As you guys know I’m always on the lookout for cool homebrew games and ports/demakes for retro consoles and recently I’ve come a across a few more excellent ones.
Firstly is A Pig Quest for the Commodore 64 that uses some clever colour cycling tricks to force more colours than you normally can into the gameplay area resulting in it looking better than most c64 games. It’s cool environment effects are equally impressive with detailed moving backgrounds, leaves falling, rain, lightning and monsters that change more due to some animation compression tricks too. It’s full of so much crazy stuff they’re apparently having problems putting together the physical cart for real Commodore 64s lol!
Second is another new game in the making called Wild Wood that’s also pushing the Commodore 64 to it’s limits with colour tricks and extra layers of parallax scrolling resulting on a lot of background movement! The artwork is truly incredible and the game just looks utterly amazing for a c64 game.
This bonus video shows you some of the console conversions for Sid Meier’s Civilization 1, such as the Super Nintendo SNES version and the very different 2.5D isometric Sony Playstation version (made from a equally rare Sega Saturn version) as well as a quick preview of a fan made Sega Genesis Megadrive version in the making. This is the first episode in a special bonus series where I try out mobile & console conversions of every Civilization genre game I can. This console conversion video series is a bonus sub series to my main how to play classic Civ genre games in HD video series. To see how I was able to play Civ1 in HD with DOS graphics and sounds see my main tour video here: https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/2021/11/14/civ-video-series-ep-01-civilization-1-hd-tour-with-mods-scenarios/
I always loved playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beat ’em up Konami games in arcades and on consoles back in the 90s. Being a SEGA kid I got to play TMNT The Hyperstone Heist the most and always wanted a sequel but was disappointed with TMNT Tournament Fighters. So a few years ago I couldn’t believe it when I came across a cool TMNT romhack mod for the popular classic beat ’em up Streets of Rage 2 for SEGA Genesis/Megadrive called TMNT of Rage Remix by eskayelle which replaced all 4 characters with Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo & Donatello along with a few other things. However now a few years on inspired modders Savok & PPI Akiko have gone above & beyond and created an even bigger total conversion romhack for SoR2 called Shredder’s Re-Revenge that uses assets from the recent awesome TMNT Shredder’s Revenge game (ironically made by the creators of Streets of Rage 4!) on Steam & modern consoles. Because Shredder’s Revenge was deliberately retro with pixelated art its sprites and animations were able to be converted over to the Genesis palette and inserted into SoR2 resulting in this mod looking quite amazing. So naturally the 4 Turtles are back better than ever, but now all enemies have been replaced too and the huge boss fight sprites for Krang, Bebop & Rocksteady in particular are most impressive, plus not only that but they’ve even changed the story cutscenes and found a way to extend SoR2’s character roster past the original 4 up to 7 playable characters allowing them to also insert April, Casey & Splinter into the game too! Feels like the true TMNT Hyperstone Heist sequel we never got! Just amazing!
Found some more awesome indie and homebrew retro console games out there or in the making! Love seeing fans pushing these old consoles to their limits and making games and ports we could only dream of as kids.
Firstly GASEGA68k who I’ve posted about before due to his amazing SuperFX chip like games/demos on a regular SEGA Genesis/Megadrive (eg Wolfenstein, F-Zero, Mario Kart) has released new videos showing just how far his Starfox conversion has come along. Just amazing to think this is on a regular un-modded MD and he reckons he’s got some more tricks up his sleeve to gain back more FPS too!
New video of current status of Starfox demo for Sega Genesis/MD.
The scramble intro sound and the music during gameplay are streaming sample rate at 12khz (2 to 1 compresion adpcm type, the same format I used on wolf3d) playing with the z80. #starfox, #SegaGenesis, #Megadrivepic.twitter.com/iIL7T2CSLz
Next comes a very cool looking Wonder Boy like game for the Nintendo Gameboy called Tales of Monsterland that is clearly WB3 inspired with its cool monster changes. They’ve even done a nice physical collectors boxset version!
Then comes some truly awesome projects going on at the moment for the SEGA Master System. Firstly a fellow named xfixium is working on a port of the brilliant Arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! When you compare this to the official original NES port of the game the difference is remarkable!
Hey guys, It’s been a long break since the previous project update 2 as I hadn’t had much luck over the last few years sadly, however I’m happy to announce that things have changed and I’ve finally received a bunch of new donations to the SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive Project ! 🙂
Firstly the awesome Colin May who previously donated the rare issue 2 has successfully scanned issues 5 and 6 which were the very first issues after the final name change from MegaComp to the one we all knew and loved, MegaZone! To successfully obtain these rare early issues is such a great achievement. Thank you Colin!
Obtaining these issues has also confirmed that my original assumptions of the October & November 1990 issues being issues 9 & 10 respectively were incorrect as Issue 6 is dated August so there can only be one possible issue 7 between it and the Oct issue I’d said was 9 meaning it must actually be 8, which then means the Nov issue 10 is actually 9 too! The reason I had to originally guess those numbers was because many issues in that period did not say their number and until now I had no issues near Oct/Nov 90 to compare them to and on top of all that the magazine switched between monthly & bi-monthly multiple times during the early 90s making very difficult to predict. Some of my predictions / issue number allocations may still be wrong and only obtaining more lost issues will help reveal the truth! Anyway the good news is Colin has also kindly provided me with the missing 4 pages from issue 8 (formerly 9) so anyone who’s previously obtained this issue (pictured below) will definitely want to re-download it!
The next piece of utterly awesome news is something I never thought would happen! Project fan Sean Paul kindly let me know about a passionate TV archiver named FlemishDog (check out their channel to see other awesome content they’ve rescued) who was in possession of not 1 but 2 more MegaZone TV commercials for Issues 26 & 27 and were in the same style with the same cool music as the Issue 25 commercial I’d previously found on my own tapes and added to the collection a while back. I know there’s another one of these out there too as I remember another similar advert in my childhood but with Captain Kirk in it, so I’m guessing it was for Issue 24 as that contained a review of Star Trek 6. With awesome folks like FlemishDog archiving tv adverts maybe one day I’ll see it again! 🙂
Well that’s pretty much everything for this update. Colin has actually given me more but I’m holding off on that as well as holding on to some more MegaZone subscription cards I’ve found as I want to save them for a future update where if all goes well another excellent fellow who shares our passion for preserving retro video game mags named Forgotten Worlds (check out his channel to see other awesome content he’s rescued) has kindly offered to scan several more MegaZone magazines not currently in the collection! So fingers crossed the next project update containing all this good stuff won’t be too far away! 🙂
A few years ago I posted about my nostalgic love for my very first console in the 1980s, a second hand Intellivision with about 50 games, and also how now days all these decades later there’s been some truly amazing homebrew releases and ports of famous games from other consoles such as Defender of the Crown, Castlevania, Price of Persia, Final Fantasy, and Wonder Boy. You can check out that old post about them HERE !
I also mentioned in that post my excitement for the up and coming Intellivision Amico console however after waiting all these years things are not sounding too good and even if the console does somehow survive it sounds like it wouldn’t have run original classic Intellivision games anyway so a lot of the old fanbase has lost interest. However the good news is thankfully Elektronite (creators of many new and awesome Intellivision games) and fans have been busy working towards making their own new Intellivision console using FPGA tech. The equally awesome news and the main reason I’m making this new post is that sure enough the super talented creators I mentioned in my previous post, in particular a fellow named Skywaffle has been busy over the last few years creating even more amazing playable Intellivision demos and complete conversions of famous games we all know and love that you’d never expect to see on the old 70s console lol! I just had to show you guys these as the Mario one below is just unbelievable!!! Hope he does Sonic, Alex Kidd or Wonder Boy in Monster Land at some point too haha!
There’s so many amazing Sonic fan games out there recreating that golden 16bit era on the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis however there’s a few really cool fan remakes of the 8bit games that have caught my attention over the years. If like me you’ve always wondered what it would be like if some of those cool and unique 8bit Sonic games on the Game Gear and Master System such as Sonic Chaos, Sonic Triple Trouble, & Sonic Blast had been given 16bit Mega Drive releases back in the day too then guess what, other fans had the same thoughts, resulting in each of these games getting fan remakes in the style of that era and they are super cool! 🙂
Sonic Triple Trouble is the most recent and most impressive release as it’s actually finished and totally remakes the full entire original Game Gear game in truly awesome 16bit fashion. I especially love how it’s intro has been totally changed to act as a sequel to the final moments of Sonic & Knuckles making it really feel like that next true 16bit 2D Sonic sequel we never got.
It quickly reminded me of the awesome fan remake of Sonic Chaos that released a really cool demo showing the entire opening zone remade in glorious 16bit style. Sadly things have been a bit quite over the years but hopefully the project is still going and we’ll get to play the full game remade one day!
Well it’s all happening for SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis fans at the moment. We’ve got a new console and a new collectors book coming! After the very successful and highly regarded Mega Drive Mini console released a few years ago SEGA have now announced a sequel console that heavily features Mega CD/SEGA CD content! This is great news as the Mega CD addon to the Mega Drive was very underrated due to it flopping commercially thanks to it’s library and marketing excessively hyping FMV games that just didn’t deliver. Had they shown off more of the 3D/mode 7 like capabilities of the console (that were more powerful than Nintendo’s Super FX chip) and the games utilizing it (eg Sonic CD special stages, Batman Returns driving stages, Thunderhawk, Soul Star, F1 Beyond the Limit, Adventures of Batman & Robin etc) the console might have done better! There’s also some great RPGs and Metroidvanias on the console too, so I’m very happy to see the Wonder Boy like game Popful Mail in the list. It sounds like a western release will be happening too (2nd article below) so fingers crossed a lot of these great classics will make it onto the sequel mini console!
I posted a while back about the awesome SEGA Master System Visual Compendium book created by Bitmap books who made the excellent Nintendo, C64, & Amiga ones all of which I proudly have in my collection. Well for years I’d been hoping they’d make a SEGA Mega Drive book and they’ve finally announced one! Their books are of amazing quality so I can’t recommend them enough if you loved these consoles and their games. Looks like this one will not be a official collaboration with SEGA though as apparently they gave them a lot of trouble with the SMS book which is why my beloved Wonder Boy series didn’t make it into that book due to licensing issues. At least now they should be free to cover the later WB games in this new MD book!
Wow!! The world (and Nintendo’s lawyers lol) went bonkers a few years ago when Super Mario Bros was successfully ported to the Commodore 64 and was actually fast & looked good (I’ll put a link & video below if you missed all the fuss). Well now it’s Sonic’s turn as Sonic The Hedgehog 1 from the SEGA Master System has been ported to C64 and it looks & sounds really good! I love seeing people in the homebrew scene pushing the limits of old consoles like this.
Wow! This super talented creator named GASEGA68k has managed to get Super Nintendo SNES like Mode 7 3D scrolling graphics like effects on a SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive with no extra chips. Naturally he used the effect to create a F-Zero like game. Of course to get this working on a Mega Drive he had to the lower the resolution a bit but wow..
It just amazes me when fans achieve things like this on retro consoles that professionals thought were impossible back in the day. Here’s another one of his Genesis mode 7 demos. This time its a retro Sonic Team Racing game (basically Mario Kart but with Sonic) that SEGA should have made back in the day.
The talented creator behind these videos is also the same guy that made the popular Wolfenstein 3D SEGA Genesis Mega Drive game from a few years ago. Another utterly amazing technical achievement considering no extra chips were used and is just running on default hardware.
As you guys know I’m always on the lookout for cool homebrew games and ports/demakes for retro consoles and recently I’ve come a across a few more excellent ones.
This bonus video shows you some of the console conversions for 
Blake's Sanctum - News 