Loopin' the third: Lupin III & Nebula | NES Works Gaiden: Epoch-09
699Well, glory be. This episode at last brings some content of real substance for the Super Cassette Vision, a pair of games on par with the kind of material that you saw on Famicom and SG-1000 at the end of 1984—content that actually made Epoch's console feel competitive with the other major offerings on the market.
Lupin III, which plays a bit like Pitfall! interpreted as a single-directional scrolling running, stacks up quite well to other platformer offerings available for Japanese consoles at the time. It's not quite up there with Flicky, which also shipped in December 1984 for SG-1000, but it's a solid and convincing take all the same.
And Nebula, a wholly original shooter (if by "wholly original" you mean "highly derivative of Konami's Scramble but with its own twist"), outclasses any other horizontal shooter available on the Japanese market in 1984. That admittedly wasn't stiff competition—basically it was this and Orguss and various mediocre interpretations of Scramble or Super Cobra on underpowered machines like Gakken TV Boy—but Nebula has a lot going for it. I mean, it has something that closely resembles Moai heads, and a variable secondary weapon system. It's pretty OK!
Too bad about the system's controller, though.
Production notes:
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Super Cassette Vision footage recorded from original hardware via Epoch OEM RGB SCART cable. NES/Famicom footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. SG-1000 footage recorded from Analogue Mega Sg. Arcade footage captured from MiSTer when possible, with thanks to MiSTerAddons. Video upscaled to 720 with Micomsoft's xRGB Mini Framemeister. Special thanks to @EviesRevue (backbit.io).