Nintendo 64 Joystick Replacement and Repair Thoughts Part 1

    Hey everyone, hope all is well. Today's blog is a bit different as I will be looking at Nintendo 64 controller joystick repair. Over the past couple months, my beloved Nintendo 64 controllers saw their joysticks significantly deteriorate. They had been loose for a long time, but after some intense Starfox 64 play, they seemed to be pretty much shot. So I dove into the world of replacement joysticks. You can find replacement sticks almost anywhere. Ebay, Amazon, and even some retro game stores carry replacement joysticks. At first it seemed a bit overwhelming, but after some research and trial and error I can say that I am quite happy with my discoveries.

    Since I've been doing a lot of work on my old consoles and games, I figured I'd give a shot at fixing my busted up N64 joysticks. If you want to do the same there is some things to consider. First is what is going on with the controller. In my case it was very loose joysticks. Second and far less important is what caused this. Normal wear over the years can be an answer or a game called Mario Party can be its own answer. Regardless the reason, just keep it in the back of your mind for now. To get inside the controller all you need is a small Philips head screwdriver. Make sure all screws are removed before trying to open the controller. There are two hidden screw in the area where the rumble pack/memory card/ transfer pack goes in so be sure to get them too. once opened you'll see the joystick compartment is screwed into the controller. Unscrew the three silver screws, but not the black screw yet. Follow the wires to where they connect to the board. Work the connector at the end of the wires out of the port it is plugged into. I used the flat edge of a knife and just slowly worked it out. The joystick should now be free from the controller.

    Now that you have that out you can go ahead and unscrew the little black screw. The joystick front will pop open, but you'll have to gently unclip the clips in the back to get the whole unit open. From here there are two methods that I tried to fix my issue. The first was a much shorter term fix. Before doing this though look at the bottom half of the unit. You'll see a white bowl, a little computer piece, a black cradle looking piece of plastic laying across and dipping into the bowl, and two wheel looking pieces at the top (under the computer piece) and right side of the bowl. Remember how the bowl sits in the housing and remember how the cradle piece is sitting. Now for the root of the problem. Upon opening the housing you will probably notice a good amount of white powder. Believe it or not, that powder used to be part of the bottom of the joystick and the bowl. It just grinds down over time and games like Mario Party and Super Smash Brothers take a real toll on these joysticks. The ground up plastic can make a joystick feel crunchy as you use it as it takes away the smoothness of the inside and basically clogs it up. Clean out the dust, but do not inhale it... Also keep the two wheel pieces as untouched and clean as possible. They're vital to a working joystick. You can remove and clean up the little cradle piece too. Check that piece for signs of wear and tear. None of mine had any issues with the cradle pieces. once you are done with that put the bottom of the joystick housing back together. Now for the top.

    You should now be looking at the stick itself. You should see another little black plastic piece that is prevented from popping off the stick by the bottom of the stick itself (what I call the hammer. The hammer should also have a small little ball shape in the middle of it so notice that too) Then you should see a plastic ring, a spring, then finally the top of the joystick housing. Turn the black plastic piece so it pops off the stick. Be careful not to loose the plastic ring that will probably fall right off. Clean up the black plastic piece and the stick itself. Also check the top of the housing for plastic dust and what not(I used a little water on a Q-Tip followed by a lint free cloth). Now with your housing  and pieces cleaned up, here's where things get different depending on which of the two techniques I tried you want to use. Both of these techniques involves trying to fill space that has been created by the plastic grinding away. These joysticks were poorly designed, but are quite precise, so I feel like trying to fix them is worth the time and effort. The first one is a short term solution.

    This one is commonly called the tape method and it is quick to do, but has a big downside that I'll get to. First get yourself a roll of tape. The best tape to use for this is something like Scotch tape or some other thinner type of tape. Duck tape is too thick. Now for the tricky part. Get a pair of good scissors and cut two strips of tape. The length may vary, but I aimed for around 5mm with a with of 3mm on my very worn sticks. Take a look at the stick. You'll see the part where your thumb rests, a ball, a small neck, and then the hammer. Tightly wrap your first piece of tape around the neck between the ball and hammer. Now you may want to put the top part of the joystick all back together before doing the second part, so hopefully you paid attention to how the thing is put together. If not an the order is stick goes into the top part of housing and rotates so it locks. Then the larger circle on the spring goes against the underside of the top piece of the housing. The little plastic ring rests on the top of the spring. Getting the black piece back on requires you to push down on the spring. You should be able to have the hammer go through the middle. Once you see that rotate the black piece so it and the hammer look like a funky cross. The ends of the black piece should rest on the plastic ring quite well with the end pieces hanging off. Back to your tape. Take the second piece of tape and tightly wrap it around the hammer. Now assemble the joystick. Keep in mind that the cradle resting in the bowl and the black piece attached to the stick should form a + inside the bowl with the up/downaxis being near the wheel under the computer parts. If it doesn't fit snug, you may need to rotate the black piece attached to the joystick and the stick itself. Be careful it does not unlock otherwise you'll probably have to reassemble the top part of the housing. After you have screwed in the black screw test it out. It should be less loose than it was before. In this case, bulking up the hammer can eliminate the space, but in some cases (like 1 of my controllers), it's not enough due to the sheer amount of eroded plastic. Depending on how much plastic has been eaten away, you may need more than or less tape than I used. As I mentioned before, this is a short term fix. The tape will wear out pretty quickly. That is really the biggest downfall to this method. The tape can start coming off inside the housing and get to a point where you must open it up and replace the tape. That can happen well before the tape is actually worn out. The plus side is for short term use, this technique can close the empty space enough that the stick will feel much tighter. The tape around the neck will also help keep the stick propped up in the housing if the black piece has worn down too. For long term use though I have two things that I'm doing.

    First of all I happened to stumble upon two Nintendo 64 controllers at a flea market recently. These two have joysticks in excellent shape so I started doing an easy maintenance on them. What you'll need for this is a screwdriver and some kind of plastic safe grease. Personally I am using white lithium grease, but I hear that ceramic grease works very well and lasts longer. As I mentioned before, the wear and tear on these joysticks largely comes from the bowl getting ground up into plastic dust. While putting an end to that wear is not possible to my knowledge, there is a way to drastically slow it down. What you will want to do is take apart the controller and joystick housing as described above. There is not much of a need to take apart the top of the housing though other than making sure it's clean. What you'll want to do is use a toothpick, Q-Tip, or other small object and grease certain areas of the housing. The most important thing in greasing is this. DO NOT GET ANY GREASE ON EITHER OF THE WHEEL PARTS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE BOWL. IT WILL SERIOUSLY DAMAGE IT. Areas you do want to grease include the inside of the bowl (but not too much as it can spill out and onto the wheel part), The bottom and top of the black plastic cradle piece inside the bowl, where that plastic cradle sits on the edge of the bowl, the hammer or the joystick, and the little ball at the bottom of the hammer. Doing this has made my joysticks nice and smooth again and is an important part to the more long term solution. What it does for the controller is reduce the grind of the joystick and bowl, which is an amazing thing. I plan on checking on the grease after a month has passed to see if it needs reapplying. Again, I hear ceramic grease lasts longer. From what I've seen and read this is a great easy to do maintenance that will keep your original joystick working great longer. However, it is only a preventative and will not fix a joystick.

    I've heard of a few different ways to go about more of a long term fix for the wiggly joystick. I've heard of ways of altering the stick itself if the little ball at the end is overly worn, but haven't had a need to do it yet, so I can't share my experiences with that. The way that I have gone about repairing these sticks with a long term approach in mind is as follows. Make note that this is not a fast fix and patience and some precision is required to do the job right. If you ever happen to get your hands on a newish Nintendo 64 controller take a look at the white bowl compared to that of one with a loose joystick. You will easily see that the bowl from the controller with the loose stick appears deeper. That is where the problem is and bringing the bowl back to it's former self is the goal. For this fix I used some plastic safe epoxy, a toothpick, a thin tipped sharpie, a dremel, sandpaper, a Q-Tip, and a lot of patience.

    What you will want to do first is take apart the controller and joystick as described above. Once you have the white bowl removed from the bottom part of the housing you'll want to think about how much epoxy you are going to need. You should know how loose your joystick is and if you have a stick that is in good shape, it's not a bad idea to kind of eyeball it. Apply a small amount of epoxy into the bowl. I used the toothpick and Q-Tip to do this. You still want to bowl to be concave in the middle. How much you need is going to depend on how messed up the bowl is. Be careful not to get any on those wheel parts! Let the epoxy harden. Mine was good to go in about 4 hours. Now is where patience becomes a virtue. Attach a small amount of sandpaper to the end of the sharpie and smooth out the epoxy by gently sanding. Don't go too much yet. You're just trying to smooth it out for now. Reassemble the joystick housing only. See how the stick is. Is it still loose? If so you'll want to carefully add more and wait. Does it get stuck? Not a big deal. What you need to do here is either slowly sand down the epoxy or carefully use a dremel at low speed to do the same. Sand it again afterwords to smooth it out. If it's still getting stuck you can actually sand the bottom of the cradle a little bit without hurting it. If you go too much it will snap so only do this if you feel confident. Once the joystick feels good to you, grease it up as described above. This will not only slow the wear and tear again, but it will help the hammer slide on the epoxy better. I've used this method on two joysticks now and both are working great.

    I've heard of other ways of doing the longer term fix such as super glue instead of epoxy and I'm sure that works fine too, but I found the epoxy pretty easy to work with. It's a shame that these joysticks have the issues that they have, but at least there are ways of making them last longer and even repairing them. I honestly don't know why Nintendo didn't have the insides of these things greased to begin with, but it is what it is. I can't guarantee that these methods will work for everyone and I do not recommend the epoxy fix to anyone who does not know what they are doing with these joysticks. I did these repairs about 2 weeks ago and so far everything has been working great. At the time I had no intention of doing a blog on it, so sorry that I don't have any pictures or video to help. The good news is both the tape and epoxy fixes can be found on Youtube if you need a visual guide. My next blog will be looking at some other alternatives to repairing that I stumbled across in my quest to revive my Nintendo 64's controllers! Thanks for reading!
 

Update

Greetings everyone. I'm doing two small blogs today. This first one is an update as to why I have been absent. I had every intent on moving full steam ahead with the horror blog series I was so, so excited to do since the summer. Sadly I am not going to be able to keep up with it. I am dealing with some things in life right now and need to focus in on those things more than I have been. It's pretty personal, so I'm not going to be getting into it here at all. This update is basically just me saying that I'm alive and I do intend on continuing this blog whenever I have to time to do so. I do hope that a time will come soon where I can go back to blogging how I was, but we will see.

So moving forward I will be continuing as I was prior to trying to start Horror Blogs. Perhaps this is something I can attempt to do again next year, but we will see on that as well. Everything is kind of up in the air. Thank you all for your patience, thanks for reading, and just in general, thank you!

Horror Blogs Part 1: A Nightmare on Elm Street

    Hello everyone and welcome to the first blog in my Horror Blogs series. This series will feature game reviews, thoughts, and experiences involving games of the horror genre. There are a ton of games that fall into this genre from the Atari through the Sony Playstation and Nintendo 64. There is no way I will be able to tackle them all between now and Halloween, so chances are good that next year I'll be doing this blog series again with different games. This series is not just going to be a review series. It will be a series in which I share my thoughts and experiences on the games that I am looking at. In some cases I may even bring some comparisons to a games respective movie if it has one. Speaking of games based on horror movies, the first game I will be taking a look at is based off the popular movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

****MOVIE AND GAME SPOILERS AHEAD****

    One two Freddy's coming for you.... A Nightmare on Elm Street on the Nintendo Entertainment System was unleashed in North America in October of 1990. Six years earlier, Wes Craven wowed audiences with a horror movie called A Nightmare on Elm Street. The plot of the first movie in a nutshell is that a child killer by the name of Fred Krueger gets killed by the parents of Elm Street. Despite being killed, Freddy is able to appear in the dreams of the children of Elm Street where he can do whatever he wants with them, including killing them. If Freddy kills a kid in their dream, they die in the real world in the same fashion. For example, the first teenager to die gets cut up by Freddy and thrown around. As Freddy is doing this in her dreams, the damage is being done to her in the real world. This style, for the most part, is what dominates the Nightmare on Elm Street movie franchise. The question is, how did it transfer into the game?

    That's a topic that everyone has their own opinion on, and here is mine. In the game you play as one of the teenagers on Elm Street and you're task is to search the houses, school, etc of Elm Street in search of Freddy's bones. On the top of the screen there is a sleep meter. As you play the game the meter falls and eventually you fall asleep. In the dream world the game continues as usual until you hear an 8-bit rendering of Freddy's song from the movies. When the song ends Freddy attacks. If you manage to fend him off, the game continues as normal. While the sleep meter naturally drains, you can replenish it by finding coffee, one of the things the teens in the movies continually make use of to stay awake. While in the dream world you can find a boom box to wake you up. I guess that is supposed to simulate an alarm clock or something. Not sure...

    I think it's a pretty good system that the game has as far as the transition from awake to asleep. In the movies it's so seemless that you can't even really tell when the characters slip into a dream until it is obvious they're in one. Beyond that, the game runs into a challenge. As you wander Elm Street and it's many buildings you run into a lot of well, lackluster enemies. Some of these enemies include snakes, bats, rats, and Frankenstein's monsteresque zombies. I feel like these types of enemies were overly common in older horror games, so I guess it works. In the dream world the enemies are similar, but some of them gain Freddy heads or look simply creepier. Even though they are lackluster I feel like I can give it a bit of a pass because in the movies, Freddy is literally the sole enemy so any additional enemies in the game wouldn't be the same as the movies. I mean I guess they could have had like random street thugs or something, but the typical creepy animal enemies and zombie looking guys work just fine.

    Where the game lacks the most I think is in it's music department. The sound effects of getting hit and what not are alright. It's the NES so I don't expect a whole lot, but outside of the opening screen I have no idea where they were going with the music here. If you've ever watched A Nightmare on Elm Street, you know that the music is so haunting and creepy that it can send chills down your spine. Well, the music in the game is pretty much the exact opposite. It is generally upbeat. At times it tries to be more creepy, such as during boss battles, but it sounds more like an underground level in a Batman game or something like that. Whatever it is, it does not sound like music that should be in a Nightmare on Elm Street game. There is one point where the music fits perfectly though. If you stay in the dream world too long Freddy's song will start playing. It's actually a pretty cool 8-bit rendition and while it may not have vocals, it still gives that feeling of desperation to wake up.

    I find it interesting that this game is called simply A Nightmare on Elm Street. Based on that title you would be led to think that the game is based off the first movie. In reality though I find that it has more in common with the third movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. The first movie featured one main protagonist in the form of Nancy Thompson, but Dream Warriors featured a small group of teenagers that Nancy was mentoring in controlling their dreams to combat Freddy. In the NES game you can play with up to four people. Yes, four people in an NES game playing at the same time.  Another interesting note is that during Dream Warriors, Nancy's father aids in an effort to round up Freddy's remains at the town car dump. The main objective in the buildings, as I mentioned before is to round up Freddy's bones. There is also a junkyard that the player ventures into as well in the game. The difference here is that in the game you burn Freddy's remains in the school rather than bury them in the junkyard. Perhaps the most interesting note though takes place in the dream world of both the game and Dream Warriors. In Dream Warriors, the teens, despite being in Freddy's world find a way to gain dream powers. The game is the same as the teens are able to find different powers in the game. All of this pushes me in the direction of this game actually being based on the third movie as opposed to the first. Not sure why they just named it A Nightmare on Elm Street, but whatever.

    So overall I have to say that I like A Nightmare on Elm Street a lot. Is it the best horror game? No. Does it pay good homage to the movie it's named after? I think it plays more to the third movie in the series. I also think that a different, creepier music score, at least in the dream world, would have made for a much better atmosphere. I think the gameplay is pretty straight forward, the controls are responsive to the point where I never really had an issue, and the boss battles, while generally following a pattern are certainly something I could see Freddy doing. I think the sleep meter is fine and the transition from the real world to dream world and back again, are all fine. They take a few seconds, but it isn't really annoying or game breaking. Just enough time to take a deep breath is all. At the end of the day the game I think sits in that category of an alright game. It doesn't do anything spectacular for the time and it really doesn't do much wrong either.

    One final word on this game is it's developer. While LJN was the publisher, and the game is widely known as an LJN game, Rare actually developed it. This is one of several games for the Nintendo Entertainment System that Rare quietly went about making back when they're biggest claim to fame, or infamy was Battletoads.

    Thank you for reading. I know this blog was in a bit of a different style so I apologize if it wasn't what you were looking for. Don't worry though, Horror Blogs will continue and the next game that I will be taking a look at is a bit of a revisit, Clock Tower.

 

Opinion: Pokemon: Which Generation Rules Part 2: The Pokemon

Hello everyone and welcome to part two of a blog that takes a look at the generation of Pokemon that I believe rules them all, generation two! Last time I looked at the games that came out in this generation in regards to what they brought to the series and why I love them so much. Today will be a continuation of that blog as I take a look at some of the more influential Pokemon that came out in that generation. Before looking at those Pokemon I want to just reiterate one of the biggest changes in these games was the introduction of two new types, Dark and Steel. Today these two types are quite powerful when combined with other types such as Psychic or Ghost. The combinations have gotten pretty crazy including the Dark/Ghost typing that literally has no weakness. Fortunately though the only couple of Pokemon with that typing are not that crazy to deal with. In generation two though, the Steel and Dark types were a bit more tame. That being said I may address a Pokemon or two that had it's type changed from Red/Blue/Green/Yellow to Gold/Silver/Crystal. So without further delay, lets look at some of the more interesting Pokemon that generation two brought to the game.

#81 Magnemite/ #82 Magneton

    In the first generation, Magenmite and Magneton were both pure electric types. They were weak to ground moves, resisted electric and flying, but everything else did normal damage to them. Being the first Pokemon to undergo a type change (and the only until the fifth generation where Rotom gained another form allowing for a new type) Magneton and Magnemite gained several resistances and a couple more weaknesses as well. It became even more weak to ground, which in generation two where abilities did not yet exist, was it's ultimate weakness. In addition to ground it became weak to fire and fighting as well. The trade off though is that it became totally immune to poison while resisting every other type with the exception Dark, Water, and Ghost type attacks. This significantly changed the way that Magneton was viewed and for me personally it pushed it to my go to electric type thanks to all those new resistances combined with a now sturdy defense and great special attack. 

The Starters

    I just want to note something about the starters in this game. The evolved forms of Chikorita (Grass), Totodile (Water), and Cyndaquil (Fire) all maintain the basic grass, water, and fire typing. This means the Gold/Silver/Crystal are the only games in which all three starters have one type and do not gain another. I just find that as a fun fact as every other generation has at least one starter that either starts with a second type or gains one as it evolves. 

#169 Crobat 

    Crobat is very interesting for a couple of reasons. On reason is that numerically, it is the first of the generation two Pokemon whose previous evolutions are from generation one. Crobat evolves from Golbat, but not by traditional leveling means. In the last blog I talked about how you could get Pokemon to like you more through a few different means. Well, once Golbat likes you a ton and levels up, it will now evolve into Crobat. The effort to raise Zubat and Golbat pay off huge here as Crobat is one of the fastest Pokemon in the game and can cause serious problems if left unchecked. Despite it's speed though it does still have the same weakish typing of poison and flying which means electric, psychic, rock, and ice all wreck it's day. At least ground types can't hit it...

The Babies

    

    I feel like starting with generation three there were just some Pokemon that just seemed like the creators ran out of ideas or something. That being said, generation two had a few Pokemon, that while cute and fun, just never really appealed to me. That being said, these Pokemon do serve a purpose in the greater Pokemon story since breeding was introduced in this game. I am talking about the baby Pokemon. Yes, Pichu, Elekid, Magby, and the rest are all cute, but outside of them being able to gain egg moves through specific breeding combinations, they really will never be the go to Pokemon. I guess that doesn't matter much since they evolve and in some cases those baby egg moves can be quite powerful. 

#196 Espeon and #197 Umbreon

    

    Gold/Silver/Crystal brought us two new evolutions of Eevee. The way you could evolve your Eevee into Umbreon or Espeon depended not on which stone you used, but what time of day you leveled it up with max happiness. If Eevee evolved during the day, it would become Espeon. During the night, Umbreon. Umbreon got the privilege of becoming one of the first Dark types, while Espeon joined a group of already strong Psychic Pokemon. Both are still incredibly popular in both competitive play as well as casual play alike. While Espeon focuses more on speed and attacks, Umbreon can become a tank capable of incredible stall and effect damage from poison and confusion. As straight Psychic and Dark types, the two only run into a couple weaknesses. Espeon gets put down by Ghost, Bug, and Dark types while Umbreon has a tough time holding up against Fighting, Bug, and as of Pokemon X and Y, Fairy. Speaking of Umbreon, it is totally immune to Psychic attacks making it a pretty big counter to Espeon. Odd how that turned out. Either way though, both are always an awesome option in and Generation two team!

#208 Steelix

      The first time I saw Steelix I went into a panic. This thing I thought meant serious business. Then I calmed down and realized that at the end of the day, Steelix just looks really cool. It's the evolved form of Onyx and much like it's previous evolution, has glaring problems. First off, Steelix has an odd typing of Ground/Steel. While the Steel typing removed it's weakness to grass, it was only replaced by fire. It also picked up a weakness to fighting. The combination of Ground and Steel did give it complete immunity to both poison and electric, but in these games, there were not many effective poison moves to begin with. Steelix was and is still great on defense, but much like Onyx, doesn't deliver the attacks it looks like it should. Nonetheless, Steelix is certainly a Pokemon that everyone remembers first appearing in Gold/Silver/Crystal. 

#212 Scizor

    Both Steelix and Scizor actually evolve from their previous evolutions in a new manner that debuted in the second generation of Pokemon games. In order to evolve Onyx into Steelix, or Scyther into Scizor, you needed to trade the respective Pokemon while it was holding a metal coat. Unlike Steelix, Scizor was and still is one hundred percent worth the effort in obtaining. It keeps Scyther's Bug typing, but adds Steel to the mix. This strong typing bears weakness to only fire. It's surprising speed and power along with a pretty good defense has made Scizor a force to be reckoned with since these games were released. 

#227 Skarmory and #242 Blissey

    Few combinations of Pokemon are as famous as the duo of Skarmory and Blissey. Right from the first time these two Pokemon were seen they had a solid purpose. Defense. These two on the same team used to be nothing short of a nightmare. Skarmory, with it's Steel/Flying type had one of the best defense stats in the game and boasted eight resistances (nine today) and immunity from both Ground and Poison. Access to Curse, Whirlwind, and Drill Peck made this bird very hard to deal with. On that same page Blissey boasts one of the best Special Defense stats in the game while having one of the highest HP totals in the game as well. Blissey has access to moves such as Heal Bell that help the team while also able to heal itself with Softboiled. Throw something like Toxic on it and it is a very large wall that can be a nightmare. Switching back and forth between the two given the situation can be overwhelming. Today their uses have dropped a bit, but both Pokemon are still far from useless.

The Legendaries

    To wrap up this portion of the blog I just want to mention the legendary Pokemon in this game. While Raikou, Suicune, and Entei are basically dog versions of the legendary birds, they do have something special about them. These were the first roaming legendary Pokemon. They would randomly run about the world map. Running into them was pretty much up to chance. In addition to them we have Celebi, which is basically this game's version of Mew, and the two new legendary birds, Lugia and Ho-oh. Ho-oh is another fire-flying type and is the Pokemon that Ash sees at the end of the first episode of the anime. Lugia on the other hand is known as the guardian of the sea and had a major role in Pokemon the movie 2000. In the game it boasts a strong special defense and defense, making it virtually the perfect single Pokemon wall. That is something that has remained fairly consistent to this day.

    Well there you have it. Those are what I think are some of the most noteworthy Pokemon that were introduced or fixed for Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal. I'm sure there are others I did not mention that had an impact as well, but these are the ones I remember the most and in some cases are still the ones I gravitate to. With that being said I just want to say one final thing.

    Pokemon is a series that has continued to expand and grow. Is generation two the best? I think it is personally, but I honestly can't say that that's fact. Other generations brought all kinds of new stuff to the table. In fact Pokemon has become quite complicated over the years and now things like EV training and IV breeding are huge deals and new forms and mega evolutions seem to pop up everywhere. For me though, if I had to pick one last Pokemon game to play it would be one of these three. With a fantastic story, awesome new innovations from the original, and a slew of really cool new Pokemon, Gold, Silver, and Crystal are the generation of Pokemon that in my opinion, rules them all. 

    As always, thanks for reading. I love the Pokemon series of games as a whole so be sure to check back for more Pokemon blogs in the future. For now though I am prepared to begin my Horror Marathon! Expect the first of these blogs to be out around the middle of the month and for them to be pretty regular from there on. The first game I will be taking a look at is A Nightmare on Elm Street for the Nintendo Entertainment System! 

Opinion: Pokemon: Which Generation Rules Part 1: The Games

    Hello everyone and welcome to my thoughts on which generation of Pokemon had the best game attached to it as well as the best Pokemon attached to it. Since this is a retro gaming blog I will not be looking at all of the generations of Pokemon exist today. Rather I will be looking at Generation One (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow), Generation Two (Gold, Silver, Crystal), and Generation Three (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green). So anything from Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Black 2, White 2, X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, and Moon will not be considered in this blog. Before I get started I want to say that the Pokemon franchise is incredibly good. Right from the first game I played (Red) at a young age I was hooked. My history with the franchise though did get a bit bumpy as I did not play Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald until much later. At the time of their respective releases I was big into Kingdom Hearts, Starcraft, and a variety of Nintendo 64 games that my Game Boy Advance did not see a ton of play. When the Game Boy Advance did get played it was with a bunch of other games like Rayman, Golden Sun, and honestly Jurrasic Park III: Park Builder.

    So I skipped over the third generation of games. Then a friend and I went to Gamestop looking at DS games and we came across Diamond and Pearl. I grabbed Pearl, he got Diamond. We didn't expect much of anything, but we wound up really enjoying the games. I'd wind up picking up Leaf Green and Emerald. I enjoyed both of them and I think Leaf Green was a great upgrade to Red and Blue while bringing everything new that the second and third generation games had brought to the series. From there I pretty much continued getting games in the series as they came out. Despite all of those new Pokemon games coming out, one generation in particular remained my favorite and when it had it's shot at a remake on a dual screened Nintendo console I freaked. In fact I think I have more hours logged into that remake than any other Pokemon game outside of the originals of that remake.

    At the end of the day, my favorite generation of Pokemon is, was, and always will be the second. This generation encompasses Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal and are Game Boy/ Game Boy Color games.

******SPOILERS AHEAD******

They would eventually get an incredible remake (not Crystal) in Heart Gold and Soul Silver on the Nintendo DS as a part of the fourth generation of games. What is there not to love about these games. They pretty much took everything that made the first generation great and built upon it in big ways. Before going into which Pokemon I like the best from this generation I want to touch on some of what I love about this game. The first two things literally takes place within the first minute of playing.

    Now this first thing doesn't seem like a big deal and honestly today a part of me feels scared that this question may actually offend people, but at the time this was a big deal. In Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow you played as a boy (Red) by default with no option. Gold and Silver followed this with the player playing as a boy (Ethan). Crystal on the other hand, with it's later release threw in a girl playable character (Kris) for the first time ever in a Pokemon game. To me this was huge. Even back then I knew that a lot of girls played these games and for them to be able to play as a girl in the game was pretty cool. In fact I know a lot of guys now that play as the girl over the boy in many of the newer generations. It all started in generation two. As big as this addition was, it was still overshadowed by another feature that was introduced in Gold and Silver. Sadly this feature would vanish in the third generation and still feel like to this day, generation two did this the best.

    For me, the biggest win and one of my absolute favorite features of Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal is the in game clock. It's so simple, yet oh so important. In Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow, all of the Pokemon showed up in their respective areas at any time, day or night. This made it real easy to catch what you wanted at any time. Gold, Silver, and Crystal changed all of that. The day was divided into three portions. Morning, Day, and Night. Depending on what time of the day you played, different Pokemon would be out. In some cases a Pokemon would go from say common during the day to rare or even uncatchable at night. Some Pokemon could only be caught at night. Some only in the morning. Some could be caught anytime day or night. This blew my mind as a kid and even going back and playing through this game again a couple months ago, I still found myself at the mercy of time, just like in real life. I had to think about what I wanted to catch and play the game at the right time. If I wanted that Murkrow I had to make sure I was playing at night. As a kid that meant hooking my Game Boy Color or Game Boy light up to the console and sneaking in some playing time after I was supposed to be going to sleep. It was quite thrilling. Now it's more of just something on the mind as opposed to a thrill of sneaking staying up late. 

    In addition to Pokemon showing up at different times, the game actually changed from day to night. It was always much nicer to look at the game on the Game Boy Color or Super Game Boy, but the day to night was actually pretty cool. The screen would simply get darker and the lights in all the houses and shops would go on signaling that time had shifted. It wasn't really stellar in how it happened. In fact it was basically in the blink of an eye (fastest sunset ever), but it was better than there being a text box signaling the transition like in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. It's something small, that the series now does regularly since Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. It was absent during the thrid generation of games, which I always thought was actually a step backwards despite the series jumping to the Game Boy Advance. 

    There are a plethora of other small things that I completely love about this game. The introduction of being able to raise a Pokemon's happiness through battle, paying for haircuts, and a potential evolution as a reward was something worth sinking time into. Other additions to the games that would change the series forever included breeding, pokemon genders, hold items, hold item trade evolutions, and two brand new types in the form of dark and steel. Both types right from the first game would have powerful additions and even effect some of the Pokemon that existed already. For example, Magnemite was converted from an electric type to an electric/steel type. This led to it having a lot more in terms of defense, but added other weaknesses such as Fire. Other Pokemon such as Onyx and Eevee would gain new evolutions with the new typing in Steelix and Umbreon. Another added feature was the division of special attack from regular attack in the Pokemon's stats screen. Smaller features like an XP meter were great quality of life changes that made things just a touch less frustrating.

    There is one last thing that I think sets this game apart from any other Pokemon game. The standard number of gym badges that a Pokemon game has is eight. Gold/Silver/Crystal has sixteen. That's right twice as many and the reason for it is awesome. After defeating the Pokemon League for the first time, you run into some very familiar territory if you've played Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow. After conquering Johto you end up in Kanto, the region in which the first Pokemon game takes place. In true sequel fashion time has passed. Blue has taken Giovanni's spot as head of the Viridian City gym, Koga's daughter now runs Fusia City's gym, Cinnabar island's gym has relocated to Seafoam island, and a number of other changes have happened as well. It's an awesome feeling in both nostalgia and excitement to be back in Kanto tackling the region with all new Pokemon and gameplay features. It's a feeling that would later be renewed in Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. In addition to Kanto being in the picture, there is one last major piece that I have not talked about. That is the ultimate battle that takes place once you collect all sixteen badges. With all sixteen collected you can visit Mount Silver. Upon reaching the summit, there is one person there, Red, the hero of the first game. You face off with him in one of the most intense battles in any Pokemon game. The sense of accomplishment upon defeating him is one not commonly felt, but it is very special. 

    The Pokemon series would continue to grow and expand. New ideas would come such as contests, and diving, and what not, but none of them really ever had the impact that the additions in this game had. Breeding I'd say is the biggest and while it has undergone some changes, the core of it remains the same. The day/night cycle returned in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum and has been in the series since, but I still feel like Gold and Silver had the biggest difference in Pokemon available depending on the time of day. Seasons would be introduced in later games, further expanding on the day and time, as well as timed events, that began with these games. At the end of the day, the second generation of Pokemon games laid the a large chunk of the foundation that led the series to where it is today. The first generation I would say was the blueprint, but I think as far as the games themselves go, that Gold/Silver/Crystal are the best games in the series for bringing in the sheer number of things that they brought into the series as well as a great story and a host of fun new Pokemon which I'll take a look at in Part 2 of this blog. As always thank you for reading and stay tuned for part 2 coming soon! 

Fall Preview Blog/Summer Update

    Hello everyone. Hope the summer has been treating all of you well. Today I just wanted to give you all a little bit more of a preview to what will be starting in less than a month from now on this blog. The Halloween season is a pretty major time of year for me and one of my favorite genre of games happens to be horror as well. Starting in mid August I will be shifting into a full blown Halloween-a-thon. Outside of any news related blogs about anything gaming that I want to touch on, all of the blogs from mid August through October will be themed around horror video games. These games can be anything from the consoles that I normally cover that have to do with horror or spooky themes. This means that obvious games like the ones from the Castlevania series will be looked at as well as often times forgotten about games like Scooby Doo Mystery on the Super Nintendo. If it revolves around spooky and creepy, then it's up for a potential look at or review. 

    There are a few games that I am thinking I am going to take a look at in relation to their respective movies as well. I won't be doing reviews on the movies themselves, but for games like A Nightmare on Elm Street on the Nintendo Entertainment System, I will be seeing if they actually line up with their respective movies. Atari games such as Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre will probably get a pass on this type of blog since well, they are Atari games and not much can really be expected plot wise. I may also throw a couple lists in this marathon that may include things like my top 5 favorite horror games based on movies or something like that. I'm not one hundred percent sure on those yet, so stay tuned. 

    My idea for this marathon actually started back when I first started doing this blog more regularly again. Horror games have been some of my favorites for a long time, but I never really talked much about any of them (with the exception of Clock Tower, and a couple of the House of the Dead games) on this blog. As far as movies go, yes horror is one of my favorite genres there as well which is why I want to look at some of these games and how they go along with their movies. I used A Nightmare on Elm Street as an example before because honestly the Nightmare on Elm Street series is one of, if not, my favorite horror series, so I'm pretty excited to be looking at that game finally. I'm also hoping to throw up a new layout on the blog here to go with the season. Heck I may make that a thing actually... We shall see... Now for the rest of the summer.

    I've only done one other blog outside of this one this month and there is actually a reason for this. I've actually been having issues with my thumb and it has been bandaged in a way that it makes using a controller or joystick pretty tough, so most of my gaming has been done on PC, which I don't really cover here much. I originally wanted to get a few more reviews up this month, but I do not know if I'll actually be able to play a game enough to be able to review it. So I took some time away from gaming for the most part (it's summer so that helps) and have focused on cleaning and taking apart my Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 as well as their games and make sure that they are all good to go. One thing that I've started working on and would like to have done by the end of the month is a blog talking about my favorite Pokemon generation and the games that go with that generation. Sadly I don't think I'll be able to get through the Kirby's Block Ball review until after Halloween since I honestly have not been able to play it. I could try to do a review from what I remember about it, but I'd rather have it fresh in my mind.

    So that is kind of where I am at at this point. I'm hopeful that my finger problem will be resolved in a week or two which will allow me to resume console gaming (and handheld for that matter). From that point on I'll be starting to play horror based games at a feverish pace to make sure that I am good to go for mid August. I'm sorry that this month hasn't been active at all, but I'm thinking that will change in August for sure. One last note is that I will actually be taking a vacation in early September so I will not be doing any blogging from pretty much the fifth until probably the thirteenth. That's actually the reason I'm starting Halloween so early since I'll be losing a week or so while I'm away. Anyway. Thanks for reading and look for that Pokemon blog to be up before the month is over!

Super Nintendo Classic Pre-Release Wrap Up

    Hey again everyone! Today I will be doing a sort of wrap up on my thoughts on the Super Nintendo Classic before it is released. I've had some time now since the day the mini console was announced and I just wanted to say a few more things. I apologize to those of you waiting for the Kirby's Block Ball review. It is in the works, but I want to get this out there first. So unless you haven't been following here or various other sites, or Youtube, or any other source of video game info, Nintendo has announced that the Super Nintendo Classic will be hitting store shelves this September. My first blog on this console broke down the games that were on it and whether or not I thought they were good fits. I agree that for the majority of the games on the console certainly deserve a spot with really the only exception being Kirby's Dream Course. This blog is going to be more thoughts that have come into my head since then as well as taking a quick look at the Super Famicom mini that will be released in Japan.

    The more I look at the list of games on the Super Nintendo Classic, the more I actually like it. All in all you are getting just about all of the most popular games on the console (barring Chrono Trigger mostly). Donkey Kong Country, Super Castlevania IV, Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario World all hold up well today and are some of the best platformers ever made, let alone on the Super Nintendo. While I would have rather had seen Donkey Kong Country 2 be on the console, the issues with Rare and Nintendo are not all that secret and the first game of course is the one that started it all. It would be like having Starfox 2 on there and not Star Fox. Speaking of Star Fox, the first official release of Star Fox 2 is awesome, but I'm curious how younger gamers are going to view the game's graphics that have really not aged well at all. Will they even want to bother once they see what is essentially largely grey polygons flying around the screen? Also what will people who haven't played a rom of Star Fox 2 think of it's gameplay? What will their reaction be once they realize it is not a traditional Star Fox game? (Really what is at this point?) These are things I'd love to know and see involving those two games.

    The more I think about Earthbound, the more I find it really cool that it made it onto this console. The game has always been a cult classic, but that cult is growing. If we were looking at Super Nintendo classics in the sense that they were huge during the system's life, this game would never had made the cut. Amazingly though it's popularity now keeps growing and growing and I'm sure it making it's way onto the Super Nintendo Classic will only do more to raise that popularity. Hell, it'd be amazing if it helped convince Nintendo to actually get us an English version of Mother 3. Just sayin.

    Kirby's Dream Course is still a pretty good game. It's very unique in it's style on the console and I keep going back and forth as to whether or not it should be on here. Part of me loves that it is, the other part of me feels like it's almost a missed opportunity. By that I mean the game has a lot of golf/billiards mechanics. My question now is why pick this game over some of the other multiplayer sports games like Super Tennis for example? I mean one of the advantages the Super Nintendo Classic has over the NES Classic is that is actually comes with two controllers, so why not make the most of it. I feel the same way about F-Zero in that regard. Yes, It absolutely should be on the console, but it's still a single player racing game. Just kind of strange to me given the amount of multiplayer racing and other sports games out there. Could be a license thing, but who knows.

    From there we arrive at the Super Famicom Classic. Much like the Super Nintendo Classic, the Super Famicom Classic will be a mini version of the original system. The game list is actually a bit different than the Super Nintendo Classic in the following ways. First of all, Earthbound is out and is replaced by Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. The Mother series had always been popular in Japan as Earthbound was the only one released outside of the country until the Wii U's Virtual Console released the first game of the series in the U.S.. At the end of the day it's probably safe to say that Fire Emblem has more of a following at this point. Super Castlevania IV is out and Legend of the Mystical Ninja is in. This doesn't surprise me much honestly. Mystical Ninja was and still is a pretty big deal in Japan and Castlevania is and always was a big deal in North America. Seems like a fair trade to me. Kirby's Dream Course is out and Pano de Pon (Tetris Attack) is in. Tetris Attack is really a great game. It's one of the better puzzle games on the system, but is often forgotten because of Pokemon Puzzle League on the Nintendo 64. The plus of this game over Dream Course is the two player option. I would have loved for Tetris Attack to be on the Super Nintendo Classic, but space is a thing. Super Punch Out is out and Super Soccer is in. I mean, Soccer as a sport is probably way more popular in Japan than it is in the United States. I honestly have no idea if Super Punch Out was popular in Japan or not, but either way, the Super Famicom continues to have more of a multiplayer presence.

    That brings us to the last difference. Street Fighter 2: Turbo is out and Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers is in. This one was a bit surprising to me at first, but now it makes sense. Whenever I hear people talk about Street Fighter 2 I hear them talking about the turbo edition. That seems to be most people's favorite in the United States. If you go over to Japan however, that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems that more people there prefer The New Challengers. So it's a region preference. Nothing wrong with that.

    Are there other games I'd still like to see on the Super Nintendo Classic? Yes. Are there games I would still like to see on the Super Famicom Classic? Yes. However the lists are what they are, but I can't help but feel like games such as Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Chrono Trigger, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Tetris Attack, and even another unique game like Pilotwings would have made this thing virtually perfect. In addition Nintendo probably could have priced the thing quite a bit higher with all these titles included. Hell for what it is now, it's still a steal.

    All in all both systems are looking stellar now I think. For $80 you are getting 21 games (one never released), two controllers (NES Classic only came with one), and you are saving a ton of money as opposed to trying to find all these cartridges plus a Super Nintendo. Several of these games are quite expensive, but with either classic edition you are getting the meat and potatoes of the system. You are getting nearly every title that had massive fame and continue to be some of the more popular games around. In addition you are getting a couple odd balls and a previously unreleased game on top of it. There is no downside to this thing with the exception of however many Nintendo plans to make. They keep saying it will be significantly more than the NES Classic, but what constitutes that? One million more? Ten million more? Ten more? All we can do is keep our fingers crossed and wait because these things are going to fly off the shelves. With any luck the average person will be able to pick one up and make their own or their families holiday wishes come true.

    As always thanks for reading. This will be my last blog on the Super Nintendo Classic until it is out and we see what happens with the supply question. I think I've gotten everything out that I want to say about it now. I am also working on a little preview blog for the spooky game marathon that I'll be starting sometime next month. I'm not sure which will be done first but the summer keeps rolling on either way. Expect a few more reviews here and there as well a couple other blogs leading up to my first Halloween event!