Daily Pickups: Animal Forest Ninntendo 64

While shopping on eBay I came across these collector items and couldn’t pass the deal. While I am little tight on cash as I need to spend it on my car and bills, little retro joy couldn’t hurt.

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Not many know that Animal Crossing as well as some other GameCube games were also released on the Nintendo 64 in Japan. 64 was still popular in Japan that Nintnedo decided to support it with some of the GameCube ports like the above Animal Forest (Japanese name for Animal Crossing).

Although I’m still not sure how I will be able to play it considering that everything is in Japanese. Yes I know the game and yes I will most likely make my way around but some stuff just needs reading and answering. Never the less, this is something I wanted for sometime. There are some difreeance between this and the GameCube port, listed bellow and taken from the Animal Crossing wikia:The real-time clock made a new feature for games.

  • A player catches a Herabuna, an Animal Forest-only fish.
  • Questions are asked to determine your look.
  • The Able Sisters and their shop are not in Animal Forest; thus, designs are not available.
  • When fish are released in the N64 game, they bounce along the ground and into the water instead of diving straight in.
  • Insects are not restricted by acres and can freely wander into other acres. Banded Dragonflies and similar, airborne insects cannot fly too far out to sea in the N64 game, but in Animal Crossing there is no limit.
  • Some of the wallpapers and carpets from Animal Forest were redesigned or removed in Animal Crossing.
  • Some of the clothing from Animal Forest, for example, the N Logo shirt (G Logo in Animal Crossing), are redesigned or removed in Animal Crossing.
  • Two sets of stationery from Animal Forest, the New Year’s Card and the Fortune Paper, are redesigned.
  • The holidays from Animal Forest are either changed or removed in Animal Crossing.
  • Tom Nook wears slightly different uniforms.
  • The Wishing Well from Animal Crossing is a Bell Shrine in Animal Forest. On New Year’s Day, instead of tossing a coin in the fountain, the player shakes the thick rope in the middle and the bells ring.
  • The input keyboard from Animal Crossing is a dial that contains the letters, numbers, and symbols that appear on the screen in Animal Forest.
  • The dial input system in Animal Forest (taken from a fan-translated copy)
  • In Animal Crossing, Gulliver would give the player a rare furniture piece for saving him. In Animal Forest, he gives the player a random furniture piece.
  • In Animal Crossing, three items could be stored in container furniture such as dressers, wardrobes, etc. In Animal Forest, only one item can be stored in those kinds of furniture.
  • In Animal Crossing, a player’s initial home had a wooden box that had a college rule journal on top. In Animal Forest, this is not included, so this means this feature was either not included or both items have to be bought from Nook.
  • In Animal Crossing, the catalog has a section called “Handhelds” where umbrellas, pinwheels, fans, balloons and tools could be ordered. In Animal Forest, this section is called “Umbrellas” and only umbrellas can be ordered from that section. This means pinwheels, fans, balloons, and tools cannot be ordered from the catalog.
  • In Animal Crossing, the player could store multiple airchecks in Stereos, Radios, etc. In Animal Forest, only one aircheck could be stored in them.
  • Buildings such as Tom Nook’s shop, the Post Office, and the Dump have slightly redesigned logos in Animal Crossing.
  • There is no Museum, thus there is no Blathers. The Faraway Museum still exists, and fossils can be sent there for identification.
  • Taking a trip on Animal Forest requires the player have 1 Controller Pak to save travel data on, and two Controller Paks are needed to travel directly. In Animal Crossing, an extra Memory Card is used to save travel data, and the player can travel directly to the other town if 2 Memory Cards with town data are in use at the same time.
  • e-Reader support was added to the Japanese and North American releases of Animal Crossing.
  • Mayor Tortimer was not a character yet, and no gifts could be obtained from him.
  • During the Cherry Blossom Festival, all the villagers sit on mats like the Japanese do.
  • Katrina wore a white headband instead of the normal veil that she wears.
  • Instead of buying stationary as a pack of four, only one piece of paper can be bought at a time.
  • In Animal Crossing, a Money Rock appears for every player in a village each day. In Animal Forest there is only one money rock per town per day, no matter how many people are playing.
  • There was no tropical island and there was no Kapp’n.
  • Villagers were not affected if a player hit them with a net.
  • Blanca does not exist.
  • The live version of DJ K.K. uses a different set of guitar riffs, which were most likely changed due to their similarities with the song “Get Ready for This” by 2 Unlimited.
  • Stella2
  • Stella’s original design.
  • Items looks different when on the ground. Stationery is a paper bag with a leaf on it, clothing are treasure chests, and tools are toolboxes. These aesthetics were later re-used for Animal Crossing: Wild World.
  • Mystery items for sale at Nooks. (early January?)
  • Bluebear’s and Stella’s original designs were also slightly different than now, and their appearances were tweaked to the current design in DĊbutsu no Mori + and Animal Crossing. Some of the other villagers have gone under these tweaks as well.
  • There were no coconuts in Animal Forest.
  • When getting bad fortunes identified by Katrina, slightly different effects happen. This can include tripping and falling half as frequently or less malfunctioning of the friendship of other villagers.

One thing is for sure, I will be using the Expansion Pak to displayed the game in a higher resolution 640×480 from 320×240. I will update you all how it goes along with my progress. Very excited to play this soon.

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Adam Plays Sonic 4 Episode I

Sonic_vis 2014-08-31 23-38-00-204I will not try to hide that I was and still am the biggest Sega fanboy although I slowed down by the time Xbox 360 and PS3 hit the market. Truth be told, Sega of today is no longer the Sega of Saturn/Dreamcast era. Never the less, great games do come out from time to time and Sonic 4 was a great attempt on bringing old school fans back home. I admit, I bought the game when it came out but never played it seriously until last night before going to bed. I will do my best to summarize everything in unbiased natural review.

Graphics

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The graphics look beautiful although some aliasing is visible. I am running the game on mixed resolution and settings and everything looks great. The new cartoonish style is a nice addition to the series. Some of the objects in the background are done in 3D and will have nice effects. The stages look detailed and sonic alike. Apart from the little aliasing I have no complain.

4/5

Gameplay

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Well, what can I say.. The gameplay is good but not on the same level as sonic and knuckles. Sonic starts moving in a wired way and feels slow to start. He kinda walks faster without moving his hands which results in a strange movement. The gameplay itself is not glitched or anything but feels slower due to this problem. Everything else including enemies attack looks ok. Sonic’s homing attack feels out of place at first but you will get used to it with time, not as smoth as I hoped it would be. The 3 act per zone returns much like the first Sonic game with a fourth being a boss fight.

The game works with Xbox 360 controller right out the box.

3/5

Sound

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The game’s music is ok but not great. Personally, I’m not a fan although the game sounds are Sonic type. The music feels repetitive and uninteresting, at least to me.

3/5

Conclusion

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Overall, the game is good. Could have been better but its a good start for episode I. There things to do like leader boards, completing the zones faster and emeralds. Some new eliminates and puzzles were added as well as old school not so great stuff like the Night Casino zone which is full of annoying paths. There are some puzzles which are easy once figure out what to do. Basically, its  Sonic 1 remake. Most of the stages resamble the first Sonic game remade in 3D. Not necessary a good thing but cant really complain. The game is very cheap and die hard Sega/Sonic fans will definitely need to pick this up be it on PS3, Xbox 360 or Steam.

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Resident Evil Remastered Complete Edition DVD is coming in November

rerps3You red it right folks, BioHazard aka Resident Evil remastered will be coming as a physical DVD this November. As hard as it is to hunt it down, it will be coming in 4 different editions for as low as $50.

It is a great news for physical lovers such as my self so we can display it with pride on our shelves. Note that the physical version is only coming to PS3 much like the physical Code veronica and Resident Evil 4.

Will update you once more news arrive.

 

Daily Pickups: Sega Saturn Magazines acquired

It is no secret that I was and still am Sega Saturn and old school SEGA fan. It is this issue that I first picked up in the super market years ago along with it’s demo.

1I remember rushing to my Black Saturn and testing the demo using the official region free card. Boy was I amazed. I remember playing world wide soccer over a 100 times and trying to glitch my way out of the map in steep slope sliders. The days gaming was actually fun and inventing.

Fast forward to today and I managed to score some mags of my past and a couple of new ones. The reason I stopped going further is cause I don’t wanna be broke from the start as I have bills to pay and people to take care of. Never the less, these amazing gems will surly bring back the nostalgic feeling and joy to my heart.

2
Reading about the amazing Xmen vs Street Fighter after playing it in the mall.

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3
Reading about Dreamcast for the first time and seeing Sonic Adventure, I got super excited and little sad cause I knew that we would not be able to afford this any time soon.
4
Bought it from the mall’s book store. The CD was missing though.

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I cant say the deal was cheap but its well worth it.

Latest Pickups: Resident Evil 3

Who here did not play any Resident Evil game? Apparently me? Joking. I played it back at the day but never owned the american NTSC version. As an old school Resident Evil fan this order is very late as I should have ordered this years ago. Well, guess better late than never.

The Dino Crisis Demo disk is the icing on the cake.

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Last Bronx (Sega Saturn import pickup)

Latest Sega Saturn pickup. Last Bronx.

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Back at the day, I had the USA version which is not working any more (Will try to restore the disk) so I ordered the import version as a replacement. This version however comes in two CDs, I’m not sure whats the extras yet as I haven’t boot the game yet but will surly update you all.

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