The Secret of Monkey Island

Monkey Island Saga:

When we talk about Monkey Island we’re talking about LucasArts great masterpiece created by Ron Gilbert, Tim Schaffer and Dave Grossman. For those who may not know about the game, Monkey Island is considered one of the most important Point ‘n’ Click Adventures ever released. Most of this success remains in its excellent script and the superb use of a nonsense humour.

Plot:

The Secret of Monkey Island

The game starts with the main character Guybrush Threepwood stating "I want to be a pirate!" To do so, he must prove himself to three old pirate captains.He also meets the beautiful governor Elaine Marley, with whom he falls in love, unaware that the ghost pirate LeChuck also has his eyes on her. When Elaine is kidnapped, Guybrush procures crew and ship to track LeChuck down, defeat him and rescue his love.

About the Authors:

Ron Gilbert:

He is an American Game Designer Programmer and Producer whose games (Maniac Mansions, and the first two Monkey Island games...) are mainly focused on interactive story-telling. Some of the most remarkable facts around him are that he co-created the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM), a videogame engine, while he was working at Lucasfilm Games. He was also one of the first developers that included cut-scenes in his games. Right now he’s working in a game called Thimbleweed Park.

Tim Schaffer:

Tim Schaffer is an American Game Designer, he is best known as the designer of Grim Fandango, Monkey Island saga, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend or Day of the Tentacle. His unique storytelling and comedic writing style have made him a reference among Game designers.

Specs:

The VGA version of the game removed some jokes related to disks nº22, 36 and 114 and also added a 256 color support (in the EGA version only 16 were allowed). For this game SCUMM Engine was also updated to provide some more features such as key shortcuts or dialog trees.

Facts:

1. Series creator Ron Gilbert would love to make a third instalment called Monkey Island 3a, which would ignore all Monkey Island Games after LeChuck’s Revenge. However, Gilbert would only make the game if he could acquire the IP from Disney.

2. The “real” secret of Monkey Island has never been revealed. Series creator Ron Gilbert intended to reveal the secret at the end of the third instalment, but left the company after LeChuck’s Revenge.

3. There is a secret code in The Secret of Monkey Island that allows the player to instantly win the game if the player presses CTRL+SHIFT+W.

4. Guybrush’s first name came about from the game’s artist, who was using a program called Deluxe Paint. This program saved files as “brush” files. When designing the main character, who was still unnamed, the file was saved as “guy.brush” and a hero was born.

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Alex Kidd In Miracle World

Alex Kidd in Miracle World:

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a side-scrolling platform game for the Master System video game console created by Kotaro Hayashida. It was released in Japan in 1986, and then internationally in 1987. Alex Kidd is the only playable character in the game, he must finish levels and overcome obstacles and puzzles in a 2D side-scrolling environment. Throughout the 17 stages, Alex Kidd faces many monsters, and the three henchmen of Janken the Great, before facing Janken himself.

Specs:

SEGA Master System

Media Type	Mega Cartridge
Number of Players Supported	1-2 Players
CPU:	Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 Mhz
RAM:	8 kB + 16 kB VRAM
ROM:	8 kB
Resolución:	256x240 x 64 colores (32 simultáneos) 64 sprites de 8x8 ó 8x16
Audio:	4 canales (PSG)       FM Synth de 6 canales + 5 percusión

In a first moment, the game was only available in cartridges. From 1990 on, a ripoff of the game was included in the memory of the occidental Sega Master System 2. There were also some uncontrolled bugs left in the game, mainly about collisions respawn of objects and animations.

Game Cartridge

Facts:

1. This game was intended to compete with Miyamoto’s Super Mario, and SEGA followed the same marketing strategy that Nintendo did (game company pet). But Mario smashed him and SEGA even replaced him with Sonic the Hedgehog.

2. This was the most successful game of the franchise due to Design and marketing decisions that made its sequels too difficult to play.

Alex Kidd Legacy:

Alex Kidd 1 is a great game only outshined by a much powerful company (Nintendo) that had the complete market in its hands (125.000 SMS in four months compared with 2 Million NES in the American Market). The game (along with Wonder Boy) was meant to be Sega's answer to Super Mario Bros., but until Sonic Team created Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega was unable to compete with Shigeru Miyamoto's creation.

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Contra (NES)

Contra

A.K.A Gryzor in United States, is a run and gun game originally released for Arcade Machines in 1987 and ported to NES in 1988 as “Probotector” in which you control two commandos, Pfc. Bill Rizer and Pfc. Lance Bean of the Contra unit, who are sent to the Galuga archipelago to destroy the enemy forces and uncover the true nature of the alien entity controlling them, a plot to conquer the world.

About the authors:

As we’re talking about the NES version (which really pushed to the Hall Of Fame this title) we’d need to mention the whole team who made up this:

Programmers	Shigeharu Umezaki, Satoshi Kishiwada, Kouki Yamashita, T. Danjyo, Mitsuaki Ogawa
Graphic Designers	Ueyama, Setsu Muraki, M. Fujiwara, T. Nishikawa,  C. Ozawa
Sound Creators	Hidenori Maezawa, Kiyohiro Sada
Special Thanks To	Kenji Shimoide, Naoki Satō, AC Contra Team
Directed By	Shigeharu Umezaki (Umechan), Shinji Kitamoto

Specs and NES Port:

NES

Media Type	Cartridge
Input Devices Supported	PowerGlove
Multiplayer Options	Same/Split-Screen Multiplayer
Number of Players Supported	1-2 Players
Multiplayer Game Modes	Co-Op

Contra Cartridge

This version was produced in-house by Konami and features several differences from the arcade release in order to better suit the NES's hardware. The game can be played by up to two players, but due to the graphical limitations of the NES, Bill and Lance lost their individualized character designs.

The NES version consists of eight stages, which are structured a bit differently from the arcade game. Some of them are a bit longer, in others, a boss was added, and there is no more time limitation.

Japanese Version;

The Famicom version utilized a custom-made Multi-Memory Controller that Konami produced called the VRC2 (in contrast to the UNROM board used by its NES counterpart). This allowed for the inclusion of cut-scenes and a few graphical effects that were not possible in the NES version. Moreover, some cut scenes and a prologue explaining the backstory were added.

Facts:

1. Contra was one of the early NES games to feature the Konami Code. Inputting the code at the title screen starts the player with thirty lives instead of the usual three. There were more Cheats and Hints such as All Weapons, Level Select or Unlimited Lives.

2. When the NES version of Contra was localized for the North American market, the year of the setting was changed from 2633 to 1987 and the location was moved from the Galuga Islands to the Amazon. Bill and Lance were also given the codenames of Mad Dog and Scorpion.

3. It is unclear whether the game was deliberately named after the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, the ending theme of the original game was titled "Sandinista", after the adversaries of the real-life Contras.

4. The game's European release was censored, changing the main character and other human-looking enemies to robots.

5. The ending environment is very similar to the movie Aliens. Also, the cover of the American release features two soldiers who are slightly modified and repainted images from the movie Predator.

6. The protagonists front cover illustrations (Bill and Lance) were both borrowed heavily from two different Arnold Schwarzenegger (Predator - John McTiernan, 1987) poses.

Contra Legacy:

Much of the game's popularity came from its two-player simultaneous gameplay, which was an uncommon feature in video games at the time of Contra's release. While successful in the arcades, the game boomed when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. Kitamoto and Umezaki also included some new fresh mechanics such as the alternative levels between the classic side-scrolling perspective to a third-person viewpoint, that turned to offer diversity to a genre that had often been allocated by the simple gameplay mechanics of the period.

Links and info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#In_popular_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Konami_code_games

http://www.isugoi.com/contra-review/

http://www.mobygames.com/game/contra/

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Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest (Doragon Kuesuto)

A.K.A Dragon Warrior in United States, this is the first RPG of the Dragon Quest saga. It was released for the Famicom in 1986 and 3 years later, released in West with substancial improvements in graphics and a special battery to save the game.

Plot

Dragon Warrior's plot is a simplistic medieval "rescue the princess, slay the dragon king, and get the orb of light" story.

The game begins when the player assumes the role of a stranger who arrives at Tantegel Castle. A castle guard tells him that a dragon has captured the princess and is holding her captive in a distant cave. Determined to rescue the princess and defeat the Dragonlord, he discovers an ancient tablet hidden inside a desert cave; carved on the tablet is a message from Erdrick that outlines what the hero needs to do to follow in Erdrick's footsteps and defeat the Dragonlord.

About the authors

Yuji Horii is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the Dragon Quest series. He also supervised and wrote the scenario for Chrono Trigger, as well as the first visual novel adventure game Portopia Serial Murder Case

Horii used to work as a freelance writer for newspapers comics and magazines, some of them related to videogames.

In 1982, a shonen manga tabloid publisher named Enix, broke into games publishing by holding a PC game programming contest with an impresive ¥1 million prize for the winners.

Horii needed some years to came up with the full idea of Dragon Quest, in that time, he teamed with Koichi Nakamura to develop Portopia, maybe his own sandbox to test some formulas later applied to Dragon Quest

One of the problems that Horii faced was the needle to approach the RPG genre to casual players, who were the potential audience in Famicom/NES.

After Portopia’s Success, Nakamura and Horii (Chunsoft founders) created, with Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) and Koichi Sugiyama (japanese composer), this game.

Left to Right: Koichi Nakamura, Akira Toriyama, Koichi Sugiyama

Specs and MSX Port:

CPU	Zilog Z80A @ 3.58 MHz
RAM	8 kB - 128 kB 16 kB of VRAM
ROM	32 kB (BIO y MSX BASIC)
Resolution	256 x 192 x 16 colours 32 sprites
Input	Keyboard

The MSX port of Dragon Warrior is somewhat inferior to it’s Famicom version, given that the MSX did have quite the graphical chops that the Famicom contained. Sprites in the MSX Dragon Quest are less detailed and the colors are more muted. Another point that works against the MSX version is the hardware’s inability to smoothly scroll the screen. Because of this it is as if the screen in being re-drawn with every step you take, which ultimately causes the screen to flash with each step.

Enix released both Dragon Quest I and II on the MSX, however, by the time the third game came was ready for release, the MSX’s popularity was in decline and the Famicom was out in astronomical numbers, making a port of part III unnecessary.

Facts

1. It was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima two of the biggest and most successful rpgs from the West.

2. The Slime Monster is Dragon’s Quest mascot, maybe the most iconic Toriyama’s design after Saiyans, a slime is at the same level of Pikachu (pokemon) or Chocobo (Final Fantasy). He even had its spin-off games.

3. The series had to change its name in the West because of D&D’s tabletop game DragonQuest.

4. The original Final Fantasy American version included an easter egg that some people considered an insult. In the town of Elfheim, there exists a gravestone that reads “Here lies Erdrick, 837-866, R.I.P”. Erdrick is the name of the protagonist of Dragon Quest.

5. As Dragon Quest series were not as successful abroad as they were in Japan, the magazine Nintendo Power offered a free copy to their subscribers in America to shift the excess of stock

6. When Dragon Quest III was released on Wednesday the 10th of February 1988, there were reports of mass-truancy among school children (over 300 cases), and an even higher number of adults calling in sick to work all across Japan. The legend states that the Japanese government received so many complaints from educators and employers, they were forced to draft a law that specifically named the Dragon Quest series as being unable to release new games on a weekday.
   
   The truth of the matter is that Enix imposed this rule upon themselves. It was they who had received the complaints, and they were worried that it might affect the release of future games. Every Dragon Quest title from that point on was released on a weekend. This rule stayed in effect until the release of Dragon Quest X in 2012, which was released on a Thursday

7. Throughout the Dragon Quest games, the player would encounter women in towns that would proposition them. They would ask to perform a “Puff Puff” on the player in exchange for gold. If you paid for this service, then the screen would go black, and text would appear on screen suggesting that something sexual happened. These scenes were generally cut out of the Western releases of the games (but not their remakes).

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Dragon Quest’s Legacy:

“Bits and pieces of Dragon Warrior had been seen in video games before, but never all sewn up together so neatly. DW's incredible combination of gameplay elements established it as THE template for console RPGs to follow.” -  William Cassidy, The GameSpy Hall of Fame: Dragon Warrior

Dragon Quest is noted as a turning point in games history. As it’s undoubtedly the genre builder for RPG videogames, the game itself was some kind of a filter of mechanics and ideas shown in other games, defined a full template for future ones and replaced D&D as the model to follow.

Multimedia:

Links and info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest_(video_game)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunsoft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koichi_Nakamura

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koichi_Sugiyama

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest

http://es.dragonquest.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Quest

http://www.retrogamer.net/retro_games80/dragon-quest-msx/?theme=msdos

https://ounomachi.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/10-curiosidades-sobre-dragon-quest/

http://screenrant.com/facts-you-did-not-know-about-dragon-quest/

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