Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 43 minutes ago
The Sega Master System got some great releases late in its lifespan. Rainbow Islands on the Master System should have been one of those when it got a release in Europe in 1993 but something went wrong with a game-breaking glitch. So in this video, I'll talk about the bug that broke the European release of this game. I'll also talk about the game as a whole.
00:00 The Old Days Weren't Always Better
01:02 Explaining Rainbow Islands
03:47 The Game Breaking Bug And Workarounds
06:04 Bug Aside, Is It Good?
Bug fix on Romhacking.net:
romhacking.net/hacks/4112
SMSPower page:
smspower.org/Games/RainbowIslands-SMS
Music used:
Monodrone - 楽しみを探している
Monodrone - 真夜中の広告
The Sega Master System got some great releases late in its lifespan. Rainbow Islands on the Master System should have been one of those when it got a release in Europe in 1993 but something went wrong with a game-breaking glitch. So in this video, I'll talk about the bug that broke the European release of this game. I'll also talk about the game as a whole.
00:00 The Old Days Weren't Always Better
01:02 Explaining Rainbow Islands
03:47 The Game Breaking Bug And Workarounds
06:04 Bug Aside, Is It Good?
Bug fix on Romhacking.net:
romhacking.net/hacks/4112
SMSPower page:
smspower.org/Games/RainbowIslands-SMS
Music used:
Monodrone - 楽しみを探している
Monodrone - 真夜中の広告
![Choplifter [Sega Master System] - First Loop Playthrough](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9UoTaZWEOWc/mqdefault.jpg "Choplifter [Sega Master System] - First Loop Playthrough
Choplifter was originally a horizontal shmup created in 1982 by Dan Gorlin for the Apple II, but was ported over to many different systems after that. Eventually, Sega did a remake of the game for arcades in 1985. Then, they developed and released a port of that remake for the Sega Master System in 1986 in North America, one of the first games released on the system in that region.
To call this a horizontal shmup may be a bit misleading. This game has very little to do with arcade shmups from this time period. Its probably closer to a euro shmup in some ways. For instance, this game has inertia in the movement, probably to better simulate the movement of a helicopter. Thats normally a no-no for arcade shmups. Also, the main goal of this game is not to kill the enemies but to rescue hostages. Just about all the scoring in this game comes from doing that. Last, the game does not auto scroll.
However, despite not being a traditional shmup, this game still succeeds because of its focus on rescuing hostages and being a rudimentary 2D helicopter simulator. Its designed well enough to know what it is and what it is not. This game is also very fair for the most part especially in the first loop, outside of a little bit of RNG. The movement does feel believable for a helicopter and moves reasonably fast once you get going. You also get a minimum of three lives for each stage, meaning that you can screw up in one stage a little bit and not necessarily have it affect you later on. Plus, you can get an extend per stage if you rescue 20 hostages.
Speaking of rescuing hostages, the goal of each stage is to rescue 40 hostages. Whenever you bring them back to base, you get points and the bonus multiplies by two with each consecutive hostage dropped off. At the end, you can get a 100,000 point bonus if no hostages die during the stage. You can still get this bonus even if you die once or twice. Unfortunately, if even one hostage dies, that end of stage bonus almost entirely disappears, which is a bit harsh but encourages clean play for scoring.
As far as this port goes, it does make some changes compared to the arcade version. One, the city level is cut from this version. You get the first three stages (desert, sea, and cave), and those repeat again with some small variations before you get the short ending screen. The game does loop infinitely after that ending though. Two, the fuel gauge is gone, so players dont have to worry about that in this port. There are other differences as well, but those are the main ones I can think of. Obviously, the graphics are scaled down going from arcade to console, but the results are very impressive for an early Master System game. The parallex scrolling on Stage 1 is excellent and a great showcase of what the system could do. The music and sound effects dont stand out a whole lot but get the job done.
00:00 Intro
00:19 Stage 1
03:19 Stage 2
06:28 Stage 3
10:29 Stage 4
14:00 Stage 5
17:00 Stage 6
20:49 Loop 2")
![Darius Gaiden [Arcade] - The Game That Got Me Into Arcade Shmups](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9mK4CY9JFEE/mqdefault.jpg "Darius Gaiden [Arcade] - The Game That Got Me Into Arcade Shmups
In this video, I discuss my earliest experiences playing Darius Gaiden over a decade ago as well as coming back to it again recently to get my 1CC of it. Its part discussion and part review, but more of a discussion about the game and its impact on me as a shmup player. This game may have gotten a lot of other shmup players into the genre, not just myself. Definitely one of the genres all-time classics.
00:00 Intro
01:24 Finding Out About Darius Gaiden
03:47 First Impressions
08:41 How It Got Me Into Other Shmups
10:15 Coming Back To It Years Later
The background footage is one of my recent 1CCs of the ABDHLQW route, done with 25HZ autofire.
All music used comes from the Darius Gaiden OST:
Zuntata - Visionnerz
Zuntata - EEG
Zuntata - Axon
Zuntata - FAKE
Zuntata - Burst Out
Zuntata - Reflection
Additional Viewing:
Morsaltys 1CC Commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuPs-RTEs2U
Kamadomas Survival 1CCs with Commentary Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTD9TmkCwZ25LHmv4VsqwV25NnCqSG2HY
Shmups Wiki page for the game: https://shmups.wiki/library/Darius_Gaiden
#arcadegames #1cc #retrogaming #classicgaming #shmups #shootemups")
![Alpine Ski [Arcade] - Six Loop 1CC 177,109 pts.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AZvCHoaLGhA/mqdefault.jpg "Alpine Ski [Arcade] - Six Loop 1CC 177,109 pts.
This is a new personal best for Alpine Ski, a game that Ive been playing on and off for a while now. Recently, I beat my highest scoring run that I posted last year after doing the commentary video on the game.
Played on the MAME Current core in Retroarch. Controller of choice was my Qanba Crystal modded with a T-Spin for WASD keys and Sanwa buttons.
00:00 Intro
00:19 Loop 1
02:13 Loop 2
04:15 Loop 3
06:20 Loop 4
08:38 Loop 5
11:04 Loop 6
13:31 Loop 7")
![Summer Carnival 22: Crossgunr [PICO-8] - ALL Clear 14020 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BT-TmAaYaWg/mqdefault.jpg "Summer Carnival 22: Crossgunr [PICO-8] - ALL Clear 14020 pts
This is my best run so far of Crossgunr, a bullet hell caravan shmup for PICO-8 created by AKTANE, a member of the shmup community and a fellow Youtuber:
https://www.youtube.com/c/AKTANEARCADE
This is a great game with an interesting side gunner concept. You had a gunner on each side of the screen that each fire horizontally. Theres also a bullet cancelling system that drives the scoring.
Check out the game here:
https://aktanedev.itch.io/crossgunr")
