Phantasy Star II celebrates its 37th anniversary today, and we have two great interviews covering its development. This one comes from The World of Phantasy Star; my favorite detail is how the fiendishly complex dungeons were the result of a tryharding new employee. shmuplations.com/phantasystar...

PSA: the free version of Granblue Versus Rising is unlocking all their characters for a week. Usually they cycle through 4 but they're opening the whole shebang. IMO this is one of the best gateway fighters, and the paid version is very generous with content.

In this humorous Mega Man Legends interview from 2/98, Keiji Inafune shares the inspiration behind Tron's design, the challenges of finding the right difficulty, and other mecha-centric anecdotes. shmuplations.com/rockmandash/

Learn about Cyberbots' character and mecha design in this vintage interview from 1998! This was part of a mecha-themed interview series conducted by Oh My Goddess! manga artist Kosuke Fujishima for GameJin magazine. shmuplations.com/cyberbots/

There's a PlayStation demo CD with a restricted build of *Ridge Racer*. It's from 3 weeks before the final, making it some of the earliest PlayStation software. I patched out the limits to enable full access. There are lots of differences! 32bits.substack.com/p/extending-...

Today I'm starting a new weekly tradition called "Saturday Shmuplations" to highlight some of the greatest hits from our archive of over 500 translated interviews. The weekend is the perfect time to relax and revisit these long-form, deep-dive slices of gaming history!

Attention all Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness fans! With thanks to @shmuplations.bsky.social you can now enjoy English story mode translations of the console exclusive characters. Have closed captions turned on. First up, Shade: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lue...

Attention all Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness fans! With thanks to @shmuplations.bsky.social you can now enjoy English story mode translations of the console exclusive characters. Have closed captions turned on. First up, Shade: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lue...

My Bomberman site updated with some guff after who knows how long. Want to read about the behind-the-scenes on the Bomberman Jetters anime? How about the minute differences between four unique ports of NES Bomberman? If not, that's all I got, sorry. randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/bomb/

[lifeline] it is complete. the lifeline archive is up and public!! please please please go check it out!! it has a ton of cool stuff about everyone's favorite Voice Action Adventure for PlayStation 2 heyoperator.neocities.org

Today we have an amazing interview from 1989 with Shigeru Miyamoto and Shigesato Itoi. Conducted shortly after the release of Mother, it's full of deep musings about realism, creative exhaustion, the moral panic over kids & gaming, and prescient visions of the future. shmuplations.com/itoimiyamoto/

Did you know there's a 3rd Fighter's History exclusive to the SNES and only released in Japan? You can now enjoy its multiple endings completely in English thanks to Niz (he transcribes Japanese instruction manuals here setsumei.cloudfree.jp/index.html) www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/b/f...

According to Akira Nishitani, Bill Bull from Final Fight was based on former Capcom USA VP of Sales & MarketingBill Craven. xcancel.com/game7650/sta...

This week's Arcade Archives release is RAVE RACER. 31 years since its arcade debut, Namco's 3D racing sequel comes with two brand new courses, a slipstream mechanic, smooth drifting and a soundtrack of nothing but hot jams. Dreamwidth post! tepidsnake.dreamwidth.org/38146.html

learning about this new-fangled capcom arcade system from the guy from the street fighter 1 stage www.youtube.com/watch?v=m029...

For our final translation this month, we have a vintage interview with Masanobu Endo and Shigesato Itoi from 1985, shortly after Endo departed Namco and founded Game Studio. This is a "friendly banter" style interview with lots of witty, provocative assertions from Itoi. shmuplations.com/endoitoi/

For some reason, the price of the Earnest Evans Collection has recently increased on Switch and PS5. The PS4 and Steam versions haven't had their prices changed yet, the Steam version is even currently 20% off.

Taito's ultra-violent rail shooter Space Gun has two alternate titles hiding in the game's data- Annihilator and Creatures Shock. tcrf.net/Space_Gun_(A... The tweets linked on TCRF sadly no longer exist, but at least they were paraphrased- Space Gun was only meant as a tentative name, but it stuck!

Back to our shmup roots, this week we have a super in-depth Esprade interview with art director Junya Inoue! I've wanted to do this one for a long time and it didn't disappoint: tons of fascinating lore on the characters and world design. Plus concept art! shmuplations.com/esprade/

The few select people who have played the underrated Phantom 2040 (SNES/Genesis) can finally rest because I figured out the game's over 20 ending variations and how to trigger them. I made a FAQ which will hopefully help millions of present and future gamers gamefaqs.gamespot.com/genesis/5863...

Street Fighter Alpha 2 comic by Terazou, from a 1996 Comic Gamest compilation.

I don't normally post when the YouTube archive of my stream goes up, but I think this one is maybe worth a look! I talk for 5 hours about undumped, non-existent and lost arcade games, and despite some tech glitches I don't think I did a bad job~ Sources, too! www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0aB...

Finally, we translated this fun collection of Magic Sword developer commentary from 1990. The real star here is the enemy concept art, accompanied by lore that should deepen the enjoyment of your next playthrough or 1CC attempt. shmuplations.com/magicsword/

As usual, I was remiss in updating the wider world about our December work, which I'd like to take a moment to do here. The big star was this in-depth Yuji Horii interview from 2000, which covers the early development of Dragon Quest and his PC and game journalism work. shmuplations.com/yujihorii/

For the first time in 2026, THE NEWNESS IS ON! New sprites based on Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, Valis, and Nutroll added to the galleries and screenshot makers! www.scrollboss.illmosis.net/blog/?p=3778

Hack, slice, dice and Julien fry your way to victory with this AI-free English manual scan of SNK’s Samurai Shodown II, for Neo Geo CD! The SNK English editor got their hands on this one... rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/SS2...

Earnest Evans Collection is now up on the UK Nintendo store. £15.99. Don't buy it if you only have a Switch 2. I like the image they used of Annet on the store page. What's she thinking? "Yeah, most of the games I'm in aren't the best...sigh".

Earnest Evans Collection launches January 16 in the west Earnest Evans Collection will launch for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam on January 16 in the west for $19.99, publisher Limited Run Games announced. Physical edition pre-orders will open via Limited Run Games on…

"The man with seven scars is approaching South (ern Cross) Town"

After months of work TF4KProject is finally ready to share lost pieces of Transformers media. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of "Cosmic Rust," they released 8 deleted scenes with audio provided by us where we had it. youtu.be/UrjXXqg4eXM?...

Our first big Christmas update is with an amazing recovery of the final build of Resident Evil on Gameboy Color. Hotgen's impressive conversion that got canned. This is much closer to completion, and seems completable too. Lots to discover! www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/12/resi...

New on Gaming Hell - Sonic the Fighters (Sega AM2, 1996) gaminghell.co.uk/SonicTheFigh... COME ON, MR. SONIC

On the ScrollBoss site for December 2025: Final Fight-themed site update with some all-new pixel art and a Sprite Showcase video with animations and displays. The Wrap-Up 2025 update: a recap with some new things added + a toy section update with new action figure pics.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXQ2... Just uploaded whats probably my longest video yet. DO YOU LIKE PIXELLATED KILLIN'?

Did you know that the Japanese version of Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere (Playstation) has 5 different anime-styled endings that were cut from the international versions? You can see them all right here (plus the secret ending): www.vgmuseum.com/end/psx/c/ac...

As it’s now officially #karnovember, here’s my contribution: instruction manual scans for the Neo Geo CD version of Fighter’s History Dynamite/Karnov’s Revenge -in Japanese and English! rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/FHD... rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/KRc...

As it’s now officially #karnovember, here’s my contribution: instruction manual scans for the Neo Geo CD version of Fighter’s History Dynamite/Karnov’s Revenge -in Japanese and English! rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/FHD... rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/KRc...

Arika's celebrating their 30th anniversary by permanently dropping the price of Fighting EX Layer to $0.99 on PS4 & PC—the new price is live on Steam rn & will go live on PS at ~00:00 Nov.2 in your region store.steampowered.com/app/871200/F... store.playstation.com/en-us/produc...

Not only has the TV series has returned, it seems it's now viewable in the UK?! Tested the mobile app and will test more later. Watch Hokuto no Ken, my friends. Every episode. Yes, even HNK2. Yes, even THE SOUTH STAR HUMAN CANNONBALL. Yes, even the long stretch of flashbacks midway. Yes, even the

From prototype changes by RQ87 to some lesser known(?) things in the game you might not know about from me Different title screen items are shown on each day of the week Sun - Sakura petals Mon - Maple leaves Tue - Hanafuda cards Wed - Confetti Thu - Snow Fri - Sakurasou flowers Sat - Feathers

Surprisingly, the Japanese Virtual Console manuals for the Neo Geo games released on the Wii are still on SNK's website. This can be useful for things like profiles and stats of characters from fighting games or proper story summaries! game.snk-corp.co.jp/event/virtua...

New on Neo Geo Wubba Wubba: a list of differences with some prototype Samurai Shodown II footage. Nothing too major, but it seems Nicotine's name was decided late on. rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/SSSp/1...

In the Metal Slug series, did you know that the male and female characters use different handguns? Marco and Tarma use the Murder-50AE whilst Eri and Fio use the 1915 Revolver because of its slender design. From an SNK Supporters Club newsletter I posted on the other site years ago

New on Gaming Hell - OOParts (Success, 1992, never released) www.gaminghell.co.uk/OOParts.html AN OUT-OF-PLACE ARCADE GAME

Next up, a long-running patron request, we have a Ghost in the Shell roundtable interview from 1997 with the Exact and SCE teams. This one focuses on the gameplay and origins of the project, which was actually initiated by Masamune Shirow himself! shmuplations.com/ghostinthesh...

Some useless Earnest Evans trilogy trivia: years ago, I found some unused building sprites in El Viento. They get loaded during the start of the fourth level, but are never seen. Turns out if you die, then use a continue, it'll make the building sprites appear when the level restarts.

Yknow everyone dumps on the Land of Sura arc and everything but no one ever talks about the Jetski arc of FOTNS

@priceofreason.bsky.social Did something cool. He translated the entire Last Blade (NeoGeo) script from scratch and made a cool site with screenshots to house it all (you can also toggle the original SNK translation for easy comparison). moriyamug.neocities.org/lblade/1

Next up is a very special interview between Hideo Kojima and director Shinya Tsukamoto. I don't want to spoil the content but as a huge Tetsuo fan this was one of my favorites. If only that "Flying Tetsuo" collab Kojima jokes about had really come to pass... shmuplations.com/kojimatsukam...

The GRANDMOTHER of all Neo Geo manual scans! Fatal Fury Special is now available in English: rq87.flyingomelette.com/RQ/NG/MS/FFS...