Game Boy World

[@JustinKolata]

I can't help but wonder if the pace and playability of Blodia could have been improved with a different control scheme. A smoothly-moving pointer may be fine for a mouse-driven computer, but not for a game system with a 4 direction d-pad. It seems there's only 4 possible moves (which adjacent block to move into the empty space), they could have ditched the pointer and just had the d-pad directly moving the blocks.

[@marcelthoma8890]

There was this one bonus game in Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts Loose! with Hampton. He was walking steadily on a path. The path had to be moved like a slide-puzzle in order to connect different parts of the path and to guidHampton to appels, he would eat and which counted as extra lives. I always found it very hard to get used to the controls of this mini game. When i saw, how Blodia was played, it reminded me of this game and I think, i would have had less fun playing blodia.

[@UndeadCollector]

The same kind of Minigame was in Tiny Toon Buster Busts lose (SNES) with Hampton.

[@jacobyne]

Pipe Dream set pieces reminds me of Loopz on the GB. Next is Bouken! Puzzle road or Daedalian Opus. Man that was one hard game, especially the jpn version, where you couldn't cheat your way out with passwords (it didn't use English words like its US version).

[@GameBoyGuru]

I enjoyed Pipe Dream on the PC as a kid, but haven't stumbled upon this one in the wild for quite some time. I enjoyed it enough (based on my memory, anyway), that I suspect I'll still enjoy it on the Game Boy.

[@ianhilmer2673]

Yeah, I remember “Loco-motion” on an old lcd hand held called “Guttang Gattong”, it was pretty good.🕹

[@katt-the-pig]

I could not tell what was going on in Blodia.

[@JeremyParish]

+Draygone RPGMmag That's the game experience in a nutshell.

[@James-xe5bm]

Blodia's nuts. 😔

[@active_ate9183]

Great work, as always!

[@thegouldfish]

Pipe dream did get more complex as you played, as later levels you had an end block you had to hit along with the set distance.

[@kabutops87]

I know ive said it before but i cant wait when you get to Gargoyles quest and Mercenary force.

[@JeremyParish]

+R TYPE 90 Mercenary Force is... three episodes away? I don't know the game but I love the hell out of the box art. Super cutting-edge stuff for 1990.

[@HandheldGuru97]

+Jeremy Parish I just got Mercenary Force, probably one of the most unique shumps I have ever played. A very intriguing take on the genre, set in feudal Japan and using the warriors from that time period as your units. I certainly look forward to seeing what you think of MF!

[@SuperSaiyanLink093]

Loved the ''preview'', hehe.

[@usedx115x]

You did your homework, excellent video.

[@Kafei2006]

And much later on, Locomotion came out on Game Boy too, taking things full circle :P. I don't know if it was released outside of Japan, but it was on one of the four Konami GB Collection games for Game Boy Color in Europe (Super Game Boy titles in Japan). I can't remember if they named it Locomotion on Game Boy outside of Japan, the name Guttang Gotong comes to mind. I have it in my collection but Im drawing a blank :P.

[@JeremyParish]

+RudyC3 Yeah, it was only in the Konami GB collections (as Guttang Gottong), and I only learned about that after I had finished the video. Alas!

[@STNKbone]

There's a Sega Genesis game called Junction that plays pretty much identically to Loco-Motion. Except Junction has this strange, quasi-psychedelic aesthetic to it.

[@THEmuteKi]

+STNKbone It also seems to have a Konami credit to it (at least as a publisher), so I guess the similarity to Loco-Motion was in some way intentional or at least connected. Funny how these things are.

[@Natabuu]

Where's Jin Saotome?

[@JeremyParish]

+Natabuu You think you're being funny, but Cyberbots caused me sooo much trouble while I was trying to research this game.

[@ryanstevens283]

ever play Happy Trails on the Intellivision? A bit like this, but also a bit different, weird game, by Activision, but only for Intellivision

[@reyunderscore]

How far did you play Pipe Dream? There's a cutscene every four levels, and starting from the fifth level or so complications are added to the game. The game starts giving you one-way pipes, there are obstacles on the board, you get a required end point for the pipe, things like that.

[@JeremyParish]

+reyunderscore I was able to make it that far. I played a couple of hours for research and then for capture, and I kept screwing up before I ever saw a cutscene; I like the game but am terrible at it. But I'll try to work further into the game before doing the book write-up.

[@JeremyParish]

+Jeremy Parish I mean, "wasn't" able to make it that far.

[@Pika025]

Shouldn't the date in the title of this say 1990?

[@DanielBurapavong]

More, more, more!

[@Isthecakereallyalie]

Maybe they changed it so it's not a religious reference?

[@PokettoManStar]

Wasn't Nintendo on their anti-cultist kick in '89? That would explain why Diablo's was changed to Blodia. Blodia isn't a religious term, and it's not a spooky satanic term.

[@JeremyParish]

That was only in the U.S.-and Blodia was never released here, so I doubt that factored in. Nintendo let Enix publish a game called "Jesus: Dreadful Bio Monster" on Famicom, so "Diablo" seems like it would hardly have been cause for concern.

[@PokettoManStar]

​@@JeremyParish I think Nintendo of America's localization had a chilling effect on Japanese developers, but it wasn't uniform nor did it happen overnight. More importantly, the NES' success outside of Japan pushed Japanese developers to globalize their products. This would be echoed by early-aughts anime, which looked to 90s edits and preemptively neutered. Maybe Tonkin House really liked anagrams. Maybe they constructed this heinous knot on purpose.

[@JeremyParish]

Sure, NCL became more aware of/sensitive to international markets over time, and we even saw Westernized edits (like Mother's censored smoking crows) folded into JP reissues of games a decade later. This was a game released in 1990, though. We were still years away from, for example, one of the SFC Shin Megami Tensei games opening up by letting you have a conversation with a dude on a crucifix. I really think this scrambled title was nothing more than a case of Tonkin House wanting to publish an adaptation of an existing work while wanting to sidestep legalities/licensing fees/etc.

[@PokettoManStar]

​@@JeremyParish You're probably right about the title, it wouldn't be the first time Japanese devs used anagrams and mis-spellings for legal skirting. It feels very much in the vein of Castlevania's credits. SMT is an exception, not the rule. The Megami Tensei series is firmly rooted in the occult, and Atlus stuck to their guns. They sold out for licenses, but they didn't sell out with SMT. That's what potato-themed games are for!

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry, but I'm not keen on calling steady contract work that keeps the lights on and enables the creation of passion projects "selling out."

[@jamesmoss3424]

Blodia should have been released in the USA in the first place. 😀👍🎮

[@marccaselle8108]

I thought blodia was a cyberbots reference?

[@JeremyParish]

It is! Tonkin House ripped off a Capcom game that wouldn’t exist for another five years.

[@jamesmoss3424]

I will play pipe dream. 😀👍🎮

[@Venomous28]

I dunno, I’m quite enjoying Blodia

[@Sidescroller64]

I can't wait for you to cover literally anything other than puzzle games. Not that your work is bad, far from it, but no matter how great your presentation is, boring subject matter is boring.

[@severeerror52]

Could Bloatia's title be because of Nintendo's religious policies?

[@JeremyParish]

+Error 52 Unlikely - that policy was only for the U.S., and Blodia was only released in Japan.

[@shawnli4746]

Bununununum, CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP. Plup