I used to say that it never feels like I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years, but after a year as crappy and time-distorted as 2020, it feels like I’ve been going for 15 years now. You may notice that this update is heavy on beat ’em up (a.k.a. belt scroll), and you’ll see why in a bit. For now, here’s the newness:

Custom Sprites
– Bad Dudes: new sprites of Animal (+ Zombie Animal) and Hage Ninja
– Battletoads (new separate gallery): Pimple (finally completing the playable trio)
– Double Dragon: redone DDA stance Billy and Jimmy Lee (replacing the ones from the 20th ScrollBoss anniversary), classic stance Billy, Jimmy and Jeff
– Kunio-kun: Misuzu (SD style)
– Mega Man: new scratch-made MvC style Mega Man in Rockman Famicom cover art pose.
– Rushing Beat: New Lord J taunt, and improved fight stance sprite, improved Douglas Bild stand sprite
– Streets of Rage: new Max Thunder sprite (back turned) in SoR 2 and 4 designs
– Undercover Cops: The Zan (Claude) sprite I teased in the gallery icon since January is done and in the gallery, along with Matt, completing the playable crew!
– Marvel Comics: Black Widow (semi-remake of an old sprite edit pose), Crossbones (boss in DECO’s Captain America and the Avengers), Firestar (assist char in Maximum Carnage, but not in this outfit)
– DC Comics: Green Lantern Hal Jordan (scratch-made remake of the edit-based pose I made for him 20 years ago)
– G.I.JOE: all-new Baroness fight stance (referencing her old sprite edit pose from the early days of this site)

Mini-logos
– Marvel Comics: Crossbones (Captain America #363 cover), the Defenders
– Capcom: Shadaloo (SCRI logo) and Street Fighter x Tekken

All new sprites and mini-logos have been added to the Graphics Generators, along with the brand-new (and long overdue) Beat ‘Em Up arcade background!

The “Memory Lane” page was updated for the first time in almost 10 years, mainly trimming a few things down and adding info on the image generators and videos.

Thanks to an incredibly kind Ko-Fi donation, I put enough money together to buy the latest version of MOHO (Anime Studio)! For the first time in half a year, I have access to all that old work I did for videos again, so I can get back to those video Works-in-Progress. Being without AS Pro 10 had one positive effect, because it forced me to dig deeper into using Blender (even if it’s the pre-2.80 version with the old Blender engine) and building the clips inside Vegas (instead of just using it as a clip assembler). All of those things will be used for the next Sprite Showcade:

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Bad Dudes, Battletoads, Brawl Brothers, dc comics, Double Dragon, g.i. joe, Kunio-Kun, Mega Man series, Rushing Beat, Streets of Rage series
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The 8th month is in its 9th day, and that’s the day this site pays tribute to a year unlike any other year: 1989. That year was so packed that I dedicated a small section of the site to it in 2009, the 20th anniversary of so many of this site’s favorite games that I just put it all in one update. In 2014, the 25th anniversary, I spent nearly the whole year doing updates with nothing but 1989-related content, because doing updates filled with Final Fight, the Revenge of Shinobi, Strider, Golden Axe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles kinda just looked like regular site updates here anyway. Now it’s a yearly thing here, where even non-game items from 1989 get in on the fun. Now we’ve got the info dump out of the way, let’s get on to what’s new to the site today!

Custom Sprites:
– Altered Beast (new gallery): redone Werewolf
– Bad Dudes (new gallery): Kunoichi
– Castlevania: Trevor f***ing Belmont
– Double Dragon: the annoying ninja from the NES version of Double Dragon II: the Revenge
– Final Fight: Abigail
– Jaleco: acrobat enemy from Astyanax (arcade)
– Mario series: Princess Daisy
– Mega Man (new gallery): Mega Man (scratch-made jump shot to match the MvC sprites), Heat Man, Wood Man, Bubble Man
– Sega: Ashra (Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle)
– Shinobi: redone Joe Musashi (RoS)
– Strider: redone Hiryu (all-new arcade sprite remake), Rascal
– Other games: Yuko (Valis series)
– Movies: the Joker (Jack Nicholson), Ah Jong and Li Ying (the Killer), Tina (Do the Right Thing)

Mini-Logos:
– Nintendo: Princess Daisy
– Telenet: Valis
– Human: Human, Fire Pro Wrestling: Combination Tag
– Spike Chunsoft: Spike Chunsoft
– Movies: the Killer (Hong Kong and English logos)

All the sprites and most of the logos have been added to the image generators so you can make your own fake screenshots and graphics. New to the main fighting-scale generator is a remake of the beginning of scene 2 from the arcade TMNT game.

Here’s a couple of reminders about recent games that just happen to be linked to 1989:

River City Ransom: Underground from Conatus Creative Inc., a revival of Technos’ English localization of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (1989), plays more like something fans like myself hope and dream for than something we’d actually get. It expands everything, from the combat system stats and storyline all the way down to lovingly crafted item descriptions., but adds enough of its own spark to make it feel fresh. Yes, it’s tough in the beginning, but so was the original River City Ransom when I played it, so their changing things up a bit actually makes it feel more like the first time of playing the old RCR than the hundredth. That’s not an easy magic trick to pull, but the crew at Conatus did it.

You’ve probably at least heard someone mention Fire Pro Wrestling World recently. and there’s a lot of reasons for it. Picking up where FPW Returns for PS2 (which I also own) left off means that it’s already deeper than any wrestling game you’ll find on the market now, even though it’s only in Early Access. It’s not your average wrestling game and takes a while to adjust to the timing-based play style, but search the internet and you’ll find enough info to help you get into the game. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know what kind of Edit Wrestlers I’ve made for it so far (nothing good enough to upload yet).

That wraps up this year’s Revenge of 1989. I know I didn’t get around to a lot of games (I’ve still got a few sketches that I didn’t have a chance to turn into sprites yet), so I apologize for any of your favorite games being left out. Maybe I’ll get to some of those others (like Alpha Denshi’s Gang Wars) next year.

Filed under: ScrollBoss Updates, Site News, Updates by PrimeOp
Tags: Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Altered Beast, Bad Dudes, Batman, CastleVania III, CastleVania series, dc comics, Double Dragon II - the Revenge, Final Fight, Mega Man 2, Mega Man series, Strider, Super Mario Land, the Astyanax, The Revenge of 1989, Valis series
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