Showing posts with label New Dig Dug. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Dig Dug. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

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'

Thursday, November 21, 2013

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'