Time for a little 1989 Boss Rush update!
Custom Sprites:
– Mega Man: Alien (Mega Man 2) added
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and Tong Pooh pose (and sub-gallery) added
– Shinobi: Shadow Dancer boss (from the Revenge of Shinobi)
– Marvel Comics: White Queen Emma Frost (appeared in the 1989 NES Uncanny X-Men game and 1989’Pryde of the X-Men’ cartoon pilot)
The new custom sprites were added to the Fight-size generator.
It’s the birthday of this website, but the presents are for you! No, you can’t exchange them at the store if they don’t fit. First, thank you for visiting the site, whether you’ve been stopping by since the Tripod and Angelfire years or if this is your first time. It’s fun to make these things, but it’s even more fun when people other people enjoy it. But you know what? Instead of doing the usual thing with shots from the generator, I’ve got a short video with most of the sprites in it.
Custom Sprites:
– Captain Commando: all-new sprites of Captain Commando (1991 design), Carol, Brenda, Wooky, Eddy, Dick.
– Final Fight: Eliza (a.k.a. Elissa) and Mary from Final Fight 2
– Mega Man: original Mega Man robot master lineup is completed with new sprites of Cut Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man.
– Street Fighter: Kimberly
– DC Comics: Green Lantern Hal Jordan
– Marvel Comics: Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde
– Music: Wu-Tang Killer Bees
Mini-logos:
– Capcom: Street Fighter 6 cutscene style logos for Kimberly, Dee Jay, Juri, and Damnd
– Atlus: Atlus
– Marvel Comics: Shadowcat
– Music: Wu-Tang Clan
Custom Sprite Packs: (edit: 2023 July 22) Kitty Pryde and Shadowcat added to the X-Men CotA name graphics pack.
The high amount of new Capcom items is making up for the fact that I planned to do a bigger Capcom anniversary update a while back, but I had to concentrate on commission work. As usual, the new custom sprites and mini-logos are available to use in the GFX image generators
ToyBoss: A few new pics have been added, including that brand new side-scroller legend you see off to the side. Last year’s anniversary update featured a pic of my then-new Tyris Flare figure from Storm Collectibles and this update just happens to parallel that event with my new Gilius Thunderhead figure. I lucked out and caught one of the last sets on sale from Entertainment Earth, the online store where I got some of the luckiest finds of my rebuilt collection. Storm Collectibles is now exclusive to BigBadToyStore and you can find their Golden Axe line (and other Golden Axe items) here. Entertainment Earth still has one “Not Mint” Gilius left for $96.53 and free shipping, but it probably won’t be in stock for long. I also managed to get another figure I’ve wanted for years but aftermarket prices usually kept me away, until I found an incomplete one for a decent price: Sodom! It may have been a Street Fighter figure from SOTA, but we all know Sodom comes from the Final Fight series. I’ll probably have to customize a crest for his helmet and get a spare pair of swords so he can reach his full boss potential.
There’ll be more updates to the ToyBoss section soon because I need to update a few roster pics and my current customized figure project is about halfway done. I also got a new digital camera (on sale, of course) that won’t immediately murder its battery after being on for more than 8 minutes, so I’ll be having fun with that, too.
I mentioned a while back that I’ll have to rewrite a lot of code on the site to get it ready for the updated Dreamhost servers, and that’s going to be my main focus for a while. My hard drive has copies of the old and new code versions of the site running in two different XAMPP installs, which complicates adding new things to the online (and old) version of this site. So while site updates will be limited as I work on the new version of the site, I’m going add more things to the ScrollBoss YouTube channel on the side. Some areas may temporarily disappear when the site upgrade starts in August, so be sure to check out, enjoy, and right-click save what you want before then.
Elsewhere:
Kimimi just posted an article all about my favorite game genre: the beat ’em up! She’s got a few of my faves in there and she also sticks up for a maligned title that deserves another look in its original form.
Custom Sprites: A Metall (a.k.a. Met, Metool) was finally made and added to the Mega Man gallery, because I had to do SOMETHING for Mega Man in May. I had plans to make more, but things got really hectic this month (see below for details).
GFX Generators: the next update to those “extra palette” functions that were being tested by two characters has been upgraded. They allow the “ScrollBoss – bunnysuit ladies” palette options to be expanded even more, and the optional tights colors blend with the skin colors and the “Monster (Illmosis)” Zombie now has a shadow option that darkens specific parts of whichever color options you choose.
Note: There is a bug that I just caught with these extra palettes, though: using the “Character swap selection” option will mess things up. I’ll work on that when I get the chance. Still, please let me know if you run into any other bugs with this.
This site won’t be very active for a while because I’m doing some paid pixel work and that has to come first. It’s for a fan project and I’ll be proud to have some pixels in it. I’m 2 for 18 on it so far, so it’ll be a while before I’m done.
Also, due to some very heavy behind-the-scenes work, this site will temporarily shut down at some point in late June. My current plan is to have a single page be a “mini-ScrollBoss” redirect page when the shutdown starts, then have the working sections return bit-by-bit as they’re redone. I already have the Custom Sprites section rewrite is about 96% ready now, with an error or two that need to get knocked out. If you’re even thinking of downloading something off this site, do it now before late June 2023, because I don’t know exactly when everything will be back.
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:
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.
