I mean that is kind of Instant Brain by Cave so you aren’t far off.
5 Likes
Kaze Kiri - Ninja Action
An excellent blog that curates obscure videogames recently made a post about this game, so I’ve been excited to try it out.
The first thing you see after pressing Run on the BIOS is an old-timey film countdown. This lets you know the game is cinema:
The title logo does a very nice, lush dissolvey-blur effect as it fades in. Also, the little kunai cursor does a cute couple of spins when you move it:
There is an intro that plays when you start that is a couple minutes long. It is painstakingly staged and lushly animated. There’s a loud drumbeat in the background — I notice that it’s probably PCM audio being played by the PCE itself, and not Redbook audio being streamed from the CD, probably so the game can stream in assets mid-cutscene (I have no idea if the PCE-CD can do that). I am too absorbed in the craftmanship to have any idea what’s going on.
I don’t know who this girl is, but she looks like she’s in trouble. There’s a very nice animation where she turns her head:
This ninja is cool. He runs around in the night and kills a lot of people (there is Blood). He is our protagonist:
As for the game itself, it looks like an action platformer at first glance, but don’t be fooled! It’s much closer to being a single-plane beat-em-up, with a surprisingly sophisticated control scheme for a two-button action game — consider it a flashy descendant of Irem’s Spartan X or a faster cousin to Natsume’s The Ninja Warriors (maybe idk).
Left and right move you left and right. Double tapping left or right causes you preform a slide tackle. Holding up allows you to run, but you are unable to attack while running (unless you are in mid-air).
The attack button is contextual. At a distance you throw a dagger at the cost of one health (your health naturally regenerates on its own). Up close you use your sword. If you are inside the enemy’s hitbox, you throw them behind you instead. Enemy hitboxes are solid and non-damaging, so in practice this maneuver requires running up to the enemy, stopping your run, and then pressing the attack button before they move out of range. The throw even works on bosses, but is rather risky. (Unfortunately, it does not appear that thrown enemies damage other enemies, but it is still quite useful for grouping enemies together.)
There are a couple other moves as well, such as a divekick (down+attack midair), a grounded frontflip (up+jump), and a grounded backflip (down+jump). These moves feel a bit more situational, but they can be nice in a pinch.
One seemingly odd omission from your moveset is blocking. While enemies block your attacks all the time, it appears that your only means of (which eats projectiles). Related to this, another startling omission from the game is any sort of power-up system. (Please do not interpret these points as negatives.)
Anyhow, the game itself starts off rather pleasantly, with all the enemies in the first couple stages being popcorn ripe for popping, and the boss being a flashy big guy. However, after that the enemies start getting respectable HP pools, so you have to be more mindful of their patterns and grouping and, like, actually playing the game. At this point, you’ll also have to pay attention to the “Enemy” bar in the HUD, which shows the quota of enemy deaths you need to reach before being able to move on to the next stage or fight the boss.
On my first credit I made it all the way to the second boss here, who was much smaller than the first boss. Despite his size, he was much more clever, intercepting my jumps and slashing me before I could grab him.
The game over sent me back straight to the title screen, so I was worried that this was just one of those games with no continues and no extend meter. Fortunately, there’s a stage selector in the options menu, that allows you to skip to any stage you’ve played.
I killed the second boss pretty handily on my second attempt, being more mindful of my positioning and kunai usage so as to keep my health up. It felt rather gratifying.
Overall, my first impression of this is that, while the control scheme feels a bit cramped at first blush, this is a very competently and lovingly crafted action game. Will it overstay its welcome or introduce a bunch of nonsense in the later stages? I dunno.
The only thing I’m afraid of is that there is room for three boss (B) icons in the HUD. Considering that the game normally (seems to) have a 3 mook limit, I would not be surprised if they eventually put you in a 1v3 boss battle.
13 Likes
This would make a great pair with Mad Stalker.
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Hyper Wars
Like Auto Crusher Palladium, this is another robot fighter where you design your mech, wind them up, and watch them go. However, this is made by Hudson so it’s a little bit more put together. There’s an extremely dense English text crawl at the beginning of the game describing what led to the world we live in now. I had a really hard time reading the blue text on the black background so I didn’t make much of it. (Kim Deal voice) All I know is that we can take the genes of animals and humans to create robot warriors.
I mixed a canid with a bird to make mine. After blending the genes, I got to spend money to change their stats. Then I used the rest of my money to hire a pilot. C rank pilots are free, but they would presumably lose. I went with an A rank pilot. I set them up in the tournament and then learned just how boring this game could be. For the next 10 minutes, with fast forward no less! I watched as my robot dog sort of scooted around, sometimes hitting the enemy. Eventually the match would time out, I would wait for the rest of the players to fight and then watch again. It’s really not great!
Yawara! 2
This is a sequel to a digital comic about judo. In judo manga, the artist usually makes it an excuse to show really unusual angles during flips. In the last game, the artist seemed to make it an excuse to draw upskirts.
This story has a much more somber tone than I had remembered. I didn’t encounter anything horny in the fifteen minutes I played. I really like how this artist draws faces and clothing. They do a great job on that front. I also played long enough to learn that I can actually do judo, but it didn’t make much sense to me. I’m assuming it’s like Fire Pro and I just don’t have the timing down. I’d say this is firmly in the middle tier of PC Engine digital comics.
11 Likes
hard
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I also played some Kaze Kiri and stand by my verdict, “This would be great if it was good.” It is still pretty good, considering. Yeah the PC Engine can do some wild stuff between sampling, streaming, and PCE audio. A lot of these RPGs using PCE for battle audio which fades out and picks up the streaming overworld theme right where you left it. Beautiful. And thank you Minty I really did not want to play Hyper Wars.
Star Breaker
I made jokes about the last Rayforce game, but come on that is just Vic Viper! Anyways let’s get to the copy and paste:
Original: Yes, from Rayforce sandwiched between their two Starling Odysseys.
Protagonists: the pilot of Nise-Vic Viper there. He crash lands in some medieval kingdom and partners with a Princess who wants to see the shit.
Thousands of years ago intro: no, 500 years in the future after Earth has expanded and is at war with some aliems.
Unique Concepts: one you crash land and the game begins it’s just a JRPG baby.
Did The Grind Make You Quit: i was supposed to navigate 4 towns trying to find a drunk and his wife and a music box so he could tell me how to break into the Empire’s base and steal parts for repairs to my ships.
Verdict: Of Vay Quality. If I play Chrono Trigger after this I expect my hat to flip off my head in joy.
Megami Paradise
Original: Yes. An OVA with these characters comes out in 1995 and a PC-FX sequel in 1996. The OVA is just on internet archive. Just so you know.
Protagonists: A Ditzy Chinese Exchange Student who enrolls in a nun-run all-girls school where girls can eat whatever they want and never get fat. She proceeds to play sports with the 4 magic orbs and lose them, so the student council swears revenge. There are also the 4 Godesses (Megami) of the school who I think are the focus of the OVA.
Thousands of years ago intro: Well it did explain the 4 orbs and then saw some evil ladies talk to an evil Hanii.
Unique Concepts: It seemed like more of an RPG maker walk around game with mini-games until…
Did The Grind Make You Quit: After the student council swore revenge on me random battles appeared. I was viciously murdered in my first one, which kicked me back to title screen. There was a nun that let me save but let me tell you from when the random battles start that was not close.
Verdict: Despite the premise I hadn’t seen anything salacious yet outside of cleavage. It did feel like a shallow sexist idea of what women want, but still let’s get our horny in. Also put asside the Chinese-racism. With Save States and fast-forward I could see myself blowing through it. 1 out of 4 Orbs.
Anything Notable: Some REAL Dragon Quest-esque music in this holy crap.
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Thanks Vysethedetermined2 . I can’t find any videos of the soundtrack itself.
Okay this at 12:30 to hear something that might as well be from Phoenix Wright followed by a woman being let out of a treasure chest with Dragon Quest music playing.
5 Likes
Time for the Big One Folks
Tokimeki Memorial
How has my mind changed about this through the past few years. I first started playing it the day before a minor internet celebrity would become a bigger internet celebrity by release a 45 hour “review” of the game. I sigh and fell into the eternal shadow.
Six months later I would play Cyrano de Bergerac The Mentat live translating the whole game as Bachelor got to live Baseball for the first time. The game is incredible for it’s complexity, simiplicity, and that is NOT HORNY. But about Bachelor’s playthrough, he devoted himself to Baseball and the girl manager Saki. Eventually he would go on a date with a different girl instead of attending baseball tournament. This caused him to lose baseball and fall into a deep depression. He started hanging around a girl who claimed to be a mad scientist. She was smart and witty and sarcarstic. We never saw the special scene on Christmas Day where she has a shocking reveal. I’ve spent a few hours combing Japanese longplays to try and find that scene. The ending of his playthrough lives on in my heart as one of The Great Video Game Events.
The short term goal of the game is to have an enriching high school life. Join clubs, study, go on dates. The medium goal is to juggle an increasing minefield of girl’s hearts, while ultimately focusing on one. The ultimate girl is on the last day of school having one of the girls leave you a secret note to meet under the Legendary Tree that if a girl confesses her love under then the couple will have a lifetime of happiness.
Playing the first year last night, I thought again how incredible this game is. There is so many little tiny things you won’t see on one playthrough, or three, or six, or 10. That’s amazing. There are two secret girls that you can’t date but somehow whoo.
Supposedly the developers didn’t think much of the game and were mad they couldn’t make it horny. That it is so chaste (outside of a chance to be a peeping tom) keeps it’s greatness and purity. The best you can hopeful is to actually feel an emotion when the girl at the end confesses their feelings for you.
Calling Shiori Fujisaki the final boss feels so wrong, as if you are supposed to play this as a game or to see all the routes. Follow your own feelings people. This isn’t a video game! This is digital high school hearts.
I’d say Tokimeki, Rondo, and Snatcher are the best non-shooters on the system. Except Tokimeki Memorial escaped to Playstation and Saturn where the cult following quadrupled.
Just like Ys Tokimeki has this perfect balance that seals it’s Great Game-ness. I’ve played a lot of Japanese PC and PC-Engine sleeze and horny at this point, 90% in the name of research to no one. I’ve commented in this thread how can’t stand the greasying of the hair to leer and fondle high school students. I find it repugnant. Here, it has such a more subtle goal mascrading as the GalGame that comes in such waves before and after it.
Have to stop here been trying to write out this post for 7 hours and am just brain-shot. Maybe will write more later.
That was Gradius wasn’t it?
10 Likes
Bad day in the PC Engine Mines.
Xak 3 Eternal Recurrence
I kept wondering if this should have sound with it’s completely mute intro. Eventually it did both streaming CD and PCE. It screams PC Port done very fast, whatever that means on the PC Engine. No voices, long load times. None of it made me feel PC Engine.
It’s an action RPG and I think assumes you played Xak 1 and 2 first.
Monsters are attacking the nearby castle, and you’re called up from your cabin as the Great Hero to defend it.
Cut to the castle where you see a demon impale the king then rip off the head of the princess in a sprite manner you won’t see until Blasphemous 25 years later. It was shockingly violent. It wasn’t a cutscene, pure sprite work.
The game is dull and boring and has no friction to it. I liked wondering aimlessly around the castle falling in holes and being really confused where I was going the whole time. I died to the second boss, which thankfully there is a 20 second pause then it loads your most recent save. Not that I am going to play it anymore. I am gonna play Link Between Worlds soon, and it’ll probably make me invuluntarily crush my 3DS with joy.
Chiki Chiki Boys
It’s fine. As Minty said all the Capcom ports have a kind of trashy filter on them. Those extra levels in Strider are bad!
Alman no Kiba
Grandpa turned me on to an 8-4 episode where a guy talked about this…game. It is infamously buggy. Like the physical game came with an apology buggy. The Kusoge of Kusoge for PC Engine.
I can confirm that because it hardlocked on me twice in the pretitle cutscene that I could not skip. So now I am at an empasse. For the sake of completion do I try and play a bad buggy game a different way? Especially because this guy talked it up and I could be out there, having opinions. But also it is a buggy game and I am so tired.
Sailor Moon Collection
This is exactly those bad licensed mini-game collections you’d get in the 90s. The still-pixel art is okay, but hardly professional given the digital comics. Each of the Sailor Scouts has their own mini game and that Mercury had a Quiz Game made me so excited I turned it off for the night. Then I turned it back on and tried two more games. Both were baffling. One was Usagi-chan being given orders to raise and lower red and white flags and my Japanese shitting the bed. The other was competitive R-P-S which we’ve seen a few times where winning gives you a chance to attack. I got about 5 attacks in but was blocked each time. Then couldn’t figure out how to block back. Oh and Mars had a memorization game.
The actual Sailor Moon game black screened on my mister so maybe it was just a bad MisTeR night or I need to format some stuff.
Did you know we had an actually good shooter for 1994? But you gotta find it!
7 Likes
Wait until you get to Nekketsu Legend Baseballer before you say that.
Agreed on Xak – it’s a shameless Ys ripoff that is nowhere near as good. Xak I for Super Famicom is the best entry even though it takes less than 5 hours to beat. For Xak III, I wrote the same thing about wondering if the opening was bugged or had some emulator glitch.
EDIT: I am only allowed to post 3 replies to the topic so I can’t participate in the thread anymore, but I will keep reading. Good luck.
5 Likes
I played two fighting games I didn’t really understand.
Dragon Ball Z: Idainaru Son Goku Densetsu
I love Akira Toriyama’s art. I could look at it all day. I enjoy buying his manga and using them like coloring books just because it gives me more time to look at it. Naturally, this game is filled with cutscenes and it covers arcs from Dragon Ball all the way up through the Cell Saga. You can pick whatever you want from the main menu. I had no real idea on what buttons to press. Sometimes the fight would go from a wide shot to a medium shot and I could choose to use a certain amount of meter. Maybe using the right amount meant I could dodge the enemy’s special attack. I couldn’t figure out how to raise it again. I get the feeling that even if I learned how to play the game, I still wouldn’t have much fun.
Battle Field '94 in Tokyo Dome
Another wrestling game! Another wrestling game I don’t know how to play. I could do kicks, run at the ropes, and sometimes reverse a grapple, but I didn’t really get it. Besides, the fight took an incredibly long time to progress and was filled with boring holds and sluggish maneuvering. Fire Pro is probably better! I say probably because I can’t play Fire Pro either. I did figure out how to play a bit of Blazing Tornado but that was years ago! Anyways, enjoy the pictures!
8 Likes
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!
9 Likes
The biggest problem was that the mouse was way too fast, it was weird. I ended up setting my mouse to the lowest possible DPI…and then using a ROM hack that let me use a controllers instead.
Also: VasteelCania
6 Likes
ALNAM NO KIBA
I’ve been thinking about Alnam no Kiba all month. I was saving it till I was towards the end of the pile. That one guy on 8-4 really talked it up. Surely I could play this so…he would have someone to talk to about it. Remember my post above, where it froze? This time I just let it sit on a black screen for about two minutes before finally continuing the game. There were some real long load times (On the mister!) But hey now I can finally play it…right?
The story of this is actually involved. You’re training in your secret mountain village when a totally brutal freak monster attacks nearby. Two of your ninja-bros get completely owned, so you and your master go to fight it. Your master is a total badass while you prove yourself a pants-peeing coward. He bites it while trying to protect and you have a Shinji style breakdown.
At this point and for most of my playthrough I felt like I was reading Chinese. I think I caught every third word that was said. I have never felt this lost. Thanks Kurisu for giving me the broad strokes. After a very brief travel with one teammate I reached the capital city met a 1000 year old lady who gave everyone but me missions. He told me and girl to go home. She decides just go back to her village and I think I am banned from my villiage for being a pee-pants coward who let the awesome guy get killed. I walked out of town. I got into an unwinnable battle. I tried to escape twice. I watched my two party members die.
A Black Screen.
Game Over.
I had been playing for 90 minutes. Much of that unskippable cutscene. The first unskippable cutscene when you turn on the game starts. I put my head in my hands. No…No…No…
Right Stuff also made Emerald Dragon which I had a good time with. They were quite busy in 1994. Their last game is a Visual Novel remake of Alnam no Kiba for Playstation. They thought this was a well worthwhile story. This is the second god damn game this year about Beast-People and like the 4th on the PC Engine. Why are there so many Beast-People are Discriminated Against Games?
Oh Wait this an JRPG! Hold on
Original: Yes. Just for PC Engine
Protagonists: A Pee-pants coward and a rotating band of people cooler and more interesting than him.
Thousands of years ago intro: No! It actually starts with the story and wants you to learn the world as the story plays out.
Unique Concepts: Game breaking bugs like if you pick up the titulator Alnam no Kiba it overwrites the actually strongest weapon you have equipped and it is a terrible weapon to use. You also spend Ki to attack and it seems like the grind would make me miserable.
Did The Grind Make You Quit: crying noises.
Verdict: I think I am gonna try again, just for that one guy’s sake. He says I can skip cutscenes!!! I need to see it. I didn’t even get to see a game breaking bug. if I am playing BASTED until I see boobs I can play this until I encounter a game ruining bug.
10 Likes
This game sucks.
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This game feels like a punishment. In it’s purest form, of two humans, R-P-S is mind games. The game is over before it begins. Then the physicality enters into the equation. Maybe your hand does something your brain didn’t plan on. You digitize it, then make it a card game with more than the 3 options and it just falls apart. Nothing is worth this. This might be the worst year for the system with the pile of stinkers like this.
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
This, the real Sailor Moon game, is a bad digital comic. Sure they got the voice actors but the writing is noticably worse and now has load times and god-awful chiptunes playing under it. I promise I’ve had a good weekend and am not projecting on the console. The art is frequently amateur. You select one of the five girls and I think poorly see the story from their point of view. It made me want to watch an episode of Sailor Moon maybe that’s on Giant Corporation Prime Japan.
Can you guess what game Sailor Moon and Mars competed at? And Sailor Moon was exceptionally good at? The answer is better than the games I played tonight!
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My only consolation is that 1995 looks like it has more hits than 1994. This is such a depressing desert of submediocrity.
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alnam no kiba somehow has a playstation port
1 Like
Blood Gear
Westone and Red together?? This ought to be amazing! Well, it isn’t, sorry.
Here we have a mech action platformer, similar to Assault Suit except not quite so dense in its design. I’ve got to say, after the muscular action of Mad Stalker, this just feels weak in comparison. The very first mission has you punching enemies until you fall into a pit. This pit is a trap and you are meant to fail. I assume the character you are playing as is killed and you wake up as someone else. You wake up…and now it’s a JRPG.
You can walk around the town. It’s not so large. There are shops, a house or two, and a factory. Many of the pedestrians say the same things. “Oh, Aleph, shouldn’t you be working?” “Do you know about Scarlet?” You start the game without any money, so I figured I should immediately set out to get some. The overworld shows you a menu with locations you can choose. Some of these are side-scroller stages while others are towns. The first action stage I got to was a lot easier than the prologue, but I didn’t rack up that much money.
I thought I was making good progress, but eventually I died in an action stage and that meant I had to go back to when I last saved. I didn’t save at all so that meant I went back to the prologue mission. I’m not sure this is exciting enough to try again.
16 Likes
I don’t think I’ve commented in this topic yet but I’ve been following along since this project started and this last stretch of titles has felt mostly kinda depressing. Here is where I want to say that when I did my giant charity bundle playthrough there were stretches were I just got a bunch of stinkers in a row and there’s not a lot one can do about it… but that would be a lie as I never had a stretch this bleak seeming, I like pruned a thousand games off the top before I started to make sure of that >_>
Anyways may one of you find a lost classic soon!
6 Likes