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Buster Blitz III
15 years ago
For the last part of my continuing series on the game franchise that never was, Buster Blitz, here is a link: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2003542/
Buster Blitz III
(Arcade: 1992, Sega Genesis: 1994, Super NES/Famicom: 1994)
In another couple of years, The Buster Blitz team made a third game for the series. This one was not ported for the NES/Famicom for some reason. This time, following almost directly where the second game left off, Doctor Muton has created an army of creatures called Chimera (mutants that combined features from more than one animal) to seize many parts of the world.
The plot was actually a video game adaptation of the Japanese television series following the second game, but with an odd little gameplay gimmick: A one player game only had the player facing four levels before the final one. A two player game gave the players eight levels, and a three player game gave everyone 12 levels before the final thirteenth. This was explained as the other levels being taken on by non-present characters. The final level would have the unplayed characters appearing and controlled by the computer, though they seemed to have AIs that were lacking and were quickly dispatched. The gimmick was also quickly overriden by another player joining in, leading to shorter multiplayer games. A re-release took the approach of only allowing players to join in before the first level was played, much to the dismay of many arcade-goers.
The console versions just let you play the whole game regardless of how many players there were, and the SNES version was finally able to incorporate both Ricky and Viki, retooling Ricky to be a mostly-balanced character favoring speed and Daniel to be mostly-balanced but favoring strength. This version also supported Four-player gameplay with the aid of a special plug-in from Nintendo itself.
Reaching Out to American Fans
In America, a small group of fans and comic book artists in 1992 were given permission from the developers to begin work on an American comic book based on the Buster Blitz video games. This series has not gained much popularity due claims that it was just a knock off of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Schedule slipping didn't help matter either, however the series did have a run of three years, with an average of one issue every month. The run was eventually canceled after the group went bankrupt.
Another attempt to reach American fans was a chance taking in the Role Playing Game industry. A small company called Grey Coyote Game Arts wrote in for permission, in an attempt to follow a similar attempt from another game company to create a role playing game based on a video game. They received permission, but it quickly became a cast of GCGA not caring so much on getting facts right, and making up a lot of stuff despite being given plenty of material to work with. And also, the editing was terrible, including the exclusion of whole sections of the rules. GCGA eventually made an errata and sold it as a sourcebook, citing it as being supposedly cheaper than a revised edition of the game. This also fell flat in America. But in Japan, they translated the game, with errata incorporated, and it was pretty popular for a few years, complete with a few supplements written only in Japan, while the American version never got any support beyond the errata and one book of five adventures.
For the next part of this series, look here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3436654/
Game InfoBuster Blitz III
(Arcade: 1992, Sega Genesis: 1994, Super NES/Famicom: 1994)
In another couple of years, The Buster Blitz team made a third game for the series. This one was not ported for the NES/Famicom for some reason. This time, following almost directly where the second game left off, Doctor Muton has created an army of creatures called Chimera (mutants that combined features from more than one animal) to seize many parts of the world.
The plot was actually a video game adaptation of the Japanese television series following the second game, but with an odd little gameplay gimmick: A one player game only had the player facing four levels before the final one. A two player game gave the players eight levels, and a three player game gave everyone 12 levels before the final thirteenth. This was explained as the other levels being taken on by non-present characters. The final level would have the unplayed characters appearing and controlled by the computer, though they seemed to have AIs that were lacking and were quickly dispatched. The gimmick was also quickly overriden by another player joining in, leading to shorter multiplayer games. A re-release took the approach of only allowing players to join in before the first level was played, much to the dismay of many arcade-goers.
The console versions just let you play the whole game regardless of how many players there were, and the SNES version was finally able to incorporate both Ricky and Viki, retooling Ricky to be a mostly-balanced character favoring speed and Daniel to be mostly-balanced but favoring strength. This version also supported Four-player gameplay with the aid of a special plug-in from Nintendo itself.
Fandom HistoryReaching Out to American Fans
In America, a small group of fans and comic book artists in 1992 were given permission from the developers to begin work on an American comic book based on the Buster Blitz video games. This series has not gained much popularity due claims that it was just a knock off of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Schedule slipping didn't help matter either, however the series did have a run of three years, with an average of one issue every month. The run was eventually canceled after the group went bankrupt.
Another attempt to reach American fans was a chance taking in the Role Playing Game industry. A small company called Grey Coyote Game Arts wrote in for permission, in an attempt to follow a similar attempt from another game company to create a role playing game based on a video game. They received permission, but it quickly became a cast of GCGA not caring so much on getting facts right, and making up a lot of stuff despite being given plenty of material to work with. And also, the editing was terrible, including the exclusion of whole sections of the rules. GCGA eventually made an errata and sold it as a sourcebook, citing it as being supposedly cheaper than a revised edition of the game. This also fell flat in America. But in Japan, they translated the game, with errata incorporated, and it was pretty popular for a few years, complete with a few supplements written only in Japan, while the American version never got any support beyond the errata and one book of five adventures.
For the next part of this series, look here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3436654/
