Uploaded August 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Bomberman is an iconic video game franchise that has been around since 1983. Despite Hudson Soft, the original creator, no longer existing, the series is still going today under Konami. In this video, I discuss why Bomberman has endured in a tough gaming industry filled with competition.
00:00 Intro
01:47 Simple But Unique Gameplay
03:33 Gameplay Over Graphics
04:40 Robust Multiplayer Support
06:36 The Formula Works!
Music: Super Bomberman 5 - Where It All Began
Games shown in order: Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman, Bomberman 94, Bomberman GB2, Bomberman Land Touch, Bomberman Generation
One small correction: Super Bomberman R has actually sold over 2 million copies worldwide as of 2021, even better than I said in the video:
gematsu.com/2021/03/super-bomberman-r-sales-top-two-million
Hardcore Gaming 101 pages on the series: hardcoregaming101.net/series/bomberman
Bomberman is an iconic video game franchise that has been around since 1983. Despite Hudson Soft, the original creator, no longer existing, the series is still going today under Konami. In this video, I discuss why Bomberman has endured in a tough gaming industry filled with competition.
00:00 Intro
01:47 Simple But Unique Gameplay
03:33 Gameplay Over Graphics
04:40 Robust Multiplayer Support
06:36 The Formula Works!
Music: Super Bomberman 5 - Where It All Began
Games shown in order: Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman, Bomberman 94, Bomberman GB2, Bomberman Land Touch, Bomberman Generation
One small correction: Super Bomberman R has actually sold over 2 million copies worldwide as of 2021, even better than I said in the video:
gematsu.com/2021/03/super-bomberman-r-sales-top-two-million
Hardcore Gaming 101 pages on the series: hardcoregaming101.net/series/bomberman
![Bram Stokers Dracula [Game Boy] - No Death Playthrough](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZwukDeNMZuc/mqdefault.jpg "Bram Stokers Dracula [Game Boy] - No Death Playthrough
Bram Stokers Dracula was a popular horror movie released in 1992, based on the 1897 novel Dracula, that got quite a few different video game adaptions soon after. The 8-bit console and handheld versions are pretty much the same game with some obvious differences in terms of graphics, while the 16 bit games were all different. As far as I know, all of them were published by Sony Imagesoft and Psygnosis.
I have the Game Boy version from 1993, and Ill be talking more about this game in depth in a future because there are a ton of problems with this game. This game, like the NES, Game Gear, and Master System versions, was developed by Probe Entertainment. I did beat this game a few times with no continues on Hard Mode, including this No Death run. Somehow, even though this wasnt intended to be a speedrun, it was only about two or three minutes off from the World Record for non-glitch playthroughs on this difficulty.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Daytime 1
00:41 Nighttime 1
01:48 Daytime 2
03:09 Nighttime 2
05:58 Daytime 3
08:04 Nighttime 3
12:00 Daytime 4
13:14 Nighttime 4
17:40 Daytime 5
19:14 Nighttime 5
24:00 Daytime 6
26:09 Nighttime 6
29:30 Daytime 7
31:15 Nighttime 7
33:56 Ending + Credits")
![Tiger-Heli [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 386,550 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_ZWgdjiUjvs/mqdefault.jpg "Tiger-Heli [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 386,550 pts
Tiger-Heli was Toaplans first shmup, released back in 1985. After beating Exed Exes, this clear came about pretty quickly. I struggled with this one quite a bit when I first played it but now, the patterns are a lot easier to read and it only took a little bit of extra practice, mostly on Stage 4, to get good enough to clear the first loop. I am considering doing a bigger video on this game after the DUSK video, discussing the impact of this game because this is an influential shmup.
Played on FBNeo in RetroArch with default settings and recorded in OBS Studio at 57.274 FPS to match the games original frame rate. If you are not on a VRR monitor, you will see some stuttering.
00:00 Intro
00:21 Stage 1
03:44 Stage 2
07:10 Stage 3
11:01 Stage 4
15:31 Loop 2")
![F-Zero X [N64] - X Cup Master Difficulty 1st Place Overall (Simple64)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aMdwwCQR0z8/mqdefault.jpg "F-Zero X [N64] - X Cup Master Difficulty 1st Place Overall (Simple64)
00:25. Stage 1
02:11. Stage 2
03:36. Stage 3
05:24. Stage 4
07:09. Stage 5
09:09. Stage 6
10:54. Ending
F-Zero X will always be one of my favorite N64 games. Its definitely my favorite racing game on the system and proof that Nintendo could easily make a skill-based arcade racer. I spent a lot of time with this game growing up and decided to revisit it with this playthrough.
The X Cup is interesting because it consists of randomized courses. While there are certain course layouts that reappear frequently albeit with some tweaks usually, the order is always randomized and you dont know which course youll get until youre about to take off. This makes it hard to come up with the right settings and outside of doing some save states, its hard to practice. The AI drivers, probably due to the random nature of this cup, are not as strong as they are in the other cups on Master and are closer to Expert difficulty in terms of performance. At least they mostly stay on the course.
This run had some good performances as I won Stage 1, 4, and 6 outright, but I fell short by finishing second on Stages 2 and 5 while my lowest performance was 6th on Stage 3. However, I did manager to kill my rival on Stage 3 so that benefited me greatly. I was a little bit rusty here as this was one of my first times playing this in years, but I think I did well considering that. I still need to do more practice and figure out the right speed settings for the tracks before I can beat the other cups on Master.
I do have plans to play more N64 racers in the future. In fact, Im considering doing a Wave Race 64 championship run on Expert.
Played on the Simple64 emulator with x4 upscaling.
#fzerox #fzero #n64 #retrogaming #nintendo64 #nintendo #emulation #racinggames")
![Gradius [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop No Miss 1CC 373,600 pts (Gradius Collection)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aVZ_UWcUbEQ/mqdefault.jpg "Gradius [PSP/Arcade] - First Loop No Miss 1CC 373,600 pts (Gradius Collection)
00:18. Stage 1-1
02:37. Stage 1-2
04:36. Stage 1-3
06:37. Stage 1-4
08:55. Stage 1-5
11:03. Stage 1-6
12:30. Stage 1-7
15:21. Stage 2-1 (start of Second Loop)
Gradius is one of the most famous shmup franchises of all time. When the original Gradius first came out in arcades in 1985, it was a big success especially in Japan and there wasnt anything else quite like it. It has a unique powerup system which became a staple of the series, increasing your ships power while allowing you to make strategic decisions. It also features some pretty advanced level design for its time and some memorable parts like the Moai heads in Stage 3.
However, theres one other thing this game started thats quite infamous and its Gradius Syndrome. Basically, if you die, youre screwed because you lose all your power ups. Recovering is almost impossible, especially in later stages of the first loop and beyond. It is even worse in some other games in the series, most notably the arcade version of Gradius III and its notorious difficulty.
Because of the Gradius Syndrome, my goal was to No-Miss the first loop and I managed to pull it off. This took me longer that I would like to admit because Im also much worse at horis than I am at vertical shmups. Thankfully, the loops here are pretty short. The hardest stages are Stages 3, 4, and 7. Stages 4 and 7 are aggravating because of the enemies that come from behind on the ceiling and the floor. I did not last long in the second loop.
The double shot was very helpful in Stage 4 to take out the hatches and also in Stage 5 with the weird tentacle brain enemies, but I stuck with the lasers otherwise. Speaking of the lasers, they have a larger hitbox than the line suggests, which is something I exploited as much as possible. Also, I took 2 speedups, which made my ship harder to control in tighter areas but it did help me to be more aggressive. Speedups also affect how far your options are spread out, which improves the effectiveness of your laser.
I played this game via the Gradius Collection in PPSSPP. This is a excellent compilation developed by M2 that was released on the PSP in 2006 in North America. It features I, II, III, IV, and Gaiden all in one collection. You can tweak the settings quite a bit, as you can tweak the slowdown, the hitboxes, overall difficulty, and whether you want pickups to be activated automatically, semi-auto, or manually. I played it on the arcade presets outside of using semi-auto pickup activation for the minor quality of life improvement. Automatic pickup activation was already a thing by Parodius Da! so these options were not new to this compilation by any means, and Gokujo Parodius added semi-auto. This port feels extremely accurate to the arcade original, as to be expected from M2.
Special thanks to @exmosquito, @Shepardus, and @dumplechan because their videos of this game were quite helpful as I was practicing for my clear of this game.
#gradius #shmups #psp #konami #retrogaming #arcadegames")
![Ghost Blade HD [PC] - No Miss Score Attack Run 1,043,947,200 pts (Milan)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bxr-l-5m7D0/mqdefault.jpg "Ghost Blade HD [PC] - No Miss Score Attack Run 1,043,947,200 pts (Milan)
I decided to give the Score Attack mode in Ghost Blade HD a chance recently and honestly, its a great idea. More bullet hell shmups should have a caravan-style mode like this. Of course, it is dragged down somewhat by the flaws inherent to Ghost Blade HD: poor visibility, weird movement, and level design that feels like a bunch of bullets slopped together with little rhyme or reason. However, these flaws are not as big of a problem in a shorter mode like this.
I played as Milan a lot on this mode. Milan is the hardest character to score with in this game, but I wanted to see what I could do with the weaker character in this case.")
![Raiden [Playstation 1] - Stage 8 No-Miss Practice Run on General mode (The Raiden Project)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d0wOKExjxGk/mqdefault.jpg "Raiden [Playstation 1] - Stage 8 No-Miss Practice Run on General mode (The Raiden Project)
This is more footage of me practicing Raiden on General mode via The Raiden Project on PS1. This run of the last stage went extremely well. I only used one planned bomb early on. I did switch back and forth between the nuclear missiles and the homing ones at times, but that was intentional.
I also show off the famous safe spot for the last boss, which has been pretty well documented at this point but is proof of the PS1 versions faithfulness to the arcade original.")
![Castle Of Shikigami [PC] - Kuga 1CC 1.66 Billion Pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dKrKOTcZuMM/mqdefault.jpg "Castle Of Shikigami [PC] - Kuga 1CC 1.66 Billion Pts
Castle of Shikigami aka Shikigami No Shiro is a classic bullet hell shmup created by Alfa Systems and originally released in 2000 in arcades. It got ported to PS2 and Xbox in Generation 6 as well as Windows, but the most recent port is the Steam port from 2017, which is what I used for this clear.
Im going to have a big discussion video about this game in the near future, so Im saving a lot of my thoughts for then. However, I will say that this is one of the hardest 1CCs Ive ever done!
Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/582980/Castle_of_Shikigami/
00:00 Intro
00:11 Stage 1-1
01:11 Stage 1-2
01:42 Stage 1-3
02:50 Stage 2-1
04:09 Stage 2-2
04:32 Stage 2-3
05:43 Stage 3-1
07:08 Stage 3-2
08:04 Stage 3-3
09:27 Stage 4-1
10:59 Stage 4-2
12:11 Stage 4-3
14:30 Stage 5-1
16:09 Crystal Milk!
21:40 Stage 5-2
25:18 Stage 5-3
27:37 Ending + Results")
![Cool Spot [Sega Master System] - Hard Mode Any% Speedrun 41:40](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eJoSwhz4yqo/mqdefault.jpg "Cool Spot [Sega Master System] - Hard Mode Any% Speedrun 41:40
This is the first ever speedrun on Youtube of Cool Spot on the Sega Master System done on Hard Mode. Cool Spot got a port to the Sega Master System in1993 after the more well-known Sega Genesis version, but it was only released in Europe as far as I know. Its actually a very impressive port from a technical standpoint, as the graphics are well beyond most Master System games. The only catch is that it runs at 20-25 FPS instead of 50 or 60 FPS, though the frame rate stays pretty consistent. It is a bit more zoomed in because of the lower resolution, but not as bad as the Game Gear version in this regard. The 7 Up references this game is known for are removed in this version because Spot was not the mascot for 7 Up in Europe.
As far as gameplay goes, it translates pretty well here to the Master System. Controls are fine overall. The main issue with this game is the giant hitboxes. Spot has a very big hitbox and just about everything else does as well. Plus, there are quite a few blind jumps here and there. Im actually going to talk more about this game and its hard mode exposing the limitations of the game in an upcoming video Im working on about difficulty in games.
The Hard difficulty makes it to where you have to grab at least 90% of the red coin before you can free your friend at the end of the stage. This forces you to not skip large chunks of the levels.
As far as the run goes, this is my first no death speedrun and my best time so far. I saved quite a bit of time by avoiding the bonus stages via just collecting what I needed in terms of coins to finish each stage. There is no special ending for doing the bonus stages to begin with, as their main purpose is to grant players continues by spelling VIRGIN (UNCOLA in NA versions of the game). I did have some small mistakes here and there like going toward some dead end spots of stages when I know better, so there is some room for improvement. I could have ended the last stage a bit more cleanly as well. But a speedrun is a speedrun, and nobody else has done a speedrun of this version of the game on highest difficulty. Hopefully, this will inspire some speedrunners to give this version of the game a shot and on this difficulty. I guess this is the World Record for now until someone else beats it.
Note: Time was measured from the beginning of the Stage 1 screen to the Level Completed screen popping up at the end of the final stage. No intro in this video because I wanted to show the unedited recording as is.
00:00 Intro
00:23 Stage 1
04:48 Stage 2
10:29 Stage 3
17:30 Stage 4
20:17 Stage 5
23:40 Stage 6
31:05 Stage 7
36:50 Final Stage")
![Land Of Illusion [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eQIE8J5a5Ck/mqdefault.jpg "Land Of Illusion [Sega Master System] - 1CC Playthrough
Land Of Illusion on the Sega Master System was a sequel to Castle Of Illusion, released in 1993 by Sega in PAL regions and later in Brazil. It also got a Game Gear version that saw a release in North America and elsewhere. Both versions originally came out within a month of each other.
This game is a lot bigger than Castle Of Illusion and pushes the Master System to its limits. It features an over world map kind of reminiscent of Super Mario Bros 3. The difficulty is also a bit higher than its predecessor, but it is still not a difficult game outside of a few sections here and there like the second half of the Sand Castle stage and the final stage. You unlock new abilities after beating certain bosses, which the game does a good job of testing your knowledge of the further you get into it.
I did this playthrough before my run of Castle Of Illusion and it was also done on my MiSTER FPGA. I did not go for all the stars because it would have involved a lot of backtracking, but doing so does give you a secret ending. Definitely one of the best Sega Master System games either way.
00:00 Intro
00:15 Forest
01:13 Lake
02:56 Blacksmiths Castle
06:13 Lake Revisited
07:47 Castle Ruins
13:07 Tiny Cavern
14:59 Flower Field
16:13 Toy Workshop
20:55 Palace Ruins
24:49 Craggy Cliff
27:11 Desert
31:26 Good Princesss Castle
35:53 Sand Castle
42:32 Island Stage
44:20 Phantoms Castle
48:55 Final Boss")
