Jeremy Parish

NES Works Gaiden #050: Star Luster and Spelunker (Patreon)

Published:

2022-10-26 11:46:12

Edited:

2022-10-26 11:50:36

Imported:

2024-04

Tags:

Spelunker Star Luster brøderbund famicom irem namco nes works nes works gaiden

Content

Last week's episode may have been something of a wash, but this episode more than makes up for it. Star Luster and Spelunker offer plenty to talk about, both as games and as moments in the medium's history that reflect the bigger picture. Sometimes you gotta suffer through the duds to get to the good stuff, and this... is the good stuff. Please to enjoy.

POST SCRIPT: NES Works 1987 launches tomorrow. If you were one of the people who supported this campaign at a physical book backer reward level, you can expect to see your book by Thanksgiving (U.S., not Canada). That includes the deluxe edition—no more year-long delays on those. Everyone else can head over to limitedrungames.com tomorrow to snag a copy. It contains 420 got-danged pages and includes a ton of new material that wasn't in the videos I based the book on. You'll enjoy it.

I'll also be streaming gameplay and discussion about it this afternoon via Limited Run Games and on tomorrow evening with a Gintendo episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DVoXLjNOQqo

Files

Star Luster & Spelunker retrospective: Cosmological cave adventure | NES Works Gaiden #050

At some point in this episode, I may or may not talk about the actual games presented here (Namcot's Star Luster and Irem's rendition of Spelunker). Mostly, though, this video hooks back into the ongoing discussion of the overall shape of the games industry in the mid-1980s, especially as concerns the Japanese market. What debt does Star Luster owe to Western classics born in the primal soup of video gaming? How did Spelunker end up on Famicom? And could this possibly be the first episode where I hit the entire "influential games" trifecta? You'll have to watch to know for sure... Production notes: Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! NES/Famicom footage captured from @Analogue Nt Mini; arcade footage captured from MiSTer with thanks to @MiSTer Addons. Video upscaled to 720 with @Micomsoft xRGB Mini Framemeister.