This Month in Retro February 2023
Hello all and welcome to This Month in Retro! As hinted at last month, we're checking out February 1996 this time. Why? Well, it's the month and year I was born in! And there goes my biggest kept secret... probably. And what a special month it is! Not just because of my birthday mind you, but also because this month is where the birth of one of, if not the biggest media franchises ever happened: Pokémon! ...Which is unfortunately something I won't be talking about today, as the west would not see the yellow mouse until two years later, and talking about Pokémon Green is kind of redundant, let's be honest. There wasn't really much else to this month though in terms of industry happenings, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that the birth of Pokémon alone already makes it one of the more impactful months in the history of video games.
Despite that, the month in the west was... pretty lackluster. I'll still try to talk about a few games, but don't get your hopes up as it was a pretty lame month. Fortunately that doesn't really apply to the east, where the focus will lay today. Anyway, you know the drill: the western side will take a look at games released this month for the first time, even if they were released in Japan earlier, complete with sales figures and critic scores if available. The eastern side won't go into detail as much due to the data not being readily available, but I'll try to cover them as much as I can. So without further ado, let's see what February 1996 had to offer!
You know a month is lacking in games when the first game I start with is a Virtual Boy game of all games. Yep, we are really diving into that territory today. So let's get this over with right away!
| Game |
|---|
 Nester's Funky Bowling (Virtual Boy)
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| Release dates | NA: February 26, 1996 |
| Sales | ??? |
| Average score | N/A |
Anyone remembers Nester? He was a mascot character in Nintendo Power's magazine, which means that I automatically don't care about this character since I'm not American which was the only region where this magazine was published. And I don't think many other people did either since the only game they would grace him with is a Virtual Boy game of all things. What a terrible fate for the poor little kiddo and his sister, who just wanted to do a bit of bowling. And that's exactly what this game was (unsurprisingly, I know), as there are a total of three modes to choose from that all have the standard bowling rules and mechanics, being Bowling, Practice, and Challenge--the last one being the only original one of the three, where the player has to throw down every pin in a variety of patterns. Despite no sales and score data being available, it sold pretty poorly (unsurprisingly) and also didn't really do too well with critics (also unsurprisingly), cited as generic and just better to play elsewhere where you didn't have to deal with the Virtual Boy. The only critics that were decently positive were, unsurprisingly, Nintendo Power themselves, though whether that was out of bias or not is debatable. Actually no it's not, that's not debatable at all, we all know they were. Regardless, to give credit where it is due, it's not a terrible game; in fact, it's one of the better Virtual Boy games out there! Not that that's a tough position to achieve but hey, that's better than nothing!
The game does have an achievement set, which involves getting a lot of strikes in a variety of situations, like doing it three times in a row or with a specific ball. Hopefully unlike real life where I always let one pin standing due to being cursed, it's more doable in video games. It surely is looking to be a tough set though, as the only thing standing between many people and a mastery are the perfect games. Can you become the bowling champion?
Was I mean towards Nester? Nooo, I have no idea what you are talking about. But of the western side, it was only one of two games that had an achievement set so I couldn't really ignore it. Fortunately from here on out, it will only get better!
| Game |
|---|
 Alien Trilogy (PlayStation)
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| Release dates | NA: February 26, 1996 |
| PAL: March ??, 1996 | |
| Sales | 470.000 |
| Average score | 80% (MobyGames, based on 9 reviews) |
The Alien Trilogy is a single game based on a trilogy of the first Alien films. Figured I would get that confusion out of the way first in case you thought this game itself was a trilogy. The story as a result is loosely derived of those films in one continuous storyline, as well as many enemies and weapons taken from said films in a first-person shooting environment. And publisher Acclaim did their absolute best to hype up this release, as it would be the first game of theirs to feature their new 3D motion capture technology, which was used for the alien movements. And that hype certainly worked out, as critics were very positive on the game. The films' atmosphere were very well adapted into this game, and it went a bit more in-depth than most other shooters seen at the time, with special mentions going towards the mission objectives. It was a bestseller in the UK and nominated for multiple rewards such as "Best shooter of 1996", so it certainly worked out for them. Retrospectively, gamers don't look at it as fondly as it was received at the time, but it is still considered a solid shooter for the system and certainly one that Alien fans will enjoy.
Most of the achievement set is focused on the 22 levels, as players will not only have to beat them for one achievement, but also with all kills, secrets and objectives, as well as on the highest difficulty possible. There's also some other objectives to aim for, such as having a specific amount of kills with every weapon. A solid set that will reward you for playing on higher difficulties!
And that brings us to the final western-released game this month. Yeah, when I said this month was lacking, I really meant it. There were more titles released this month, but they all had earlier releases on other consoles and were very much multi-platform games, which leaves us with just these three games. So without further ado, the final western game for today is:
| Game |
|---|
 Assault Rigs (PlayStation)
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| Release dates | NA: February 1, 1996 |
| PAL: February ??, 1996 | |
| JP: October 4, 1996 | |
| Sales | 40.000 |
| Average score | 79% (MobyGames, based on 4 reviews) |
Assault Rigs is a vehicular tank combat game developed by Psygnosis, famous for titles such as Wipeout and Lemmings. People of the future have finally accepted that sport is boring and time better spent on getting achievements, and instead resorted to virtual sports. Assault Rigs is the most popular of these virtual sports, where players control a tank through 42 levels, attempting to get all the gems before reaching the exit while shooting down enemies in the process. It has some light puzzle-solving as well while doing these levels, and a bunch of upgrades for the tank to deal with these enemies. The game was well-received overall, with critics praising increasing complexity when it comes to the levels, but that the controls weren't always to their liking. Which, looking at the gameplay, does sound like a reasonable criticism given that tanks aren't exactly the most versatile vehicles out there. It certainly is a very unknown game however, not only indicated by the somewhat low sales numbers, but also that nobody on the internet really talks about it. But hey, without having prior knowledge of the memory, this does look like a perfect game to make an achievement set for, both for beginning PlayStation 1 set developers and for veterans!
Fortunately, the Japanese side of today's article has many more games up their sleeve. Of course, as mentioned in the introduction, it's not really a surprise that Pocket Monster Red/Green were the most successful games this month. They literally kickstarted one of the biggest media franchises ever, and there was no other game that did such a feat this month as good as they may be. Still, that did not stop them from releasing some high quality titles, including one of the most popular fan-translated RPGs on the Super Famicom!
| Game |
|---|
 Bahamut Lagoon (SNES)
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| Release date | JP: February 9, 1996 |
Bahamut Lagoon was another of Squaresoft's RPGs that to this day has never made it to the west, which is a shame since it is yet again another excellent RPG for the system. It has a more tactical approach to the genre, featuring a grid-based turn-based combat system where players raise dragons that fight alongside them. These dragons can also evolve into different types and are controlled with simple commands, making it a very funny coincidence this game released in the same month as Pokémon did. It also had the original "Final Fantasy Tactics" working title, but that was eventually dropped during development with the game having no other links to the franchise. Aside from a kingdom being invaded by the evil empire; that's a Final Fantasy classic! Although this game has still not seen a western release, it had a translation patch as early as 2002, with an improved one released in 2021 that is also the basis for the RetroAchievements set. And even with it being slightly tougher to access for more casual SNES fans, it is still a title met with much praise over here in the west, and if Square-Enix is planning to remaster more Super Famicom RPGs in the future, Bahamut Lagoon is certainly one of the biggest candidates.
And such a well-received game deserves an awesome set, and developer Alena certainly lived up to all the expectations with a massive set of 150 achievements!
1994 was a huge year for gaming, and even though it already looks like I talked about so many games, there were far more released this month than I was able to talk about. But despite the quantity, the amount of stand-out games was on the lower side. On the western side, it's really tough to determine any game that stood above the rest, while it is quite easy to find out which are the worst. The Japanese side had even more games where it was the opposite; tough to find the worst games, easy to find great games. Quite a funny contrast isn't it?
Since we went to the 2000s two times in a row last time, let's go back further to 1990 for January. Hope to see you there!
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