Somewhere in upstate New York, on a chill night in April 1991, a television glows ominously in a family living room, illuminating the suburban setting in an uneasy, blue light. A boy sits before the television, knees tucked beneath him, with an NES pad in his hands. He is transfixed, his stare one that betrays nothing but a devoted concentration and perhaps a hint of desperation. This war against the despotic computer mainframe has gone on too long. It is taking its toll on his small mind. From upstairs comes a slow thumping, the sound of weary parental feet shuffling in the dark.
A call rings out.
“If I come down there and you’re still playing videogames, I’m going to throw that stupid box out the window.”
A whisper.
“Can’t talk. Final level.”
“GO TO BED!”
“No! No, I cannot go to bed! I must defeat these godless machines! I MUST STAY UP ALL NIGHT!”
Yes, Friday’s Chiptune got me thinking about that true Up All Night classic, Power Blade. One of Guy Wearing Tank Top and Sweatpants’ last great hurrahs on the NES, Power Blade is, unlike some UAN candidates, a legitimately good game, chock full of tight platforming and robot murdering in the grand Mega Man tradition. It also has an interesting history: Power Blade actually started, as Kurt Kalata puts it, a literal Mega Man clone called Power Blazer. In a rare stroke of ambition, Taito decided to not merely localize Blazer for a United States, but completely overhaul the gameplay and redesign the main character as well. The result was a superior game that was even more stuffed-crust-cheesy than most in 1991. Your set-up: in the year 2191, a super computer runs all of society. As super computers in the future are wont to do, it goes insane and kills all sorts of nice folk. GWTTS plays a tough guy named Nova who kicks ass like all tough guys: by using a giant metal boomerang and occasionally wearing some rad full-body armor. He uses both the boomerang and the armor to make robots explode across seven crazy futuristic levels.
Power Blade eventually spawned a sequel, which is notable for being both one of the last NES games ever released and also for having what is possibly the most suggestive cover of any NES game ever.
Look at that. Yes, of course it looks like he’s holding an enormous metal erection. Reminds me of that Empire Strikes Back trading card prank. This one:
Droid dongs aside, let us all kindly ask Square-Enix, owners of Taito, to give Power Blade a new life on Wii’s Virtual Console, lest we all emulate the damn thing. See you next time, everybody!
Previously on Up All Night:
Cannon Spike
Parasite Eve
Trojan
Dark Sector
Ex-Mutants
Nightmare Creatures
Bad Dudes
P.N. 03