Piko Interactive is a game development and publishing company that concentrates in the development of new games for old consoles. They sent me a box of new cartridges for NES, Super Nintendo, Genesis and GBA to play. This is a mix of reproduction cartridges, home-brews, unreleased & unfinished games. Here they are:
Water Margin (Genesis)
Mr. Bloppy (SNES)
Anguna Warriors of Virtue (GBA)
World Reborn (GBA)
Duke Nukem 3D (Genesis)
Corn Buster (SNES)
Super 3D Noah’s Ark (SNES)
Dorke & Ymp (SNES)
Apocalypse II (SNES)
Quest Forge by Order of Kings (NES)
Broken Circle (GBA)
Video Transcription:
Metal Jesus here and I’m back again with a video that’s gonna be all about Piko Interactive. Now they are a game publisher that is putting out brand new, high quality, retro games for like the Super Nintendo, the SEGA Mega Drive, Genesis, the original NES, the Game Boy Advance. As a matter of fact, they sent me an entire box of most of the games that they sell. So we’re gonna check these out. Now what’s cool about them is that they basically license homebrews and original games. They also licenses games that were unfinished, that never came to market. Or maybe there were games that just never made it to North American market and they’re re-releasing them in really high quality versions. So for instance they create the labels, the cartridges, they also create the manuals, the boxes, it’s pretty impressive stuff. Let’s take a look.
All right, well let’s get this party started. I’m gonna talk about a game called Water Margin: A tale of Clouds and Wind. Kind of a weird name. Now it came out originally only in China, and then what Piko Interactive did was acquire the license and then help with the translation over into English and North American audiences. As you can see this is a pretty cool beat ’em up. You get to choose between three different characters to play as and you just go out and you just kick some butt!
There’s a couple things I like about this game including the great graphics. This looks pretty decent right? Also this game supports two player co-op. Always a good time, beating up people with your friend. And it also has alternate endings depending in which character you choose.
And then of course, I have to talk about the packaging right? Most of you are collectors like me, so this comes in a standard Genesis Clamshell, nice good quality there. Also a full color manual and a cartridge. I mean, with a great label, what more do you need?
Next up is Mr. Bloopy Saves The World. That’s such a weird title too. A video full of weird titled games. That’s what I’m all about. Now when I first put this game in, I didn’t quite know what to think about it because it was kind of simple but it was sort of addictive. And that’s because it is an educational title was originally cancelled. So this never came out, and then Piko Interactive acquired a license, made a manual box, all that sort of stuff and put it out. I have to say despite being an educational title, this is actually a pretty cool game. Also don’t let these first couple levels fool you, this game can get very tough after a while. Now it’s not gonna be challenging like you know, some traditional platforming game but it is kind of fun and if you got a young kid, you could do a whole lot worse.
Now here is something you don’t see every day. This is a brand new game for the Game Boy Advance. It’s called Anguna: Warriors of Virtue. Now I have to say I was pretty impressed with this game and the quality of it. To start off with, if you like action adventure RPGs similar to like say Zelda or Secret of Manor, you’re gonna feel right at home with this game. And this is a pretty big game too. There are six dungeons to explore as well as a large overall map and then this cartridge actually has a exclusive dungeon just for this release.
Now I could be wrong that this might have been released as a ROM previously. The cool thing about this thou is that they went back and fixed, and polished a bunch of the bugs. So again, this is almost like the definitive version of this game to get. So definitely check it out.
World Reborn is probably one of the best games in this entire line. Well that’s probably why I love shooters and this is a horizontal shooter that never came out previously. So back in the early 2000’s this was made but not release. And you know, such a shame but again I’m really happy that Piko Interactive picked it up. What makes this game really cool is that it’s a horizontal shooter but there are a bunch of RPG elements added on top.
And like any good RPG it’s all about experience. So in this game you collect experience points and then you use those to power up your combat abilities essentially. There are six different pickups that enhance your weapons and give you things like secondary fire or maybe it makes you a little bit faster. A bunch of things like that. And then again, it’s an RPG so you have to be able to save. So this uses a password save system that works pretty well. And again as a collector I am always happy to see a quality box, manual, and cart with a kick ass label. So good job.
So now we get to a game a lot of people are curious about, and that is Duke Nukem 3D on the Genesis. What! That’s because it didn’t come out here in North America. Actually this is a Brazilian release that Piko Interactive was able to license and bring it up here. Now I gotta be honest with you, I love me some old school Duke Nukem 3D on the PC but this is not that. And quite frankly it’s just simply because the Genesis isn’t that powerful. I mean it’s not able to really do a game like this really well or at least a game like Duke Nukem really well. So it’s definitely got some limitations. A couple things about this is that this only contains the second of the original episodes. This is an episode called Lunar Apocalypse. And even though levels themselves had to be re-designed to kind of fit into the Genesis, so should you buy it? Honestly I don’t know if I would actually ever play it but if you were going for a complete Duke Nukem 3D collection, you might have to have this!
Here is a game called Corn Buster for the Super Nintendo. Now this is a unreleased Super Nintendo game that Piko Interactive was able to license. What’s interesting about this game is that it was originally 70% finished. So it wasn’t actually done. And then they acquired the permissions to publish it and then they basically went to work to complete it. So they fixed levels, they also fixed boss fights, they put a bunch of polish of the game, they fixed buds and they basically brought it up to 100% complete and playable, so that’s what you’re seeing here. Now the game play in this might look a little familiar, and that’s because it’s similar to a game on the Sega Genesis called Devilish. Now what I like about this is that again, Piko Interactive is not just taking a bunch of public ROMs out there and putting them on a cartridge and selling it. No, they’re actually developing and finishing these games, polishing them up, creating nice boxes and manuals and cartridges. So I’m impressed.
Here’s a game that some of you may have heard of before, that’s because it’s kind of notorious a little bit. It is a unlicensed Christian themed game called Super 3-D Noah’s Ark for the Super Nintendo. Now this was an unlicensed game like I mentioned, and Piko Interactive, they’ve acquired that license and so now they are the publisher of this game. So what is this game all about? Well what’s weird about this is game is that it’s very much like Wolfenstein 3D, but it’s just non-violence supposedly. I mean, there is no blood and guts and like that. But basically you’re Noah and your job is to, as far as I can tell like shoot food at the different animals, which I guess knocks them to sleep. I don’t know, I mean who thought of this game? But I gotta be honest with you, I played this game way too much when I was capturing the footage. It was actually pretty fun! Now, I’m not saying it’s better than like Wolfenstein or anything like that, but I enjoyed it quite a bit more than Duke Nukem 3D on the Genesis. I just have to say. I gotta be honest here.
Here is another unfinished game that Piko was able to acquire. Now the interesting this about this game is that it was never actually released. Originally the programmer and artist who created this, they got to about 50% of the game being done essentially. So Piko Interactive came in, they found that original developer and then they finished it. So over 100 bugs were fixed in this game. They added a whole new world and levels, menus, cut scenes, there’s a new ending, they also added a passport system and just so much more. There’s actually a pretty impressive game. I will tell you that it’s hard as hell. That could just be because I suck, I don’t know, but I was dying quite a bit, but some people are really into that. So definitely check it out.
Here is another Super Nintendo game that kind of interesting. It’s called Apocalypse II. Now I believe this only came out in Europe and it’s an arcade shooter that Piko is bringing to other territories like North America. It has pretty sharp graphics and it uses Mode 7 for scaling and probably some of the physics, at least some of the feel of this game. I am a huge shooter fan. I wanted to like this game, I just found it be very frustrating. So I don’t know if, again it just could be me, I have no idea but you know, definitely check it out if you’re looking for something new and interesting. Here is something that’s pretty cool, it’s a brand new home-brew for the original NES called Quest Forge by Order OF kings. This game looks and plays just like classic NES games.
Now you are a knight and your king needs your help. So you go around exploring the world and you go from the bottom of the sea to the top of the mountains, you defeat enemies, all of that good stuff that people love. And like their other releases this comes with a nice cardboard box, full color manual and also really nice label on the cartridge. And then finally we have a game called Broken Circle, this is an unreleased game for the Game Boy Advanced. Now what’s kind of interesting about this game is that it was originally so large that no publisher would touch it because it’d be too expensive to make. Well thankfully Piko Interactive pick it up, because it’s actually a pretty cool turn-based RPG that’s based on Norse Mythology. It’s funny because the Game Boy Advance has a lot of these really cool turn-based RPGs and I like ’em quite a bit simply because I get time to think about stuff, and again this is a good one. One of the things that really stood out for me was just the animation, I mean it’s a really nice looking game.
All right so that’s a quick look at some of the games that they sell. Now a couple things at the end here I just want to mention, this is not a sponsored video. They sent me these games to check out but there is no expectation for it and I’m not getting a sort of kickback on it at all. I just wanted to really do a video and just kind of show these things that I thought were pretty cool. Now a couple things here I’ve heard is that people are kind of surprised that maybe they cost so much. I would say though that that’s not super surprising because if you actually try to go out and legitimately get a license for something, that’s usually expensive. The license holder will want money for their intellectual properties and so you have to pay for that. And that’s just the price of trying to do things legitimately.
Also I would say is that they do really high quality stuff. I hope that came through in the video. Their manuals are color, their boxes are great and I don’t know, personally myself I think they’re reasonably priced. You know people will spend $60 on a brand new Call of Duty game that three months later is half the price. These things will probably hold their value, I would assume. The other thing though that I ran into, and I just want to mention because there is a lot of game collectors out there and that is that some of these games I could not them to work on The RetroN 5. Now it could be that maybe my RetroN 5 is just not fully updated, I think it is but just be aware that all of the footage that you saw on this video was taken from the actual consoles because they just did not work on the RetroN 5. Actually the only ones that worked on the Retron Five for me were the Game Boy Advanced games, so that’s the footage that you saw there. But I just want to throw that out there because a lot of you have that console. So anyways, I hope guys enjoyed this video, it’s fun to make. Thanks for watching my channel, thanks for subscribing and take care.
You know you always hear about these unfinished games that come out on like Nintendo systems or the Genesis but you know what? Where are the ones for the Play Station 1? That would be so cool right? I would love to see that or like the Saturn or hell, even the Turbo Graphics. Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody was actually making new Turbo Graphics games? Is that a thing? I’d love to know because well, of course my wallet would probably start hurting but I’d love to know. Is that a thing?