… Halloween… Halloween…

This year marks the 25th Anniversary of Konami’s Castlevania hitting U.S. shores and invading unsuspecting NES systems around the country. With that in mind, this pre-Halloween update is really heavy with Dracula’s minions along with a Belmont to destroy them. Non-Castlevania fans still have some things to look forward to as other horror and monster-related sprites and things haunt this update.

GFX Generators – The following creatures and creature-fighters have been added to the mix:
Capcom: Anita (new!)
Jaleco: Avenging Spirit (new!)
Konami: Richter Belmont (new!), Medusa Head (new!), Castlevania creatures (Ghosts, Hunchback, Zombie)
Namco: Rick Taylor (now with palettes, including Mirror Rick and Wanpaku Graffiti), Biggy Man (new!)
Sega: Neff (new!)
An expanded version of my scratch-made Castlevania cover art recreation was added to the 384×224 Create-a-Scene screenstyles. You probably figured that out from the main screenshot, though. More Darkstalker backgrounds were added to those, too.

Custom Sprites –
Jaleco: Avenging Spirit
Konami: Richter Belmont (SotN style), Medusa Head, Ghosts, Hunchback, Zombie
Namco: Biggy Man
Sega: Neff (Altered Beast)

Mini-Logos – Capcom: Resident Evil. Data East: Night Slashers. Jaleco: Avenging Spirit. Konami: Richter (Belmont). Marvel: Ghost Rider

Expect a few more items to be added on Halloween day!

GFX Generators – I figured that a superhero-related update for the generator needed one new style that both Marvel and DC could use and there was only one obvious choice.


Okay, it’s only obvious to other toy geezers like me. Most of you are too young to remember Mego’s World’s Greatest Super-Heroes toyline (see the Mego Museum site for details) but you may have seen the various tribute lines by Toy Biz, Kenner, Hasbro. Mattel is currently making DC figures with blister cards that mirror the old Mego packages that the new GroupShot screenstyle pays respect to. This lead to two new features for the generator engine. One simple addition is that the minilogos can now appear behind the sprite in some styles. The most important change is that screenstyles now have their own options on the second menu page under the sprite and palette options. The Mego style lets you choose a card color and whether you want the DC or Marvel head portraits on the side. This also let me combine a few older screenstyles that were just palette swaps like Apocalypse Now from X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter or the two versions of SFA’s China stage. The Slammasters Ring now has a few different Ring and Vs. options from both games that you can mix and match parts like this:

Expect to see many more backgrounds take crazy advantage of this in future updates.

New characters: the Atom, Blue Beetle, Captain Cold, Deathstroke, Green Arrow, Robin, Power Girl, Supergirl, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, the Thing
Character updates: Batman, the Belmonts, Catwoman, Hulk, Iron Man, Joker, Rick Taylor (Splatterhouse), Spider-Man, Superman

GroupShot New screenstyles: Mego – World’s Greatest Super-Heroes
Vs.Maker Updated screenstyes: Slammasters rings (options with multiple ring backgrounds and Vs. graphic)

Custom Sprites
DC: Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Deathstroke, Robin (Tim Drake), Supergirl, Superman
Marvel: the Human Torch (in both flame on and off modes), Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, Iron Man (two poses in the fan-favorite 4th armor) and the Thing
Konami: Simon Belmont – CV2 outfit
Namco: Rick Taylor – a slight variation to the Splatterhouse 3 sprite.

Minilogo – the Atom (1960s and ‘All-New’), Batman (1970), Captain Cold, Captain Marvel, Deathstroke, Green Arrow (’70s), Riddler (’70s) and Robin (’70s blocky), Supergirl (modern curved) logos added to the DC section. The Falcon, Hulk (’70s-80s angle logo), Human Torch, Invisible Woman added to the Marvel section. New color variants of Aquaman, Shazam and Superman logos added. These were added to the GFX Generator character files as well.

I planned to have more than this but I was worn out from Black Friday comic convention and lack of sleep. I hope this makes up for the lack of comic-related content in the 10th Anniversary update.

edit: Deathstroke was accidentally left out of both the Sprite Gallery and Graphic Generator uploads. I’d like to think Ryan Choi’s vengeful ghost made that happen. That’s been fixed so Slade can now cause kill off interesting characters on this site now. Hooray.

First of all, the Splatterhouse revival game for the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 is out today. Fans of Splatterhouse and blood-soaked horror in general should really consider giving the game a shot. They team worked hard to make a game that old-school fans would love and even includes the original arcade game and the Genesis/Mega Drive sequels as unlockable content. It looks like a revival game done the right way and that’s a rare, beautiful thing. But you don’t have to take my word for it…

Check out the official site if you haven’t kept up with it’s development.

I’m still working on this weekend’s update. Lots of new custom sprites, minilogos and GFX Generator features and additions are on the way and nearly all of it is comic-related. One new feature will make the GFX Generator backgrounds a bit more interesting.