Today I bring you something small, seemingly pulled from the "memory chest," but it's actually 100% original. A dose of good nostalgia, the kind us old-timers love—who count fewer years ahead than behind—but it's all fresh content.
It's no secret that I love the bootleg universe of the 8 and 16-bit gaming eras. I've written on innumerable occasions on the matter, and I'm even making a game with that same premise. It's (tentatively) called "Bootleg Fantasy Quest" and uses art and sounds stolen from all my favorite video games, in a collage that tries to be an old-school platformer. Here's how it's coming along.
Hey, sorry! I know you didn't come here to read about my lengthy attempt to make a (more or less) complete game, but rather about "1999: Megallennium 6-in-1 Mega Cart", the homage to old multi-game cartridges. Let me explain for those who didn't live through it: during Nintendo's 8-bit reign, there were tons of companies (mostly Chinese) putting out unofficial products with pirated content in some way or another. Multi-game cartridges fall into this category.
Most were pure fraud, false advertising designed exclusively to trick naive kids. Cartridges named "30000 in 1" were obviously a lie, but... go tell that to an excited child! So you'd fall for it and, to avoid feeling like a complete fool, you'd replay the same Contra levels over and over, which repeated ad nauseam (about thirty thousand times, to be exact).
Fortunately, there were also more legitimate multi-game cartridges, like the dreaded Action 52 (home of the infamous Cheetahmen and other atrocities). It's that kind of multipack that "1999: Megallennium 6-in-1 Mega Cart" pays homage to—the ones that kept their promise, even if that was for the worse...
1999: Megallennium 6-in-1 Mega Cart
Megallennium 6-in-1 includes half a dozen wonders that seem straight out of Action 52, each with unique art that captures the feel of those times and with some tweaks to not be so useless and obsolete. Don't get me wrong: this 6-in-1 doesn't necessarily aim to make you love its games, but rather to recreate—through the sum of its parts—the experience of what you felt when you brought one of these home, ready to be disappointed. In that sense, it succeeds, because it takes us back to simpler times.
Even in this pack of simple games, there are some interesting things worth our attention, at least for a few minutes. "Dr. Moonlight's Happyworld", for example, is quite good. It's an RPG-like with permadeath, using point-and-click adventure elements and a very funny premise: you're participating in a TV show where you must kill all the monsters to win a car.
Another one I enjoyed for a bit was "Owlbears", about a guy who has to avoid being surrounded by enemies from a fixed position.
Finally, "Xoo: Xeno Xafari" has its thing. It's like a mini Pokémon without the battles. A galactic safari where you have to catch 'em all!
If you want to play it, just head over to its page on GameJolt and download the game for free. And yes, as I said, I brought only something small. But it can awaken dormant memories in some, while helping others delve into the abominable world of 8-bit multi-game cartridges (and without hurting so much!). And no, contrary to popular belief, this article was not a lame excuse to show you a preview of my little game Bootleg Fantasy Quest (TM).
