Sequel Hook
0Originally recorded: January 26, 2023
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I guess I'm two-for-two when it comes to my livestreams being one stream wonders this year. My 115th livestream overall, this game was originally intended to be packaged with King of Demons, but I was convinced to give them separate titles, simply because of just unconnected these games were. I mean, aside from being relatively obscure action-platformers on the SNES, neither game really has anything in common. I mean, Majyuuou didn't even release outside of Japan, so technically it's not even a Super Nintendo game when you think about it.
This time, I played through Skyblazer, a game published by Sony Imagesoft and developed by an obscure company called Ukiyotei. What fascinated me about this one is that both companies previously collaborated for the licensed games associated with the film Hook for various home consoles -- the Game Gear version in particular is a game I have a *lot* of nostalgia for. So, this game essentially feels like a spiritual sequel to that game in a lot of ways. Though admittedly, having played through this one, I still want to go back and play through all of Hook. My only real issue stems from deciding which version to play: do I go with the Game Gear version for the sake of nostalgia or the SNES version, which is apparently the original (and best) release? I wonder if anyone's done an MSU-1 patch for Hook that utilizes the Sega CD soundtrack...
Skyblazer falls into the sad category of being a "former hidden gem". At one point, it was an obscure SNES game from 1994, but these days, it's just a way for gaming hipsters to flex their cred by rattling off something unknown enough to seem worldly, but recognizable enough for people to register that it's an actual obscure game and not something that was made up on the spot. Honestly, that's probably the worst fate a game like this could suffer, especially because it means its value has skyrocketed thanks to enterprising collectors.
What I find the most sad about it is that this game is actually a blast. The difficulty was perfectly balanced from my perspective: it challenged me but didn't clearly wasn't "rebalanced" with crap like damage-sponge enemies or finite continues out of fear for the rental market. The controls felt pretty good for the most part, aside from a few issues I had with the wall-climb. The graphics were beautiful and the soundtrack was great. It looks like Ukiyotei didn't do much else of note in the gaming space. But after playing Skyblazer, I'm inclined to check out more of their stuff, even stuff outside of Hook.