Kid Klown in Crazy Chase (SNES)

Developer:

Kemco

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Release Date:

1995 (EU)

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Systems:

Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance

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This week on Super Adventures I'm taking a quick look at Kid Klown in Crazy Chase, the second in Kemco's Kid Klown tetralogy. The name reminds me of cult classic 'Killer Klowns from Outer Space', which is interesting because I'd no idea I'd even heard of the film until now. How is this clown movie knowledge leaking into my brain? I'm fairly sure they're unrelated though.

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of clowns, but I love that title screen. It's got to be some of the best title art on the Super Nintendo. It's a shame there's a Kid Klown standing right in the middle of it, but squint your eyes a bit and he could be Kid Santa. The music's a bit clowny as well, though I've heard worse. So far so good, but let's see what happens when I select 'Option'.

Batman: Return of the Joker (NES)

Developer:

Sunsoft

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

NES, Genesis

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Today on Super Adventures I'm taking a look at Batman: Return of the Joker, the sort-of sequel to Sunsoft's Batman: The Video Game, which was released for the NES two years earlier.

Batman: The Video Game was a tie-in with Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman' movie (thoughtfully given a subtitle so that people wouldn't get them confused and end up shoving the cartridge into their VCR), and this also shares the movie's shiny golden 'BATMAN' text so I'm presuming they're part of the same continuity. But ~SPOILERS~ The Joker didn't just get locked away in Arkham or go into hiding at the end of the movie, he got dropped off a giant gothic church tower to his very definite pavement-assisted demise. In fact in the end of the NES game Batman punches him off the church roof, which is kind of hardcore for a man that never kills, but the end result is much the same. So if The Joker really has returned here, then he's come back from the dead.

Incidentally this has nothing to do with the 'Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker' animated movie, as that came out about a decade later and has its own set of games. Though it's still about The Joker coming back from the dead.

The guy is like... weeds or something.

NHK Okāsan to Issho: Niko Niko Pun (TurboGrafx-16)

And the latest game for my year-long epic marathon through the alphabet is... another PC Engine game. If you're wondering why I'm playing this so soon after Neutopia, well, amazingly this the only game beginning with 'N' left to play on my requests list. I've got the names of 11 A games scrawled down there, 15 S games, even 7 W games, but this is the one and only N. And now that I'm playing it there are in fact no Ns.

There's a whole lot of words in 'NHK Okāsan to Issho: Niko Niko Pun', but if you break the title down it's pretty straightforward. NHK is Japan's public broadcasting organisation (equivalent to Britain's BBC), Okaasan to Issho is a long running TV series for children, and Niko Niko Pun was a segment on that series. I know absolutely nothing else about the series, but judging by the characters on the game box I'm guessing it's for children. Young children.

QuackShot (Genesis/Mega Drive) - Replay

Super Adventures in Gaming Replay 2013 - Game 1

I'm sure it can seem sometimes that as a writer and a gamer I'm basically flawless, but even I occasionally make mistakes. Like this one time I made a game blog and wrote a whole lot of terrible posts for it. And as Super Adventures reaches its second birthday, it just so happens that this is the time of year when the shame gets too much for me and I have to go back and do something about it.

So I'm going to take a look back at the site's past, at all my shitty posts that suck ass, and pick a few more of the really terrible ones to replay. It's second chance week again!

First up is Disney's QuackShot, a slightly Indiana Jones inspired platformer released on the Genesis/Mega Drive in 1991. I gave this about ten minutes to win me over first time around, then quit on the first level because... you know, I'm reading the post again now and I can't even tell why I stopped playing. Apparently I didn't even put in enough effort to figure out that pressing start opens up my inventory, or that I could press up on the d-pad to climb ladders. Bloody hell, man.

Sadly I can't go back in time and punch myself, but I can at least give the game another chance now. Consider this post my sincere apology.

Mega Man (NES)

No one's dying to see any screenshots of this game, but I had to get around to playing a Mega Man game sooner or later, and I decided to make it sooner.

Akumajō Dracula / Castlevania Chronicles (X68000)

Another Castlevania game with the Japanese title Akumajou Dracula, retelling the story of Simon Belmont's epic struggle through Castlevania 1. So that's... five of them now, right?

For years this was only available in Japan for the Sharp X68000 computer, but it finally got a western release in 2001 on the PlayStation, under the name Castlevania Chronicles.