This Month in Retro May 2023

Hello all and welcome to This Month in Retro! Today, I'll be taking you back to May of 1999, which was a good month for games but less so for actual happenings in the game industry. E3 happened this month, so it was mostly just announcements, announcements, and more announcements. The most important one came from Nintendo, who publicly announced that their next home system was in developed under codename "Project Dolphin", which eventually became the Nintendo CameCube. Sid Meier, the legendary game developer whose name is often associated with the Civilization series, was the second person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame at the same E3 event. And uh... that's it for this month, so let's move on to the games straight away!

This Month in Retro takes you through the major game releases of May 1999, be it famous- or infamous ones, hidden gems, and all in between. Their legacy will be discussed in the form of reception and sales, as well as their achievement sets if applicable. The Japanese side of this article covers only the games that have never made it to the west, hopefully with fan-translation present so everyone can enjoy them. And that's all you need to know, so let's get to it!

Also uh, apologies first of all. I made a teaser next month that we would see an absolutely bananas game today, which was meant to be Ape Escape... but Wikipedia gave me the incorrect information and that game actually released in June. Sorry if I got your hopes up :(

Western Releases

For the first title of the game... I'm showing my bias just a bit. It doesn't happen that often that I end up talking about a game I've played more than once and also on RetroAchievements, so I have to take that opportunity when I can right?

Game
Bomberman Quest (Game Boy Color)


Release dates	JP: December 24, 1998
	NA: May ??, 1999
	PAL: November ??, 1999
Sales	N/A
Average score	79% (MobyGames, 6 reviews)

What do you get if you mix The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening with Bomberman? You get Bomberman Quest! In this action-adventure game, you travel through four regions and recapture all the monsters who were let loose after an attack by the Four Commanders on Bomberman's space shuttle. Capturing a monster is as easy as throwing a bomb at them Bomberman style, but not all monsters feel frightened by your explosive might. Found throughout the world, a bunch of items will help Bomberman with his task, such as a variety of bombs for different terrains, as well as the ability to jump, and much, much more. Sometimes you even need to travel back through previously visited areas to defeat monsters you previously were unable to, truly channeling that Zelda spirit and presenting the player with a satisfying gameplay loop. It did go somewhat under the radar however, having almost no presence on the internet in terms of critic- or player opinions, so have mine instead! It's a really fun game, albeit with some noticeable flaws, such as Bomberman initially moving pretty slow. But it also has the biggest criticism of Link's Awakening and amped it up to 11: the item switching menu. Whereas that game only had several items, in Bomberman Quest almost everything is an item, including ways to increase Bomberman's movement. You'll be opening that menu very often, and it can get a bit grating admittedly. Certainly would love to see this remade in full glory someday, but as with most Bomberman games that aren't mainline, they unfortunately never saw the light of day again.

It comes with a solid achievement set, but beware because if you want this mastery, your skills will be put to the test. The achievement set covers the entire game as a whole with nice separated progression achievements sorted by boss and region, while also having achievements for most of the more important items. But the damageless bosses are really tough, specifically the later ones that make your game run at an extremely low framerate. Either that, or I just suck. And fun fact, this set also comes with an Achievement Guide created by yours truly! Please play this game now, thank you.

The PlayStation 1 was still going very strong in 1999, seeing not one but two JRPGs this month! The first of which I'll be talking about is a remake of a Sega CD title, and arguably the best way of playing this game.

Game
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PlayStation)


Release dates	JP: May 28, 1998
	NA: May 28, 1999
Sales	550.000
Average score	86% (MobyGames, 22 reviews)

The Lunar series is a small franchise of JRPG games, with the first game being the one that we talk about today. This title was initially released on the Sega CD in both Japan and North America, and has ironically seen more remakes than there have been different games in this franchise. The PlayStation 1 version is the first of three remakes, which was ported over from the Sega Saturn where it only released in Japan. This version has the plot remaining faithful to the original, only expanding upon it to accommodate for a larger cast of characters.

Other interesting western releases this month

Games with achievement sets

Game
Raiden Trad (SNES)
Super Adventure Island (SNES)
Xardion (SNES)
Earnest Evans (Mega Drive)
Syd of Valis (Mega Drive)

Games without achievement sets

Game
Devilish: The Next Possession \| Bad Omen (Mega Drive)*
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance (NES)
Toxic Crusaders (NES)*
Sol-Deace (Mega Drive)
Traysia (Mega Drive)