Game 1 & 2: Game Master 1 & 2

Penguins, Mummies, Kung Fu and more exploding out of a computer. I can't wait to 'Enjoy More!'

I was debating with myself if this is the way I wanted to start this blog. I said I was going to play all the games which influenced La Mulana in order that they appear in the game. The problem is that the very first item on the list isn't actually a game, but basically Konami specific cheat device. Plug in the cartridge, apply what cheats you want and then you launch the game from inside Game Master once done. Game Master Two is exactly the same except with better support for the MSX2 games.

"The Cartridge which Enjoys the Konami Games 10 Times." Apparently it does this by Penguins.

The only reason I decided I would start on these ones as opposed to skipping them and jumping straight into the games is already it has given me my first insight into La Mulana. In the game you can equip the ROMs to provide you with abilities. As I said in second post the Glyph Reader allows you to read glyphs and the map roms allow you to view the map, however you can only equip one at time. Once you buy the MSX2 it gives you a second slot to insert cartridges which you can then combine to produce a power up or ability. The most famous of these is Arctic Adventure and Comic Bakery which allows you to wrap to parts of the game you won't be able to have before. Game Master is designed to run in the first slot of the MSX with the game you want to cheat on in the second slot. Until I found this I didn't realise that you could interact with the different cartridges in each slot. For some reason I though they were separate.

Combining them in La Mulana suddenly makes more sense, and it makes me wonder 'Can I combine these games on the actual MSX and get it produce results?' I have a list of ROM combinations from La Mulana will I try as I get to each game.

So next we try out the first actual game: Athletic Land