believe this is a sort of precursor to langrisser and is set in the same universe?
on that subject i always kinda hoped the pcengine cd langrisser 1 remake would get translated, got some Sick Redbook
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Yep, it’s the sequel to Elthlead and set in Gaia. I’ve never actually touched a Langrisser.
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Two Japanese-only, untranslated JRPGs
Susano-ou Densetsu
This one is based off a Go Nagai series, which means it’s twisted. The machine translation was not so great here and I wound up getting confused a lot. Menus were a problem, too, but this seems like one of the more interesting JRPGs from the year.
Battles are an unusual mix of action and turn-based strategy. When a monster on the overfield touches me, the view zooms in. Now, I can either try attacking them with long range weapons or move closer to the edge of the screen. If I make it to the edge, I can run away from a few or all of the enemies I encounter. I really wish I could see how this positioning evolves over the course of the game, but I wasn’t able to parse most of the dialogue.
Benkei Gaiden
On the other hand, Benkei Gaiden came out clearly through the machine translation. It was on par with a rushed translation from that time. I could probably beat the whole game if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. There are really intense encounter rates, equal to Jaseiken Necromancer. That means fighting every three steps or so. What made these encounter rates worse is that the enemies and I are very spongy. Battles would take at least 5 turns to conclude and it was just me and the enemy hitting each other back and forth forever. That’s a shame because I really liked the monster designs in this one.
10 Likes
GUNHEAD SPECIAL EDITION
2 Minute: 228330
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I played two boxing games!
Bull Fight - Ring no Hasha
This one is pretty interesting. There’s a Champion mode where I can choose my boxer and my trainer. The trainer gives tips before the fight about what to do. They also give encouragement and other tips on the fly. I might have had a better time if I could understand what they were saying.
There’s also a Fight mode where I don’t even start at the arena. Instead, I’m on the street, punching out every goon that comes up to me. I can buy items, but I have no idea how to use them. The fights in the arena are way to hard for me. I have no read on my opponent and I get taken out in a minute.
I’m better at this game, but it’s really boring! At first glance, it looks like Punch-Out!! but it’s much simpler than that game. I have fewer techniques available and the opponents barely have any character. I usually one matches by charging up a punch and waiting until I could hit the opponent. While charging, I can’t block or move, so I just take hits and wait. The damage of the charged punch more than makes up for all the jabs my guy gets.
11 Likes
Until DDD The Natural Playboys dethrones it Maison Ikkou is the horniest video games have ever gotten. I got into the game, opened my window, then found a man in my closet looking through a peephole. I took his wallet AND his pornography. I hit the man then looked through the peephole to see PC Engine rendered boob and nipple. I celebrated my pervert success by jumping out the window killing myself and ending the game instantly.
11 Likes
I was reading this like it was you in real life and had to do a mental double-take “o^ ^o”
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Space Adventure Cobra
This is now my most-wanted translation. You could call it a “digital comic” adaptation of Cobra. There aren’t really any puzzles or fail states. I just cycle through all of the actions in the menu, and the plot moves along. I don’t know what it is about this type of game, but it hooks me. The drip feed of new digital illustrations and minutiae are more than enough to entertain me.
This digital comic is finer than most for a couple of reasons. It’s on a CD and developed by Hudson themselves. There’s voiced dialogue and nice tunes. I played the first section, which takes place on a luxury vacation spacecraft. There are several rooms I can visit: a pool, a gym, concert venue, and museum. These rooms are all linked by a single hallway where I get to watch a large, impressively-animated Cobra walk back and forth.
The plot here is that Cobra is an adventurer who is on the craft to steal a special ring that’s in a museum display. I think the ring contains a planet or something. To get the ring, I have to walk around to various rooms and swipe ID cards that give me access to more rooms. Along the way, I talk to bikini-clad ladies, including the pilot, and avoid getting killed by a bounty hunter. Just as I’m about to escape, a giant space…gator? shark? comes and starts eating guests who are enjoying a nice space walk. Soon, the entire ship is engulfed by a giant space whale. I team up with a sexy water-tennis coach and maneuver around the strange new environment on a raft.
I’m really shocked by how big this game feels. It really flexes the potential that the CD-ROM brings to the PC-Engine.
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Cobra rocks! The first movie and the '80s series are both excellent.
By the way, there’s a localized English version of the Sega CD sequel.
3 Likes
Woah, I didn’t realize the SEGA version was officially localized. I should watch the movie
1 Like
If you can get access to it, the HDR version is ludicrous and gorgeous - it’s lit as though you’re staring at the cels on a light box.
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Volfied
It’s Qix, YEAH. A piece of trivia I like to bring up with Qix is how it was made by an American husband and wife. I think that lineage gets lost in the deluge of strip qix. This one introduces some Libble Rabble elements if you can believe it. I never encountered an opportunity to split a Qix. Maybe it’s not in this one. Splitting a Qix feels so good. I recommend doing it at least once before you die.
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Take this, @Rudie !
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Take that, @vegetables !
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Valis II
Just look at that Venetian-blind-ass background
Valis II is a sequel to a PC-88 game. To me, it is one of those quintessentially PC-Engine games and bears many characteristics that can be found in other parts of its library: sloppy action platforming, sick monster designs, radical CD soundtrack, and questionable fan service. Let’s talk about each of those.
The action in this game is what I like to call “attrition-style.” There are many hits that come across as unavoidable. It is not slow and methodical like Revenge of Shinobi or Castlevania. Taking it slow is actually a disadvantage in some areas because enemies spawn constantly. To balance the caustic action, the game is mostly kind about dropping health, extending lives, and giving power-ups. Like in Gradius and R-Type, the power-ups are completely necessary for winning. I made it to the last stage with a fresh life and no power-ups and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to win. That last stage, by the way, is a slow, 3 or 5 minute elevator ride with lots of projectile-spewing monsters. Luckily, the game has a debug code that’s really easy to input, so I could get through the end with infinite health.
I love the monster designs in this. The cutscenes show lots of gory dismemberment and bloodspray, too. It rules to see something like this paired with horrendously corny voice-acting.
Like most CD games, the soundtrack is filled to the brim with top-shelf jams.
Last, the fanservice. This is yet another Turbografx game that sexualizes high school girls. This game is not as egregious as others, the main character just wears bikini battle armor, but Telenet would later publish an entry from a hentai studio. Not a great outcome!
So yeah, I will be playing the rest of the series on the PC Engine. Don’t worry, Valis X did not taint this beautiful console. Will the action ever get better? We’ll see!
7 Likes
Battle Aces: first SuperGrafx game unless there is another one. A first person AfterBurner like. Your missiles constantly restock. It’s cool. Then you get hit and have to watch the 10 second death animation before you respawn at checkpoint. That sucks. Might watch a longplay just to see the hijinks.
Out Live: the mook description didn’t fill me with excitement. First person scifi dungeon crawl. Then the title screen is like this sick metroid/alien tune. You get a 3 page letter or something I wasn’t paying attention it was late. Then presented with a shop or leave menu and you get in your mech and wonder down a minimalist corridor. The “slime” enemy will kill you in six hits and you can hopefully kill it in two. You keep returning to base to pay 30 credits to recharge. It seems like the math is absolutely fucked. I think six slimes comes out to 100 credits. You wonder around the maze until you bump into a prompt that says door and you go through to a different colored maze with more damaging “slimes”. Die and you are out half your credits. I just played very briefly because again the mister does not have save states for PC Engine and no Hu-card game has ram storage so I just have a 32 character password to put in if I want to play tomorrow.
And the game is pronounced Out (a)Live. As in the music not what you do in a place.
7 Likes
Point of correction, Valis 2 was a multiplatform release and the SCD version came a smidge later after the Japanese microcomputer versions and they’re all slightly different games
This changes with 3 and 4, which have the SCD as the lead platform and no computer versions
3 Likes