Sr. Mxy

I write scripts and comics and things. Pay me!!!

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ARCHITECT: And here we're adding a death trap where bursts of lava come at you right as you jump. Took forever to get the timing right.

BOWSER: Excellent. But do one without lava first so they can practice in a safe space.

ARCHITECT: I don't think you understand the concept of a death trap.

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They've milked Star Wars for all it's worth. It's time to move on to Star Wars 2.

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It writes itself.

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They've milked Star Wars for all it's worth. It's time to move on to Star Wars 2.

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Nintendo Celebrates Mario's 40th Anniversary By Giving Him Lower Back Problems

MAR10 may be over, but the year of Mario continues! As part of the ongoing Super Mario Bros. 40 celebrations, Nintendo is giving the portly plumber a new super power called... lumbago?!

That's right: starting this week, Nintendo is rolling out a series of updates endowing Mario with debilitating lower back problems. Every "Oh yeah!" will be replaced with an "Oh nooo!" as Mario officially enters the decade in which merely crouching (let alone performing a triple jump or backward somersault) produces excruciating pain.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"

In consideration with Mario's new status quo, every Mario Tennis game will be replaced with a more age-appropiate Mario Pickleball version, while Mario Golf will remain largely unchanged except for the addition of golf carts and unskippable 15-minute warm up exercises before each match (intended to prevent Mario from pulling something while bending down to pick up the ball). Additionally, games like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Bros. Wonder will be updated with a brand-new ability where, if Mario sleeps in a slightly weird position, his entire body will hurt for the rest of the day.

"Aghhhhh. Fuck's sake. God damn."

The best part? All of these updates will be completely free to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack Ultra Gold members (merely $57 a week). Those without an account or on the lower NSO tiers will not be able to play any Mario game in the future, but can still enjoy the sounds of Mario screaming in pain via the Nintendo Music app. Wahoooooooo!

[nintendoduo]

Playing the Super Nintendo's Forgotten Home-Made RPGs of the '90s (Part 5)

(This article is also available at Neocities.)

Here it is: the final part of our series looking at every English-language SNES RPG Maker game on the internet -- all eleven of them. For those just joining us, we don't mean "SNES-style." We mean actual SNES games made within another SNES game by going through hundreds of menus, placing thousands of tiles, and painstakingly typing dialogue with a D-Pad that was definitely NOT made for this. Which, you know, might explain why there are only eleven of these. (Again, in English. Japanese is a whole other story, and possibly article...)

After covering ten short games in Parts 1, 2, and 3 (although the word "game" might be too generous for a couple of them), Parts 4 and this one are devoted to a single full-length RPG created in 1998. This is, as far as we can tell, the only finished SNES RPG Maker game made in English that isn't lost, and it has it all: action, drama, betrayal, dragons, Draculas, and the occasional reminder that this was made by a teenager in the '90s. This is gonna be a long one, so let's load our save state and pick up right where we left off...

Note: This game can be downloaded at rmarchiv.de (or archive.org’s archived version of rmarchiv.de, if it goes offline again).

"Honorable Direction 2 - Enter Culex" by Spoony Bard (11-10-1998) PART 2

Previously in Honorable Direction 2 - Enter Culex: a villain named Culex is terrorizing quiet little RPG towns. Your mission, as the heroic Corda, is to stop him with the aid of Yelfe the priest, Jerzi the knight, and Tani the female character. When we last saw our heroes, they'd just been tasked with infiltrating an establishment frequented by one of Culex's ex generals, which required forcing Tani to dress like this:

She was not happy about it (but Yelfe was) (he's not a very good priest). We pick up the story with Tani sneaking into this medieval Hooter's and encountering some guards who are so drunk, they can't even spell the word "guard."

The other working girls warn Tani to be careful around a guy who "used to be in Culex's army." Tani goes up to him and it's... Randolf! A villain you've already killed twice! We're starting to get the impression that Culex only has one lackey he keeps bringing back to life over and over. Luckily, a combination of drunkenness and Tani's costume prevent Randolf from recognizing one of the people who killed him last time.

By eavesdropping on a conversation between Randolf and one of the "gaurds," Tani learns that these tactical geniuses are in here to set up a trap against Corda for when he inevitably storms this strip club. Tani comes up with a counter-plan to sneak her male friends into the club undetected, and this time, they are the ones who aren't happy about it:

(Unless that "HUNH!" is them doing a suggestive sound while performing pelvic thrusts.)

Next, we get a comical scene where Randolf says "Any minute now, Corda will bust in here" (given the context, we can assume "bust" is not a typo) and Corda, who is standing right behind him, is like "hi." Another fight scene with Randolf ensues. You can guess how that goes.

Before dying for the third time, Randolf tells you that Culex is up north, since it's "not like you can stop him." With the strippers liberated from having to put up that guy, the heroes head north in search of Culex and encounter several catmen, tree men, and a few 3/4 horse 1/2 men (or as they're known in mythology: Cent-- er, "RedHorses").

Eventually (after realizing that Randolf didn't mean "north" but more like "north and to the west") you come across a castle, and Culex patiently waits inside. He's even nice enough to let you do your shopping and resting in the castle's establishments while he stands like three feet away.

So you go up to Culex, and this is when you find out he did have a second lackey: Jerzi the knight?! You've been leveling up a filthy traitor all along! The worst part of this betrayal is that, even after you've heard him call Culex "master" and take his order to destroy you, Jerzi still feels the need to treat you like an idiot and spell out this plot twist for you, adding insult to literal injury.

(At least he's apologetic about it.)

So you're forced to kill your fake friend in self-defense, and with his dying words, he tells you where Culex is going next -- not because he had a last minute change of heart, but because "going there would mean certian doom, heh heh." You learn from Jerzi that Culex went to his private island castle, which you can't reach without a ship. As luck would have it, this is when you meet a kindly king (not to be confused with the kindly king who died earlier in the game just because they look exactly the same) and he gives you a bell that can be used to summon his personal ship. All right! You've got a boat now!

That is, if you're leveled up enough to use the bell, which we weren't in our playthrough. Must be a heavy-ass bell.

Off you go to kill more sentient trees and talking cats until you're level 18 and thus powerful enough that this magical bell will fear and obey you. All right! You've got a boat now! And we hope you like sailing, because that freaking island castle is a bitch to find. As you go through every corner of the map looking for anything that might resemble a castle in an island or an island that is also a castle, you inevitably come across a cave full of friendly soldiers who tell you why the island castle has eluded you: it's a flying island castle, apparently.

In order to reach the island, you need to visit a tower that, according to the soldiers, "holds the power to fly." That sounds like a corny way to refer to a dispensary. Fine, so you go to this possibly marijuana-filled tower (which you'd probably come across already while looking for the damn castle) and the camera pans up to show you how much climbing you'll have to do, which feels incredibly advanced for this game. Yelfe isn't thrilled about the amount of physical effort involved, though.

As you climb weed tower, you fight an appropriately trippy assortment of monsters, including bird people, zombies, mummies, minotaurs, sworded skeletons, and Draculas (known here as "BldSuckrs," possibly to avoid issues with the Bram Stoker estate). At one point, you meet a guy called "Zofia, the warlock" who instantly joins your party because he says he hates Culex and, well, he's there. When has that selection mechanism ever gone wrong? Except that one time.

At the top of the tower, you run across a big orb. Now we're cooking; it isn't a real RPG until you run across an orb. Touching it causes a booming all-caps voice to ask "DO YOU MORTALS SEEK TO AQUIRE MY HELP?" If you ignore the voice's poor spelling and say yes, it says "THEN COME!!," makes the entire screen shake, and forces you into a fight scene with a huge dragon who looks a lot like Shen Long from Dragon Ball. Guess there are only so many ways to draw a huge dragon.

(Note: If you use this game to create a Dragon Ball RPG, get in touch ASAP.)

If you survive the dragon attack, he'll be so impressed that he gives you a flute you can use to summon him whenever you want to fly somewhere. All right! You've got a dragon now! Something none of the other 10 games we've covered in this series had used, for some reason! The game even changes to an isometric perspective when you're on the dragon, which looks very cool. Mode 7, baby!

That's the good news. The bad news is that we learn, via a cutscene, that those friendly soldiers from earlier have been massacred, as indicated by a red filter on top of them and a text box saying "!!!!!". We also see Culex standing in front of what's either a big monolith or a very dark entrance, saying that "Now only Corda and those fools are left!!!" It sure feels like we're nearing the end of the game here.

But nope, we're not, because we still have to get through everyone's favorite part in every RPG game: the game-stretching fetch quest! When you fly to Culex's castle (which wasn't really a flying castle, it was just hidden between some mountains), you meet a ghost who says you're not allowed to pass until you bring him four artifacts:

Right, so now you need to remember where each of those places is. "The traitor," of course, is punk-ass Jerzi, who died near the strip club. "The murder" is poor Joyce's, which happened at the shrine where Corda fought Culex alone. "The dead king's throne" is... the throne of the king who died, duh. And the tower is the one where you fought and befriended the dragon. Each of these places holds a piece of equipment that Corda recognizes as having belonged to his dad, which he thinks is "odd" (maybe because that character hadn't been mentioned before and will never be mentioned again).

Corda equips the full dad armor and we finally enter Culex's castle, which is packed with ghosts, hydras, ogres, witches, medusas, giant worms, dragon/lion/goat chimeras, etc. -- basically, every enemy sprite that hadn't been used yet. And boy, does this game have enemy sprites. You also run across a guy called "Humongus" who was somehow hiding inside a normal-sized chest.

(His only dialogue should be "Aghhh my back!!!!")

The castle isn't huge by RPG standards, but it does have a neat little Easter egg: if you take a detour and explore some weird-looking pixels lurking in a dark corner, your curiosity will be rewarded with... a heart attack when those pixels say "I've been waiting." Oh, and a ninja attack. Nobody expects a ninja attack, especially in a fantasy RPG (or we wouldn't if a bunch of the other games hadn't used this sprite too).

You defeat the ninja, and the 50 other randomly-spawning monsters that come at you in this place, until you've gained access to two switches that open a path to the castle's boss. And then, at long last, you come face to face with that boss: no, not Culex.

It's freaking Randolf again.

So you kill him for the fourth time.

But wait! After you've re-re-re-killed Randolf, you hear Culex's voice saying he needs more time. As a result, Randolf is re-re-re-revived in a bigger, deadlier form we shall call OMEGA RANDOLF.

So you kill him for the fifth time.

(No dying last words this time, he just vanishes in shame.)

Now you get to meet Culex, who seems very happy that his giant black square is "finally open." So what the hell is that? We find out that Culex and Zofia both used to work for some dark master that Zofia sealed in another world, but Culex has just opened that seal by "harnessing the energy of the souls of the dead" (presumably Randolf over and over). Zofia exclaims "I will never serve him again!," to which Culex replies "Then I will destroy you all!" You are then thrown into a fight against "Culex?" and his two unexplained "Flunkie" sidekicks.

(Stay in school, kids, or you too will end up being cannon fodder for an RPG boss.)

You beat Culex, but once again, that wasn't even his final form (that's why he was called "Culex?" in that fight, you see). He calls for his master to lend him his power, turning him into "CULEX" in all caps, a muscular demon with a shitload of HP and big "final boss" energy.

Come on. Look at that guy. That's definitely, 100% the final boss.

Or is he?? Upon defeat, Culex flees into the other world and the heroes decide to pursue him before he can revive OMNICRON, his master (who must be almost twice as powerful, since he's got almost twice as many caps in his name). You step into the other world, ready to face OMNICRON in an epic battle -- only to be immediately arrested by soldiers, thrown in jail, and sentenced to death. After a brief cutscene with Corda pacing around in a cell, we jump to the day of his execution, and learn that...

...yeah, that was the final boss just now, because the game ends here with a "TO BE CONTINUED."

But wait, there's more? Somehow? After that ending crawl, you appear in a place called "The Programmers' Room," where the dev, Spoony Bard, welcomes you to his "stupid, mindless, and TOTALLY non-related to the story, MINI SUB-QUEST GAME!!!!!" He explains that most programmers' rooms are boring as hell (you just walk around and talk to static dev sprites), so he made what he calls the "first ever programmers' mini-game" for the amusement of any hypothetical player who reaches this point.

And, you know what, maybe this is the first post-game RPG mini-game ever! But this article is long enough, so you'll have to play the game yourself to find out what happens in it (or watch our livestreamed playthrough to see us fumbling through it). We'll only spoil one thing here: yes, you do get to kill Randolf again, "for old times."

And that's Honorable Direction 2 - Enter Culex. Did a part three ever come out? We tracked down the real Spoony Bard and asked him, and he said nope. He also confirmed that the first Honorable Direction for RPG Maker 95 is lost, and said he fondly remembers another full-length SNES RPG Maker game called Black Rain, which came out in multiple parts and used "pretty much every available resource it could," but that one only seems to exist today as a bunch of dead links. (Obviously, if anyone reading this has those files, please get in touch.)

This concludes our dive into every SNES RPG Maker game that can be found today, unless more are being traded in the deep web or something. Or if someone makes another one, of course. Reminder that if you decide to do that, there's now a way to add custom characters and even distribute them as a SNES-compatible "DLC" pack...

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Dilbert belongs to The People now

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Mega Man Dual Overdrive looks incredible

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How dare you, Homeland for the Nintendo GameCube. Very rude.

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Happy 5am Song

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's good It's sunny in the neighborhood No babies running out of food No bodies charred like burning wood

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's great No nations crumbling under hate Nobody's angry and afraid No bombs are falling on their heads

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's cool No fascist clowns, no racist fools Children are learning at the school Nothing is gonna crush their skulls

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's swell All evil people go to hell Democracy is alive and well Don't worry about the rotting smell

It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine

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Donkey Kong Bananza (2025)

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When you move aside to avoid another pedestrian and they move to the same side and you end up awkwardly recreating the Groucho Marx mirror gag on the street, that means that person is your same mind applied under a different context within the simulation. Anyway, that just happened to me with a dog.

[nintendoduo]

Nintendo Cancels Switch 2 After Seeing Mean Reddit Comment

Only months before it was slated to release the console, Nintendo has officially let hardware manufacturers and software developers know that all work on the Nintendo Switch 2 is to be stopped immediately. All existing Switch 2 units have reportedly been destroyed already, with the exception of a single prototype currently displayed at Kyoto's Nintendo Museum next to a Philips CD-i.

Addressing partner companies, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa explained that the dramatic decision came after Nintendo became aware of a Reddit comment calling them "Nintenfaildo" and stating that they should "just give up and make PC games tbh." Furukawa claimed the company "did not know we were doing a Nintenfail and, frankly, wish we had been informed sooner. That's a lot of money we just lost on this thing."

The author behind the Reddit post, u/DaEpicGamer69, could not be reached for comment since the account was suspended due to sharing lewd art featuring Princess Daisy and Funky Kong.

In light of this new information, senior executive officer Yoshiaki Koizumi told IGN that all of the company's resources will be shifted towards making further entries in the Mario Teaches Typing and Mario's Early Years! PC game series.

Asked if Nintendo would consider making new game consoles in the future, Koizumi responded with an emphatic no, but Furukawa would not rule out re-releasing older ones. "Pikmin 3 is the best Pikmin. Xenoblade Chronicles X is the best Xenoblade Chronicles. Wind Waker HD is the best Wind Waker. Underrated. So underrated."

"I told you we should have gone with the Wii U again," Shigeru Miyamoto added. "I fucking told you."

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Each generation tells its own tale about David Bowie and Rosanna Arquette as a bartender and a waitress/escape artist staging a robbery of the restaurant they work at (these are all the same movie as sold in 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2016)

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Can't believe it's been one hundred years since George Herriman invented time for this Krazy Krat gag (3/15/1925).