GFX Generators – Slight improvements were made to the engine but the only one you’ll notice is that the transparent shadows no longer overlap and make darker areas.
New characters: Adon, Birdie, Dee Jay, Fei Long, Gen, Karin, R. Mika, Rose, Sakura, Shadaloo Dolls and T.Hawk from Capcom’s Street Fighter. Marian, Abobo & Burnov from Technos’ Double Dragon games (Neo Geo fighter sprites).
Updated chars: Double Dragons (Neo Geo sprites added), Jubilee (mini-logo & X-Men:COTA name graphic), Zangief (new sprites)
GroupShot scene updates: Golden Axe vs. 01 – improved shadow transparency
VS. Mode “Custom Scene” backgrounds: Italy from Street Fighter Alpha 2, Code Red and On The Hilltop from X-Men vs. Street Fighter.
The next update update will be in about two weeks from now. That puts it close to the 11th Anniversary. It won’t be anywhere near as big as the 10th Anniversary but there will be medium-large announcement about why it will be the last ScrollBoss update for a while.
Another reminder: the ScrollBoss Tumblr, Scroll like a Boss, exists, is active and has more than update post links. I’ve been posting screenshots that make me smile for all sorts of right and wrong reasons along with videos and reposts of cool game-related stuff I like there.
… you’ve got a brand new key. This update title made more sense before I turned it into Lanternpalooza but I was too lazy to come up with another name.
New characters: Skate (Streets of Rage), Guy Gardner, Green Lantern Corps (Arisa, Kilowog, Medphyl, Tomar-Re/Tomar-Tu)
Updated characters: GL Hal Jordan and John Stewart (sprites added)
Custom Sprites: Sega – ‘Skate’ Hunter (scratch-made) DC Comics – Tomar-Re/Tomar-Tu and Medpyhl have new sprites based on a new sprite template pose I made. Kilowog, John Stewart and Arisia sprite edits added. Some of the separate Wonder Woman sprites from the old version of the gallery have now returned.
Custom Sprite Downloads: Laslunder has made a GIGANTIC update to his pack of edited Cody base sprites. Huge, I’m telling you!
The Skate sprite was done now because someone made a request. I usually don’t sprite requests but this was a special case.
The Skate sprite was added to my Illmosis site earlier this week. There’s even a work progress animation on it’s gallery page. Check that out with this link.
Now check out Wizzy’s original theme for Max Thunder with a sprite by Armentis!
PSN Sale reminder: Bionic Commando: Rearmed for PS3 is on sale for $4.99 and the sequel is on sale for $9.99. I fully recommend checking out the first one but I haven’t played the second. Also, The second has that unfortunate DRM that won’t let you play the game if you aren’t hooked up to the internet. Buying Final Fight: Double Impact right before the Playstation Network went down which meant I barely had a chance to play it. The first Rearmed game doesn’t have it so go get it now!
Just a minor update here. The Manuke/Rocky sprite has been improved (check out the gallery page on Illmosis). Sayo-Chan’s sprite edits have been improved with a pants-wearing version and better colors (thanks to Shin Otaru for suggesting that). You’ll also find a Miki/Becky alternate palette for Sayo in the generators, a feature that I forgot to add last week. Yes, that’s why there was a palette option choice for Sayo last week with just one option. The Punisher-era Nick Fury sprite had a mis-colored pixel in his right hand so I fixed that while also tinkering a bit with the palettes to improve the contrast. I also threw in a few more background & Vs. graphic options for the “Custom Scene (384×224 pixels)” set-up in the Vs. Maker including Guile’s SFII stage, Avengers HQ, KoF 98’s China stage and more.
edit: I forgot that there was more added to the site:
Custom Sprite Pack Downloads – Laslunder added more sprites to his pack of SFA3 Cody (Jeans and shirt) edit pack. He has my thanks for letting ScrollBoss be one of the places where you can find it!
Game List – I hadn’t updated it since October of last year. Games added include 3D Dot Game Heroes, inFamous, Moon Diver & Wipeout HD for the PS3 along with Beatdown for PS2. Yes, inFamous & Wipeout HD were my PSN Welcome Back choices and I’ve been playing a lot of inFamous.
Brawlers who remember that this post’s title is also the first line in one of Capcom’s greatest beat-em-ups already know which two Marvel heroes are in this update. Fans who know the Japanese names of an excellent but lesser known Taito series may have figured out who else is in here. Anyone kind enough to check out Illmosis earlier this week already know which multiplayer gaming icon came to the party with enough explosions for everybody.
Graphic Generators – Fixed the Marvel vs. Capcom 1 Vs. stand-off so that the minilogos post on the right layers again. There is also a new screenstyle in the Vs. Maker called “Variable” that lets you choose from many background, foreground and overlay graphics. New and updated characters follow:
Marvel: Nick Fury & the Punisher
Taito: Sayo-Chan/Pocky, Manuke/Rocky and the Growl heroes
Other Games: Bomberman
Updated characters: Axel Stone (improved sprites), Cody (F.Fight uppercut sprite added), X-23 (minilogos)
Custom Sprites
Marvel: the Punisher (three variations), Nick Fury (three variations)
Hudson: Bomberman
Taito: Sayo-Chan a.k.a. Pocky
Game logos – Crime Fighters 2, Legend of Zelda (animated), Wizards & Warriors, Zelda II
I also have a ScrollBoss account set up on Tumblr! Check it out right here. There will be more than just update posts there so keep an eye on it if you have a Tumblr account.
The convention is over and was fun. Check out the main Illmosis site to see more about that along with the flyer I was giving out and the scratch-made sprite that’s on it.
Mini Logos – There is at least one new minilogo for each letter of the alphabet. Seriously.
Atari/Midway/Williams: Gauntlet
Capcom: Bionic Commando, Darkstalkers, J, Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter II
Data East: Bad Dudes (cover/marquee/flyer style), Chelnov, Dragonninja
DC Comics: Isis
IREM: Kid Niki, Undercover Cops
Konami: Castlevania
Marvel: Havok, X-Men
Nintendo: Link, Wario, Zelda
Sega: Electra, Onihime, Quartet, Roo, Victy, Yasha
SNK: Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury
Tecmo: Ninja Gaiden
I needed a lot of new logos thanks to a new feature in the Graphic Generators and noticed that I had a lot of letters in a row. I thought it would be fun to try and finish the rest of the alphabet in time for the update, a fact that will probably be used against me in a psyche evaluation. It also gave me an excuse to use that post title. Thanks to Buyog and WillyFourEyes for helping with suggestions for P(engo) and W(ario) over Twitter. I also fixed quite a few earlier mini logos by filling some with empty space to fit the 64×26 size limit and edited a few that were too big since I didn’t know what the size limits were then. I still need to fix a few, though. This will make it easier for anyone who wants to make a graphic font from the logos.
Graphic Generators – I added another minor feature to the engine that streamlines the mini logo choice process for certain styles with one logo AND adds a list of theme-specific logos to the list. This has been enabled on the Capcom, Sega and SNK game boxes to add a list of game minilogos to the choices.
Characters added: Dragonninja (enemy drones from Bad Dudes), Havok
Characters updated: Balrog (sprites), Vega (sprites), X-23 (custom X-Men:CotA name graphic). Bad Dudes, Electra, Radd Spencer had their new mini logos added to their options.
Game Logos – Alisia Dragoon, Atomic Runner Chelnov (arcade & Genesis), B. Rap Boys, Bare Knuckle 2, Cabal, D. D. Crew, Elevator Action, Fantasy, Geostorm, Hissatsu Buraiken, the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Quartet, Sly Spy/Secret Agent (with and without background field), Undercover Cops
I’m still getting ready for the All-Americon comic convention in May so the updates are still light and random. I’m also taking this chance to do some clean up work on a few things at random like getting the weblog to look more like the site.
Custom Sprites – X-23 sprite edit added to the Marvel page. Also: credits now link to the company page when a company is listed and will also link to individual people once I get the creator profiles started.
Sprites – Comic Book spites hub, Ninja Gaiden pages updated and redone. Violent Storm updated with new sprites including some animated fighting stances.
Logos – Dark Adventure, Express Raider, Rolling Thunder
Mini Logos – New logos added to the following sections:
– DC Comics: Poison Ivy
– Capcom: Roxy, Poison
– Marvel: Mystique
– Namco: Rolling Thunder, Wonder Momo
– Sega: Alien Storm, Shinobi (arcade), Streets of Rage (red, blue, white cover style)
Graphic Generators – X-23 (no logo yet) added to the Marvel section. Joe Musashi gets updated with another sprite and other mini logos. Poison/Roxy updated with new logos.
Rinry (of RinryGameGame fame) posted a video review of the Retro Duo system that lets you play most NES and SNES carts. This answered many of the questions I wondered about including the sound, an issue with many current retro systems. Check it out:
I’ll mention the All-Americon comic convention in Warren, Ohio on May 15th that I’ll have a table for. I’ll be selling art prints and hanging out with other scribblers and comic fans. A lot of really cool artists came to the last one and most of them seem to be coming back for part two. It only costs $2 to get in so stop in if you can! I’ll be handing out copies of last year’s Illmosis Party Flyer (with a special appearance by Endless Duck from that Silver Surfer picture) to give out even if you don’t buy anything.
Two new galleries have been added to the Custom Sprites section and both are showcases for two excellent pixel technicians: Kiwi and C4ncel. You’ve probably seen Kiwi’s god-tier work before and his gallery here is long overdue. Have you ever seen the Cat’s Lair MUGEN stage that recreates the classic ThunderCats’ headquarters? He did the glorious pixel work on that. The gallery is just a tiny sample of his skills and you can see much, much more at his deviantART page. The second gallery belongs to C4ncel and his excellent SNK/King of Fighters style edits. You’ll see characters from classics like Castlevania and Final Fight to newer games like God Hand, No More Heroes, and Borderlands. C4ncel has a website called C4ncelCove that has more of his work with more creations on the way. Be sure to send them a message if you like their work!
Breakin’ News
Final Fight: Double Impact (Final Fight + Magic Sword with online play and other stuff) is on sale for $4.99 on Playstation Network! This would’ve been the first DLC game I bought for my PS3 if it weren’t for the fact that it MUST be connected to the internet to play. That’s an issue for me because I have one internet line with no router so I have to switch between the internet and PS3. I know it’s DRM to keep the “code sharers” at bay but it also kept me from buying it until it was on sale since I usually won’t be able to play it.
The first Moon Diver DLC content pack is out and only costs $1! It includes Silence, the former ally that may have been controlled by Faust to fight the rest of the team, returns to the flock to whoop all kinds of buttock. His stats are so insane that I cleared the game in one sitting. You also get a special Score Attack Mode that challenges you to kill as many enemies as possible in an auto-scrolling stage. It’s fun and it’s only a buck. Those who bought it and are having trouble with it may want to get this pack to burn through the game with Silence.
The whole thing came and went between updates here but I still want to congratulate Bomber Games for the excellent Streets of Rage Remake v.5 release. I hope something can be worked out so that it can be hosted on your site again.
Wizzy has been busy with the music and he’s put up tracks for the likes of Batman (hi-tech sound + heroic theme + foreboding moments = excellence), Thanos (powerful and epic) and some music for good ol’ Radd Spencer. He dropped two of them including this one along with the following that has an excellent sprite by Steamboy13. Enjoy the music!
Updates will continue to be small while I work on a bunch of stuff including a mini-comic/artbook for a comic convention in May. It’s something that I wanted to do last year but didn’t finish.
S-Files – I’m still making minor adjustments to the engine. The default index page groups characters by the first letter in their filename. One problem is trying to get a sprite background that will keep sprites from blending in with it. There has been a slight change to how the main picture is displayed so please let me know if there are any errors with it bugging out. I finally made a crude “profile maker” to help make and modify profiles for reasons I’ll explain in the lab.
New: Blood, Boomer, Hawk, Kate, Sledge from Crime Fighters 2/Vendetta. Norton and Bild from the Rushing Beat series.
Updated: Mike Haggar, Rolento
New GroupShot styles: the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 “character ring” with two solo variations and one where you can fit three characters.
Characters added: Cable, Marrow, Nakoruru (SNK), Zero (Capcom),
Palettes updated: Chun-Li, Felicia, Rogue (Green/White from MvsC2), Ryu
Other updates: Apocalypse (X-Men: CotA name graphic), Black Widow (logo), Jill (MvsC3 outfit sprite edit), She-Hulk (logos), SoR’s Shiva (custom mini logo), Storm (logo)
Mini Logos – Alien Busters & Alien Burgers (from Sega’s Alien Storm), Black Widow (Marvel), Growl, Marrow (X-Men 72 cover), Nakoruru (SNK), Shiva (Sega), Storm, Zero (Capcom).
Logos – added My Hero, Tower of Druaga, Warrior Blade – Rastan III, Wonder Momo.
Moon Diver (official site here), the new 2.5-D platforming action game from Square-Enix hits Playstation Network this week and will debut on X-Box Live at a later date. Just in case you haven’t heard, the game is directed by Kouichi “Shiina” Yotsui (a.k.a. Isuke), the director of Strider (arcade) and Cannon Dancer (a.k.a. Osman). You can definitely see his influence all over this trailer.
Definitely looks like crazy fun to me. I’ve been waiting for this since it was announced and I’m impatiently waiting for the Playstation Store to update so I can finally play it. There will be a separate post about the game once I’ve played the game.
Update: Just bought and played the first stage of Moon Diver. EXCELLENT. You’ll love this if you love Strider. Also up for sale now is Rush’n Attack: Ex-Patriot, the revival of Konami’s Rush’n Attack/Green Beret franchise.
You’ve probably seen this link a lot lately but the areas that were hit are still suffering many hardships. I know that times are tight for many of us in the U.S. (take it from a chronically-broke guy like me) but please think of kicking in a few spare dollars when you have the chance. Every little bit helps. Google: Resources related to the 2011 Japan Crisis
S-Files – Upgrade time! Most of it looks the same on the surface but a lot of things have been rewritten to allow more information and to make it less of a pain-in-the-butt to modify in the future. New features include sections for official game bios from each game, overall move & ability lists, listings for stats from individual games (along with room for a potential “Universal Scale” to rate all characters), an improved screenshot area and a tag section that links to Vernacula-X definitions when they’re available. The new data structure is here and seems solid so new characters will finally be added. This is just step one and you’ll see minor tweaks and changes happening.
Updated profiles: Guy, Cody, Haggar, Damnd, Poison, Rolento, Roxy, Sodom, Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, Gilius Thunderhead, Death Adder.
New profiles: Joe Musashi
GFX Generators – Updated: Mega Man (an edit of his Rockman intro pose added), She-Hulk (improved sprite)
Beats of Rage – Nothing new this time but I fixed the link to the Final Fight (arcade) pick-up items. Shout-out to Sidd the Kidd letting me know about that screw-up!
Happy Birthday to Wizzy, CPS2 Soundmaster Supreme! This is his theme music. Every good hero should have one! (/jackslade)
I also need to wish a Happy Belated 10th Anniversary to the Double Dragon Dojo website. The Dojo has spent ten years building a solid temple of Double Dragon appreciation that the series truly deserves. Anyone who even remotely likes any Double Dragon game needs to give that site a long visit if they haven’t found it by now. You’ll find all kinds of information about the series from English and Japanese manuals to the an interview that explains what the full version of Super Double Dragon would’ve been if the developers had more time. Thank you for over ten years of the representing the Sou-Setsu-Ken legacy to the highest degree!
