The SEGA PLAYERS ENJOY CLUB or「SPEC」was a fan club formed by SEGA in 1988 prior to the release of the MEGA DRIVE mostly to support their incoming line of next generation stuff.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of Japan's best-selling RPG series. SQUARE-ENIX has released an exclusive Wii compilation disc containing the first three DRAGON QUEST games in both their original 8-bit versions and 16-bit remakes.
But just how good (and worthwhile) is this compilation?
Today I'd like to spread more retro game love around by introducing the recently released manga「Our NAMCO 80's Tribute Comic」(僕らのナムコ80'sトリビュートコミック).
■IT'S NAMCO, 80's STYLE !
「PAC MAN」,「GALAGA」,「MAPPY」,「XEVIOUS」... Anyone who considers him or herself a true video game fan at heart surely has heard of these legendary titles. NAMCO (now BANDAI・NAMCO) is after all, one of the most influential game companies in history, and the 80's were perhaps their most glorious decade (although personally I love a lot of their 90s arcade stuff).
Our NAMCO 80's Tribute Comic brings back the sensational NAMCO games and characters from that wonderful decade in an all-original new premise!
Well, this certainly seems like an interesting manga for the retro game fan. I'm not a big fan of the artwork style used in it though. However, in general I don't really like most modern anime/manga drawing styles, so bear that in mind.
Also, I'm not really sure if the manga covers the NAMCO history throughout all of the 80's or just certain periods. But from 1988 - 1990 NAMCO was the strongest third party supporter of the PC-ENGINE - then they started shifting some of their support towards the MEGA DRIVE.
So for this reason I hope the manga pays at least some small reference to the PC-ENGINE. Hell, I just hope it isn't just the usual FAMICOM Ga・Ga stuff, so common in Japan (and everywhere else for that matter) when it comes to depicting the console side of retro gaming. I mean, I dig it, the FAMICOM was the super console of the time, and to this day it still has the biggest fanbase around. But the way some try to make it seem like it was the only home game system that existed or mattered - it's just very annoying, to say the least.
In any case, here are a couple of nice overviews (with scans) so you can get an idea of what the manga is all about.
Quite a while ago I noticed that various Japanese retro game blogs had this cool flash animation of the bad-ass GOLDEN OGRE boss from「DARIUS GAIDEN」running in one of their side columns. Of course I forgot all about it just as fast, but fortunately not before I bookmarked the page.
Recently (before the quake/tsunami/nuclear tragedy happened in Japan) I purchased a copy of the original TAITO F3 System cartridge version of「DARIUS GAIDEN : EXTRA EDITION」. And while I was unpacking it I suddenly remembered the flash animation and that I had stored the bookmark for it.
The legendary ONIKINME/GOLDEN OGRE fish in all of his charming glory.
So, after testing the game for a while I went to check the bookmark only to find that the page was among the many pages that went down when Infoseek closed its doors. At that time I said "oh well, it was a cool animation".
Of course later on I also remembered that the Internet Archive (which I have used countless times before) existed... So after facepalming myself for a few minutes I checked the page through the wayback machine and was very happy to discover that the actual flash file wasn't stored on Infoseek.
So for all those interested, here's the original links. Enjoy!
