PixlBit

Nintendo ramping up that marketing machine. 

My buddy at the time had a 2600 Jr, and we played late 2600 games like Vanguard, Kangaroo, Mario Bros, and Solaris. Vanguard actually wasn't too bad on 2600, but I did end up getting the Atari 8-bit version, which was great. 

Rampage is a classic, of course. WB actually made a successful movie out of it. It would be nice if they'd make a home video game, but they don't seem to care about anything that isn't Mortal Kombat or Wizarding World.

I didn't play Dragon Warrior until my friend got it. I have always felt that Dragon Quest on NES was better than Final Fantasy on NES. 

My favorite game of 1986 is Starflight, a PC space sim from EA and Binary Systems. It nailed the Star Trek experience better than any licensed Star Trek game ever did. Its modern spiritual successor is No Man's Sky.

Stage Select:

1. Super Mario RPG. Looks like an already awesome game is going to get even better. This shot up to the top of my list the second it was announced.

2. Mortal Kombat 1. Looks amazing, with all my favorite fighters, and a Jean-Claude Van Damme skin for Johnny Cage.

3. Super Mario Wonder. This game reignited my excitement for 2-D Mario in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. 

I actually have quite a few anticipated games coming up, like Star Ocean: The Second Story Remake, Metroid Prime 4, and the next Zelda. Also strongly considering Baldur's Gate 3.

Cage Match:

Speaking of Star Ocean 2....

Tough call. Grandia is a successor to the Lunar series, which is near and dear to my heart, and also held cult status as the Saturn's queen-bee RPG (at least other than Panzer Dragoon Saga). Honestly, though, given that both games were trying to accomplish similar things with their battle systems, I have to give the edge to Star Ocean: TSS, which has a much smoother battle system reminiscent of Tales (no surprise since the Star Ocean series was made by many of the same people.) Motoi Sakuraba's banging soundtrack only sweetens the deal.

My antipathy towards Microsoft goes back to over half a decade prior to the launch of the original Xbox. I always viewed them as an out-of-control, rapacious company that ruined whatever it touched. It's colored my perception of both the Xbox line and PC gaming. 

I actually owned a 360 in its early years, when Microsoft was paying Japanese developers to make games exclusive to 360. Almost all of the companies who took them up on it, ended up regretting it. It's why you saw enhanced versions of games like Eternal Sonata and Tales of Vesperia on PS3, because the companies were trying to make their money back. That plus the E74 error that fried my Xbox (that MS was still trying to deny at the time and wanted to charge me $150 to remediate) soured me on Xbox for good.

And if that weren't enough, Microsoft locked my Microsoft account, which had Xbox 360 content tied to it. They won't release my account until I can remember the number of the credit card I used to buy this content, 15 years ago. I pretty much stopped using my Microsoft account after my email became a spam-ridden hellscape. I've been having to switch a lot of stuff that was tied to my Microsoft email to iCloud while my passwords still work because it's clear that nothing I do will satisfy them, even though their shoddy security is why I stopped using Microsoft email.

So yeah, I'm done with Microsoft.

And even in everyday computing, my last Windows computer was bought in 2011. I switched to Mac and have no interest in going back.

Rant over.

Friends of Mineral Town linked up with A Wonderful Life through the GBA Link Cable. 

Me too. I lost some digital games because I can't remember the credit card number I bought them with from Xbox 15 years ago. Where possible I buy physical. I actually bought Switch versions of games instead of PS4 versions simply because the Switch versions came on cartridge, and to me that justified the (often grossly overblown) drop in graphical fidelity. I have the cartridge versions of Atari 50 and SNK 40th Anniversary. Sadly, Donkey Kong is digital only.

No, it's a single copy. The game came on four discs, and each case contains two discs. 

This is the EU PAL version. It originally came with a cardboard sleeve to hold both disc cases. My copy, which was bought form Amazon in 2011 for the low, low price of $150, came like this. I do have all four discs and a fat instruction manual translated into English, French, and German, since this is a EU release. The game itself is in English, as it was primarily produced for the UK market. It works fine on a US monitor using an Action Replay Plus cartridge, as, like almost all Japanese games of the era where it was a fundamentally NTSC game where the bare minimum was done to get it to run in the PAL format.

Honestly, the packaging was nicer than the US version, where they basically stuffed four discs into the case with a bunch of foam padding.  The EU version is also a bit cheaper despite being rarer, though I paid considerably less than most eBay listings for the game now. Maybe the PAL format puts off a lot of US collectors, which it shouldn't.

I also have Shining Force III, the US NTSC version in the case of that one. I plan to play both of these games on my channel at some point.

I agree on the remaster. Supposedly Sega lost the code, as often happened to a lot of older games, but they were nevertheless able to do a nice remaster of the first game. It would probably take a pretty dedicated team to remake this beast,. 

Starmaster was one of my favorite 2600 games, and was more playable than the 2600 version of Star Raiders. I have the SNK collection. I mostly play Vanguard (a game I played a lot on 2600 and Atari 8-bit), Ikari Warriors, POW, and Time Soldiers on it. I take occasional stabs at Athena, but that game is brutally hard. 

Gyruss was another favorite of mine. I had it on Atari, and I have it on Game Boy Advance as part of a Konami collection. I did have it on Xbox Live when I owned an Xbox. Unfortunately, that version is lost to me forever, as Microsoft locked my MS account and will not release it until I somehow remember information from 15 years ago. They seem hellbent on reminding me that dumping Microsoft and switching to Apple was a good decision.

Stage Select:

My most exciting thing would be seeing Microsoft get slapped down hard on their bid for ABK, because I hope it pumps the brakes on some of these acquisitions, especially from Microsoft. Sadly, I don't see the FTC prevailing, since the DOJ couldn't even nail Microsoft when they had them dead to rights in United States v. Microsoft Corp. 

Cage Match:

Charlie finds himself facing off against the Boston Bruins. What happens next is deemed to be unsuitable for broadcast by the FCC, even on streaming. That night, the Bruins are seen at a restaurant enjoying a dinner of omelets provided by Konami and that Egg Council guy from the Simpsons. Blades of Steel FTW.

1981 was when I was first old enough to understand video games. Donkey Kong, the first arcade game I played because of its colorful graphics, animation, and sounds, is my favorite arcade game of all time to this day. 

I had Space Dungeon on Atari 8-bit, and played the arcade version through MAME. I would like to see it as an Arcade Archives game.

1981 was also the release year for Zork II and Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness. I didn't play those until a while after they released.