What Would Have Rocked My World Fifteen Years Ago

Promotional art for Nintendo's new virtual console. The new Nintendo console, the Wii, is purported to grant online access to a virtual library of games that appeared on the previous systems. Video game blog Kotaku posted this a week or so ago and I think it does a good job illustrating the idea, in the zany way that the Japanese often illustrate ideas. This also closely approximates how I like to imagine things like my iPod, with the potential line-up of stars mixing and mingling before they get chosen to perform next.


Because I'm nerdy about these things, I'd like to point out some of the various bygone video game heroes and villains appearing.

Starting at the top-left corner:

• Kirby, perplexingly dressed like a gladiator and holding a whip
• King Hippo from Punch-Out!!
• One of the little baddies from Balloon Fight
  
• Spike McFang (I think)
• The re-styled Donkey Kong
• The Golden Pyramid from Wario Land 4
• Firebrand the Gargoyle
• Pit, the hero of the Kid Icarus games
• Pokey, the generic cactus enemy from the Mario games
• Popo and Nana, the Ice Climbers
• The Windfish's egg, from Link's Awakening
• Birdo, sitting on top of the egg
• ProtoMan, from MegaMan
• Princess Peach, being apparently kidnapped by ProtoMan
• Pac-Man Jr. and Blinky, standing behind a gate or something
• Some weird version of Pac-Man with a hat, a phallic nose, Mario's flying raccoon tail and a cluster of Boos chasing him
• Bonk, flying a fighter jet
• A trail of Bloobers
• Mappy, the mouse cop
• The Kiwi hero from New Zealand Story
  
• The doctor character from Legend of the Mystical Ninja, which I don't think I ever actually played
• A Cheep-Cheep
• Princess Tomato
• Wart, the bad guy from Super Mario Bros. 2
• Professtor Hector from Gyromite
• Dr. Wily
• R.O.B., the Robotic Operating Buddy
• Some guy that looks like Fox McCloud but probably isn't
• Mog the Moogle
• Gannon (pig-version)
• Master Higgins from the Adventure Island games
• Triclyde, the three-headed snake from Super Mario Bros. 2
• Nack the Weasel (a.k.a. Fang the Sniper)
• The dog that laughs at you when you fail to shoot accurately in Duck Hunt
• A Bob-Omb (in the hand of some unfamiliar blue bird)
• Lakitu
• Luigi, holding a stack of "blocks" from Puyo Puyo
• The red convertible from Out Run
• Arthur from Ghouls and Ghosts
• Kaepora Gaebora
• Mr. Game and Watch
• Lolo and Lala
• Diskun (a.k.a. Mr. Disk)
• Bub from Bubble Bobble
• Mouser from Super Mario Bros. 2
• Bomberman
• A Bullet Bill
• A Piranha Plant
• A Goomba, for some reason encased in a bubble
• One of those Mega Man hard hat-wearing things, the name of which escapes me at the moment
• Cut Man, from the first Mega Man
• On Cut Man's fist, a Flicky from the Sonic games
• Clyde, the yellow Pac-Man ghost
• Two Dragon Quest slimes, emerging from the red Super Mario Bros. 2 door
• The Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3
• The Hammer Bros.
• The Snow Bros.
• Morton Koopa Jr., weilding a sword for some reason
• Beat, the little robot bird carrying the red orb thing

And with that, I'm effectively geeked out.

EDIT: I did a little bit of further research and found out the image is actually not official. It's by a British artist named Keith Webb. Cool, anyway.