Back when I was young (hard for me to remember that far back, but I’ll try) I had moved to New Jersey. Now, don’t get me wrong, I really like New Jersey. Now. But then again, I also have a fond spot in my heart for Texas, and we all know what they say about Texas (Beers, Steers, and what now?)

Anyway, I was young, and a new kid in a new place. By the chance alphabetization of last names, I quickly befriended Jon, a great guy with a great last name. Anyway, I remember that Jon had an Apple IIGS. It was a great computer. I was jealous. My family had an Apple //e but that couldn’t come close to matching the amazing 320×200 (well, 640×200 under special circumstances) graphics on that thing.

One of the games Jon had was Thexder. It was amazing. Great sound. Great graphics. And a giant robot. At the time my friends and I were all into Robotech (uh, Macross, sorry I forgot no true Anime fan would ever watch Robotech!) so this game where you could change from a jet (just like Robotech!) to a Robot (just like Robotech!) was awesome!! The game was hard. I don’t know that any of us ever beat level 2. But we sure did play a lot of level 2. And the music. The music was great. To this day Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is one my favorite classical songs. (It doesn’t hurt that it was also the B-side for Little 15.)

So, for a good portion of my life I was convinced that Jon was cool because Thexder was cool. It is the transitive property of coolness and “my friend has a cool computer”. Actually, truth be told that is still why I think Jon is cool. I imagine him hanging out in Tonetown, having Tass Times even now with Sabrina in tow.

Anyway, I decided today to browse the PS3 network on my Japanese account and see what they had. Mostly I wanted to buy Flower for the PS3 (I did, and got Lumines Supernova while I was at it) but then I saw Thexder NEO. What what what??

It is a remake for PSP and PS3 I suppose. I downloaded the demo. It was exactly how I remember it: really hard and frustrating with amazing graphics (now updated and 3d) and sound (still old and 8bit and awesome.)

I checked around, and it seems to be getting uniformly awful reviews (even on blogs!) That is too bad. I mean, I agree with the criticisms, but come on!

Jon is still cool!!