XESS - The New Revolution (Arcade)

This is a Korean arcade game, that's actually a compilation of three games, two of which had been previously released seperately. Okay, then.
So, the first game is Cookie and Bibi. It's Puzzle Bobble. It has puzzle and versus modes like Puzzle Bobble, the same mechanics as Puzzle Bobble, it is Puzzle Bobble, but with different graphics. I guess the fact that it has different sport-related balls instead of different coloured bubbles is a nice touch, though? It's also a part of a series of three games, all of which appear to be Puzzle Bobble clones. I suspect it might be the second in the series, but I have no idea why.
The next game is Hyper Man, which was originally called Hyper Pac-Man. It's a Pac-Man ripoff, of course. A really good one, though! It seems like the makers wanted to rip off Pac-Man, but then they had a bunch of other ideas and stuck them all in, too. There's different kinds of enemies, boss fights, destructible walls and a bunch of power-ups including (but not limited to) jump shoes, speed-up shoes and a helmet that shoots lasers! Also, unlike the original Pac-Man, each stage has a different layout, and there's room in there for odd gimmicky stages, like a stage that is just dots and ghosts, with no walls. I seem to remember there being a homebrew amiga game, also called Hyper Pac-Man, that also featured the addition of a bunch of power ups and gimmicks. I doubt the two are related, though.
The final game, and the only one that is completely new for this compilation is New Hyper Man! It re-uses a lot of sprites from Hyper Man, but it isn't a Pac-Man clone, it's a single screen top down shooter! On each stage, kill all the blue enemies to go on to the next stage. Dead enemies constantly respawn after death as red enemies, though you only have to kill all the blue ones to advance. There are items strewn about the stages, too, including the points-giving food items from Hyper Man, as well some of the power ups from Hyper Man. Getting points is very important in this game, since your score also acts as an RPG-esque experience system, with your weapon becoming more powerful as your score increases. New Hyper Man is a really fun and fast game, and could really have been released on its own, especially since the other two, weaker games already had been. Maybe they though such a move would be too cheeky, considering all the re-used graphics in NHM? Never stopped bigger, more "legitimate" companies, though, did it?

Disc Station MSX #03

I'm running out of ways to start these DS posts. Never mind, I'm sure nobody will notice. Let's just get on with it, eh?
The first disk this time around is a bit weak, containing a small game, and another playable demo of Golvellius. The Golvellius demo features a forced scrolling top-down dungeon, that I can't get very far in at all. It's really really hard!
The game, oddly enough, is by Namco, not Compile, and claims on the title screen to be a Disc Station original! It's a really simple baseball game, in which you only play as the guy with the bat, trying to hit the ball out of the arena. There's a bunch of guys to choose from, but I can't tell any difference between any of them. It's a lot like the baseball mini-game that's in the Playstation version of Rival Schools, actually. Anyway, after a certain amount of balls have been thrown, the game ends, and you seem to get the same screen no matter how well you did. It's a bit rubbish, actually. If you'e emulating, be sure to put your emulator into MSX2+ mode for this one game.
Disc 2 has some more interesting wares to offer: two animations and a full game!
The first animation is completely bizarre, and features a photo of some guy (who I assume was an employee at Compile at the time) spinning around in front of some squiggles to classical music. The second animation is a very short, simple tale of a girl giving her boyfriend some chocolate on Valentine's Day. It's also more of a comic than an animation, to be honest.
The full game is Godzilla-kun, a platform/puzzle game inwhich you play as Godzilla, who has to shove around a bunch of rocks and smash them with his fists, while a bunch of other monsters try to stop him. The monster sprites are all small, and kind of Tamagotchi-looking, and while some of them are very easily identifiable (Rodan, Anguiras, Hedorah), others look like crap generic monsters (Varan, Baragon). That could be down to bad sprites, or it could be that some monsters just happen to be more iconic and identifiable than others. The game itself is fairly amusing, though not great. The biggest problem being that it seems to give out an extra life every time you complete a stage, which can make the game seem easy to the point of boredom. Apparently, there's a Game Boy game entitled simple "Godzilla" that's very similar to this.