Fighters Portrait: Vol. 2 Blanka

Blanka, Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior, Amazon River Basin Stage

The creation and backstory for the character Blanka is complete hodge-podge. A character that Capcom designer”Akiman” admits went thru several unrelated iterations before someone colored in the skin green and the feral jungle beast from the Brazilian Amazon river basin was born. Hearsay suggests that Blankas green skin came from the consumption of chlorophyll in jungle plants, and his electrical powers are due to an education from electric eels within the river. The ending scenarios for Street Fighter 2 of course tell us he is a lost human child that grew up alone in the Jungle. His mother recognizes him as her son “Jimmy” due to the anklets he is wearing; which she claims were a gift to him as a child. That lore addition throws a bit a of wrench into the works however, *adjusts glasses*, because these are HUGE brass anklets that in no way would a child ever wear. There is some official Capcom artwork from that time where there is remnants of chain links attacked to the anklets, suggesting he was captured at one point and broke free. It could also suggest these “gifted” anklets were perhaps shackles forcibly strapped to his ankles, and rather than him having been “lost” he escaped from an abusive home. Blankas fame after having defeated the evil Shadaloo boss M. Bison has drawn his mother out of the shadows in an effort to capitalize on her sons sudden success. I personally would rather that Blanka had a happy childhood full of eccentric gifts from his mother rather that torment.

Fighters Portrait: Vol. 1 Terry Bogard

Terry Bogard, King of Fighters ’94, Italy Stage

In King of Fighters ‘94 all the characters are broken into teams of three with each representing a nation of the world. Terry Bogard, an American, and his American brother Andy, and Japanese friend Joe Higashi are all representing the nation of Italy. If you look at all the other teams, almost all of them have some sort of relation to the country they are representing (almost). There is already a U.S.A. team with three Americans on it, and the same goes for Team Japan (all Japanese characters). I thought maybe the last name of “Bogard” was Italian, but it seems its more likely to be Dutch. Perhaps the game designers had a better idea for an Italian stage than something from the Netherlands? Andy Bogard does have an Italian themed stage in Fatal Fury 2, so perhaps that is the tangential link that brought them to represent Italy. I hope Italy was proud of the teams effort. 

Alex Kidd 1: In Miracle World

Ive been attempting to beat the Sega Ages release of Alex Kidd 1 on the Switch. For such an early platformer the final castle is far too masocore for its own good. A lot of “Ah, what? Come on.” has been said with each new bit of progression. Every aspect of the game is loaded with quirks, which as a whole I feel work for me even if its frustrating at times. They certainly weren’t the only ones throwing a lot of paint at the wall to try and compete with Super Mario Bros.

Shenmue 1: Diary 2

Detective Ryo: Im on the case! The mystery is really starting to take shape and Ryo is getting deeper and deeper into what lead to his fathers death. Ryo is so enraptured in searching out his fathers killers that he blindly walks into a Travel Agency scam and gives away all his money and Fuku-Sans savings as well. Just so happens the scammers were associated with the exact gang he is trying to track down, WHOOPS. As the player you can see it all happening from a mile away, but Ryo is naive and desperate. Its pretty punishing to walk around town while waiting for the travel agency to open back up and have Ryo ask everyone about the place. Every single person seems to have some anecdote about how AWFUL the travel agency is and that Ryo should avoid it at all costs (too late, whoops).

Ryo isn’t playing dumb, he would have no idea what Sonic is since it won’t exist for 5 more years.

Mirror Mirror: The other main focus of Disc 2 is tracking down a pair of ancient Mirrors (they look like fancy marble coasters, but I guess thats what mirrors used to look like before … regular mirrors). You have to solve a series of various locks throughout the Dojo and Hazuki residence which eventually leads to Ryo crawling down into a spooky hidden basement. Flashlight in hand its the most survival horror that I recall Shenmue ever getting. Its pretty exciting because its so different from everything else you’ve done in the game so far. Lots of the puzzles are just conversation strings but now you are moving objects and looking for clues hidden within the environment. The game does a good job of peppering different changes of pace throughout to keep you intrigued.

Disc 3???: There is a dramatic conclusion to Disc 2 and I am totally JACKED to put in disc three, but, the brakes get slammed and I skid to a stop. The Dreamcast cant read Disc 3! Disc 2 has been functioning perfectly fine after needing to use a burned CD-R for Disc 1. Ill be doing the same for Disc 3 it seems. This is a documented problem so I am not worried its my 20 year old Dreamcast, but its so confusing why this never happened when I played the game the first time. Thankfully im stuck enough in the past to still have the ability to burn CD-Rs. The journey will have to continue once this burn finishes up!

Puyo Puyo etc.

Suketoudara attempts intimidation

Puyo Puyo is making quite the come back the past handful of years. I never had much of a taste for it in its first handful of decades, but after being reintroduced via the mashup puzzler Tetris Puyo Puyo when it came to the Switch I felt it click in. However, I was turned off by the presentation of T.P.P., so I went dormant a bit again until M2 ported the initial Arcade release of Puyo Puyo as part of the Sega Ages Switch line — its 90s arcade aesthetic being more my tune. Plus its been translated for the first time and really has a nice weird vibe without being annoying (like T.P.P. is). Of course my luck would be the following week SNES for Switch Online arrives and inexplicably brings along an untranslated Super Puyo Puyo 2 to the service that I already pay for. Its different enough that I don’t mind having both titles; but maybe its the Celestial Lords of Puyo telling me I should make up for lost time?