QCF: Trophy

o matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still think it’s BUCK wild to see a brand new game for the NES get commercially released over 30 years past the system’s prime. The Homebrew scene for these legacy platforms are further bolstered by the flexibility of the Digital Marketplace hosted by every notable name you can think of, like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Valve, or hell, even Atari.

One of the latest releases for the most popular 8-Bit machine is an homage to Mega Man by developer Gradual Games named Trophy, and it’s not only been made available on Cartridge for its original hardware, it’s also available on Switch eShop and Xbox Marketplace via a proprietary NEW Emulator to boot. The technical chops on display are nothing of impressive, as the game seemingly uses every MMC Mapper to push the most out of the system to run it, but the core design of the game hardly does anything to impress beyond the sheer novelty of it being a new Action Shooter you can grab for the NES.

Tophy is certainly no Mega Man, but it isn’t even a Darkwing Duck, or a Krion Conquest, or hell even a Whomp ‘Em—it’s just a another retro game with some bizarrely outdated design by comparison.

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QCF: Nescape

hen most think of the NES, they'll likely imagine platformers, side-scrollers and turn-based RPGs. Nintendo's premier console did, after all, introduce us to the very roots of these genres as we know them today while also restoring our faith in video games as a whole after the 1980s game crash.

Some titles, however, were more experimental than others – more specifically, those of the point-and-click genre. Two that immediately come to mine are the console ports of King's Quest V and Shadowgate, in addition to Manic Mansion from Lucasfilm Games.

One could consider NEScape! a faithful ode to any of these titles now available in the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Live libraries, albeit with a much more docile feel. In short, it truly is an "escape room" for the NES.

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PPR Presents Limelight: DuckTales 2 Player

here’s a lot of doom and gloom today, with a side helping of tempered excitement for Next-Gen hardware that’s just on the horizon—we of course are going to go for something a little more different.

Disney’s DuckTales just debuted the 1 Hour special of “Let’s Get Dangerous” in their Season 3 lineup of episodes, and what makes it so special is that it was a backdoor pilot for the upcoming Darkwing Duck reboot that will air concurrently with the DuckTales reboot. This is the kind of wholesome shit that I needed in the month of October, and now more than ever, I really wanted to celebrate the news with one of my favorite NES ROM hacks available: DuckTales 2 Player.

This special hack released by hacker alias “Ti” not only improves the performance of DuckTales 2 for the NES, but it also gives you the ability to have a second player on-screen with you, and that second player is none other than the Terror that flaps in the night! Join us on Saturday, November 7th, at 9:00 PM Pacific at twitch.tv/presspauseradio as my girlfriend, Val, and I trying to stop Flintheart Glomgold with Duckburg’s and St. Canard’s Finest on the job!

Mudprints Unboxes FHR: Hyperkin RetroN HD

e bought a RetroN HD, unboxed it... and reviewed it?! Get Ready for the first-ever Mudprints Unboxes Full Hardware Review (FHR)! How does the Hyperkin RetroN HD hold up? Let's take a look!

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Bullet Heaven, Episode 179 - Hector '87/Starship Hector (FC/NES)

ullet heaven SAGAs returns! Following up from Hudson Soft's 1986 Star Soldier, In Volume 3 of the Star Soldier Saga, we're taking a look at the first series offshoot from the series proper: Hector '87! It's a ridiculously hard game that pretty much requires a turbo controller... but how does it stack up?

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Bullet Heaven, Episode #161 - Star Soldier Saga Vol.1: Star Force

Tecmo may not have especially many shooting games uner its belt - they're much more famous for their fighting games and early sports titles - but one very early arcade title shook up what people knew about space shooters and singlehandedly created a whole subgenre: The Caravan Shooter. Released to the Famicom in 1985, Star Force paved the way for the venerable Star Soldier Series... but how does it stack up?  

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PPR at the Movies: Nintendo Quest Review

henever you talk to anyone about video games, and I mean anyone, no matter their walk of life, or intimacy with the pastime, there’s one name that’s bound to come up, and is easily one of the most notable consoles in gaming, even to this day—the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The reverence for Nintendo’s 8-bit game box is a palpable force among both older, and youthful generations of game enthusiasts; which is why titles from its game library are still the among most sought after games to collect out of any other console out there.

Which brings us to one man, Jay Bartlett—a young adult dude who’s attributed a great deal of his being to then influence and wonder that the NES has given him, straight out of London, Ontario.

So much so that he’s teamed up with friend and independent film maker, Rob McCallum, to set out on what they call the social experiment of a lifetime. The pair sets their sights on collecting every NES game they can within 30 days, without the use of the internet, sticking exclusively with in-person transactions on a cross-country trip through the USA, and doing so all in a documentary they call, “Nintendo Quest.”

As far as a video game documentaries go, this premise is loaded with potential, tapping into a campaign that nearly anyone who’s ever played a video game can identify with, to some extent.

Unfortunately, this is where the film fails to follow through.

We’re set up for a journey with what we originally were lead to believe to be one with an underdog that’s attempting the impossible, and what we’re taken on instead is an underwhelming pursuit that barely sticks to its own outline of rules, and a protagonist that’s really challenging to relate to.

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PPR Presents Play Play: NES Remix 1+2

intendo’s no stranger to pandering to all of the inner-children within us by tugging at our nostalgia, but in this case, we might have found an exception that does more than cater to rose-tinted fandom. Ser sits on in with George, and checks out what he’s missing on the Wii U with both, NES Remix and NES Remix 2. We check out all the nifty little tweaks and nuances, and argue over whether or not Nintendo’s still got the touch. They also get into about it Kirby games, and some other dumb shit, but that’s just the norm with them anyway.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!