naturally
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Glad Minty is having more fun with that NEXZR than me. I keep trying the score attack and wishing I was playing Star Soldier.
Ys4 Dawn of Ys
This isn’t by Falcom, but by Hudson. And isn’t the canonical Ys 4 either. Despite the fact this one opens with going to the starting town from Ys 1! Anyways Adol is off to adventure in the forests of Celceta. He’s gotta contend with ancient prophecies, the Romun (!) Empire, and town-people turning into monsters.
I’m two dungeons in and think it is alright so far. It is definitely more Ys. That it is by Hudson it is filled with Best On The Console Pixel Animation. They know how to do it at Hudson.
This is the one Ys I haven’t played so will keep playing it, as a soothing balm over the wave of forgettable JRPGs overtakes me.
Tsubbari OoSumou Heisei Han
This week had big Sumo news. Everyone is talking about the Reiwa Monster. A 19 year old taking the Sumo World by storm. I just watched @dylan play this one. They quickly identified it as by Tecmo before we confirmed it was by Tecmo and a port of a famicom game. It has all the 2-frame animation charm that a Tecmo game brings. I think they went 1-14 of their matches. Then there was a cute mini game about jumping salt lines.
8 Likes
Another thing about Ys IV is that the SNES counterpart wasn’t made by Falcom either. It was made by Tonkin House!!
Next month also sees the first game for the PC Engine that Falcom themselves developed. All the Ys and Legend of Heroes are ports handled by AlfaSystem and Hudson, but Xanadu was made specifically for the system. I’m curious what that looks and feels like.
5 Likes
PC Genjin 3/Bonk 3
I swear I’ve gotten stuck in 2-1 of this game multiple times. I did again tonight and turned it off. Bonk is so weird and stiff in comparison to The Good Platformers. Wario turned this into a fun game. Here I don’t know. You got the weird. You got fighting the strange jump and mashing buttons to do things.
It made me reflect we haven’t seen a single Sonic-like on the system. Maybe it is too late. But Bonk 3 takes so much from Mario 3 in a Look Ideas.
Jim Power
Minty is right this is AMIGA and impressively bad.
I did another dungeon in Ys IV and feel like hanging up on it as well. Maybe play it in the fall. It’s…okay. I got to a point where I could start talking to the monsters and suddenly my XP juice having feelings and motivation made me think I was the real monster.
My remaining 1993 look at: Fausette Armor, Police Connection, Zero4Champ, Dungeon Explorers 2, Langrisser
Tataima Yuushai BouGyouChuu, I plan to stream in October
I guess I got Shin Megami Tensei staring at me waiting. But I don’t wanna care about phases of the moon! I wanna play another generic JRPG about the sleepy headed hero!
4 Likes
Dungeon Explorers 2
I missed out on the multiplayer fun for the first one…and this time! I played it by myself. The music was great. The english dub was delightful.
Playing it is boring. Just positioning yourself from spawn points and then just eatting hits when you reach the boss. No real friction to the actions.
It made me try Dungeon Explorers! Which is definitely better. Nicer graphics, somehow for a Hu-Card game from 4 years prior. Better game feel.
John Madden Football For Duo
I finally played this. It’s definitely the best football game on PC Engine by definition. I did Cowboys versus Buffalo. The AI is dumb as hell. They pass-interferenced me like every other play. Using I,II, and the run button to play is well, a choice when porting a Genesis game. I didn’t even catch who did the port.
This one does have a feature that other games should have copied is your recievers have either Green, Yellow, Red to their names so you know how risky the throw is. And it updates as the play goes on.
I did my usual strategy on Defense, keep choosing blitz until it stops working. The collision is not as good as in the genesis games. I think everything the CD format adds to the game make it worse, even if it amused me. Stopping to see the pretty good no-budget FMV just gets in the way of the football! The 15 second First Down was annoying me at the end of the first quarter.
7 Likes
That answers my question whether there was a special FMV for each team or not. There is not.
1 Like
I have updated my PC Engine playing setup. It’s also my HunterXHunter setup. Behold:
Unfortunately, this means I will not be taking as many screenshots. You’ll just have to be satisfied with my words.
The two games here are Bomerman 94 and Battle Lode Runner.
1993 is a significant year for Hudson. It represents a ten year anniversary of sorts, honoring 1983 as the year they really started to get serious about making video games. It’s not very well known, but Lode Runner is just as important to Hudson’s beginnings as Bomberman, as they used the title to become the first third-party developer for the Famicom.
Bomberman 94
This is the same as Mega Bomberman, I think. It is such a wonderful confection of a game. Tightly designed, but forgiving. To me, it represents Hudson near the height of their powers. The game has changed considerably from 93. Now Bomberman has kangaroo friends that he can ride and the stages have richly detailed theming and gimmicks. I walked across a hanging wooden bridge. I rode a mine cart. I was Bomberman. I really, really enjoy playing this game.
Battle Lode Runner
Does anyone still care about Lode Runner? For the longest time, I didn’t. But now, I think I do. There is a “Puzzle” mode that works just like classic Lode Runner. I played this for a bit and understood some of the quirks of the ruleset, the many ways you can trap yourself. I would hate to play this without rewind. It’s just so demoralizing to see one last pile of gold, die, and be forced to try it all again. Still, the antlike AI and simplicity of the world is compelling, graceful even.
There is also party mode where you can play against three other people in different challenges. That sounds perfect. I would like that very much. But nobody cares about Lode Runner anymore.
14 Likes
definitely yes. number 1 complaint about my niche Mac Plus all-in-one megapack for the MiSTer core was “why don’t all the SFX play in Lode Runner” lol
5 Likes
Faceball
They’ve got Faceball on this thing! It’s really slow and you can’t circle strafe, which makes movement a bit more of a puzzle. I played battle and race mode. I don’t think this version will let more than two players face off against each other, which feels very wrong for a PC Engine game. It’s really colorful, but I’m a bit disturbed to see these smiley faces get shattered and smashed.
Rainbow Islands
I really got my hopes up for this one. Parasol Stars is such an amazing package, I was expecting the same from the port of its predecessor. But here’s where I go things wrong. Parasol Stars was made by Taito, while this port was made by NEC Avenue, the same people who had handled SEGA’s games on the platform. I don’t even know if the Arcade version of Rainbow Islands is good or not, but I know that something is missing here. I don’t feel the soul. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rainbows. I love the rainbow colored gems and the rainbow “GOALIN!” at the end of each stage. But I’m not getting what I need from this.
Beyond Shadowgate
This whole time, I’ve been thinking “why aren’t ICOM making adventure games?” I mean, they ported Sherlock Holmes, but they also spent a lot of time making platformers like Camp California and Addams Family. That’s not usually how their bread is buttered, so why did they start doing it for the Turbografx? I don’t have an answer for that, but I do have an answer for what a made-for-Turbografx ICOM adventure would look like.
Beyond Shadowgate is a sequel to Shadowgate, a Macintosh point and click. It’s special for being one of the very first “point-and-click” adventure games. Ironically, the mouse peripheral was never localized for the Turbografx, so the sequel awkwardly combines direct movement with a cursor interface. There’s a long cutscene setting the stage and I ignored it almost completely. I start moving my character within a jail cell. The only viable action is to light a match and set a stack of hay on fire. That alerts a guard to my cell. When he comes in, I have to punch him in the face. He disappears with one jab. No other enemy falls this easily.
I played for about ten minutes more. I tried other rooms in halls, encountered guards and died in every encounter. I think what I’m supposed to do is walk past them to find something else. They still hit me, but I guess I can take a few slashes before falling. I really wanted to enjoy this. It’s such a high effort thing. I just keep dying and no room I’ve walked in has been compelling at all. ICOM stands for “I CAN’T OVERCOME MEDIOCRITY.”
12 Likes
Police Connection
What if four people played an adventure game simulanteously but as a board game? Is that the worst concept for a video game I’ve ever heard? NO! But it is close Telenet!! Why does everyone need to waste their first turn by moving up and hearing the same fucking conversation from the police chief? Then go to the victim’s house and talk to them after 4 fucking turns…but wait you have to see that witness conversation 4 times. And the music is less than 2 minutes and it doesn’t loop! You gotta wait for it to restart in 5 seconds of silence.
Darkwing Duck still holds the title for worst on the system, but this comes very close. I doubt anyone in history has played a complete game of Police Connection.
7 Likes
This is the post where I talk about all the dry strategy games released this year. I have five.
1552 Tenka Tairan
This opens with Mozart Symphony No. 25. I love that. Did you all know that Mozart was a great composer? Give Symphony No. 25 a listen this weekend. While it plays, a cursive English-language textscroll explains 16th century Japanese history. I love that, too. What follows might be the best opening cutscene of a PC Engine game this side of Rondo’s German-language exposition.
After the cutscene, I was met by another wild decision by the designers. The start menu is designed to look like a computer OS with windows and icons. Unfortunately, when I started playing, nothing made any sense at all. It’s impossible for me to understand this without learning Japanese and then devoting an hour to reading manuals and walkthroughs. The swag is undeniable however.
Eiyuu Sangokushi
This actually seems much simpler than other strategy games. It’s made by Irem and the map looks much more like a game board. I expect the cycle to be more like Risk than anything else. I can choose between different years and different factions during the Three Kingdoms. I could figure out how to move generals around the map, but I couldn’t understand how to raise more armies. Oh well!
The title screen shows Guilin again. Am I missing something? Did some major event in the Romance of Three Kingdoms happen here? I’m pretty sure there was never a scene in Guilin! Still, looks beautiful so I can’t blame Irem for that.
Sangokushi III
KOEI made so many this year! The title menu music is beautiful. I enjoyed it until I realized it was also the strategy menu music. I set human players to zero and watched for a bit to see if the game looked good. It switches from grand strategy to tactics whenever you encounter an enemy army. The tactics battles look really tedious: two guys from each side on opposite ends of a map spending five turns to get close enough to hit each other. This definitely doesn’t look as interesting as one of those Intec strategy games I’ve seen before it.
Nobunaga no Yabou: Bushou Fuuunroku
This appears to be a similar thing as Sangokushi III except it’s about the most famous ancient Japanese conflict. I thought I set it to show me battles but I didn’t see any. Oops! Instead I got to see a map of Japan and little status updates about what every warlord was up to. This is not the only Ambitious game for 1993.
Nobunaga no Yabou: Zenkokuban
Wait, this is the same thing as Sangokushi III but focusing on the most famous ancient Japanese conflict. The other Yabou was the previous entry I guess. The tactics maps seem smaller at least, so this is probably the most bearable KOEI strategy game I’ve seen for the PCE. Still, it feels like there’s no reason to play these when Nectaris exists.
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Aoki Ōkami to Shiroki Mejika: Genchō Hishi
It turns out I missed a KOEI game in my previous post. I guess I couldn’t believe that KOEI would release so much in one year. We’ve seen the Three Kingdoms change shape. We’ve felt Nobunaga’s ambition. Now let’s take a look at what Genghis Khan was up to.
This time, I actually tried to play the game. I chose the beginning of his life and chose to control Temujin himself. From the big map, an enemy attacked me. The attack prompted me to create some armies and the map zoomed in. I could see my armies outside of a town and move them around the map. When my army met the enemy’s, we zoomed in again. Now I could see the shapes of trees and my soldier’s faces. I tried to play it like a regular tactics game then, but I didn’t understand the particulars, so I got trounced. This wouldn’t be happening if I were playing Neo Nectaris!
Mamono Hunter Yōko: Tooki Yobikoe
Here is episode 2 of last year’s Mamono Hunter Yōko. So, it’s a story about a female line of demon hunters and the present-day incarnation. She wants to chase romance but the demons keep getting in the way! I assume Episode 2 starts right at the end of Episode 1 because I have no idea what is going on. We are in a flying boat, a man falls out of the sky and a swarm of demon bees are attacking us.
This is an adventure game of the playable comic variety, as opposed to the variety where you play an open city detective with obscure fail states. Almost immediately, the game loses momentum. After some harried dialogue, I got pressed into an adventure game abstraction of turn-based combat. I could strike with my knife, blast bees with my magical ring, or cry for help from my manboy companion. Using one of these would either work or fail. I’d get hit by bees or block them. Dialogue repeated. It felt like I would stay here forever, until it ended randomly. There are much better digital comics than this.
Psychic Detective Vol. 4: Orgel
Ah, it’s an adventure game of the variety where you play an open city detective with obscure fail states. The game starts with an elderly woman standing next to a middle aged woman and neither of them will talk to you. They just take up space in your office, looking at you. Trying to talk to them is counter productive. What I’m supposed to do is look out the window and wait for them to talk to me.
These Japanese adventure games have such an odd sequence to them. You are meant to talk to people until you catch a topic of interest. Then you are supposed to keep asking about that topic, maybe think about that topic, and ask again. You can’t just select every option and hope it opens up a path. You have to think about which options could be selected multiple times with different results. You might think you’ve exhausted a topic once a new one opens up, but usually they want you to return to it again and again. I appreciate the mature tone of these Psychic Detective games, but the menu commands are probably too tedious to actually enjoy the experience.
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Thank you for your service. Seems like this is just like Volume 3. Which I found so boring and unplayable I resolved to silently make you play it. Sorry. I promise my two dozen JRPGs coming in 1994 will make up for it.
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Guess What! I now have the Super Famicom Perfect Catalogue Mook as well. So let’s see what catches my eye in 1993 of SFC’s 269 games!
PC Engine share-games: Xak, Burai, Nobunaga no Yabou, PuyoPuyo, Fatal Fury 2, Art of Fighting, GS Mikami, World Heroes, Madden 94, Kunio-Kun Dodgeball, SF2, Dragon Slayer, Tsubari Oosumo, Populus, YuYuHakusho (I think), Shin Momotaroi Densetsu
SFC 1993 Big Hits: Rtype3, Rockman X, Secret of Mana, Super Empire Strikes Back, Dragon Quest 1-2, Plok, Torneko’s Mysterious Dungeon, Super Mario Collection, Star Fox, Ihatov Monogatari
5 Likes
Alright well Megadrive 1993 what you got?
PC Engine Shares: Aya Psychic Detective, SimEarth, Fatal Fury, Sangoshi 3, MegaSwartzchild, Nobunaga no Yabou, SF2, Alshark, Psychic Detective Vol 4 Olgoorru
Megadrive MegaHits: Streets of Rage 2, Splatterhouse 2, final Fight CD, Ranger-X, Shinobi 3, Ecco The Dolphin, Silpheed, BariArm, KeioYukitaika, Rocket Knight Adventures, Jurassic Park, GUNSTAR HEROES, Sonic CD, Monkey Island, Shining Force 2, Vay, Pebble Beach Golf, Aladdin, Jungle Strike, Phantasy Star IV, Battlemania 2
As 1993 had at least a third of the top 20 Megadrive games it would be difficult to not call this the top year for the system. As a game I’ve played since it came out it’s hard to be objective but I was sitting here trying to rack if anything outside of shooter on PC Engine works the unstoppable energy of Gunstar Heroes, let alone Rocket Knight.
I think I am too deep in the RPG hole.
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i’ve already talked about how crest of wolf/riot zone looks aged compared to snes and mega drive beat em ups from the same time, but another good example of the gap between pc engine and mega drive is in 1992.
soldier blade is an excellent game, and as far as hucard games go, it’s definitely one of the best-looking. but you put it next to thunderforce iv from the same year and it looks and sounds like an antique
3 Likes
Nemurenu Yoru Chiisaina Ohanashi
This is a piece of children’s software, a CD-ROM point and click that feels very familiar to what I played in my own childhood. Of course, being for children, the game doesn’t bother to add much text or subtitles, so I don’t know what’s going on. Even so, the game has a delightful design and soundtrack.
When I started the story, a cat was watching the stars. A shooting star falls to the ground, right in his lawn. He walks down and notices that the star had broken one of his points. He carefully brings the star inside and patches him up with a first-aid kit. Then, a montage plays showing how they become the best of friends. One day, I’m given a yes or no choice. I don’t know what it’s referring to, but I say yes. When I wake up the next day, I learn that the star has left. He returned to the night sky. I look at him from my rooftop and cry a little, even though I understand that’s where he belongs.
Taidaima Yūsha Boshūchū
Now here’s a concept I’ve never seen done before. Here is a turn-based RPG mixed with a four-player board game. The king made a call for heroes and it turns out more people showed up than he expected. He won’t be able to reward everyone, so we have to race to see who saves the world first. RPGs on the PC Engine have been very uneven, but I have loved the Momotetsu games.
When I tried playing, I rolled a six on my first turn. I thought this was very lucky and raced towards the nearest dungeon. Silly me, I forgot this was an RPG. I’m meant to use my first turn going into town, recruit party members and buy spells and items. Not doing this, I got completely wrecked when I got to the dungeon. I watched from the inn at the starting town as a rival player got to the dungeon first and used their fancy party members and newfangled spells to save the day. I hate him!
I would absolutely play through a full game if this was in English. Thank you Human!
9 Likes
I’ve had this BizHawk window paused and minimized for two weeks, begging me to play more. Not sure why I’ve been putting it off, but after my latest play session the game claims I’ve completed 1/3rd of Ricky Belmont’s Wai Wai Castle Adventure:
Something I was not expecting was that this game has a shop! The little moneybags you collect can be used to purchase demonstration videos on how to fight bosses with the loadout the game gives you from the checkpoint prior (I’m guessing these are all damageless). I don’t know the criteria for unlocking these videos (whether you have to beat them or just attempting them is enough), but it’s a very neat feature to see, especially for a game of this vintage:
I will admit my latent opinion of this game, prior to touching it, was influenced by the SNES remake. The SNES version looks like a late-era SNES game (extremely derogatory) — lots of large scale pixelwork haphazardly strung together with little regards to architecture or composition or color-balance. Even ignoring the fundamentals of level and combat design, it gives a really bad impression.
Here in contrast, it’s clear that tiles are placed deliberately with an excellent sense of composition (even if the pixel style is simpler and more restrained). Even the parallax effects, as limited as the PC-Engine may be in that regard, are extremely tasteful (candles attached to parallax BGs scroll accordingly!). The game exudes style on every level, even with things as minor as the score counter on the HUD doing a snazzy little wipe transition to show you your money/lives when you pause or start a new stage.
Granted, not every room can be a winner (unrelated: I hate spear knights):
I like the first portion at the beginning of Stage 2:
It’s a perfectly flat piece of terrain, but with the patterns those birds move in it can be quite tricky. However, the game gives you a dagger power-up at the beginning of the stage, so you can snipe the birds when they’re right on the edge of the screen. It helps demonstrate that the dagger’s new speed and spread have turned it into a modestly respectable subweapon.
Look at this himbo. There is not an ounce of malice in this man’s heart (unless you’re Eastern Orthodox like Dracula):
Maria is fun to play as — stupidly versatile and fragile. I love how one of her subweapon icons is so large that it obscures her hearts counter.
I ended up playing until I somehow lodged Maria’s corpse into the upper-left corner of this screen and got a game over.
Fun game. Definitely* going to play more of this. I’m sure this is representative of the quality of the average PCE action platformer.
My main complaint with this game thusfar is that the lifebar is too hard to read at a glance.
10 Likes
HA HA HA HA!
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Okay Rudie if you’re going to just play 90 minutes of JRPG after JRPG just to post about it you gotta start having a system. Not just make almost the same post over and over again. Though it would be funny if I just started copy pasting. Spoilers I could do this for tonight’s game!
Monster Maker Yami no RyuSenshi
Protagonists: Anime Girls and a Dog Man.
Thousands of Years Ago Intro: No actually, it started with the main girl befriending monsters
Unique Concepts: Supposedly some way to pokemon the monsters, though I never found it.
Did the grind make you quit: Yes, I got a mage party member who was one shotted every battle. The heal spells and items refilled 10 of my 50 HP.
Other thoughts: the mooks and other Japanese Retro game writing will use the phrase Orthodox. In this case Orthodox RPG. Just standard unremarkable, of Vay Quality.
This one used whatever counts as HD resolution for PCEngineCD so my TV would blink for a second every time I went in and out of menu and that reset the overworld theme. Also going into battle. I gave up on hearing the music which doesn’t even have a youtube compilation.
The graphics tried to look Super Famicom-y but 1989 SFC not 1994.
Verdict 1 
out of 5
6 Likes