This day is meant to celebrate animals that live in the water in general. From the tiniest plankton to the mightiest blue whale. Aquatic animals are very diverse. They are vertebrates and invertebrates. They can breathe in the water or air. They can come in a variety of forms.
This day was created in 2010 by the Animal Law Clinic at the Lewis & Clark Animal Law School in Portland, Oregon. They created this day to promote the protection of marine life. Marine life does face its fair share of threats, from overhunting to global warming. Marine biodiversity is very important for things like helping maintain water quality and even food security.
If you want to learn more about this day, you can do so here and here. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time!
On this day, 11 years ago, I started this here little blog.
Since then, I have used this blog to express my thoughts on various topics related to things I like, like video games, movies, and comic books. I have written Text Plays on various Pokémon fangames, and I've even written a couple of short stories on here.
I have only two words I want to say to all of you that have been regular readers of this blog: Thank You. Thank you so much for enjoying my silly quiet little corner of the Internet. I hope you have all enjoyed my little blog entries, and I also hope you all continue to do so in the future. Here's to another 11 years! Rock on!
In 1981, Konami developed the side-scrolling shooting game Scramble. This game was Konami's first major hit, and it was a rather important game. This game was the first shooter with forced scrolling (meaning the game forced you to move forward), and distinct levels. It would also pave the way for one of the most iconic side-scrolling series of games of all time: Gradius. In fact, the first Gradius game was intended to be a sequel to Scramble. It's why Konami considers Scramble the spiritual predecessor to Gradius.
Gradius pioneered the "power-up bar". Whereas in other shooters, the player can pick up a variety of power-ups that have different effects, the Gradius has only one power-up item. By picking up a certain number of these items, the player can choose the effect from a bar on the bottom of the screen. Later games (starting with Gradius III) would allow the player to choose what combination of effects before starting the game.
Over the decades, the series would make its way out of arcades and into various home consoles and computers. It would also get spin-offs, most famously Salamander(If you ever played the NES game Life Force, that was the first Salamander).
It has been announced that a collection of the early Gradius games is in the works for the Nintendo Switch. This collection contains the first three mainline Gradius games, the first two Salamander games, as well as Life Force. And it has a special surprise. Let's look at the trailer!
That music is awesome!
M2? Yeah, they're the guys behind those Sega Ages ports of old Sega games. I have their ports of the first Phantasy Star and the first two Sonic games they did on my Switch. They're great ports of fun games.
They also did the "3D Classics" Sega game ports for the 3DS back in the day.
A third Salamander game?! Neat! And it looks really cool!
It's insane how many versions some of these games have. It would be neat to see the differences, though. And I'll get to play Life Force on my Switch. I have it on my 3DS. I am wondering why the SNES version of Gradius III isn't included, though.
A rewind feature is only welcome in this house. As well as an easy mode. I like easy modes.
A training mode, too? They're really going all out to make the games more welcoming to people. That's a good thing.
Well, this looks like another great addition to my Switch library. I am a bit familiar with the Gradius series, thanks to having Life Force on my 3DS, and also having Gradius Galaxies on my GBA. As such, I am excited for this. I'm looking forward to playing some of these games. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time!
April Fools' Day is the day of jokes and pranks. The exact origin of this holiday is unknown, but one theory is that it may be linked to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. One of these tales is of a rooster that got tricked by a fox. It was believed the fox tricked the rooster on April 1.
Regardless, I hope you had a good day today, and managed to avoid getting pranked too badly.
