball rolling, but what kept it moving along was this YouTube video.

Admittedly, said video makes Banana look more than a little rough, but that's rarely deterred me in the past. Also, I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes the aesthetics of severely retro games.

Anyway, it wasn't just the colorfully chunky graphics that attracted me to Victor Interactive Software's maiden Famicom release. I also liked the looks of its gameplay, which at first called to mind such classics as Adventures of Lolo, Dig Dug, Magical Puzzle Popils and Wrecking Crew.

In the end, those comparisons aren't completely apt. A better one, I quickly came to learn, would be to compare it to First Star Software's Boulder Dash. That 1984 release is a cakewalk compared to Banana, though, thanks to the latter's devilish, "you'd better make the right moves in the right order--or else!" mentality.

Speaking of which, you'd probably like an explanation of how this pixelated puzzler plays, wouldn't you? The gist: You control the strangely dressed mole I mentioned earlier. He's plopped into each stage for some reason or other (sorry, I don't know the game's backstory--assuming there is one) and is tasked with gathering all of the fruit that's been deposited throughout each level (again, for some reason or another), retrieving the blue-haired lady mole who seems to be his girlfriend or wife and then somehow making it to the exit door.

That's harder than it sounds, of course, thanks in large part to the game's sense of gravity--which means that whenever you dig or fall or otherwise move in a downward direction, the only way you can move up again is to find a ladder and climb it. And if you can't? Hit the reset button and start over, because you basically got yourself stuck.

Oh, and most stages include boulders that, should you walk beneath them (and you will), fall into your path and make life even more challenging for you and your mole-y friends.

The good news among all of this doom and gloom: Banana is a lot of fun despite its sometimes brain-melting difficulty. Partially responsible for that are the game's cheerful (if basic) visuals, although the appealingly blippy background music, which calls to mind both Donkey Kong and Mario Bros., deserves a quite a bit of credit, too.

See also: Previous 'Great Gaymathon' posts

For the seventh game of Christmas, the UPS man brought to me ...

... the PlayStation version of Mr. Driller.

I've been curious about this kinda-sorta follow-up to Dig Dug, released throughout the world in 2000, for some time now, but I didn't bite the bullet on it until I found a complete (case, disk and manual) copy of it on eBay for just a few bucks.



I know I could have bought any of this series' more modern and recent sequels, but I wanted to start with the first one. Also, it's been a while since I've bought a game for my PlayStation, so this was a good way for me to kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.

Should I enjoy my first Mr. Driller experience, though, I definitely could see myself buying, say, Mr. Driller A for the GameBoy Advance or Mr. Driller Drill Spirits for the DS down the road.

See also: Previous '12 Games of Christmas' posts

Dig Dug + Warpman

Seven down, two (or maybe three) to go.

Those numbers refer to the number of Namco--or Namcot, if you want to be completely accurate--Famicom games I currently own and hope to own in the future, respectively.

A month or so ago, you may recall, I picked up five such games: BurgerTime, Mappy, Pac-Man, Sky Kid and The Tower of Druaga. Which games have I added since? Why, Dig Dug and Warpman.

I'm guessing all of you have at least heard of, if not played, Dig Dug, but what about Warpman? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Warpman is a sequel to an obscure arcade game from 1981 called Warp & Warp (Warp Warp in the States). Both games are divided into two parts: Maze World and Space World. The former plays a bit like Bomberman, while the latter plays a bit like a less frantic version of another arcade game from the early 1980s--Robotron.

Sadly, that probably makes Warpman sound more appealing than it really is. That's not to say it's a bad game--it's just not as compelling or enjoyable as either of the above-mentioned classics.

With all of that out of the way, what are the two (or maybe three) Namco/Namcot Famicom games that I'm hoping to add to my collection at some future point in time? Galaga, Galaxian and Dig Dug II (with the middle title being the "maybe").

For more photos of Dig Dug and Warpman--as well as two other recent acquisitions--check out my Flickr photostream.