Valkyrie Profile (PSX)

Developer:

tri-Ace

|

Release Date:

2000 (JP 1999)

|

Systems:

PSX, PSP

---

This week on Super Adventures, I've got some screenshots from Nordically-themed PlayStation JRPG Valkyrie Profile for you. Maybe even a couple of GIFs as well! That's the original PlayStation by the way, though you'd forgiven for being confused by this atypically high resolution menu screen. I suppose they needed the extra pixels to fit in all those choices (there are two separate 'play intro' options there!)

The game's by tri-Ace, makers of the Star Ocean series, among other RPGs. I was going to list a few of the ones I've already written about and give you some links to click but when I went looking I couldn't actually find any. 1200+ games on Super Adventures so far and this is my very first tri-Ace title!

I'm sure I must have at least tried the game before, but it would've been in ages past so if I seem like I'm surprised or clueless about something, that's because I am. I really don't know what this game's going to be like. Well okay, it's a platformer with an unusual turn-based JRPG battle system, I know that much. I also know that I have to play the US version because there isn't a European version of it for me to show off. Us Europeans had to wait for the PSP version, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, which came out seven years later. That's an entire console generation!

SPOILER WARNING: JRPGs typically have a fair bit of story in them and I'm going to be going through the first couple of hours of this one, so be aware that I will reveal and ruin any twists up to that point. There's still 30 or 40 hours of it I won't be spoiling though.

Electronic Popple (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Byteshock

|

Release Date:

1997

|

Systems:

PC

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Electronic Popple, a DOS game by Byteshock released in 1997.

I went searching the internet looking for any kind of information about the game to write up here, and it seems like Byteshock were a bunch of Korean college students who disbanded soon afterwards. Plus it seems like 'popple' might be a mistranslation of 'purple'? Also the game apparently has multiple endings. That's all I could find out about it though I'm afraid! I'm all out of trivia now.

Man, that's a pretty pitiful amount of text for an intro, I need to think of some more words. Uh, it seems to have a two player mode, that's probably worth mentioning. Plus there's lots of anthropomorphic computer people exploding on the title screen. Poor guys.

Super Adventures in Face Editors II

This week on Super Adventures, I've decided that what my site really needs is more screenshots of faces. It's been exactly five years to the day since I published my Super Adventures in Face Editors article comparing different character creators in video games, so I figured it was time for a sequel. Last time I tried recreating Metal Gear Solid protagonist Solid Snake in games like Skyrim, Dark Souls and Mass Effect, but this time around I've got brand new games and a brand new video game star: Tomb Raider hero Lara Croft.

I don't mean the pointy polygon-head Lara with the painted-on face, I mean the more realistic version you can see in the picture above. Though I'll be going through the games in chronological order again, to observe how the visuals and the editors become more sophisticated over time, so you'll be seeing a horrifying low-poly head soon enough.

Super Adventures: Game Over

Bad news, you just lost the game. It's all over, you've failed, the princess is dead, humanity is doomed, and you'll never get all your bananas back. But it's not all bad, as video games often include special exclusive content that can only be accessed by screwing everything up. Game over screens, continue screens, excessively well-animated death scenes, sometimes even a catchy song.

So this week's Super Adventures is going to be a celebration of bad endings! Mostly because they're far easier and quicker to get a screenshot of than good endings, and also much less spoilery! Oh, I realise the picture up there's a bit ominous, but the site itself isn't ending any time soon. Not permanently anyway, though I am taking another break after this for a few weeks.

You may be thinking 'How is this any different to one of those "Top 30 Game Over Screens" posts you'd find on other sites?' The answer is... it's not any different. It's exactly that. I have no shame. Though I might be the first site not to include Total Distortion's "You Are Dead" song... except that's a YouTube link I just gave you, so I suppose I kind of did. I won't be including Chrono Trigger's "But... the Future Refused to Change" screen either, because it's not really much to look at. It's just really grey.

TECNO: The Base (PC) - Guest Post

Today on Super Adventures, occasional guest poster mecha-neko's back to show off... uh, I have no idea what this is. I've never heard of this game before. What even is this?

Hello everyone!

I'm playing TECNO: The Base, "An FPS-Adventure game with its own unique style".

Developer:

Paolo Cosentino GURUY Entertainment (Uruguay)

|

Release Date:

7th September 2007 (freeware May 2012)

|

Systems:

Windows

---

Set in a huge research facility run amok, TECNO: The Base promises a plethora of lethal robots, an arsenal of experimental weaponry and many ingenious objectives to complete. Sounds awesome to me!

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)

Developer:

Konami

|

Release Date:

Snake Eater - NA/JP 2004, EU 2005 Subsistence - JP 2005, EU/NA 2006

|

Systems:

PS2, PS3, PSVita, Xbox 360, 3DS

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the first canon Metal Gear game to never come out on a computer! Even to this day it hasn't had a Steam release, despite getting a HD remaster a decade or so back on consoles. Because Konami are strange.

The title screen up there claims that this is something called Subsistence, but really it's just Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater with a new camera mode and a few extra features. In fact it's a bit like the Substance release for Metal Gear Solid 2 (funny how similar those subtitles are). But there's no VR missions this time! That's possibly because the game's a prequel set 40 years earlier, in the 60s, and VR was less of a thing back then. The story starts on 24 August 1964 in fact, which also happened to be creator Hideo Kojima's first birthday.

Here's a non-trivial bit of trivia about this title screen: you can change the background camo style and colour by clicking the analogue sticks. There's nothing you can press to stop Snake beating up this poor guard over and over though. Here's some more trivia: that's not actually Snake. Well, it is a Snake, but it's not series protagonist Solid Snake (because he was born in the 70s).

I'm not going to assume you've played the other Metal Gears or know anything about the convoluted continuity, but there are going to be SPOILERS below for the series so far, so try not to read anything you don't want to know.

Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (PC) - Part 2

Today on Super Adventures I'm just playing a bit more of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (Enhanced Edition). Well actually I'll be playing a lot more, but I wouldn't worry too much about spoilers as I'll just be skipping through all the interesting parts to whine about things that bother me.

I'm sorry I can't be as in-depth or insightful as the CRPG Addict, but it seems like he's going to take another decade or more to reach the 2000s, so why not read my words while you wait? I mean I'm assuming you've probably read part one already. If not you can get to it by clicking here: PART ONE.