I’ve been deep in the mines. I should have spaced these apart because they already run together in my mind.
Vasteel 2
Human remains this blindspot in my Gameknowledge but always seems to bring quality. This game lets you know the bad guys are bad when they incinerate the surface (and the mom) of the main character’s home planet. They have green ships and are Zeon coded of course.
I played one battle where my pilots missed a lot of shots and my two mechs got blown up. There were a lot of orders that I barely understood if I am being honest. Imagine if I studied any of the words I saw in these games instead of just stumbling through right before bed.
It seems good. I liked it more when I turned off animations, which were not very impressive and slow. The menu system is mouse based which isn’t great. If the menus were a little snappier and more intuitive to use (I could not make sense of any of the stats or why I had to select the weapons before my shot) or if it wasn’t very easy to just move your unit and then end their turn (you have to move away to select your target, mouse controls!) I’d be more inclined to play more.
Maybe someone can give it a try in an emulator with…PC Engine Mouse Support? Is that a thing? I remember when @vastlecania was trying to play Mario Paint it was an absolute pain to get the mouse working.
It does have a Dos Prompt when you start the game to see what accessories you have attached to your PC Engine. That was cool.
J League Tremendous Soccer 94
Think this is the first Soccer game for the system I’ve reviewed. Have we talked about how they call it Soccer in Japanese? Hell Yeah. America Wins Again. USA USA USA. Funny I mention USA because they are not featured in this game at all.
It’s all Japan Leagues and it’s NBA Jam style. All tackles and kicks and you gotta run if you got the ball because the computer wants to hurt you bad. The field is full of players and you can swap them out and change formations but who knows if that matters. Probably Scratch does, but he’s not playing this game I am.
It was fun and shallow in my one exhibition game. I got beat 0-2 because getting to take a shot was a rare thing and I kept hitting the overhead shot instead of the straight one. If there had been less than a real amount of players on the field I think this would be more fun.
Popful Mail
I went ahead and started this because of another game that deserves a seperate post almost ruined my night. I’ve previous played the Sega CD version, which any Hard Core Gamer will hurry to tell you is different. In the PC Engine version you can only bump attack. It’s fun and quick. More games should be bump attack. As opposed to Xanadu’s tedium this is Falcom at their best. Beautiful, voiced cutscenes, bouncy music, fun characters.
The problem is it is still Popful Mail and the structure is still tediously move across the world map multiple times to slowly trigger the next story beat.
That first song is really good though.
Mediocre Action RPGs are really the theme of the year. Well that and girl’s in Leotards.
BASTED
I think I love Basted. It’s a dumb ass horny game. Travel around basically a RPG-Maker world to trigger beautfully voiced cutscenes with boobs on display (you are still two clicks from boobs from that click (I haven’t even see naked boobs in the game yet.) the battle system is trash, but there are only story battles in the game. You refill your life at the end of each of them. You can choose Sword Girl or Magic Girl. Then you play single screen bad Zelda.
The two heroes are constantly bickering, they somehow procured the BASTED braclet and have thus been charged with saving this kingdom they were teleported today. I swear I kept hearing them say “Tokyo” so maybe they’ve been double isekai’d? Don’t hold me to that. The separate post game really taxed my Japanese.
The game is filled with jokes because these two girls are horny as hell. They interrupt Boss Enemy’s speeches because they are hornt for them. In true Manzai style one of them will be the straight girl telling them to stay focused.
Upon entering the first town the first NPC says “This town is Marzapan. Oh…uhh… you’re saying I’m nice? And must be a feminist?” I’ve been trying to parse that one. The mayor’s daughter’s boyfriend might be dumb, but he knows how to hold Button II to go really fast. Let me tell you, he does indeed go really fast, and you can to. We’re talking holding fast forward in an emulator fast. It’s a dream really.
That town eventually gets destroyed by the empire and you encounter a surprising level of death and destruction and a few attempted Bad Thing. It’s implied more than shown/stated. Then immediately tries to go back to Joke Town.
I think I am going to see it all the way through. Best you can hope for in these late years of the PC Engine, Almost an Anime shit action game. If you lose the fight you see the girls in an almost state of undress then the battle starts again. Thanks Game!
And the music is cool and weird. I gotta chart all the non Ys action-RPGs I’ve played recently but think Basted is at the top for Had A Good Time.
When I get the energy: I played Alnam no Kiba! It ruined me!