Time to wrap up this year’s 1989 celebration with new sprites and a new video!

Custom Sprites:
– Final Fight: big update for my 2019 Rolento FF1 sprite
– Ninja Gaiden: new Bomberhead sprite added.
– Strider: new Strider Hiryu pose (based on the Famicom ad from the unrealeased game) and a new side-view idle sprite of the Grandmaster added
– Marvel Comics: Dazzler (heavily updated sprites + new separate and more accurate PotX and Konami outfits) and the Juggernaut (PotX) (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.

Bad news: the video is ALMOST ready. It’ll be added to the YouTube Channel and this post either later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but I’ll try to make it worth the wait.
The video is now ready! Here’s the Revenge of 1989 Sprite Showcase video!

This hasn’t been an easy month (for offline reasons), so a lot of items I’d planned just aren’t ready yet, but you’ll see previews of a few (especially the backgrounds) in the new video.

The Arcade Quartermaster site just updated, too! New shrines of Battle Shark and Riding Fight have been added.

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.

Today’s update has fighter-sized sprites of movie characters from 1989 and some new Kunio/RCR 8-Bit style sprites of 1989 game characters!

Custom Sprites:
– DC Comics: 1989 Batman and criminal from the opening scene, and a generic Joker gang member.
– Movies: Indiana Jones (Last Crusade style). Also, this gallery now has navigation near the top that takes you directly to a movie’s section by clicking on its mini-logo.
– Kunio-Kun/RCR 8-Bit style: Haggar, redone Poison and Roxy, and Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) from Do the Right Thing (1989).

Mini-logos: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade added to movies.

The bigger sprites and mini-logo were added to the Fight-size generator and the Kunio/RCR sprites were added to the Fakescreen generator.

Bonus 1989 content: my pre-ordered TMNT VHS April O’Neil figure by NECA just got here weeks ahead of the ship date. She’s in both the arcade and NES TMNT games that were released in 1989, so she’s theme-appropriate!

I thought I missed my chance to get this earlier, so I feel lucky here. I’ll try to get some photos of her and the green machine (I have all four VHS box-release Turtles, too) before the month is through.

Reminder: The Revenge of 1989 – (35th anniversary edition) Sprite Showcase hits at the end of the month and I’m mostly working on that. Here’s a few teases of what else I was working on this week:

It’s the ninth day of the eight month, that means it’s time for the ScrollBoss site to revive The Revenge of 1989!

What’s the deal with 1989? The short answer is that a lot of beat ’em up, hack ‘n slash, and platformer games featured heavily on this site debuted that year, 16-bit games hit North America, the portable system revolution started, and a ton of other things, some of which you can read about here.

Custom Sprites:
– Final Fight: redone Guy idle/fight stance sprite, modified ‘arms crossed’ taunt sprite to match the new idle.
– Golden Axe: redone Tyris Flare select screen pose
– Mega Man: non-MvC-look Mega Man in the NES pose
– Strider: Soldier (red and green)
– Shinobi: Yet another attempt to sprite Yamato, that good wolf from Shadow Dancer. Will it be the last? Who knows? Is it in today’s update? Yes.

All of the new custom sprites have been added to the main gfx generator, where I made the screenshot at the top of this post.

If this were just some normal year this update would be it. But this year is the 35th (!) Anniversary of 1989, so it’s time to do something special once again. There will be more site updates spread throughout August, ending with something I really wanted to do in 2014 but couldn’t: a video. Here’s a preview

Until then, get ready for more pixel art next week!

ToyBoss: Additions to the galleries, mainly of the 52Toys Captain Commando figures outside of their packaging, including a group shot of the team and another with Cap next to Hasbro’s MvC:I Ryu and Bandai’s 66mm Mega Man so you can see how they scale next to each other.

I planned to have more toy photos added in the site anniversary update a few weeks ago, but July has kept me really busy in some unfun ways. But I’ve gotten even more things since then. The first Target run I’ve made in a long time led to finding a Jakks SMB Toad (completing the SMB 2 line-up!) and a regular Bebop and Rocksteady set by NECA. I think I’ve bought more NECA this year than every other year put together, they’re getting better about keeping their stuff available. Marvel Legends Ghost Rider (paid for with a lot of gift cards) and classic Warbird/Carol Danvers help fill out two of the 3D Marvel vs. Capcom game rosters. This is the first time I’ve ever had toys of Ghost Rider AND his bike. I have unboxed pics of Ghost Rider and Shredder’s two favorite henchmen on the ToyBoss page.

While we’re talking about toys, one of the big San Diego Comic-Con toy announcements was for a Marvel Legends two-pack of Sentinels based on the Konami game, including the rock that a few of them use to throw at the player. The Hasbro Pulse store exclusive sold out the day that it went up, but keep an eye out for it to be back in stock, possibly during the Pulsecon event in October. Hopefully they make more of these than they did those Hellfire Club troops.

August is almost here and that means the site will be in the revenge business on the 9th. Eight month, Ninth day? Yes, it’s time for that theme again, and it’s going to be more than one update.