Game Boy World

[@BearsInGames]

5:35 - Spelunky influenced 1980s Japanese programmers in some sort of recursive ouroboros scenario, I assume. With time travel and sexy DeLoreans. (I know you meant Spelunker, heck, my hand automatically writes the wrong one when I try to spell it out.)

[@jacobyne]

Another Game Boy game that came overseas through the means of pirated cartridges (XX in 1 cartridges). Actually the game isn't itself bad. It's actually pretty decent, the controls respond well and the difficulty is on spot, although the main fault of the games is being waaaaaaaaaaay too linear thus becoming boring. I'd say for 1989 standards, it's a 6/10 game. The secrets of beating the game remain on the allocation system, mainly speed. You have to have at least 4 points in speed to have a real chance with the 1st boss (thus suffering less damage and hitting more times). On the 2nd stage, just place a speed of 6, use 1 point at most on life and the rest for strenght. 3rd stage, 2 points on speed and all the same. You can catch shurikens by attacking them just before they hit (like in the video, depending on the height of the shuriken), you use them by pressing select while the item is in the box below (I think, I'm going by memory haven't played this in ages), but you have to pause and choose your items by pressing select to scroll through the items (again, not sure). There are 3 kinds of items, Shurikens to damage foes, a scroll which lets you attack continuously for a while (just hold the B or A buttons) and a potion which restores your health. The bosses and eagle are your main problems: sometimes in each stage a eagle comes to attack, just hit it back, it can do a lot of damage; the bosses can mostly be taken down with a simple strategy - attack them just before they enter your reach (ex:. attack with A, a kick attack with the most range), they will still advance towards you and end up being hit. If they get too close, just back up. Some bosses in the end stage are a bit stupid, just attack and they will go down. Before taking the final boss you have to destroy the eagle he sends you (might take a while), after that continously attack with B until you get really close to him - he will dodge every move you make until you hit him, after that it's sink or swim, you either continue to attack and he goes down fast or you go back and he beats the heck out of you. Don't forget to be careful at the end of the 2nd stage, with the falling door. While at your fighting stange, just get near it (don't get under, just really near), attack it until it falls down, after that, just press up to go to walking stance and run as soon as it rises above your character's height.

[@rowtow13]

Thanks to Dr. Sparkle, I can't read "Karateka" without hearing him say "Kara tee ka"

[@NORMALLYRETRO]

LOL! I am, for one, glad to hear your pronunciation of Karateka. Every since I heard Mechner say it in an interview, it was one my biggest A-Ha! moments...

[@chanceaaronblack2792]

Great vid! It's cool to learn about this, news to me. Some really funny parts in here too, xD.

[@jamesmoss3424]

Karateka is a classic game and I wish that master karateka would get released in the USA. 😀👍🎮

[@DanielBurapavong]

Keep up the fantastic work, Jeremy Parish !

[@feitclub]

I once recorded a video specifically to pronounce Karateka correctly. Your video is much better.

[@CarozQH]

Computers could definitely hold up with consoles if the games were well-programmed. I'd recommend Manfred Trenz' C64 classics Katakis (1988) and Turrican (1990), very difficult but also very good games! And some of the arcade ports like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow islands, Robocop, Operation Wolf, Renegade were sometimes far better than their NES counterparts

[@TheT3rr0rMask]

CarozQH Yes it's all down to polish and optimization. Look at Zyclunt/Blade Warrior for DOS and Windows: beautiful graphics, fast gameplay on par with arcade machines and red book audio on the Windows release. In the 80s it is true PC sucked for action games. PC88, MSX etc couldn't handle scrolling very well, so the Valis series has choppy scrolling, Mario Special and Contra had frame by frame gameplay, and programming masterpieces like Ashguine 2 did vertical scrolling beautifully.

[@CapeMonkeyPrime]

How were the PC exemplar games (Dune 2, Pools of Radiance, Maniac Mansion) picked? I only ask because all three were available on consoles back in the day, which made them stand out in a weird way to me.

[@JeremyParish]

This is a fair question! I picked these games because (1) I'm familiar with them and (2) their console versions show how much better those games worked on PC than consoles. Maniac Mansion was the only one of the three that was any good on console, and it was pretty heavily censored.

[@CapeMonkeyPrime]

Jeremy Parish That makes a lot of sense! Thanks!

[@martinrking]

Phil Theobald is going to strangle you with his tiny fists when he finds out you implied that Gianna Sisters is a bad game!

[@WhimsicalPhil]

I heard someone was disparaging Great Giana Sisters. I came as soon as I could.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

Whimsical Phil FUCKING KEK

[@Pichuscute]

Interesting how much better Tose is these days.

[@acav312]

Great video as usual, but "car-rotica"? Haha.

[@JeremyParish]

Have you actually looked to see how the word is pronounced? I did. Haha.

[@acav312]

Yes! I watched a video of Jordan Mechner talking about the HD version, though obviously he pronounces it with an American accent. Ka-ra-te-ka, 4 morae.

[@JeremyParish]

All the sources I could find broke down the word as [ka̠.ɾa̠ˈte̞.ka̠], and that's what I went with. Apologies for my abject mortal failure.

[@davemarx7856]

2:50 Is that Heihachi? From Tekken?

[@Banzeken]

3:08 No, it didn’t? Belt scrolling means movement not just left and right but also in and out of the scene. Merely moving sideways on scenery depicted as a ”belt” still makes it a side-scroller. Karateka plays nothing like the later beat’em-up (Kunio series etc.) offerings from Technos in that regard.