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[Fake]

Recently revealed as coming to Netflix in a new big budget series, Usagi Yojimbo has a rich, storied history across multiple media - and that includes games. In this DF Retro Play, Audi Sorlie plays through the vintage Commodore 64 game and explains the series to John Linneman.

 

[stranno]

DF Retro should check Rescue on Fractalus (Atari 5200, 1984).

The first Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts) game ever. It features a groundbreaking fractal terrain algorithm made by Loren Carpenter. It was a modified version of the algorithm used in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan's "Genesis Effect", the first fully computer generated scene in the history of the films, powered by Industrial Light & Magic.

It was directed David Fox, the lead designer of games like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Thimbleweed Park. Ron Gilbert was already there back in 1984, but he didnt work on Rescue on Fractalus, afaik.

It also featured the first real-time transition between the space and the surface of a planet (the No Man's Sky thing, 30 years before) and the animation of the aliens knocking your spaceship door is pretty amazing.

Such an underrated and revolutionary game.

Usagi Yojimbo 64 looks ok, but The Last Ninja on Commodore 64 was like 1,000 times more impressive, and it came out one year earlier. Tho I guess this is not a video about a particularly impressive game, like other DF Retro videos.

 

[Fake]

Funny because as I tweeted, reminds so much Biker Mice from Mars from Fox Kids channel when I was a kid. And the episode when this char show up on TMNT cartoon from Jetix I watched as well, but never thought could be this char.

 

[SirTerry-T]

And now I'll have the theme tune playing in my head all day. Cheers!

 

[Clear]

DF Retro should check Rescue on Fractalus (Atari 5200, 1984).

The first Lucasfilm Games (later LucasArts) game ever. It features a groundbreaking fractal terrain algorithm made by Loren Carpenter. It was a modified version of the algorithm used in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan's "Genesis Effect", the first fully computer generated scene in the history of the films, powered by Industrial Light & Magic.

It was directed David Fox, the lead designer of games like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Thimbleweed Park. Ron Gilbert was already there back in 1984, but he didnt work on Rescue on Fractalus, afaik.

It also featured the first real-time transition between the space and the surface of a planet (the No Man's Sky thing, 30 years before) and the animation of the aliens knocking your spaceship door is pretty amazing.

Such an underrated and revolutionary game.

Usagi Yojimbo 64 looks ok, but The Last Ninja on Commodore 64 was like 1,000 times more impressive, and it came out one year earlier. Tho I guess this is not a video about a particularly impressive game, like other DF Retro videos.

Indeed, the early Lucasfilm games were really interesting technically. Fractalus isn't really a great game and neither is Ballblazer but again its very nicely coded for its day. Eidolon and Koronis Rift use similar tech to Fractalus and are much better games.

Its kinda sad that this whole era has gotten so neglected, there are some amazing home computer system titles like Geoff Crammond's The Sentinel that are vastly more interesting technically and creatively than a lot of early console releases.

 

[tassletine]

I loved that game as a kid. For some reason I always thought there was more to discover in it, so I played it endlessly.

 

[Agent X]

I've never heard of this game until today (probably because it wasn't released in the US), but it was cool to learn about it.

Here's a link to the page for this game from Lemon 64:

Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo

Samurai Warrior: The Battles of Usagi Yojimbo is a Commodore 64 arcade 2d adventure game released in 1988 by Firebird.

www.lemon64.com

 

[nowhat]

It's great to see some C64 coverage, makes me nostalgic. But while I liked this back in the day (not nearly as much as the not-John in the video though), I wish they would have gone with a game that does the SID chip justice. This game sadly doesn't.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

I absolutely loved this game back then, my dad and me played it for a long time and got hardly anywhere. I can still hear the music thirty odd years later.

Brilliant game.

 

[Havoc2049]

I’m from America and never heard of this game either. Looks like a descent game. Poor tape drive users in the U.K.

Great suggestion on the Lucasfilm games. I love all the Atari/Lucasfilm and Epyx/Lucasfilm game releases.
Rescue on Fractalus, Eidolon and Kronos Rift are some of my favorite 8-bit computer games. Ballblazer looks amazing and is an amusing two player game, but is rather shallow and gets old quick. The games played to the strength of the Atari 8-bit line of computers and are slightly better than the C64 versions. The Battlestar Galactica style takeoff when the fighter left the mothership in Rescue on Fractalus always brought a smile to my face and got me amped to play the game.

 

[Godzilla Emu]

Wow, what a throw-back! So much nostalgia. I remember playing a pirated copy of this at lunch on the school Commodore 64's (and Thalamus', Creatures). My teacher brought in his copies and always gave preference to me and a mate. We were both super interested in computers and I had just begun programming in Basic. So instead of playing in the sun for lunchtime, I'd hunch over the class C64 and play this with my best mate.

A few years later, I'd go to that teacher as a source for pirated Commodore Amiga game disks made off of industry-shared copies of games that his brother receieved (who was a game dev, apparently).

 

[namekuseijin]

guess this is not a video about a particularly impressive game, like other DF Retro videos

they really only come up with these when there's money involved in hyping another modern take

 

[CitizenX]

Wow, what a throw-back! So much nostalgia. I remember playing a pirated copy of this at lunch on the school Commodore 64's (and Thalamus', Creatures). My teacher brought in his copies and always gave preference to me and a mate. We were both super interested in computers and I had just begun programming in Basic. So instead of playing in the sun for lunchtime, I'd hunch over the class C64 and play this with my best mate.

A few years later, I'd go to that teacher as a source for pirated Commodore Amiga game disks made off of industry-shared copies of games that his brother receieved (who was a game dev, apparently).

C64 was the absolute best. I actually had a 7th grade computer class that we used them and its the system i learned so many hacking methods. The best part was how many friends i had at the time where it was just constant trading discs loaded with games, especially friends in college. Dang they were ripping everything.