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Developer for Upcoming NES Release, Armed for Battle, Answers Our Questions

Time to replace that 72-pin connector.

If you’ve still got an NES kicking around your entertainment center, chances are it’s been a long time since it’s had a brand new cartridge popped in. Lucky for you and your forlorn, reliable console, there’s a fresh game slated for release early next year. Although there have been a smattering of games released for the NES recently, Armed for Battle is pretty unique. Not only was the project put together by a solitary programmer, but Frank Westphal is giving us something the king of ‘80s consoles never had before: a real time strategy game. Frank was nice enough to take some questions about his development process, his game, and what he expects from Armed for Battle.  Budding homebrew developers and fans of the NES will learn a lot from my conversation with Frank.

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Final Fantasy Retrospective: The Famicom Years

Join PixlBit as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy in style!

Final Fantasy is 25 years old! With Square Enix celebrating all year long through various events, game releases, and products, we decided it was the perfect time to take a look at the RPG franchise that brought us moogles, chocobos, and spoony bards. Considering that each major console generation has had three games released for it, we’ll be breaking down the entire series from I-XIV. Enjoy our first installment with The Famicom Years!

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Koopalings, Airships and Tanookis Oh My! - Mario Mania #3

The finale of the NES trilogy is truly a classic to behold.

The year was 1990. It is about a year before the Super Nintendo makes its debut, but the NES is enjoying brisk sales of both hardware and games. The previous year Nintendo released its first handheld system, the Game Boy, and unleashed the addiction known as Tetris. This was, however, in North America. As I eluded to in Mario Mania #2, a Famicom player often had a different, exclusive set of hardware to play with than his counterpart in North America. The Japan-only accessory, the Famicom Disk System, was one of them. 

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Double The Fun? - Mario Mania #2

Two games in one part! Can you guess which one I like better?

Different things usually happened with Nintendo in two completely different continents. While the NES arrived in 1986 in North America, Japan was already in its third year of Famicom glory. Nintendo’s then-released Famicom Disk System introduced the battery back-up save feature, eliminating the need for long over-drawn password saves. Games like Metroid and The Legend of Zelda greatly benefited from this innovation. It was also this year that Nintendo saw fit to release a sequel to Super Mario Bros, appropriately titled Super Mario Bros. 2. This was a completely different Super Mario Bros. 2 than the one North Americans got in 1988. So what in the world happened?

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A Plumber Saves an Industry - Mario Mania #1

Matt takes an extensive look at Mario’s first console outing, Super Mario Bros.

I have a pet peeve that goes along the lines of this sentence: “It’s good, for its time.”

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Mario Mania: A Super Mario Bros. Retrospective

Matt takes an in-depth look at each Mario game.

You don’t have to tell me that I am a year late. I already know that. Mario’s 25th Anniversary has already come and gone, and Nintendo’s other big franchise is celebrating its 25th this year: namely, the Legend of Zelda. Yet you already know that by now, so you are probably asking this question right now: “Matt, what the hell? Why are you doing a Mario retrospective when you could be writing about Zelda?”

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