Kaze no Notam (Playstation)

You might have already seen the boxart and title screen for this game posted on tumblr before. For some reason, though, no-one seems to have actually taken any in-game screenshots, and with the exception of a miserable, point-missing review on GameFAQs, no-one seems to have written on the game, either.

So what you probably aleady know is that it's a game about riding around in a hot air balloon. It's a product of Artdink, who seemed to be having something of an experimental period in the mid-90s, with this along with other non-traditional games like Aquanaut's Holiday and Tail of the Sun. So, what you might be wondering is how they made a game out of Hot Air Ballooning, and the answer is: they barely did. 

The biggest unique point of Kaze no Notam is its controls. The player can't just steer their balloon about as they like, and are instead subject to the whims of the winds. A column on the right side of the screen shows the direction of the wind at different altitudes, and the only direct control the player has over their balloon is to ascend and descend to try and keep themselves in their desired air current. 

There are a few different game modes: finding a target on the ground and shooting it, shooting at three widespread points to make a huge triangle, and shooting down other balloons. None of them are particularly engaging though, but that's okay, since they only seem to be included as a token concession towards traditional videogamery, and the aforementioned controls mean that trying to beat times or play efficiently is a fool's errand. 

The real point of Kaze no Notam is to just leisurely fly around the maps, sightseeing and relaxing. The maps are huge, and full of cool stuff to see: futuristic cities, mountain-topping mansions, ruins of lost civilisations, and so on. The game lets players pick any of the maps right from the start, and also gives a choice from a few different times of day and weather conditions. As if to really hammer home the point that the game is more about aesthetics and mood than it is about mechanics and challenge, neither the time nor weather options actually affect the gameplay at all.

I definitely recommend that you seek out and play Kaze no Notam, for two reasons. The first is that it's a perfect example of how a videogame can be more than just its mechanics, and the second that it's a great little time capsule of a time when the advent of textured polygons was widening the scope of the kinds of games that could exist, and before the risk-minimising homogeneity of large-budget game development had sanitised and narrowed the scope back down.

   This game is also known as "Notam of Wind"

SEGA Master System Brawl (Mega Drive)

So, this is a homebrew, by a guy named Bonaf on the SMSPower forums. It's pretty good, too. The concept is that it takes characters from a bunch of the Master System's most iconic games, and puts them in a one-on-one fighting game, using only the abilities they have in their original games. (If I remember rightly, there was a similar fangame made for PC by a Japanese developer years ago, but with Famicom characters).

The roster is surprisingly big, and contains most of the characters you'd think of first when you think of the Master System, from SEGA's big names like Alex Kidd, Opa Opa, Joe Musashi and Sonic down to lesser-known heroes like Psycho Fox and Master of Darkness' Dr. Social. The only quibbles I have with the roster are that the absence of any characters from Masters of Combat or Virtua Fighter The Animation seems a bit odd, and that Bonaf has used Riki from Black Belt, rather than Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken. (Though there are some little nods to HnK in Riki's pre-fight quote and winpose).

The presentation is pretty good. Obviously, the music and most of the graphics are taken from various Master System games, so though they won't meet the usual high MD standards, they're still colourful and charming. There are some original graphics, though: each character has a winpose, and though I'm not 100% certain on this, in think they're all-new.

Now for the most important part: how the game actually plays. The controls are simple: there's a jump button, an attack button and a "special" button. The special button only seems to be used by one character though: Psycho Fox uses it to change between forms. Obviously, every character's movements and attacks are different, since they've all been taken from different games and even different genres, and as a result, the balance isn't really that great. Certain characters (Sonic, Opa Opa, and Steve (of My Hero fame) in particular) totally dominate against almost any opponents, while others (Bean, Dr. Social, Wang) can struggle to land a single hit on their opponents.

What I don't want you to take from this is that SMS Brawl is a bad game, because it's not. Despite the balance issues, it's a ton of fun to play, and a great love letter to a system that doesn't get the love it deserves, especially on the NES-worshipping internet, and I totally recommend that you go get it and play it.