PC Engine: WELCOME TO THE IDEAL WORLD!

[MintyJuffowup]

I wanna get concussed up in here. Hell yeah, buddy, let’s start puking and stuff, take a nap that lasts hella long.

Battle Royale

American only release alert! This game was only released in America! Battle Royale is a wrestling game designed specifically for the multitap. Five people can mash I and II to kick and punch until they’re ready to throw each other off screen. It’s not great playing alone, but it’s my fault for playing it wrong.

Maniac Pro Wrestling

The pictures make this game look hot as hell. But you only get these pictures by picking moves from a menu. This is a wrestling game where the action is menu-based. I choose kicks, grapples, and throws. Throws seem to work 90% of the time and I wind up winning by TKO. Then I can spend points on exercising and learning new moves. I’m not very interested in doing that!!

TV Sports Football

This football game is just okay. Well, look, I’ve never watched football, not on purpose. But I get the gist. There’s a weird thing about this we’re the QB will move automatically if I don’t press anything, but I can also choose to move him around and throw the ball for him. Throwing the ball is pretty great. When I stand still, a dotted line points up, and I can move it around. If I press I, that starts the throw, but I have to keep it held down or it won’t travel far. It’s a little bit like Yoshi’s Island in that way. Later, Madden gets released for the PC Engine. I can’t wait to compare!

[thegodofpoverty]

Is that Shannon Tweed or Tane McClure up there in Battle Royale there?

[Rudie]

2 Days left in the month. I totally forgot to play kikikaikai. Oh well. Also as my post above it is impossible to rank Space Invaders.

Rudie's list of Best to Worst for shooters on the PC Engine 1990

Not Ranked: Space Invaders
Not a Shooter: Hanii In The Sky

Download
Image Fight
Aero Blaster
W Rings
Darius Alpha/Plus/Super

Atomic Robo Kid
Super Star Soldier 2 Min
Dead Moon
Kikikaikai
Xevious

After Burner 2
Veiglles
Paranoia
Cyber Core
Final Zone 2

Cross Wyber Cyber Combat Police shooting stages

Operation Wolf
Rabio Lepus Special
Burning Angels
Toy Shop Boys
Daisenpuu

Barunba
Saint Dragon
Final Blaster
Maerchen Maze
Thunder Blade

Avenger
Psycho Chaser
Violent Soldier
Armed F

Legion Kusoge Level.

Armed F is definitely the worst one. I get mad just thinking about it. Fuck Armed F!

Legion is of course Kusoge which is different from a bad game or a worst game.

[Rudie]

Hi @notbov .

I played Valis 3. I got to the roman collumns water level. Which is some kusoge horseshit. Up until then it is pretty fun for a D-rate game. I guess it is maybe boosted by how bad platformers are so far on the PC Engine (if I ignore the good ones). It’s got anime girls and talking though! Something about the Magic World and the Other World. Yuuko’s gotta fight a guy. Oh good I can continue from a reset in this game I could go back and try to beat it before the end of the year.

It reminded me of playing all the Valis games through on my xbox years and years ago. The same frustrations came over me. This is exactly how the games should be play, in an emulator with zero expectations or effort. You really do have to force your brain and personality around this thing if you had bought it at the time. VALIS Collection 1 and 2 now on Switch.

Kikikaikai
Hey this is great. I love the pc engine’s sound chip being twisted to sound Japanese spooky. Will update my list. I even went back to try Avenger again why was it so low on-my-oh that’s right. It sucks.

Madou King Granzort
I was showing off the mister to a friend and they messed around with the PC Engine core back in December. They loaded this up and in less than a minute I was standing on their couch screaming “VIDEO GAMES” and they were going “Alright Come On!” as they quit the game forever.

[MintyJuffowup]

I’m also waiting for a year with fewer releases when I can return to Valis III. There’s a part where you try to jump over a gap again and again. Your head hits the rocky ceiling and you fall into the pit. You keep thinking, maybe I need to do a running jump, maybe I’m not close enough to the edge, do I jump farther if I hold up while jumping? Then you realize, you have to crouch slide over the gap. It’s a beautiful moment in video games

[notbov]

only 2 of the 4 generals of Valis III have been mentioned here

if you can surmount the canal passage, can you survive the ice level?

@MintyJuffowup

Then you realize, you have to crouch slide over the gap.

I have heard second hand that there was a Kusogrande match with Valis III and everyone got filtered by this for the hour

I love how there’s been no mention that the input for slide is down+run

[MintyJuffowup]

Let’s just sweep up the remaining 9, shall we?

Bomberman/Bomberman Users Battle

The whole month I was planning on hosting some Bomberman, but then I never did. There’s a single-player campaign, but I always lose my concentration with it. I just plant bombs and walk back and forth hoping for my timing to be just right. I think I’d have a lot more fun playing against human beings! There’s a special multiplayer only version of the card that was for demo kiosks and tournaments. I want to say single player gets more exciting with '93.

Batman

Get the funk up, Batman. This is kind of like Cratermaze and Bomberman, except I throw baterangs and then walk into enemies. I played through ten stages on the city streets, picking up cans and whatnot. Then I went into the museum. I lost my mind when I realized Batman’s job was to wipe all the paintings clean.

Die Hard

That’s right, Batman is not the only Japanese-only US movie tie-in. This game is decidedly worse than Bloody Wolf and Last Alert, but still better than Final Zone II. I know that statement is only helpful to maybe three people here, but there you go. The game doesn’t even start in Nakatomi Plaza. I have to trudge through a swamp to get there. McClane seems to have something to say whenever he enters a room, and it works.

Deko Boko Densetsu

When I was imagining a Bomberman night, I also imagined this game would be thrown in there, alongside Battle Royale. It’s a crummy five-player racing game that’s a little bit like Bump n Jump. You know, the game where you bump cars and jump over holes. You can buy upgrades in this, but I did so poorly in the first race, I could only afford weak missiles. This is best suffered through with friends.

Devil’s Crush
I’m really surprised nobody picked this up this month. I like it more than Alien Crush! There’s something about hitting the demon lady’s face again and again, watching it distort more and more, that’s just appealing to me.

F1 Circus

When I played through the practice laps, I thought this game was too hard. The cars go incredibly face and I kept bumping into walls. When I got to the actual race however, I found that it was fairly balanced. The computer racers aren’t that much better than me. The only problem I had was I kept crashing into opponents and I’d have to go to the pit to make repairs. Still, I love the characterization of the miniature people and towns.

Magical Dinosaur Tour

Here is some nice educational software about dinosaurs. The credits that roll after the segment speculating on extinction events is oddly melancholic. Farewell, dinosaurs. It was your planet for far longer than it’ll probably be for us.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

This was only released in Japan but there’s an option for English (except for the reference text). For those who don’t know, the concept is a novel one. You are searching for an international thief. You get hints from locals about which country they’ve fled to. Hints are usually something like “Their plane had a red and white flag” or “They said they wanted to go fishing in Lake Titicaca.” You try to move to the next locale as fast as you can before they can move and you arrest them. This is actually pretty lame, but it made me want to play the 90s releases I remember my older sister playing.

And there we have it! All 1990 releases have been mentioned! I want to say this year had the most releases out of the PC Engine’s lifespan.

[Rudie]

I also always get bored by Bomberman single player! People say there are good ones too! Must happen between the first 40 seconds where you slowly bomb out your hole.

Congrats collectively playing. More of y’all should join in! Minty and I left batman and die hard alone expecting one of y’all to jump on it. I did play some Devil’s Crush of course. It’s the first to drop out of people’s mouths when we talk Video Game Pinball!

Wish I could take screen shots which I could if I bothered to have a keyboard hooked up to the mister. Then ftp’d them to my laptop for upload. Too many steps!

Onwards to 1991!!!

[Rudie]

I uh…went back to the mister

This was my FIRST TRY.

[boojiboy7]

I did play die hard and devils crush, but had no time to write anything about them.

Die Hard is hilarious for starting you off in what might as well be a Nam game. It’s very odd.

[MintyJuffowup]

Have you tried the full game? I was trying to save state my way through it yesterday but it really gets insanely difficult. I’m up to Stage 6 and feel at a total loss for how to get through everything it throws at you.

[Rudie]

Die Hard was clearly supposed to be a Rambo and they got the wrong license.

I also played that Batman game, pretty good. It’s got the Sunsoft song.

[boojiboy7]

Yeah, they tried to make it Die Hard, but I really don’t remember John McClane approaching Nakatomi Plaza through the wetland jungles of Los Angeles.

[HOBO]

Devil's Crush - Main Stage Theme - Extended - TurboGrafx-16 - OST

Mods can we have this song autoplay whenever someone enters this thread, it would be the #1 way to make people truly understand the power and majesty of the PC Engine and, also, Satan

[MintyJuffowup]

New month, new year! Back in March, I said I thought 1989 was the best year. Looking forward, I’m thinking that honor might truly go to 91. In 89, the landmark releases were mostly all done by Hudson. By 91, the PC Engine has accrued a stable of capable designers and programmers. Even Masaya starts getting good. Most importantly, this is the first year that Konami starts releasing games for the consoles. This is also the year that the SUPER CD-ROM ROM is released.

Here’s the wheel: Wheel of Names
Have fun everybody!

[MintyJuffowup]

Gulclight TDF-2

Strategy game kusoge. This is a Data West/Pack-In-Video joint production, so you know you’re getting quality. I start with little background into what’s going on. It appears I have a space fleet and I have to blow up 6 kaiju to beat the first mission. Many attacks miss. The opponent typically takes away half of my health vs the fifth I take off theirs. Putting units on standby heals them. I realize that the only way I’m going to beat this mission is if I target one unit at a time and carefully retreat my own to preserve my ranks. I hate this so much.

I’m not even going to post pictures because it looks so boring. Instead, I’m going to share the incredible song that greets you when you meet the start screen.

GulClight TDF2 - Ingame 1

OverRide

This one grew on me the more I played it. In short, it comes across as Data East does Image Fight. There are a variety of power-ups and it even includes the watch-my-six weapon from Image Fight. The aesthetic is a bit bland, but that blandness betrays thoughtful enemy positioning and mechanics. After beating the second boss, I rested my hands and realized that the ship has a special charge weapon if I don’t fire. Dying doesn’t feel like a game over because power-ups are constantly flying onscreen. OverRide is just nice like that.

Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu

The best PC Engine platformers have celebrities with huge heads. It’s just a little rule that Hudson made sure to slip in their deal with NEC. This game was made by some Adventure Island people and a couple of guys who worked on the ports of Genpei Touma Den and Bravoman. So, you know, there’s real talent behind it. I’m wavering somewhere between loving and hating it. The stages are far too long with not much change in between. But the first boss really pushes me towards love. It’s a statue in the back of a candle-lit temple. His hands move around in wacky ways while a fireball chases you. Just delightful. I also got a kick out of hitting frogs to get rice. I assume I’m doing the Heimlich because they’re much happier after I do it.

Cadash

I’m on an emotional rollercoaster with this game. It starts off with great cartooning and the ability to play with two people. Then I get into the action of the cave and see how devious this can be. It’s hack and slash, like a Rastan, but with spells and items. I make my way through the first two floors easily enough, then I come across a 45 degree slope. There’s a skeleton walking from below. I try to hit him but he’s got a shield up. Then a skeleton comes up from behind me and I’m surrounded. It seems the best way is to just eat some damage by awkwardly jumping over the one below me. Odd…Later there’s a small stretch where spiders shoot sticky, poisonous webs. I hate these ten feet of horror. After a half hour of puzzling through it, I was able to complete the first cave. I feel great, like nothing can stop me.

I learned that Taito made extensive substitutions for naughty names in the arcade version. You can see examples here.

If anyone is up for it, I’d really like to play this with someone!

[Rudie]

1991 definitely feels like the best year so far. It is a banner year for shooters, Corcon, Spriggan, Magical Chase, KONAMI. Ys 3 and Exile at least on the CD Side. Excited. Exile is my #1 to beat this month.

Quiz Avenue
Starting off 1991 right with the first Quiz game for the system and the first Quiz Avenue game of the year as they released the sequel before the year was out. This one has a horrible Dragon Quest mode that I failed multiple times as I got 4 questions in a row about the sexual characteristics of pill bugs among many other questions I didn’t know the answer to. One of the other questions was along the lines of

“In Roving Roger what was the dog’s name”

One of the answers was “Chappie” so I got to go “That’s Chappie”. I was wrong. I also don’t know what fucking magazines different manga were in and if you do you’re a stone cold NERD.

Another question

“What was Atom Boy’s Butt’s power?”

I thought it was a machine gun! I was wrong!

“Which Kaiju did Ultraman Not kill”
Green Moss, Sanbowler, shiibosu

“What movie did Jack Nicholson win an academy award for?”

“What part of the califlower plant do you eat?”

It has a normal quiz party mode for up to 5 players to compete. It really just gave me like 11 Ultraman questions in a row, wish @boojiboy7 had been there to save me. Might stream this one since it is such a huge range of information and in retroarch I could pause to parse the question just a bit easier. Half the time it would buzzer as I reached the end of the question. I don’t read native fast but I read okay and on average god damn they expect you to read way faster in a quiz game than…literally any other video game text crawl.

I keep forgetting to mention these CD games almost universally have “developer” voice acting. Just monotone saying the line into whatever passed for a microphone in 1988.

Racing Damashii
Nice scrolling. By IREM. I could not figure out a way to stop drifting into the barrier on every turn. I slowed down, I braked hard then just went bam into the barrier. Gave up and moved on.

SCI
This is better! Way better. The civilian cars are dangerous unknowable violent ghosts as you try to catch up to your perp so you can shoot their car. Can this compare to having player Lucky and Wild? Not really. But fun, until you get to stage 3 where the other cars slam you into the side of a mountain and you slowly scoot back over to get through the tunnel. That sucked.

TV Sports Football
This might be the worst football game I’ve ever played. The linebackers run into each other and then don’t fucking move at all, just an unmovable wall. To give this game any more of my time would be a crime.

[Rudie]

It’s wild when we post within a minute of each other.

[MintyJuffowup]

It happens way more than you would think considering we live on opposite ends of the world.

[wourme]

1991 was the year of

And I just finished playing it through. I could never beat it when I was younger and didn’t have save states, though I came pretty close. Even now, I got the bad ending because I didn’t know there was a locked door like in Bubble Bobble. (From the hint it gives I assume you have to get three star cards to acquire the key to the final world.)