Sonic & (Sega) All-Stars/Superstars, low-res pixel style!
Sumo Digital’s two racing games (and one tennis game) have a pretty varied mix of Sega characters. Too bad they had to cut some for Transformed; and then the PC version got really insane with weird additions—I ignored them for this art. Anyway, here’s the cast for those three games mixed together. Note that I just picked the default male appearance for the Mii, which also stands in for the Xbox Avatars.
Sonic, Tails, Amy Rose, Knuckles, Big the Cat, Shadow, Dr. Eggman, Metal Sonic, the ChuChus, Opa-Opa, Ulala, Pudding, Alex Kidd, Ryo Hazuki, Jacky Bryant, Akira Yuki, Joe Musashi, Gilius Thunderhead, AiAi, MeeMee, Amigo, Zobio, Zobiko, Beat, Gum, B.D. Joe, Mobo, Robo, Vyse, Billy Hatcher, AGES, NiGHTS, Reala, Banjo & Kazooie, Mii/Avatar, Danica Patrick, Wreck-it-Ralph
You might know this manga as the one where all the women have unrealistic anatomy and clothing. But it’s also an adaptation of the Pokemon anime with more personality and realism, as well as cool Pokemon reinterpretations and futuristic technology. Anyway it was localised officially by Viz back in the day, but they left some things out. This release is about translating the pages they cut and the bonus content only found in the Japanese release. They did censor some things too, but this is not about reversing those changes; you can find such efforts elsewhere.
What I’ve translated is mini-comics from all four volumes, some of which are in colour, as well as bits and pieces from volume 4 that were cut to save space. This includes the entire epilogue chapter! I’ve also included illustrations that were not featured in the English releases.
There’s more commentary within the pages of this scanlation, but suffice it to say that these translations go towards making a more complete version of Dengeki Pikachu for English speakers. To that end, I’ve also compiled an archive of material drawing from both of Viz’s releases of the comic, Chuang Yi’s Singaporean release that translated an additional two pages, and with my own translations slotted in, to form the “ultimate” English reading experience of Dengeki Pikachu, so all of us here in English-land can enjoy Toshihiro Ono’s work to the fullest. Please check it out, you can download it at the link below, as well as see the scans I used as sources and my standalone English supplement.
I enjoyed the previous game to this… they both have awkward names so I’ll call them SASASR and SAASRT. No, how about Sega Racing 1 and 2. “Sonic and Sega” and “Sonic and Whatever”. Let’s workshop that one.
I like the Force Unleashed, the effort put into it to make it a substantial part of the Star Wars universe. Lucasfilm wanted to get it out there on all the platforms, so even though it was getting a little late for this sort of thing in 2008, a game with that name was released on Java phones. There was another version on more advanced phones, including iOS, but it’s gone from that app store now, gosh darn it.
This one is a static 2D affair, with an admittedly unique control scheme. Your character Starkiller stands stationary on all the levels, while enemies (mostly Stormtroopers) steadily enter the screen to shoot at you. All actions in the game are taken by drawing patterns using the phone’s keypad (the layout of which is very hard to replicate on another platform such as a PC due to the patterns being spatially oriented, without some finagling to rearrange your inputs). The screenshot shows some of the join-the-dots shapes that you have to draw with your nine-button grid.
These patterns start to build up thick and fast, so even on easy mode fast fingers are required to see you through. It’s a game well suited to its original hardware but is a struggle in emulation. Still, it feels good to become a numpad wizard, even if the game ultimately lacks variety. Once I got the hang of it, I clocked the thing in 20 minutes. For a mobile game it’s a decent experiment and can become an interesting study in juggling objectives—building force power in stages, dealing with enemies, the occasional contextual obstacle—as the rush of troopers doesn’t diminish even in boss fights.
The plot of the Force Unleashed game has predictably been sliced back beyond the bare essentials. Kota actually dies after your first encounter, there’s no PROXY, no Rakdos, the faked-death twist is very much glossed over. The cutscenes use attractive pixel art portraits; much more pleasing than the real game’s uncanny soulless 3D faces, and the brief dialogue sections do their job nicely with a touch of personality, but understandably fail to deliver on character arcs. Overall it’s actually decent for a mobile game, but really the only way you can play it is to remap a numpad, unless you can remap your brain more successfully than me.
As a companion to my pixel art set of DBZ sagas, here’s all the so-called “non-canon” stuff relating to the Z portion of the franchise. Movies, OVAs, TV specials, video games, and Toriyama’s Neko Majin manga. Anything from Battle of Gods onward is under the Super umbrella and will be in a future pixel art. As before, characters with four-pixel wide heads (Wheelo and Hirudegarn) are not necessarily to scale. There is some overlap between spin-off manga, OVAs, anime filler, and video games so bear with me.
TV specials: Bardock, Future Gohan, Young Future Trunks
Movie/OVA good guys: Hire Dragon/Icarus (various movies and filler) Pikkon/Paikuhan and Gogeta (Super Saiyan) (Movie 12), Tapion (Movie 13), Tarble (JSAT special OVA/manga)
Movie/OVA bad guys: Garlic Jr. (Movie 1), Dr. Wheelo (Movie 2), Tullece (Movie 3), Slug (Movie 4), Cooler (5th form) (Movie 5), Meta-Cooler/Metal Cooler (Movie 6), Super Android 13 (Movie 7), Broly (Movie 8 & 10), Bio-Broly (Movie 11), Bojack (Movie 9), Janemba (Movie 12), Hirudegarn (Movie 13), Aka/Abokado (JSAT special OVA/manga), Chilled (Episode of Bardock manga/OVA)
Video game bad guys: Dr. Raichi (Ghost Warrior) and Hatchiyack (Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans game/OVA), Majin Ozotto (the arcade game DBZ V.R.V.S.)
Neko Majin: Neko Majin Mix, Neko Majin Mike, Neko Majin Z, Z’s friend, Onio, Kuriza, Usa Majin
Here’s my pixel art series for the “Z” portion of the franchise, or chapter 195-519 of the manga. The colouring is mainly based on the anime, and includes the anime-exclusive Gregory, but new characters from discrete filler arcs are also in the movies, so they will be featured in an upcoming post based on Z-era movies and spinoffs. DBZ was such a constant for a number of years early on, so it’s been a blast getting back into it, and very fun to draw out all these characters. “Giant” characters who are wider are not necessarily to scale.
I was so energised by Jet Set Radio Future that I got interested in the Sega crossover racing games that feature tracks and racers from the series. Plus I wanted a nice multiplayer racing party game that wasn’t Mario Kart. Unfortunately Sega doesn’t quite have the brand power of Nintendo, at least for me, but the IPs represented here are somewhat varied despite a heavy weighting towards Sonic, and it was a chance for me to become more familiar with them.
The game is fun to play. It feels smooth but takes practice to master the mechanics; the Monkey Ball tracks in particular are difficult to get right, but learning tricks and how different characters handle is rewarding. There’s also plenty for a solo player to do, which is a huge plus in my book: the substantial mission mode is a good addition, and there’s an unlock shop with a universal currency so playing any mode will allow you to make progress and choose what to get next.
Sumo Digital have also done a good job representing the worlds of the franchises on offer. There’s maybe not enough choice, with only a handful of IPs having three often similar-looking tracks each (and Sonic getting three times that number), but what’s here has been lovingly presented, none more so than the highly detailed Tokyo-to tracks from my beloved JSRF. Available characters come from a wide variety of Sega games so that’s a lot of fun (I also liked to imagine BD Joe and Ulala fitting into the Jet Set Radio cast).
I also played the DS version alongside the main console game, and it was a decent port. Obviously scaled back quite a bit, with cheap-looking visuals and simpler courses, it does still have as much content, and much shorter loading times. Some items, and mechanics such as drifting or starting boosts, work differently. The second screen is used well to display a minimap during races (a feature lacking in the bigger game), and to present the menus much better (the console menus are bloody awful). I think its set of missions is unique to it, which is nice. The economy of the shop is different too, I was able to unlock everything much earlier than I did on PS3. This version was also ported to smartphones, badly. It has less content and an exploitative economy that almost demands in-app purchases to unlock some characters and tracks, and it uses the console-style menus, on top of unsuited touchscreen controls for gameplay. Avoid it, but check out the DS version by all means.
I will admit that the greater fidelity of the PS3 version made it a more enjoyable experience on the whole, as soon as I changed the control scheme away from using the analog trigger to accelerate. I’m looking forward to the sequel, Transformed, and hoping for a greater variety in the track content. On the whole though, a solid game and double thumbs up from me for drawing designs specifically from Jet Set Radio Future as opposed to just the first JSR (the tracks do have pastiche elements from both games, they’re really good tracks).
Pokemon Sun/Moon is probably the best Pokemon game yet. A significant part of that is that more than ever before, it’s breaking from the formula or at least obscuring the formula enough that it feels fresh. It’s modern, it’s got quality of life improvements out the wazoo, it’s got a persistent map. If only it could have had your buddies following you around the overworld, it could have definitively claimed the crown from HGSS (unused data suggests this feature was planned but frustratingly scrapped). Ah well.
Each new “e” Picross game simply adds a feature or two to the previous release, and a new set of puzzles. This is a perfectly serviceable system that has worked so far, especially with the relatively low cost of each instalment. the core gameplay and controls remain solid, addictive, and satisfying.
The headline feature of this sixth one is the ability to play any of the regular puzzles in either normal or Mega Picross mode, or both if you want (I did). They are shuffled so it’s not predictable, but if you are doing both it may be a tiny disappointment to not get a brand new picture for half the game. The number of puzzles is comparable to previous games, and puzzle-solving is only doubled by this addition. There’s also three Micross puzzles, which is always good, plus the usual set of Mega Picross bonuses for owning the first three games.
I actually started this long ago, but made a conscious decision to not plough through it all at once, which is why I only just finished it. I saved it for spurts between other games or when I needed a few mellow puzzles at whatever time. The release of e7 spurred me to finally get to the end; look out for the review of that one maybe next year, heh.
I said in my Jet Set Radio review that it pales compared to this game, its sequel. Lugging my giant Xbox Zero out of its drawer and hooking it up (and nudging it to open the faulty disc tray), booting this game I was instantly transported back to when this game was the coolest thing ever. And guess what, it still is! I even managed to get 100% all characters, all Graffiti Souls, all characters, an unthinkable task in my adolescence.
Lego Star Wars introduced us to Lego games and how fun they were for novices and co-op play. Our friend had one of the Star Wars releases on her PS2, and the Complete Saga version was one of the first things my wife got for her Wii. Playing it with her and her sister was good times™, and so it was with much nostalgia that we revisited this world, now in glorious HD.
As I said in my review, Jet Set Radio has a lot of style but suffers as a game, especially for me who grew up on the sequel. Still, I love the cast so here they are all blocky-like. DJ Professor K is uniquely playable in the GBA version.
Beat, Gum, Tab/Corn, Pots, Garam, Mew/Bis, Yo-yo, Piranha, Slate/Soda, Combo, Cube, DJ Professor K, Love Shockers, Posion Jam, Noise Tanks, Gouji Rokkaku
Having played Jet Set Radio Future in my youth, I found that the original—which I played through its HD rerelease—was full of disappointments. Future has a wonderfully smooth traversal system with tricks to increase your momentum and get around; JSR can feel like getting around is an uphill battle. Future has a large world to traverse freely; JSR is locked into levels with my least favourite video game convention: timers. Future has a more developed combat system; JSR has you futilely trying to avoid enemies while performing awful QTE sequences to paint graffiti.
Playing JSR can feel pressuring, as you run low on spray cans while relentless enemies pursue you, your eye on the timer. To be fair, the time limits are more a problem on the GBA version which I also played; however, it makes up for it with enemies being less of a hindrance. It’s also easier to gain and keep momentum on the handheld port, but you lose a lot of what this game excels at: the aesthetics.
The real reason to remember this game is its bodacious sense of style. I don’t really know if its portrayal of hip street culture is accurate or “cool”, but I think it’s a bucket of fun. The characters are endlessly jiving in their alt-fashion outfits, the graffiti is designed by real graffitists, and the music selection is famously an eclectic dream mix tape of funkyness. JSR also does an excellent job making its environments embody the essence of Japan, from the urban main streets to industrial suburbia.
We need more games like JSR: essentially a 3D platformer with unique traversal mechanics and a sharp, well-honed style. It’s just a shame that the original has been remastered when its sequel improves on it in pretty much every way, but languishes on the original Xbox (or “Xbox Zero” as I like to call it). Yo! Tight!
