|
Greetings and Salivations!
Welcome to System Shock issue six, in which we hope to have finally found a good and reliable format for our website. Hopefully, we should be able to update more regularly or at least more frequently in the very near future.
Sorry for the delay in updating, but here you have it.
What took so long?
With that aside, let's get the ball rolling!
|
Final Fight Guy
Anyone who knows a Final Fight arcade machine from a hole in the ground
will probably remember how disappointing the SNES version of this velveeta-laden game was.
Not only are there stages missing, but only two of the three characters were playable (Cody
and Haggar in the original release, and Guy and Haggar in Final Fight Guy), it was only a one-player game, it had goofy name changes (Damnd became "Thrasher" and
Sodom became "Katana"),
and the girls, Roxy and Poison, were wiped out of existence to make room for a
couple of dainty-looking guys who happen to move and act just like them. Hmm.
Capcom of America seems to be of the opinion that only men can be the bad
guys, as they've replaced the girls in every home
version of their legendary series Final Fight for this system, not to mention other games as well. What kind
of a message are they trying to convey to our kids? The dorks. I've known plenty
of bad girls in my time, so let me assure you that this fanaticism of CoA is unwarranted. If Roxy and Poison had really wanted a sex change, they probably would have dressed differently to begin with.
Also, by putting said dainty-looking guys in their places, does CoA mean to say it's okay to beat up on people who may live a different type of lifestyle than others? We don't support this view, ladies and gentlemen, but
Capcom seems to think it's just fine and dandy, like some of these people don't have enough problems to begin with.
All right, let's get crackin' and take a look at this bastardized piece o' poo.
On the left is the character in her more-or-less original form (even the Japanese version had some minor differences from the arcade). The picture on
the right, however, is a wild departure -- a screen shot from the
US version which appeared on the shelves of
Blockbuster Video stores across the country
fraudulently labelled as an import version "direct from Japan". When Blockbuster
eventually sold these Not-for-resale carts, a lot of innocent people got sapped by this ploy, since the screen shots
on the back show Japanese text and none of the butchered characters.
At a single glance it is obvious that the thole thing is a pile -- Import gamers will be already aware that Japanese Super Famicom cartridges are not even shaped the same way, and this is clearly an American release from the time you slide the square cart out of its false-advertisement-plastered pack. It is my humble but firmly-held opinion that both Blockbuster Video and Capcom of America should be held accountable for their ficticious claims. I really loved the original arcade of this game, and a lot of people feel the same way. Does CoA really
think that the people who played and enjoyed the arcade would not notice these things? Do they really think everybody in America is so stupid? Apparently so,
because they do this sort of thing a lot. If you got smacked by their lies, or somehow otherwise ended up with a butchered version, Download the patch and play the real game!
|
Rushing Beat Syura vs. The Peace Keepers
Rushing Beat Syura
Elfin's Bird Storm
Dick's Dragon Wave
Jimmy's Thunder Edge
Kythring's Assault Tiger
|
The Peace Keepers
Echo Whines Really Loud
Flynn Flatulates Voltage!
Prokop Puts his foot down!
Al Spins Around Really Fast!
|
Third in the Rushing Beat series, and just as butchered as the first two in this country, comes Rushing Beat Syura, which is easily my second favorite fighter of all time. Aside from being able to choose from several characters, some of which are hidden, and switch freely between them from stage to stage, this great game is non-linear and has excellent play control.
The first two games were bastardized into "Rival Turf" and "Brawl Brothers" in the U.S., and were chopped up in silly ways, but I digress and I do it well. For a quick dose of the different flavors of the games, check out the attacks of the original game on the left (which really look a lot cooler in action) versus the funky American attacks on the right. Weird, eh? Let's take a look at the characters of the original and what the sloppy Jaleco of America surgically altered them into.
Check out the action in the side panels to see how differently the game was treated in each country. The original on the left was very flashy and high-powered, whereas most of the ones from the US game (and its international descendants) are just pretty out of place. I guess the attack of the butchered character Flynn might have been okay, except he was supposed to be a genetic construct -- not the son of an electric eel!
Elfin / Echo
Dick / Flynn
Jimmy / Prokop
Kythring / Al
Norton
M-Frame / Orbot
|
On the tall chart here are the mugshots of the main characters. The butchered versions are on the right.
Jeez, Elfin was kinda cute before she got turned into a pissed-off mutant. Also, Prokop has a palette that makes him look like a budget Frankenstein.
Throughout the game, some other character graphics were also sloppily hacked with dime-store digitization, causing them to stick out like a sore thumb against the colorful and clean graphics left over from the real game. Even the close-up of the little girl
Amy was replaced with that of a black-haired girl obviously in her twenties. And we're not supposed to notice these things?
Various pictures of scientists and other NPC's were also replaced in a similar, dorky fashion, which is just ridiiculous since the close-up pictures don't bear anything like a remote resemblance to the characters on screen even in
The Peace Keepers, and just about every name in the game was changed... the only exception being Rick Norton, a main character from the first two Rushing Beat games (Ironically, he was bastardized into Jack Flak and then Hack in the screwed-up US versions, but they didn't change his name here). If Jaleco had kept with the program and at least given us some continuity, The Peace Keepers would be called Rival Turf 3.
 
Though JoA figures it's okay for them to change the names, the name and color edit in The Peace Keepers won't actually let you customize the names. In Rushing Beat Syura, of course, you can. Here's the proof. :) Note the characters "Kitsune" and "OldCarGuy" in the screen shots. Not to mention the diabolical GTE Lackey. Though a real GTE lackey is more powerful than the
Dags in Rushing Beat Syura, the editor clearly works. >:)
The Spider is a baddie from the original that seems to have been removed entirely. Was it for content? I can't begin to imagine why as there's nothing offensive about it in any way whatsoever. I suspect the sloppy JoA simply glitched the coding when they were bumbling around in the game and decided to trash the Spider because they were too incompetent to fix it.
 The text in the US game is so inaccurate that it cannot be considered a translation, so the storyline suffered greatly. Cinematics which existed throughout the original were simply removed, and this damaged what was left of the plot even further.
Neither game was terribly hard if you were a bit clever, but a little cushioning never hurts. The Peace Keepers limits you to 12 continues while in Rushing Beat Syura you were allowed up to 30. Jeez! Can't these guys leave anything alone?!
 Rushing Beat is a fun series, and it is too bad that Jaleco of America felt the need to destroy it. Though the series was murdered in the US, you can make yours whole again. Download the patch and play the real game now!
|
Gryzor, Contra, and Probotector
Here, we take a look at the classic run and gun that most everyone either loves or has never heard of. :) The original version of this game is
Gryzor, which was called
Contra in the US and some other countries, and finally
Probotector (another meaningless word from the sub-geniuses of Konami)
. This issue, we'll take a look at the NES / Famicom
version of these games. The figure on the left at the top is the character from Gryzor, who was
also used in Contra. On the right is the spiffy-looking but bastard
Probotector character given to the European community.
Gryzor
|
Contra
|
Check out this action (or lack thereof)! These screen shots were made in realtime. Look at the nice animation on Gryzor
to the left as compared to the static Contra. Also notice the difference in the quality and style of the graphics on the stage and background overall.
Probotector, made two years later, seems to be a derivitive work of Contra (what we call a "double-bastardization"). Its main differences are the title and the replacement of all the people in the game with robots. The object of the game is still to destroy "Red Falcon" (who is of no relation to "Blue Falcon" of cartoon fame). The real game contained maps, cutscenes, and a slightly longer ending. Here are a few nice shots we didn't get to see in the US.
Further games in this series were also chopped on a bit... the existence of the 16-bit Probotector games is simply amusing. Those who enjoyed Gryzor - The Hard Corps will probably find it interesting that the character Brownie was based on the Probotector design. Kind of ironic how things can go full-circle like that, eh?
I've been working on trying to make a patch for this game, but the VROM is giving me some trouble. Stay tuned, and I'll keep banging it around until it eventually works. :)
|
Coming Next Issue!
|
Okay! We've got the survey rolling... check out the Message Board for details or just read the next paragraph.
This is a survey to find the ten most popular fighting gals and guys of the world. The way it works is you vote for your three favorite fighting game girls (side-on or versus, it doesn't matter) and/or your three favorite guys. Your favorite will gain 3 points, second favorite, 2 points, and third favorite, 1 point. It will end when someone's points reach an undisclosed number (I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you... or just mope a lot). Please mention the game or series they're a part of and only vote once, either via e-mail or on the dusty ol' message board.
We've been pretty stymied trying to settle in after the flood here, and still haven't succeeded, so please pardon the lateness of this update. Some Instant Quick Conversion Patches will be available next issue, which will allow you to play the real game on your US or World version without having to constantly change your hardware settings -- it's simply a matter of convenience. Also, we'll have a look at the Most Badly Treated Characters of All Time! (You can probably think of some who will end up here, no?)
|
But I Digress...
By the way, I'm also available for website design and freelance computer work in the eastern North Carolina area. Please get in touch if you have something you'd like done.
Your click below helps word of System Shock get out through a banner exchange program. If the site below looks interesting or fun to you, why not pay it a visit?
Free
Advertising from Click2Net!
This should be a link to a non-profit site, like ours. If you see a business link appear here, please let us know so we can can it. Thanks! :)
System Shock (C)MM Chaotic Fox Press
Maintained by Kitsune.
Have a nice daycycle, Citizen!
|
| |
