I knew this game wasn’t very good, but because it has a fan translation, I wanted to give it a fair try. It’s an Ys-like with feudal flavoring. My big issue with it is that it requires an gratuitous amount of grinding, literally pressing my body up against the enemy. The world has a closed, linear structure, so that means I have to kill one hundred enemies in a part of the world, level-up and buy equipment, then kill two hundred in the next part. At first, this didn’t seem so bad because I was able to move the plot along every 10 minutes or so. I leveled up, found a hoe, got a gem, and made it through a confusing forest. That came to a screeching halt when I made it to the next area.
Here, I slowly realized that I would be trapped for at least an hour, bumping into the same enemies. Why? In order to move the plot, I would need to purchase a katana. This weapon costs 800 gold. Killing an enemy gives me around 2 or 3 gold. At my current level, I could only do damage to two enemies: gorillas and spiders. If the spiders touched me, that meant I was poisoned and would no longer heal automatically, so that left me to the gorillas. Even though I could kill them, they could still very easily kill me simply by turning around for a second or two. I was horrified to learn that I couldn’t go back to the first area with weaker monsters. The secret passageway through the woods was one-way only. I was doomed.
and then I played for 90 more minutes. It was such a waste! I learned things like how to get enemies to spawn where I wanted them and just what armor I needed to buy to stop getting hurt. There’s a nice girl in town who asks for help and heals me whenever I show up. When I finally beat the boss in the Rainbow Tower, I came back to find that monsters killed her. This is a great metaphor for how playing this game is preventing me from noticing more important things like the sun and the breeze. Don’t be like me. Don’t make my mistakes.
I almost have nothing to say about this one. It’s so boring! Getting through the stage is a cakewalk and then the boss always has a homing spread fire that’s tricky to dodge. The sunset stage is beautiful until you realize that bullets are the same orange color as the background. I really liked the game over song. I can’t find the PC Engine version, but here’s the arcade’s:
This is a Keith Courage-quality game. Platforming feels awful, lots of hits feel unavoidable, and it’s just really ugly. I watched part of a longplay and saw that there really isn’t a good way to play it. It’s a collaboration with manga artist Akira Miyashita. He’s famous for Sakigake Otokojuku, which I’ve never come across before. I guess that’s him in the red bandana.
Looking at one of my guide books and it is fucking nuts they released the CD add on roughly a year into the PcEngine’s life and it had whatever 10 games on it as is.
You can easily fit every single HuCard release on a single CD-ROM
Developing for this pioneering system was not straightforward. Hard drives didn’t come in 540-megabyte models back then (the one I got with my first PC in 1992 was only 120MB), so — as veteran game developer Satoshi Mikami described to Dorimaga in 2003 — Hudson’s developers had to string several drives together to create a “CD-ROM² emulator” to work with. The equipment cost alone went into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each individual dev workstation. CD-Rs didn’t exist yet, either (the standard for them wasn’t defined until 1988), so if you wanted to test a game out on a real PCE, you had to copy all the CD-ROM data to tape storage and send it off to the factory for pressing, which cost the equivalent of a cool $10,000 or so per cycle.
These system card upgrades also gave PCE users a unique, unintended bonus — the incorrect-version warning screen. Boot up a Super CD game with an under-3.0 system card, and a screen pops up giving you a wrong-version error. These screens started out purely functional, but as time went on, they became more and more elaborate, featuring characters from the game in humorous situations or visuals that had nothing to do with the release at all.
Crucially, it also adds save functionality to games, so players didn’t have to copy 40-digit string passwords anymore.
yeah, i even have some hucard games that save to the interface unit (soldier blade, bomberman 93, the fire pro wrestling games)
there is also a peripheral specifcally for saving, though it takes the place of the interface unit so you can’t use both. and i think there was a second version that let you save AND use av cables. in case you wanted those features, but you were also 1000% sure that you didn’t want to ever play cd-based games
the cd version of altered beast specifically requires the version 1.0 system card, which is the rarest one, as it wasn’t sold seperately (as far as i know), and was very quickly replaced by the 2.1 card as the standard.
This is a strip mahjong game. There’s a panic button so you can pretend you are playing an RPG. Luckily, I’m not good enough at mahjong to see anything too risque for my youthful eyes. I just got to see my opponent make funny faces. A year later, FACE would publish a mild version of the game, apparently at NEC’s direction. Also, this is a port of an arcade game? How could someone play this in public? Also, also! if you play far enough in the game, you get to do POV fights against a couple of thugs. I wish I could’ve seen that…
I wonder if we could get @VastleCania to write about all the golf games from this year…but I don’t want to distract from the important streaming they’re doing. Hmmmm
there’s also just more visible porn in Japan. or…there used to be, anyway. idk how things look these days
edit: however, in high school, a lot of pool halls/bars had those shitty touchscreen games, and one of the games was a “find the difference” matching game that has nudity and my friends and i definitely just played that without hesitation in the pool hall, so…
There were plenty of strip Mahjong Arcade Games. They usually had their own little corner of the candy cabs. Might still have an arcade focused on this on New Shinbashi Building. That place also has the most blatant prostitution solicitation I’ve ever gotten in Japan. Good memories of seeing the porno mahjong games. I’ll reveal here that I saw the porno mahong game and tried to look up how risque it got and so risque that both Youtube and NicoNico videos went “woah sorry viewers I gotta censor this.” Considering that first person you’re playing is clearly underage yikes! The arcade version I could find footage of and there were butts and boobs in pixels.
Now I am all sad about how arcades are dead. Remember a lot of arcades all over Tokyo now. Sigh.
1989 is when we start getting GOLF GAMES. So tonight I tried some GOLF GAMES.
Winning Shot: i had played one hole before a tired and stressed from work Lady Rude took the controller and proceeded to play several holes. It’s the first golf game for the PC Engine! It has 4 player multitap play. This one is pretty bad you have no way to judge how far any shot will go and just gotta trust what club the game defaults each shot for. Also your character has stats that are probably doing damage to your ability. Holes got a bit more interesting. The best part is the attract mode when you turn on the game and don’t touch anything and hear 8bit Casiopea.
1 out of 5 Neo Turf Masters
Ganbare Golf Boys is immediately more NES-y. You also have to enter a name and then leave the Pin Number Blank to start a match. Second option is just stroke play. This one is worse. Can you tell I am writing this in real time. Same no judging on shots. The wind effects are way more extreme and it suggests you can also have weather. This one does not point the ball towards the hole so you have to set that and club and the strength on a swing meter that moves way to god damn fast to accurately hit. It took me 15 shots to finish hole 1. Not even a mercy scratch. I was going to play these all for 9 holes but this one has to show the scorecard with a jingle between each hole and I might lose my mind. I could be playing good games. If you enter the Pin Numbet さいごみたい you can watch the ending. Made me feel like a winner moving on after 3 holes.
0 out of 5 Neo Turf Masters
Power Golf
Hudson Soft save me. It is impossible to shoot a straight shot in this one too. Best presentation so far. Do not recommend. Send plaid pants I need help.
1 out of 5 Neo Turf Masters
Gunhed you know what sucks? GOLF. I’m playing Gunhed. I don’t even really like Star Soldier-likes but this is better than my last hour. While I certainly don’t want to do that again. Think I save-stated through this on the Mini? Too many powerups to keep track of and avoid and eventually gets to make the enemies impossibly fast and dense. Just wait till I start saying bad things about Blazing Lazers. Is this even a Star Soldier like? It is neat to see all the things ZeroRanger is referencing. I am being given a note now, oh this is Blazing Lazers! And Compile. Thar explains most of my feelings. Thanks BL you are better than the early golf games. Well Back To Golf!
Naxat Open
The best playing so far. I still ended the front half at +35 because the putting is impossible. Video Game Putting huh? You heard about this stuff. But seriously I got better aim after a couple of drinks and making sure I don’t hit the seat. This music is annoying as hell. What I do to myself for this thread instead of listening to Omnigone and Catbite.
2 (barely) of 5 Neo Turf Masters
Jack Nichalus’s 18 Greatest Holes of Golf
Hell yes Western PC Game port in full 7 polygon 3D rendered for your pleasure. Wow this plays better than the others. Slow as heck. Thank you Jack! Putting sucks.
2 of 5 Neo Turf Masters
Super Albatross for the CD Rom Rom
I played a full 18 holes of this. The CD music is fun. You pick your club and aim your ball then just hold A to no meter and let go when you feel like it. Outside of the putting was pretty great. I should mention here at the end you can play as a girl in most of these games. Does that change your stats who knows I fucking suck at golf games. Did you read that +35 up there that’s not a good score. Super Albatross you’re the Golf Game of 1989 on the PC Engine.
3 out of 5 Neo Turf Masters
I actually like Compile games in general but their power ups are too much and here is even too much by regular Compile standards. I dig the spectacle of Blazing Lazers but it’s definitely a game worth picking up, but also a game worth putting down.
Blazing Lazers is one of the few STGs that I have 1CC’d. They throw so many extends at you and those first three stages are so easy that it felt doable. I’m glad I did it! Those later stages are rad. I really like the one with bubbles in it.
