Chrontendo is a series on the internet that begun in 2008 and still runs today. The series is mainly dedicated towards one man that calls himself Dr. Sparkle who plays every single official game released on the NES/Famicom in chronological order.
As time passed he has also started Chronsega, which reviews every single Sega Master System/Sega Genesis game in chronological order, and Chronturbo, where he reviews all the games for the TurboGrafx-16.
Here
is a link to his YouTube channel.
He also hosts a blog, which can be found here.
Tropes used in his reviews:
- Accentuate the Negative: He does this a lot in Chronsega, to the point where he didn't want to say anything negative about Sega in Chrontendo episode 20 when he covered Fantasy Zone for the NES. He also tends to be dismissive toward games made outside Japan, but only in his reviews. His arcade and PC-history round-ups show off some of the best arcade/computer games made outside of Japan and his PC-history round-up even blatantly disregards the Japanese computer games scene.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: When he reviewed Ninja Gaiden in Chrontendo episode 38, he said that Ryu Hayabusa is the worst ninja ever.
- Anachronism Stew: Despite him showing games in chronological order he said that he did not play the games in chronological order. He noted this in Chrontendo episode 46 when he reviewed Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi. He said that before this game he played a game called Tenkaichi Bushu Naguru before Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi. He praised Tenkaichi Bushu Naguru for being a fighting game/RPG hybrid and for being original, but Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi is also a fighting game/RPG hybrid and it came out earlier.
- April Fools' Day: His Chron-CD-I "preview" was posted on 1 April 2012. One only needs to see the game featured to know that it is not for real.
- Author Tract: He usually becomes very personal in his reviews.
- Art Evolution: Chronsega episode 8 is very different in presentation compared to all previous Chronsega episodes.
- Bile Fascination: When he arrived at the end of episode 29, he said that he was going to review what is considered to be the worst NES game ever the next episode. At episode 30 he lampshaded it again when he reviewed the game in question, saying that nobody cared about Double Dragon (the big game that episode) because Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NES) was way more important.
- Boomerang Bigot: In his Chron-CD-I preview he said that the fact that Americans went gaga over low-tech junk such like the Super Nintendo and even the Genesis to be the reason why Americans have no taste whatsoever.
- Broke the Rating Scale: He did this in Chrontendo episode 12. When the time arrived to review Super Monkey Daibouken, he turned the coloring negative and played the music reversed.
- Brutal Honesty: He has this character trait. He still however tries to understand why he has to be so about it though and this can lead to some truly interesting reasoning.
- Call-Back: Expect this to happen when he reviews a sequel of a game which he previously reviewed or when a video game company makes its next appearance.
- The Cameo: Dr. Sparkle has noted that pretty much every Konami game ever features a Moai head.
- The Cavalry: Dr. Sparkle realized that he was playing lots of crap in Chrontendo episode 12 and probably would have given up, but the fact that it was the episode in which he could review Zanac kept him motivated to finish the entire episode.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In episode 42, he said that he had difficulties enjoying the NES version of Q*Bert. He said that it was probably the best port of Q*Bert around that time and perfectly acceptable by 1989 standards, but he said that he had difficulties to enjoy it because he was not habituated to the button lay-out.
- Designated Hero: He complains about the protagonist in this way in nearly every single video game he played so far. He even ended up praising the Japanese version of Karnov for giving the titular character a backstory and thus making him more sympathetic in Chrontendo episode 26.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Whenever there's something that was similar to another game he reviewed, he will usually notice it and bring the subject up.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Chrontendo episodes 1 and 2 have been given a revised edition. Considering that they were the first episodes, you probably get the idea why this trope comes in effect.
- The audio quality is quite poor in the earlier videos, there's far less footage of non-Famicom games, and there's more misinformation (getting release dates wrong, factual errors, mispronunciations, etc.) Virtually every facet of Chrontendo has drastically improved over the years.
- Edutainment Show: The whole purpose of it.
- Evolving Credits: At the beginning of Chrontendo, Dr. Sparkle mentioned the site in the credits section. Episode 38 marks the point at which he stops mentioning the site and starts mentioning where he got his music from.
- Fake Difficulty: Some games he reviews have invisible items that you need to progress in the game. He said in his review of Doreamon in episode 13 that he found it to be lazy programming and a pathetic excuse to not put much content in the game.
- Fanservice: He noted the fact that Western NES games have a tendency to feature more sexy girls than is the case with Japanese games when he started reviewing Defender of the Crown in episode 47.
- Funny Background Event: While he was talking about his #4 spot on his top 10 worst NES/Famicom games list he wrote in the background a message to the developer and publisher of said game.
- Gainax Ending: In Chrontendo episode 39 he said that he can not take anymore games in the Family Trainer series, so he says that he would immediately skip to Chrontendo episode 183 to play Super Metroid. While the end makes sense on a psychological level, it undermines what Chrontendo is all about. Thankfully what he said in the ending never happened and Chrontendo episode 40 still came along as usual.
- Genre Blindness: He has noted that he can not play typically Japanese genres of games such as Mahjong, Shogi or Visual Novels, as they require a deep understanding of Japanese text.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: He lampshaded this in Chrontendo episode 36 when he reviewed the NES game Knight Rider, which is based on a TV show in which David Hasselhoff is the lead actor. After expecting people to say that David Hasselhoff must have been really popular in Germany because he was an European record label he said that David Hasselhoff is just a smokescreen for popular stuff in Germany that was even worse, such as The Kelly Family, who moved to Europe in the 70's and became popular in Germany, BENELUX, Switzerland etc. and sold there 20 million albums. At the end he even showed even a clip of a song that they sang.
- Growing the Beard: He thinks that a few companies are this:
- Sunsoft. In the beginning of their lifespan, all of their output was crap. As time moved on, however, they slowly begun making some of the best games for the NES.
- TOSE also counts, albeit only because they are pretty good at making adventure games.
- He predicts that CBS Sony will become this, because after a few years they would be working on the PlayStation.
- He bashed Sega a lot for their early games before they made it big with Sonic.
- Guide Dang It!: When he did his top ten list of the worst NES/ Famicom games, he noted that #3 was impossible to play without a guide or walkthrough.
- Guilty Pleasures: As noted in this video he noted that he had guilty pleasures (like everyone). In his case it was the CHVRCHES album The Bones of What You Believe. He noted that it was dumb, fluffy pop music but also that it is actually well made.
- I Am What I Am: There are a few times when he dislikes a game that everyone seems to love (such as Phantasy Star 2) and that he admires a game everyone hates (such as Final Fantasy 2). He usually openly states it and continues in depth as to why he likes a game that others hate or hates a game that others love and also addresses the reasons why people hate or love them.
- Import Filter: He takes it off and shatters it into tiny little pieces. Not surprising, since he also reviews all the games that came out on the Japanese Famicom. He also says that this is also why he dislikes some games that other people like.
- Incompetence, Inc.: His opinion on Taito. He made a history on this developer in and he explicitly noted that it is the least competent main developer of console games that also makes arcade games.
- Innocuously Important Episode: This is the rare show in which every episode is one, since every episode has the possibility to show an important game or key element that would set the standard for the games that a certain company would do in the future.
- Leitmotif: The theme he uses to introduce a new game (affectionately called "Game Info Screen Music") is always the same one (for Chrontendo it is "Tin Cans (Puerto Rican Remix)" by Tortoise and for Chronsega it is The Boss theme of Fantasy Zone). It has been averted a few times though.
- Made in Country X: In Chrontendo episode 48 he noted that the worst games of the episode were Hollywood Squares, Sesame Street ABC and Bad Street Brawler and that it was a good pitcher for the horrible video games being produced in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: In Chronsega episode 1 he lampshaded this phenomenon when talking about Sega's "Great Sports" series, saying that it is not by putting the name "Great" in the title that the game is going to be any better.
- Mood Motif: He will always play 3030 by Deltron 3030 during the "Game Info Screen Music" when he plays a game that puts him in a good mood.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In the very early episodes of Chrontendo, Dr. Sparkle always notes the amount of games that had a Ninja in them.
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Nintendo Hard: He criticized that a lot of NES games are considered this in Chrontendo episode 44. Saying that they seem easy when you compare them to Holy Diver. - No Export for You: He will usually note which games were only released Japan or only in the US.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: When he had to play Ganzou Saijuki Super Monley Daibouken in chrontendo episode 12 he turned the coloring negative and played the music in reverse to show that the game Broke the Rating Scale.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Whenever a game is made by AVP he will always mention that they once made a game called Ganzou Saijuki: Super Monkey Daibouken, the worst game from 1983 - 1987 that he ever reviewed.
- Precision F-Strike: He showed one in the game Bakutoushi Patton Kun in Chrontendo episode 34. It was apparently due to a "Blind Idiot" Translation.
- The Problem with Licensed Games: When he did his top 10 worst NES/Famicom games his #10 spot showed a game which he accused of causing the flood of bad licensed games based on Anime and Toys on the Famicom.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: All of the tracks he used are this. Chrontendo episode 38 marks the moment when he showed where he got his soundtrack from in the credits.
- Refuge in Audacity: When he reviewed Animal Attack Gakauen in episode 27, he noted that a lot of Japanese video game programmers hide their bad programming skills by using wacky themes. Also exaggerated in episode 46 when he reviewed Monster Party, as he said that the game was very incompetently programmed but that in the end it was so wacky that you could not help but loving it. In the end he tied it up with the NES adaptation of Willow as the best game he played during the episode because of how creative and original Monster Party was.
- Rule 63: He noted in Faria that the main character is female and that the character looks like Aldo from the Ys series in Chrontendo episode 46.
- Sequelitis: He found that a lot of Nintendo games suffer from this.
- Donkey Kong 3 was the first of such. He found it to look more like a 2D-shooter than an actual platformer when he reviewed it in Chrontendo episode 2.
- He found Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels to be more of a ROM-hack than an actual sequel as of chrontendo episode 8.
- He also said about Zelda II: The Adventure of Link that he could not forgive Nintendo for making a generic action game with RPG elements in Chrontendo episode 14.
- So Bad, It's Good:
- The first Famicom adaptation of Fist of the North Star in Chrontendo episode 10. He said that it is just mindless fun to punch people and look at how awful the graphics and sound effects are.
- The video game Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken is this too. He mentioned that in a lot of ways the game is ahead of its time due to the fact that you can kill pedestrians, go through cities in a non-linear fashion (even if you have to pay money for the privilege) and gamble but that the bad controls and that the aspect of running around looking for clues in random spots is just not at all appealing. He ended up calling it "an unplayable relic of its era". He reviewed that one in Chrontendo episode 14.
- Stealth Parody: His Chron-CD-I preview is this.
- The Stinger: From Chrontendo episode 32 onward and finishing with Chrontendo episode 38 every Chrontendo episode had one (with the exception of chrontendo episode 37). It was usually a fragment of a TV show, film or music video that he was talking about in the episode itself.
- Top Ten List: He made a top 10 worst NES/Famicom games list with games created for the console made in between 1983 and 1987.
- Values Dissonance: He noted one in Chrontendo episode 4 while reviewing The Tower of Druaga. He said in that video that Japanese gamers are in general more patient than Western ones and seem to be OK with RPG's that use long and extensive level grinding in order to get some ultimate reward at the end.
