Diving Even Deeper to Master System

Yesterday I got Bubble Bobble for Master System. I was lucky to find it directly from one of the best gaming shops that I often buy retro games from. It did cost a bit. It was 75 euros. But, you know, I had to buy it. I also got Soulcalibur II for GameCube. That’s the fighting game that you can play as Link fromĀ  Zelda.

I first encountered Bubble Bobble as a child. I played it on a PC. It was a good game. I really liked it. It would have been nice to have a controller back then. I played with a regular keyboard as I did then with any game. We had some sort of a joystick but it was wack to play with it. It’s been a long time. You start to think how nice things are today. We have lots of variety in gamepads that can be connected to any PC with a USB or even with some kind of a dongle and wireless.

This game originally got released in the 1980s. This Master System version, however, was released as late as 1991. This gives you the correct idea that Master System had many fans. It was an 8-bit gaming system but even in 90s when game consoles were developing fast it held its position as a favorite game console for some gamers.

It is said that this version of Bubble Bobble is the best one. It was released also for Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and PC. This simple game delivers great game play. It even gives you some minor puzzle type challenges. You might have to figure how to get to the upper corners of the level. You have to think different ways to get rid of enemies that are also trying to hurt you.

You get two health points which get increased if you get some more points. You get points by eating different delicacies. I think these are placed almost randomly to the level you are playing. After you have gotten rid of all enemies you have some seconds of time to eat everything you can grasp. Then you have to move on to the next level. There are over 100 levels. I am currently somewhere in level number 40.

You get to continue your play session in a mean of password system. This works pretty well. You can always start the game also from beginning. You have to understand Master Systems limitations. This also makes me think about some remakes. I am not aware of any good remakes as I am writing this. But I definitely have to search for one and find out if there is one.

The screen doesn’t scroll like it does in some games like Super Mario Bros. So this game is not a platformer type of a game. Basic idea is to trap enemies inside of a bubble that shoots out of the main characters mouth. I guess it’s a some sort of a fantasy dragon that you are actually playing as. The gameplay is very nice. This is very good game. While it doesn’t make you play tens of hours without a single break it gives you a challenge for an hour or so at a time. You can play it for some hours but I found myself playing it for about one hour without breaks and then leaving the game for a while just to come back to play it later.

This is clearly the best gaming that Master System can offer. I had some difficulties with the hardware. It makes me want to start playing with a PC and emulator. I even have a matching USB game pad. It is a controller that looks and feels like a Sega Saturn controller. If just there would be some way to digitize legally all these retro games that I own. Then I would definitely switch to playing with emulators. There is this idea of retro games sometime in the future being kind of “public domain”. It think this is already the case with Commodore 64 games and maybe even some of these DOS games. You have to keep up with this progress, you know!

My Tiny Collection of Sega Master System Games

I have an adapter that can bring me to games of the game system that was originally released before Mega Drive. This gaming console is Sega Master System. It wasn’t the first console that was manufactured by Sega. It was although something that could be a challenge for Nintendo Entertainment System. NES was released in 1983. Some years later Master System was released.

The complete game library of Sega Master System has a bit over 300 games. Mega Drive was strongly advertised to be a 16-bit system. Master System is a 8-bit system. It sold something from 10 to 13 million units worldwide. After all this was not enough for Sega that wanted to dominate the markets. The sligt failure of Master System caused Sega to really invest in the development of Mega Drive.

What am I playing my Master System games with? Well, I have a Retro Trio console that I can play Mega Drive games with. Already some years ago I was lucky to spot an adapter that enables you to play Master System games on a Mega Drive. It was also cheap but very difficult to find from any game shop or even elctronics web shop.

I have collected for Master System already some time. About a month ago I bought three more games for it. I already had this game that features Mickey Mouse. The game is titled Castle of Illusion. It’s a fun platformer type of a game. Three other games are Wonder Boy, Super Space Invaders and Psycho Fox.

It has to be said that if we make a comparison between NES and MS and think about all games that were released NES has more of them. In fact NES has about two times more games than MS. This is of course clear since NES was such a popular system back in the 80s and especially before the release of its serious competitor Sega MD. In fact it is said that back in 1988 Nintendo held 83 percentage of the video game market (in North America alone).

The latest addition to my Sega MS collection will be Bubble Bobble. I have ordered it but it hasn’t yet arrived (that’s why it isn’t in the featured image of this blog post). Bubble Bobble is an exciting game and it was released in the 80s for several gaming systems. It was released also for PC, C-64 andĀ  NES. You can probably right now hear the theme music already playing if you are familiar with this game. This game is familair to me and I was introduced to it in the form of a PC game. I used to play it a lot when I was a kid. Today, I enjoy more the console version because I can use a game pad to play it. It is said also that the MS version was the best.

I can recommend any of these MS games if you got interested. These four games weren’t actually so expensive. Psycho Fox was 40 euros. Other games were something below 30 euros. Bubble Bobble was a bit more expensive. It cost me 75 euros. I have seen these prices going up a bit in last five years or so. Retro games seem to have a higher price today as this hobby seems to be popular.

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