Opinions on poorly documented imports

[celerystalker]

I'm glad you liked it! It makes me happy to know I helped someone else enjoy a new game. I was getting ready to write up a new one, but I just got done with a 16 hour overnight shift and am gonna sleep a little.

[celerystalker]

8033One of the libraries I've enjoyed a lot in the last few years is the Japanese PS1. There is such a deep frontier that's all but unexplored to dig around in and find gold and/or cat turds. As an english speaker with very limited knowledge of Japanese, I love stumbling across games that transcend language and are just playable. New Type Action Game NOON is just one of those; an action puzzler with an arcade feel that can be played by anyone. The question is, is it enjoyable?

NOON is a slightly tilted overhead perspective competitive puzzle game that calls to mind a combination of Bust A Move and Bomberman. You directly control a character you select in a chibi anime design, each with their own attacks and attributes. Running around the confined arena, each player runs amok popping colored bubbles that fill a special attack meter by squashing them against each other or a wall. You can also attack other players by pressing square or x, sending them flying. In the same way you can strike a bubble and send it careening across the screen, and it will stun anyone it hits. Line up 3 or more of the same color (rainbows can be any) and hit them instead of pushing them to set off a NOON chain that will both fill your special meter in a hurry and send black blockers at your opponent. Why does that matter?

You don't have health in NOON. Get hit and you get stunned. See, each player has a set of colored tiles to guard. When all of the squares are covered, a 10 count begins, which never refreshes. If that count hits 0, you lose. The only way to stop it is to clear your tiles, forcing a balance between offense and defense. The aforementioned special meter allows for one giant attack, which will send a swath of black blockers in its wake. The blockers can be popped but not kicked, so you don't want them anywhere near your space.

Random powerups will sometimes pop up, allowing for special attacks like becoming a giant that can squash bubbles instantly, shrink and slow your opponents, instantly fill your meter, and so on, some even rotating the location of your base tiles. The action gets frantic in a hurry, and with up to 4 players, NOON can be Bomberman chaotic.

Graphically, the game has a nice arcade-like presentation with anime flair. It's bright and colorful with peppy music, and has nice scaling sprites of chibi characters. It is not taxing on the hardware, but it lends itself to that mid-'90s arcade feel. The game speed is fast, making for a wild party game. There is a single player story mode that is reasonably challenging, but multiplayer is what gives the game longevity.

I feel like I'm glossing over this, maybe because I'm rather sleep deprived. NOON is a fun little arena battle puzzle game, though, and draws favorable comparisons to the likes of Bomberman and Poy Poy. It isn't a masterpiece, but it's a hectic good time with friends, and a great alternative if you've played out other party games. On another positive, the menus are bilingual with Japanese and English, so it's easy as can be to get going. A complete copy cost me $5. If you have friends who you get together with or just dig some arcade puzzle action, you can't go wrong.

[celerystalker]

8034Groove Adventure Rave, also known as Rave Master, is a popular Manga and anime franchise that spawned several games. Konami put out Plue no Daibouken on the Playstation based on the supporting character Plue, some sort of candy-loving anthropomorphic creature. Not being a fan of the show, I can't add much to that description, but I sure have played his game, so I'll go that route.

Plue no Daibouken is a 2D platformer with fairly large, maze-like levels not entirely unlike Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure or Earthworm Jim in design. You take on most enemies by hopping on their heads like so many mascots who already have tread this ground, but the power up system is built around Plue's love of lollipops. Small suckers just grant points. Large suckers are added to inventory, and can be cycled through with the shoulder buttons. Hitting triangle will cause Plue to eat the selected candy, from which he will gain some ability, such as an arrow pointing to the exit, life restoration, becoming slippery with butter, or, um... having a turd on his head... yeah... there are a ton of flavors, and even after using many of them, I have no idea what half of them do, but it hasn't slowed my progress.

The game has large, cartoonish sprites and incredibly colorful backgrounds. There is a pronounced sense of humor in the enemies who do things like fart on you... but the game is super easy. It definitely feels like it was designed for a young audience. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can feel a bit dull to an experienced player.

Overall, Plue no Daibouken is easy to play regardless of region, but it doesn't offer a particularly challenging or engaging experience. If you're a big fan of the manga or anime, it's super playable and there is some fun to be had. However, if you just like platformers, there are a lot more robust options out there. At least as of now it can be had for under $20, so if you want a colorful platformer and like Groove Adventure Rave, it'd probably be worth it.

[Dire 51]

I'm glad you liked it! It makes me happy to know I helped someone else enjoy a new game.
You actually helped two people: I showed it to my fiance, she tried it out and now she's hooked on it. :D Kudos!

[celerystalker]

8035863186328633
For a goofy side story, Time Bokan sure did generate its share of games. Bokan GoGoGo deviates from the shooters based around the Doronbo Gang and takes their signature goofy antics and vehicles into a kart racer. Now kart racers were a dime a dozen in the 32/64-bit days, with the likes of Mario, Diddy, the Muppets, Speed Punks, Crash Bandicoot, BC Racers, Woody Woodpecker... you get the point. You didn't have to look far, and many were cheap cash-ins. So the real question is what, if anything, does Bokan GoGoGo do to separate itself from the pack on the Playstation?

The immediate obvious start to that answer is its presentation. GoGoGo is loaded with anime cutscenes not only to open the game, but interspersed between races in story mode (story mode you say?). The music really captures the show, and the vehicles and weapons fit right in. So, for starters, they chose to capitalize on the Time Bokan license instead of exploit it.

Next would be modes. You have your typical grand prix mode, exhibition/vs, practice, and... story mode. Story mode capitalizes on the license by pitting various villains against one another. Cutscenes done in hand-drawn style really bring life to the game beyond the typical kart racer. You also gain experience based on your performance that you can use between races to power up your chosen vehicle. You can save between races as well, so progressing is pleasant and can be taken at your own pace. Good fun!

Graphically, Bokan GoGoGo uses a style I've grown fond of in early Playstation and Saturn games, employing scaling, colorful 2D sprites moving on 3D backgrounds. It's a look that allows the game to feel bright and colorful despite its age as opposed to many games that used chunky 3D models. It comes together in a way that evokes the mid-90's in a pleasant way.

All together, Bokan GoGoGo makes for a throwback to the original Super Mario Kart with some nifty modes and graphics to make it feel like its own game. It only supports 2 players, which is a bit of a bummer, and like later Mario Karts, the weapons can get a little excessive. Still, it controls well, moves at a good pace, and its story mode offers up a more satisfying single-player experience. I'd really recommend it to Time Bokan fans, fans of early 32-bit style, or a kart racer enthusiast who plays mostly alone. It's a quality experience that, while a bit derivative, does a lot to make a one-player game satisfying, and it usually goes for less than $10. I like it.

[celerystalker]

8036Around the turn of the century, Sunsoft got a little weird. They started putting out the Sunsoft Memorial Series, a series of 6 discs, each containing emulation or ports (most likely emulation) of 2 NES/Famicom games, on the original Playstation. I call this weird for a few reasons. First, these are NES games, some very heavily associated with Nintendo for me (like Blaster Master and Journey to Silius), and it feels a little odd to play them on Playstation because of that. Secondly, with only 2 games per disc, compared to other compilations of the time, these discs barely use their storage space. Lastly, the choices of games... some are brilliant, and others so confounding that they would be how Sunsoft would choose to display their legacy thay one can only scratch one's head in bewilderment. I'm going to go over these all eventually, probably out of order, but I'll start with the first.

The first game Sunsoft chose to represent its proud tradition was Ikki. Odds are, if you've heard of Ikki, you know the word "kusoge" and how this game all but defined it, but I'll be objective from my first-hand point of view. You play as a farmer rebelling and being assaulted by various soldiers and ninjas. Your actual goal is to locate all of the coins strewn about each stage, which are about a 4-screen grid in size. You automatically throw your weapon at the nearest enemy, which kind of works, but you can't lead an enemy as a result and have to be pretty close or have a good angle to hit. The only real powerup is a staff that works a bit like the hammer in Donkey Kong, only you can only attack upward and it actually decreases your range, so use it at your own risk. Couple this with the fact that you must get quite close to the edge of the screen to scroll, and you have a very difficult game. Still, you can work around the faults with methodical movement, and the pace is frantic. The graphics are a little below average for an early title, but not the worst you'll see, and there are only 4 looping stages. It's a bit of a mess, but can be oddly compelling.

The other game on volume 1 is Super Arabian, which is a superior single-screen arcade-style game in the vein of Donkey Kong in which moving through ladders and platforms on a single screen, your goal is to collect all of the bags in each level yo spell out the secret word, such as "horse" or "flower." Picking up the letters in the correct order will net you a hefty bonus, and since the game loops after several varied screens, playing for score is where it's at. You are not defenseless inSuper Arabian, as aside from an invincibility powerup, you can kick the bejeesus out of any enemy as well with a well-placed kick. Hit detection is pretty solid, so I usually felt like it was my fault when I died. There are several varieties of enemies that fly, crawl, and climb at you, and the screens offer a surprising amount of variety in theme and obstacles such as moving platforms, ladders, vines you can hang from and shimmy across, etc. There's also an alternate mode where the bags are unmarked and MUST be collected in the proper order, adding another layer of challenge for veterans. It's all in English to boot, and I really enjoyed it.

So, you have 2 games with no real language barrier here, both of which are probably measuredin kilobytes. Still, there's an early arcade addictive quality, especially to Super Arabian, which I liked a bunch. However... these Sunsoft discs are a mixed bag on price. People often try to get $30 out of this one, and the truth is you could buy both of these loose carts combined for less than $10, or boxed for about $20-$30, so in this case it's not a great bargain unless you hold out for a goid deal. I paid about $15 for this, and I feel okay about it, but I'd generally say skip Ikki and pick up a loose cart of Super Arabian for $5. It's all in English and old-school arcade fun!

[celerystalker]

8037More Sunsoft fun! Volume 3 of the PS1's Sunsoft Memorial Series is another twin-pack of Famicom games, this time containing Toukaidou Gojuu-san Tsugi (I'm sure I made a mess of that title) and Wing of Madoola. These games are both pretty much entirely in English, which is one of the things that attracted me to this disc. So, on to the games!

Toukaidou Gojuu-san Tsugi is a side-scrolling... er... I guess platformer, though platforms aren't really the obstacle so much as ninjas and samurais and such running wild. You are some sort of fireworks/explosives maker on the run from somebody, and your only defense is to throw your explosives at your enemies, who die in a delayed, comical fashion. Control feels a little slippery at first, as the momentum feels a lot different from the likes of Super Mario, but I was able to adjust and get a feel for it. Enemies come in fast and furious, though, so quick reflexes and memorization are the order of the day. There are tons of point bonuses hidden in that old style of oddly-placed invisible locations upon which you must detonate explosives. Your explosives can be thrown one at a time forward in an arc or dropped on a timer at your feet. Those thrown will detonate on impact, whereas dropped are really only good for picking up bonuses. It's a decent little game, and certainly better than the likes of Ninja Hattori-kun, but feels dated even compared to its contemporaries.

Wing of Madoola is an early attempt at a side-scrolling action RPG, and it's full of a lot of interesting decisions as a result. You start of ridiculously weak and slow, but by going into doors you find along the way, you can pick up numerous powerups that increase your attack, speed, jumping ability, and grant you magical attacks such as fireballs that shoot from your sword. The game is divided into separate stages, so when you defeat the boss and move on, you can't just go back to find missing powerup items. However, there is a continue function if you hold select before pushing start after you die, which will allow you to choose which stage up to your current you would like to start from. You retain all found items and increases to your health and magic even when returning to past stages, so don't be afraid to go back if you need to find something you think you've missed (some levels do get a bit maze-like) or to rebuild your health, which refreshes at 1000 upon each continue, but can max out much higher. There are 8 main stages to traverse, and a lot of challenge, especially starting in stage 5, where the purple flying blobs starts to swarm you while you're attempting a tough series of jumps. Overall, I like this one a bunch, with its good-sized levels and non-linear continue system. It's no Rygar or Metroid, and would greatly benefit from a password save, but if you can set aside an afternoon for some archaic fun with solid early generation graphics, control, and music, Wing of Madoola's a lot of fun, and completely in English.

So, again, the main issue with this disc is cost of disc vs. buying loose carts of the famicom games. Toukaidou Gojuu-san Tsugi is a fun but mediocre game, and usually sells for about $10 right now. Wing of Madoola is far superior and even quite fun, but the cart costs typically less than $5 if you don't fall for an overpriced buy it now... and Sunsoft Memorial Series Vol. 3 tends to go for $15-30 shipped. So, if you're already a famicom guy, this disc isn't a super bargain, but I guess it does have a manual, and boxed copies of these two skyrocket. So, it's not a great bargain for more than $15, but the games are quality, and both are probably worth picking up loose carts if nothing else, but Madoola is the better game.

[celerystalker]

8038Continuing with both the Sunsoft Memorial Series and my love of the Hebereke series, volume 5 of the PS1 compilation series contains rAf World and Hebereke, a pair of legitimate minor classics on the Famicom. So, the games!

rAf World is Journey to Silius. It's not really obscure or an import exclusive, so I'm not going to waste much time on it. Oh, but your character sprite has a helmet, making it look slightly more robotic, and I didn't notice any other significant differences. As Journey to Silius is widely available on NES for very little, there is no reason to buy this disc just to play it, though it is an excellent run and gun... and the Japanese title screen is cool.

Hebereke was Sunsoft's marquee franchise in the '90s, though every friggin' game in the series was left to Europe and Japan until download services took hold in recent years. I like to view the series as Sunsoft's Mario; it began as a platformer, then spun off into a puzzle series akin to Dr. Mario with Hebereke's Popoitto (and the Puyo/Columns hybrid Hebereke's Popuun), then a picross series with O-Chan no Oekake Logic, then a party board game Hebereke no Oishi Puzzle, a racing game in Hashire Hebereke, and even a fighter in Sugoi Hebereke! Oddly parallel, eh? Hell, the Hebereke gang was the face of the Famicom Barcode World, even. This game is the original Hebereke, the platformer known in Europe as Uforia, but without the weirdly deformed sprites.

Hebereke is a free-roaming adventure a la Metroid or Rygar, but considerably more adorable. You begin as the penguin Hebe (or a goofy-ass snowman called Bop Louie if you're European, and if so, you did it wrong), and you must scour the world, make allies with the likes of O-Chan, Sukezaemon, and um, Jennifer by defeating them, and eventually fight a big-ass cyber frog. The graphics are great, the map is big, and the control is solid with a few quirks.

You can jump on enemies, but only if you hold down on the d-pad to thrust your feet downward. Once stomped, the enemies become little blobs that you can pick up and throw. Each character has their own abilities-O-Chan can float and walk on ice with his claws, but is slow. Jennifer can swim in deep water, and Sukezaemon can float... and you can switch on the fly. You'll pick up health powerups, a map and compass, and other helpful items that will enable you to eventually traverse the entire map. There is a password-based continue system, but when you die you start from the beginning of the game, which can get old, but isn't a deal breaker. Cap it off with pleasant music and this game is a winner.

So, once again, the burning question, is this disc a good deal? Probably the best one yet, really. Journey to Silius csn be had for less than $5 still at the moment. Hebereke, though is typically about $50-60 for a loose cart or so, and this disc can be had for $30-$40, so it can be a money saver, and the cheapest way to play the original game on a physical copy. Whether as Hebereke or Ufouria, I'd recommend it to Famicom/NES enthusiasts as one of the better games we missed out on in the States.

[celerystalker]

8039Well, since I've been going on about Hebereke in this thread...

Sugoi Hebereke is the Hebereke fighting game on the Super Famicom based on Sunsoft's cutesy mascot franchise. In keeping with the Mario parallel, it's a non-traditional 4-player brawl, but that's where the similarities end. Sugoi Hebereke employs an overhead perspective much like Bomberman, but you use a combination of punches, kicks, special moves, and items randomly dropped in the arena to pummel your friends/opponents instead of strategically placed explosives... though there are explosives... You have special moves activated by Street Fighter-like button presses to go along with your basic punches, kicks, and jumps. Also, once beaten, you turn into a blob like the enemies in the platformer, at which time you can hop about and generally get in the way until the round ends.

The arenas present their own hazards as well, such as pinball-like bumpers, moving platforms, and springboards to keep you on your toes. There are also seemingly random atmospheric effects such as fog, rain, sun, and night to add flavor and chaos to the proceedings, but there's a catch... for stages with a lot of moving parts, slowdown gets all Gradius III on you, and it's a bit of a dampener on an otherwise chaotic experience.

There are four options on the title screen. The bottom two are configuration and options, respectively. The top option is the arcade/story mode, where a single player goes out into the world to rumble. The second is the exhibition/vs mode, in which there are 5 options that correspond to the number of players, the bottom being a "watch" mode. By default, it's first player to win three rounds for the win. As short as your life bars are, this makes for a fairly frantic and reasonably-timed length.

The graphics are bright and colorful in the best SNES tradition, and the music is peppy. Overall, it's... well, it's super easy in single player mode. While fun and aesthetically appealing with 8 playable characters, multiplayer is where you can get the most out of Sugoi Hebereke. Still, it can be had for less than $10 for a loose cart right now, and if you're a Hebereke fan like me, it's good fun... but if you have some friends to play with it's great fun.

[celerystalker]

8040Deeper into to world of Hebereke games lies Hebereke no Oishii Puzzle for the Super Famicom. Much like Mario took his pals into a competitive board game setting, ol' Hebe took O-Chan, Sukezaemon and the rest into a board game. So, since the Hebereke gang has been showing these concepts earlier than Mario's pals, how does it hold up?

Well, it's definitely not the frantic pace of Mario Party, that's for certain. Up to five players can play Hebereke no Oishii Puzzle, and you take turns similarly moving about the board, which is comprised of blank spaces, traps such as missing turns or returning to the start, and more than anything else, colored squares. Each color corresponds to a different mini-game type, but, well....

The mini-games are puzzles. Simple, childish puzzles that, while maybe briefly amusing, certainly don't make for a compelling, competitive experience. The four colors are red, which triggers a "find the differences between two pictures" puzzle, blue, which gives you an actual puzzle to put together in a time limit, purple, which puts you in a very easy "Where's Waldo" scenario, and yellow, which gives you an all kana crossword to solve. So, if you don't read the language, you're screwed on these. The puzzles are simplistic and repetitive, clearly designed for children. Japanese children.

You get 2 "help"s to use in a game, and a strict time limit to solve each puzzle. Failure will cause you to spin the penalty wheel, which can send you to the start, cost you a turn, lose 1000 points, and so on. Success grants you points, along with bonus points for your remaining time. The game ends when a player reaches the goal (first to reach it gains 1000 points), and whoever had the most points in the rnd wins.

Really, there are only a handful of boards, and the puzzles tend to recycle the same pictures. The single player game challenges you to traverse the entire board with no opponents. However, if you fail, you lose, and you have a limited number of continues. The goal is to make it through all of the boards... so if you don't speak Japanese, you'd best not hit a crossword or it's just game over.

Up to five players can play, but good luck getting four friends to play this one. It's meant for kids, has a significant language barrier with the crosswords, and has uncharacteristically repetitive music. It is easily the worst game associated with the Hebereke franchise, and just for a different audience than me, which is a shame, as I love both video board games and Hebereke. Ah, well, you can't win 'em all...

[celerystalker]

8041Okay, okay, I promise that this will be the last Hebereke game that I write about... for awhile...

So, I've already talkef about the Mario/Hebereke franchise parallel, and in that we've hit the platformer, the fighter, the Dr. Mario-style puzzler, the picross game, and the board game... so unless there are edutainment games to discuss, that leaves us with a racer to parallel Mario Kart, and Hashire Hebereke for the Super Famicom is, well, exactly that.

Okay, so, for starters, this is not a kart racer. It's a foot race between the cast members of the Hebereke games held in an isometric view with a couple of wrinkles thrown in for good measure. You hold Y to move, and in the options you can change a few things, such as turning with left or right for a more RC Pro Am/Biker Mice from Mars feel, or true 8-directional movement. Turning gives the game more of a racing game feel, but it is frankly way easier in 8 directional mode. There are other options as well, such as diagonal movement for an angled D-pad in 8-way mode and such, but the turning or not really has the biggest effect on your in-game experience.

Next is the characters, who have wildly different attributes. Hebereke can outrun Sukezaemon, but being a ghost, Sukezaemon can float and turn in mid-air allowing him to bypass clusters or racers and cut corners... but if ther is a large drop, he floats down so slowly that it's extremely tough to win with him. So, depending on your character, this can be a wildly different game.

Thirdly, each track has checkpoints that you MUST cross in order for your lap to count, so be careful when attempting shortcuts, or you'll find yourself running the lap all over again from last place. There are shortcuts and obstacles such as climbing, jumping, and swimming, so choosing the route that suits your character makes all the difference.

Now, to what's the same: items to throw your buddies off course with a press of the shoulder buttons, turbo spots, colorful tracks, fun characters, and peppy music. While a different style of racer, Hashire Hebereke never forgets its whimsical platformer roots, and has a similarly upbeat flavor, and while not nearly as well balanced as Mario's first racer, it is rather lovely to play.

As far as modes go, you have your story mode where you go around challenging everyone on the all-to-familiar-by-now Hebereke map if you've been playing any of these games. You also have a practice/time trial mode to put together your finest laps, and, um... poop tag. Yup. You have a turd on your head, and you have to see how quickly you can chase everyone else down and, um... I guess rub poop all over them.

For multi-player, you have a typical split-screen mode for racing, and also battle mode, where you chase one another about hurling blobs at one another in attempt to be the first to score 3 hits. I don't know why poop tag isn't available here, but it's depressing that it isn't still, as the game only supports 2 player split-screen, the battle mode won't be what you're here for anyhow.

Altogether, Hashire Hebereke is a fun little racer with great tracks, a unique feel, and strong challenge. However, the two player modes are very limited, as this game could have been almost as crazy as Nekketsu Koushinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundokai if it supported four players. Still, if you like cartoony racers or are a Hebereke, go ahead and pick it up, as you'll have your fun here, but if you aren't sure, try some of the less expensive games like Sugoi Hebereke first to see if it's an atmosphere you like, as a loose cart for this one is usually at least $15. I like it, but clearly I am the target audience... okay, so no Hebereke or Sunsoft next time, I promise... probably something Barcode Battler-related or something more obscure.

[celerystalker]

8042Well, I know that this title can be (and is usually) spelled many ways, but I'm going with Robot Poncots 64 because that's how it's Romanized in the instruction manual. Anyway, Robot Poncots 64 for the Nintendo 64 (shocker, right?) is one that I'm surprised I haven't seen more noise about. If that name is looking awfully familiar to you, that's because it is in fact the N64's counterpart to the Game Boy Color game, Robopon, of which there were 3 versions in Japan. In a lot of ways, this might look like Robopon's version of Pokémon Stadium, and while there is a little truth to that assumption, there's a ton more here to get excited about!

Robopon is a light RPG much like Game Freak's series, but you train robots to fight for you. Robot Poncots 64 takes the RPG format to the N64 in some nifty ways uncommon to the system. You get pushed out to sea in your grandpa's submarine with a Robopon that he gave you. It's your mission to travel about, fighting off pirates, taking on missions, and entering competitions in order to become the greatest Robopon controller of all. You have a tilted bird's-eye view of your sub as you travel, but you can go below deck at any time, which is your main hub. Here, you'll make and train your robots, take on minigames that can benefit them, and get advice from your team (and save). When you make contact with an enemy or enter a competition, battle mode begins as a one on one fight. You can also dock at various islands and stations to fight and interact with various people in order to gain access to new cores to build more Robopons.

Things mix up even more here, as you can move your Robopon in real time during battle instead of essentially playing rock/paper/scissors in Pokémon Stadium. The stronger your bot, the faster the attack gauge fills, and when it's full, you can choose your attack by pressing a button. The real-time combat is considerably more engaging than the Pokémon Stadium battles, and kept me more engaged in playing.

The look of the game is a refreshing change for a N64 game. Sure, you have your typical polygon models and muddy textures, but your characters are lovely, detailed, colorful, scaling sprites laid upon those backgrounds, giving the game an utterly unique look for the system. The music is fitting if forgettable, but the graphic presentation really brought me in with its nifty style. Honestly, had they completed Earthbound 64 in this style, I think I'd have been happy with it.

Now, were that all there was to it, it'd be just another tragically lost import RPG that the US market could sorely have used. However... like Pokémon Stadium, Robot Poncots 64 allows you to choose up to 3 Robopons and have fun vs battles with a friend in vs mode. This is a fun little fight to be sure, but to make things better, this game also supports the Transfer Pak as one of the all-too-few games that did, and allows you to bring in your Game Boy Robopons! This is a delightful reward for fans of the series, and gives you a reason to dust off that Transfer Pak, or to try one out if you don't have one.

There's a lot more game here, as the single-player game is fully fleshed-out, and I've barely scratched the surface with the minigames. Honestly, it'll be awhile before I finish it, because RPGs in Japanese are a slow go for me, but I will get through it, as the style, fun battles, and opportunity to get more use out of the Game Boy save file are enough to keep me on board. If you're an N64 importer who's already done the Sin & Punishments and Rakuga Kids of the world, take a look at Robot Poncots 64. It looks great, and if you're a fan of the Game Boy game, you can get a ton of mileage out of this one... and the vs mode is pretty accessible either way. I dig it, but be wary of the language barrier for the story mode.

I guess I should add that if you're looking for more on this game, you'll have better luck calling it Robot Ponkottsu 64... it's possibly more accurate, but again, I was using the spelling from the actual manual, for whatever that's worth. Oh, one last bit... if you're a collector, a complete copy should come with a bonus Robopon card game card, as apparently there was a customizable card game in Japan. Nifty!
8240

[celerystalker]

8043Well, I'm not sure this one is super obscure so much as forgotten by time more than anything. Super Black Onyx is a Famicom exclusive remake of the PC game, The Black Onyx. The game was fairly well documented in its time as one of the earliest Japanese exposures to the RPG formula put forth by games like Wizardry, being somewhat of a first person dungeon crawl with a lot of mapping (or for modern kids, FAQ searching) to do.

You start off by choosing your character from a large pool of presets, class and all. There are heroes (basically fighters), mages, and monks, and you have stats and skills for all three, which you can change with a simple change of equipment. After a brief look at the surrounding sea, you journey into the town level of a looming tower in which your goal is to find the Black Onyx, which bestows great power. You will quickly begin to experience random encounters, in which you have three options: run, fight, or talk. Running does the obvious, as does fighting. By talking to characters, though, you can recruit them (up to 5 in a party) to join you. Select the team members you want, then hop into the lower dungeon layers to earn money and fight some lower-level goblins and the like.

Fighting is what made this game stand out to me. In battle, after choosing to fight, turns begin to be taken automatically, with your party lined up on the left, and your foes on the right. Your character's weapon will rapidly fly across the screen, pause next to the enemy, then come flying back. This is where it gets unique. Your characters will throw their weapon straight forward at the enemy opposite them. By pressing up or down mid-flight, you can change its trajectory to go toward a different enemy. In the fraction of a second in which your weapon pauses next to the enemy AFTER touching it, you must press the A button to atrack. Bad timing sends it back with no inflicted damage, so battles become much more actively engaging than you would expect from a game of this type. By pressing B, you can pause the battle to change your direction... try to run or talk it out, change which weapon you are using, take on a defensive stance if you have a shield, or use items like potions to recover or gems for new magic. The fast-paced battles are surely the centerpiece of this game and what made it worth writing about for me.

Exploring the first person maze is very typical of the NES/Famicom games of the day, with no real scrolling; you jump from screen to screen rapidly. If there is a floor or ceiling, just press A to travel through it. There are black walls, and touching one will warp you to the last one you touched, making a convenient warp network. The backgrounds are decent, but not great, and do get old after awhile. There are tons of shops and NPCs to encounter, so working hard to upgrade your equipment is pretty easy... and did I mention it's all in English? Menus, descriptions, shops... you name it, it's in glorious, readable English.

I'm not often in the mood for these old-school dungeon crawls. I'm a console and arcade guy for the most part, and the oldPC style isn't in my wheelhouse. However, I like combat here enough that when I do get in the mood to bust out the graph paper, this will be near the top for me, along with Shining the Holy Ark. Much more enjoyable than I would have expected, but I wouldn't expect it to make a bunch of converts. If you're into these kinds of games though, this is one of the more impressive ones I've played!

[celerystalker]

8044Densetsu no Ogre Battle Gaiden: Zenobia no Ouji is not all that obscure. I just want to talk about it, as it is the game that turned me into an Ogre Battle fan, and a big one at that. See, I tend to shy away from overly complicated strategy games and RPGs. Not because I find them difficult, mind you, but because I don't enjoy micromanaging in video games. I hate staring at character sheets, skill trees, or item creation menus, having to churn out hours worth of prep just to play a 40 minute battle, then do it all over again. That's one of the reasons I love Dragon Force; it streamlines most of the nonsense and gets you fighting. Ogre Battle was a game I'd read about quite a bit, because Nintendo Power had a massive boner for the game, and did so many epic center features about it... it always looked fascinating, but reading about alignment, reputation, class trees, weapon bonuses, terrain effects... I was completely turned off to the idea of playing it, despite being intrigued by the nifty artwork and great presentation.

Fast forward to about 2003. I owned the SNES game, but never really played it. I was super into my Neo Geo Pocket Color, and had been snapping up anything I could find for it... and one day at the now gone, but not forgotten Game Trader, I saw this one on the shelf, and it dawned on me... I'd recently played through Langrisser Milennium a couple of years before, and it wasn't too tough in spite of the language barrier. I knew I could play and beat strategy games in Japanese... and here was a version of Ogre Battle, on a system I was into, and being in Japanese was just the excuse I needed to completely disregard the game's menutia and just friggin' play it! So, $20 later, I found myself at home with what would become one of my all-time favorite portable games.

So, if you're unfamiliar with Ogre Battle, the basic idea is that you and your rag-tag army start out in a castle on a map, and your opponents start out on the other side in theirs. You have a few separate units with a leader and up to four subordinates, and you move them around the map with a simple point and click interface not unlike moving a unit in an RTS like Command & Conquer or Warcraft. Come into contact with an enemy unit, and battle ensues. Battles last 2 rounds, and you only select a general strategy for your group, which will automatically play out, such as "attack the weakest" or "best overall." You can also play tarot cards, each of which have their own effect, once per battle, which cast helpful and often devastating magic spells. Win by either eliminating all of the opponents' characters in the unit, in which case they disappear, or doing the most damage, in which case they are pushed back a bit from where they last stood. There are also towns and temples all over the place. Land on a town to liberate it, and you get a tarot card, and in some you can find items or shops. Standing still on a town not only allows you to guard it, but you recover there as well for free. Work your way across the map, destroy your opponent, and maybe make a few allies, then it's off to the next map!

Now, if you know Ogre Battle, you know there's a HELL of a lot more to it, but to just play the game for the first time, this was all I needed. The menus are almost exclusively icon-based, so they are easy to navigate regardless of language, and even easier if you know the SNES or Playstation version, as the NGPC admirably replicates March of the Black Queen's look, feel, and systems. The music and graphics are awesome, and with 13 main maps and 4 secret levels in the endgame, there's a lot of game packed into this portable version... and a ton of ways to play it.

Now, for my first play, I just played it like I'd play any strategy game... build up a few powerhouse units and beat the holy hell out of everything that moves while camping on towns (which any veteran will tell you is exactly the wrong way to do it), and I beat the game handily with mediocre alignment. Now, did I get the best ending? In no way, shape, or form. However, did I have fun? Tremendously. This was exactly what I needed to fall in love with the game... an excuse to ignore the parts I don't care about and focus on what I was interested in to begin with.

I already owned the SNES game, so I decided it was so much fun I could take the time to learn to play Ogre Battle in English, and it's probably my favorite strategy game these days. I'm not going to take the time to go into all of the ins and outs... if you really want to know, feel free to ask or PM, and I'll gladly go on about it. The important thing is, this Neo Geo Picket Color side story is phenomenal, and eschews the complete change in direction of Tactics Ogre and the tweaks of Ogre Battle 64 in favor of acting like its big brother on Super Nintendo. If you like portable strategy, NGPC games, or Ogre Battle, play this game. It made me into a believer, and now I have the Super Famicom version, the Saturn version, the SNES version, the N64 sequel...

[celerystalker]

8045I'm always happy to play something new on my PC-FX, so when I found a dirt cheap auction awhile back for Blue Breaker, I decided to give it a shot. In truth, it's also available on Playstation and Saturn, but given the option, I go with PC-FX, because A) I have one and want to use it, and B) PC-FX handles anime better than either of those due to its fast disc access speed, and Blue Breaker, like just about everything else on NEC's white tower, is loaded with anime cutscenes. So, I loaded it up, watched the full-length opening credit cutscene, and got rolling.

Blue Breaker is an RPG with a heavy focus on its anime presentation with full voice acting for all dialogue, tons of cutscenes, painted backgrounds, and huge animated character portraits during any interaction with NPCs. However, the game's mechanics aren't just the typical RPG trappings of the '90s. Had this game been in English, it would be considered brief and overly linear. However, its design choices make it much easier than it would have been to play in Japanese!

First, the way you travel the world... the world of Blue Breaker is comprised of a series of islands floating in the sky connected by a series of land bridges. On your nicely painted world map, you select an adjacent island with a cursor, which will set you into what looks like a belt scrolling (but is really just a flat 2D) stage, going left or right toward the next destination. You can access your party menu, search the ground, and walk left and right, but every so often you'll be interrupted by an enemy encounter.

It appears more complex than it really is. All you do is select an icon for what you want your character to do next, and they will automatically continue to execute that action each time their turn pops up until you interrupt and select a different choice. Really, fights border on auto-pilot for much of the game, and you'll likely need to grind out a few levels in order to get going. There is little penalty for dying, though, so don't be afraid to check out a new area and see what's what.

Once you reach your destination, you have four choices: move to a new island, go to the local inn, your party menu, or enter the area's dungeon. At the inns, you can sleep, save, shop, get into your party menus, etc. The dungeons of course house the necessary items and encounters necessary to advance the story, and while they play out exactly like the land bridges with little in the way of exploration, they do have tougher encounters and a few alternate paths to try out. This limited selection from menu to action to result makes Blue Breaker far more accessible than a traditional, more wide-open world in Japanese. Hell, it's downright playable. The items have icons to indicate if they're weapons, armor, health restorers, or EP restorers (Blue Breaker's MP), so even using and equipping items is a breeze.

Blue Breaker has outstanding anime art, nifty chiptune-sounding music, and some nice sprites over colorful, painted backgrounds. If you'd like to play an accessible, if simple, JRPG on the PC-FX (or Playstation or Saturn) and are an anime enthusiast, it's pretty nifty and loaded with atmosphere. The PC-FX version can be had pretty easily at around $20, so if you've considered it or are looking for something to play for the system, this one's not bad at all.

[celerystalker]

8046You may have seen the Sega Saturn's Game-Ware discs floating around out there and had a vague curiosity about exactly what they are. Demo discs? Digital catalogues? Well, a little bit of both... it was a five or so issue digital magazine with not only news and ads, but demos and interactive advertising. So, to elaborate... After a commercial for UFO Ramen, you get to the psychadelic main menu that looks like 1990 vomited all over a still from Myst. So, I'll go through the basic contents.

At the top left is the Sega Saturn Masterpiece Collection, which allows you to play a demo of Last Gladiator Pinball. You are able to watch video clips of several tables, but you are only allowed to play a round of the Warlock table. It's a decent if a little simple table, but it gets the point across. Last Gladiator was a pretty good pinball title in its day, so this trial, while not a selling point, is nifty.

Next is some interactive advertising, the Super Hard HG Cup, brought to you by Super Hard Mousse and Hair Gel! You hop around as a penguin, and the goal is to slide underneath all of the gates strewn throughout the level and in igloos. You can spike up your hair with some gel, which allows you to break blocks, and... well... it's friggin' hard, even with the mini map. You can get super hard, though. There's also Telecom Town, in which you use your Telecom phone card in a belt scroller, throwing it at enemies and using it in phone booths for special attacks by dialing 0088. It has cute pixelated sprites, repetitive, poppy music, and plays fairly well... though it doesn't seem to end from what I can tell.

Next is the Forum, which is basically a gallery to view commercials from the companies that funded this disc. UFO Ramen, HG Super Hard toiletries, Pioneer, and Sweetie.

At the bottom is Shopping, where it appears that you can browse a catalog and place orders if it's 1995 and you have your NetLink hooked up. Good luck with that.

In the lower right, there's Information, where you can view CG pictures, Japanese language interviews, and an image gallery regarding Panzer Dragoon II. There is a music section with similar info about the music of the time including Shonen Knife, Oasis Space, and Bjork. Yeah. Lastly here, there is a music section where you can read about Horror Paradise Vampire and Vampire in Brooklyn, and view trailers. Holy crap, I need to watch Vampire in Brooklyn.

Lastly, there are serial games for the magazine. First is a "find the hidden kanji" game, where you find the one symbol in a where's Waldo type scenario. It's actually playable, but absurdly simplistic with jazzy music. Next is a game in which a boy walks the surface of a sphere, and you must move a cursor and spin road tiles to guide him to collect all gems in a time limit. It's a cute puzzler, and can be fun for a few rounds. Lastly, the crown jewel, Series of Dreams, an FMV game where you make decisions for a salaryman trying to have a date that suffers from supernatural intervention. It's strange, slow, and to me, oddly compelling, always driving me to choose other paths to see what strangeness will unfold.

Game-Ware is a true oddity with some unique content. Not quite a demo disc, not quite a catalog, and a dash of original if simple games make it a real head-scratcher. It's never impressive, but a nifty look at mid-'90s Japanese culture, advertising, and gaming trends. The advertisement games are fun to try, and the original games are silly. I wouldn't recommend this to just anyone, but if you like to try stuff that's just weird for weird's sake or are interested in Japanese culture, Game-Ware is an interesting... well, whatever it is, and there are several more.

[celerystalker]

7958Hokuto no Ken 3 on the Famicom is one of the very many games based on The Fist of the North Star. I love Fist of the North Star, and have long been curious to try some of the many different takes on the property that are floating around. This one is an RPG, and seems to follow the first few chapters of the manga. So, how is it, and how playable is it?

Well, there's a heck of a language barrier on this one. The English language must have been afraid that Kenshiro would know its pressure points, because it stayed far, far away from any in-game text. What you have here is an interface very much akin to Dragon Quest, where pressing the A button pulls up your menu and you go from there. You have your typical talk, check, items, equipment, status, etc., as well as a couple of oddities like teleporting to different locations. It's about what you'd expect from an RPG of its era, and it requires a lot of memorization to play.

Battles use a typical interface as well, choosing fight/items/techniques/etc. from a menu. What's neat here is that the characters are represented by anime-style portraits that portray the look of the series neatly. The downside here is that it doesn't allow much in the way of animation, so while good looking, the whole affair is rather static.

The biggest issue here is that Fist of the North Star does not lend itself well to the old-school RPG format. Kenshiro is so thoroughly bad-ass that anything other than random encounters exploding in a spray of blood and entrails is anything but Hokuto no Ken, as only the very strongest can so much as trade a punch with him...

Graphically, the sprites flicker a lot and have particularly goofy walking animation. Everything is gloomy enough, but the baxkgrounds are pretty generic. The music, though, is well-done and quite atmospheric.

I want to like Hokuto no Ken 3, but the property does not blend with the Dragon Quest mold. If you're a huge fan or speak the language, awesome. If not... it's less accessible than taking on a later-gen RPG, and I just want to annihilate people with Kenshiro and I can't.

[celerystalker]

Well, I took a couple of hours today while feeling under the weather to take pictures of all of the games I've posted about here. Don't know if it'll be useful to anyone, but my thought was that it might help in identifying games bought in lots with pictures, but no list of games. These were all taken of my personal copies in my basement, so that's why some are cart-only and others complete. Anyway, for anyone who actually reads any of my nonsense, hope it adds something positive.

[celerystalker]

8080Loosely translated as Donald Duck and the Magical Hat, this Super Famicom game is a 2D platformer from Epoch that I originally purchased a little while ago as part of my Barcode Battler research project. My younger brother and I have been working through each of the games that support the Barcode Battler II interface in order to discover exactly how it is used to enhance the compatible games. Last night we completed our research on this one, so I finally feel like I have experienced all of the game's features enough to talk about it reasonably.

The game has an unusual opening for a platformer with unique stages completely different from the rest of the game, which represent odd jobs done to earn $300 to buy Daisy Duck a hat that she sees in a store window... expensive taste! The story is related through cutscenes before/after each stage, and is completely in Japanese, but the pictures tell the story understandably enough, and they can be skipped with a press of the Start button. You can choose between four stages here, each representing a different job with a different payout. My favorites were the window cleaning and mail delivery stages, but they're all super easy if you're a 16-bit platforming veteran.

After earning enough money and returning to the hat shop, Donald is confronted by a floating magical hat, which sends him through a haunted tower stage in which he must hop gears and swing from various objects in order to turn on the light at the top and drive away ghosts. Afterward, he is spirited away to the kingdom from which the hat originated, in which he can now press A to hide inside the hat for a second for brief invincibility, but only while standing still. Clearing this stage opens up four more, all of which do unique things such as mazes or rotating rooms. The platforming is easy, but some of the mazes can take some time to figure the best path through, as there is no map. Clearing these allows you to access the final castle, which is an expansive multi-part stage mostly comprised of a lengthly maze, at the end of which you confront the final boss.

There are passwords between levels represented by selecting 2 Disney characters and 2 pictures, so continuing your progress is easy... but you probably won't need it, as the game can be cleared in a little over half an hour if you know where to go. This screen is also where the Barcode Battler II Interface comes into play. With this game, you simply scan in barcodes on the password screen, which will simply start the game at various points stages, and even at the ending with some. This game had the least variety of effects from using the Barcode Battler of all of the games that use it, simply working as a stage select cheat code, and it used the least amount of barcodes of all of the games I've tried. Most games at least had other effects such as giving extra lives, items, or invincibility when used through the password screen, but Donald had nothing but stage select and ending view effects after over 100 barcodes. It's an utter waste of the interface, and hardly an enhancement.

That said, Mahou no Boushi is a quality platformer with slightly annoying mazes and short length, but a good variety in level design, great graphics, and okay sound (the banjo music can get old, though). It completely wastes the potential of the barcode battler, and if you intend to use that function, don't worry about needing a complete copy, as it doesn't come with any extra scannables to enhance the experience. If you're a Disney platformer fan, it's fun and accessible, but it's alsoquite short, but the language barrier is a non-issue. I liked it a lot, but was rather disappointed at its take on "Barcode Battler Enhanced."

[celerystalker]

8085Sometimes I look at all the minigame collections on Wii and start to cuss to myself about flash games and the like, but there are other roots there as well. Salaryman Champ for Playstation is a port of an arcade game, and a direct one at that, which is a collection of minigames all designed around the average, work-a-day life of a Japanese business man. So, the question is, do you have what it takes to become the salaryman champ? Should you even care? Are you afraid of transexuals?

You see, Salaryman champ is designed around three coworkers vying for supremacy on the corporate ladder... er, staircase. Starting with waking up and eating breakfast, you live out the day's challenges in a series of mini-games, just like in real life. From running upstairs to claim your forgotten briefcase to answering phones, giving presentations to running from trannies trying to kiss you, and singing karaoke to not getting caught slacking off, you'll be playing games built around a three-button scheme, where square is left, x or triangle is middle, and o is right. There's a brief tutorial before each, and then it's off to the rat race.

If variety is the spice of life, Salaryman Champ's challenges are rice. They all revolve around the same few setups: mash all buttons, hit the corresponding button to match the prompt, or mash on buttons alternately. This works fine in a competitive multiplayer session, and is good for some laughs, but is annoyingly difficult for a single player, betraying its arcade origins. Alone, it wears thin quickly, and is more of an endurance challenge.

The graphics are mostly simple chibi anime characters cheaply animated to upbeat music. It's cute if predictable, and it does portray a silly tribute to Japanese business, but it needs to be played communally for maximun amusement. It's very much a precursor to games like Raving Rabbids that would come later, for better or worse. There was also apparently a special controller setup available in Japan, though I've never been able to track one down. It's no great prize, but if you have friends amused by Japanese culture, it can be a great time. As a single player, you'd be better off with something like Incredible Crisis that has more variety. Still, mine was less than $10 brand new, so if you think it sounds like your thing, there's little risk. Just watch out for those aggressive newhalves, will ya?

[celerystalker]

That title may seem familiar if you've seen the first page of this thread, as I went on about the PC Engine CD version of this game, which is awesome. This time, I wanted to talk about the original Game Boy version of this Kunio classic, which has quite a few differences.
8091
You're still looking at a track meet extraveganza, and still utilizing excellent beat 'em up controls familiar to the Technos faithful. However, there are changes to the event lineup this time. The cross-country race is almost identical to the Famicom and PC Engine versions, and the final brawl is basically the same as well. But... there is still an obstacle course, but it is frankly easier by a mile. No blackout room, less spring platforms... it's simpler, to be sure, but still fun. The ball-breaking event has been replaced by a free-for-all bread eating event in which you must try to eat bread during a fight, but realistically you're just gonna beat the holy shit out of each other while the last man standing eats. Lastly, there is an all-new bomb tag brawl, in which you fight while one person has a bomb attached to them, and tries to pass it off by picking up an opponent. It's like hot potato with tons of violence, which makes it awesome.

Graphically, the game looks great, and by default takes on a blue/green hue in the Gamecube Game Boy player. The music is solid, but is better in the other versions. Jumping is a bit different, as you no longer pick up momentum mid-air, so it actually slows you down. It does still maintain 4-player support, but getting that hookup together is far more cumbersome than in the other versions to get a multi-player party going. It's a shame, because the unique versions of the games in this version are a fun twist. Still, if you can arrange it, it's a great time, but this is definitely best with four players.

Next, I think I'll talk about the same damn game again. On PS3. Because it's awesome.

[celerystalker]

8109All right! Time for a game for which I've had a ton of requests (read: zero), the re-imagined Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku: Soreyuke Daiundoukai for Playstation 3! I'm rather fond of just about all of the mighty Kunio-kun's exploits, but the PC Engine CD version of this game is one of my very favorites. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this hit the listings for sale this spring, on a glorious disc, no less. So the question is, what's different this time around?

Well, there's a lot to talk about here, really, so I'll start with what's the same. Free Battle mode is essentially the original game. The course layouts are basically the same, the events are in the same order, and you have basically the same customization options for number of rounds, time limits, etc. This, however, is just the foundation they used to build a game just littered with Kunio/River City fan service and insanity.

Mode-wise, you now have online battling, which I'm sure is awesome if you have someone to play with, options, which let you edit text speed, window colors, volume levels, etc., as well as the chance to listen to a sound test, view command lists for all of the old and new abilities (and good lord are there a ton of new techniques), and even profiles of all of the game's characters. Then, there's Story mode and Create mode.

Create mode is a delightfully insane treat for fans, in which you can edit events by redesigning course layouts, time limits, and playfields, allowing you to save customized events for use in Free Battle and Online Battle modes. There a loads of options here for making the events of your dreams and nightmares, which is awesome, and really gives legs to the multi-player experience. But then... then... you can start creating your own characters and teams in the style of the Downtown Nekketsu universe! Hairstyle, eyes, color of hair, skin tone, clothes... it's your chance to get neck-deep into Kunio's world and join in the hot-blooded battle! Modify your attributes, even assign special abilities, and create your own team!

Creating your own team is great, as there are a load of options for what to do. You get 20 points to divide amongst your team, which can be anywhere from 2 to 6 members deep. You assign a number of points to each character, which determines the degree to which you can improve that character's attributes. So, depending on your style of play, you can have a small team of tanks, a balanced team, or a large, spread-thin team with very specialized abilities. Point is, you have a long creative leash. One bummer... no English characters to use in naming your creations.

Lastly, you have story mode, in which you can play a default or create a character to join up with Nekketsu High and compete against the diabolical Toudou along side your captain, the all-mighty Kunio! You play through skippable story scenes that introduce characters and set up conflicts that can only be resolved through competition and violence. Here, you'll start off as a weakling, but you'll level up and gain techniques by fighting along-side your heroic captain. It's fun and lengthly, and gives the game a much-needed single player mode that feels worthwhile.

Now, the other changes. The graphics are an interesting mix of realistic 3D belt-scrolling backgrounds littered with high-res 2D sprites that capture all of the glory of the NES days, but now with no flicker! There are tons of new weapons and abilities to use as well. The controls have been tweaked oddly, and you now have a separate jump button. It works, but for those of us who have been playing these games all along, it's an adjustment, and there's no classic control option. The production values in the menus and story scenes, though... they are astoundingly cool, and must be seen in motion by fans to be appreciated for how well they represent the series.

This is far beyond being a remake. It adds so much good content that it should be an absolute must for any Kunio fan. The control quirks took me a few minutes to adjust to, but it's still absolutely an authentic experience, and a love letter to the franchise. The creation and single player modes coupled with unlockable teams and abilities make this game go far beyond where any game like it has even considered. If you like Kunio or the Crash 'n the Boys/River City games, make this your next import. It's worth figuring out the Japanese menus for the awesome payoff.

[sfchakan]

Long-time reader, first time poster. Digging this thread. It reminds me of when Steve used to post on my own forums years ago.

Thanks.

[celerystalker]

Thanks very much! I'm just happy to have a place to talk about this kind of thing. Glad to hear you've had some fun with it!

[celerystalker]

8110The centerpiece for the Super Famicom Barcode Battler II interface is Conveni Wars: Barcode Battler Senki. The game was designed from the ground up with the use of barcode swiping in mind, and as such contains some unique features that can only be enjoyed with the full setup. This requires the use of a Barcode Battler II unit, the Super Famicom Barcode Battler II interface unit, the game cartridge, a Super NES or Super Famicom, and any barcode cards, stray UPCs, or other standard barcodes you can print off at home. Got it all together? Then we can set it up.

SNES controller in port 1? Check. Barcode Battler Interface plugged in, one end into the Barcode Battler II, the other into controller port 2? Great. To turn on your Barcode Battler in interface mode, hold down R-Battle and R-Power while turning on the Barcode Battler II. This can be done at any time, before you turn on the system, after you turn it on, or you can even just leave it on if you're switching between Barcode Battler enhanced games. The holding the R-Power and R-Battle buttons in while switching on is what most people who think their unit doesn't work do wrong. Okay, so, we're set up, and hopefully we've got a pile of barcodes ready to swipe. SWITCHING UNIT ON! (Sorry, I just like Martian Successor Nadesico.)

Now, on the main menu, you can choose to play Story Mode, Barcode Battler Mode, or check your options. Both Story and Barcode Battler II mode are compatible with the interface. I'll talk Barcode Battler II Mode first.

This mode is essentially a graphical representation of the Barcode Battler system itself. In this mode, you swipe in your character for each side, then swipe in any equipment/support characters, and then you fight like Pokémon. You can fight, use magic if you're a wizard, or charge power, which is typically a waste. You basically trade hits until someone dies. Some characters have other abilities such as gaining or taking away HP or weakening opponents' attacks. Anyhow, it's very simple, and the game keeps track of character/player win and loss records. Kinda neat, but if that was it, it'd be pretty weak, and often the on-screen characters will look nothing like your cards... but it is fun, and more importantly, it gets better.

Story Mode is a hex-based strategy game in which you bring in an army to destroy that of your enemies. When beginning, you can take a default team, which makes this mode playable without the interface. However, you can choose to scan in up to four characters to be on your squad, which typically start off much stronger than what you'd get by default.
8111
(My intrepid team)

You play this like you'd play Shining Force, Nectaris, etc., but once you enter attack or defense, you fight like you would with the Barcode Battler. Killing opponents nets experience to power up your fellas, and winning the overall battle also nets you an upgrade. There are also convenience stores on the map. Stopping in will allow you to buy items and heal, but if you have your handy dandy interface running, you csn scan yourself in a little arsenal to keep ahead of the game. Missions play out quickly, and you can save in between to come back later.

The graphics are pedestrian but passable, and it would have been nice if my pal Dr. Recycle looked like himself instead of a generic monster when I swipe him in, but it's a minor quibble. You can edit the names of your scanned-in creatures in both modes, and the quest is a decent length. Despite the language barrier, there are only a few menus to figure out, and the hard part is knowing how to set it up.

This game is a mixed bag. Using the interface is fun, and adds a unique flavor to the game... but the battles and scenarios are somewhat limited in scope. For what it is, which is a showcase for the technology, it's pretty well-realized, and can be fun. If you're thinking of exploring Barcode Battler/SFC compatibility, this is your starting point, and probably the most complete experience to be had with it. As a strategy game, it's honestly mediocre. As a curio or novelty, it's fun and tremendous. I like it.

[celerystalker]

8118Being from the American Mid-West, I am genetically predisposed toward watching professional wrestling. In spite of its absurd storytelling, mindless simulated violence, and predictable booking, there's something magnetic that at the very least keeps me checking in with news and rumors whether I'm interested in the current product or not. Hulkamania ran wild through my childhood. Fortunately, wrestling video games have had a proud tradition of taking wrestling's theatrics and putting them in your hands, sometimes tremendously, like Fire Pro or Aki's N64 games, and others, like Kinnikuman: Dirty Challenger can make your brain implode. Wrestle Kingdom for Xbox 360 (it's also on PS2, but I only have it for 360) takes the top 3 Japanese companies in puroresu, Pro Wrestling Noah, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and New Japan Pro Wrestling together in a game named for their annual combined Tokyo Dome Supercard. So, where does it fall in the quality spectrum?

Engine-wise, Wrestle Kingdom runs on basically the same engine as the Gamecube's Wrestlemania 19, itself a descendant of Toukon Retsuden. The controls are not unlike Aki's N64 offerings, utilizing strike and grapple buttons, with post-grapple inputs for move execution and timed button presses for reversal attempts. A similar spirit meter is employed as well, which when fully powered, can allow finishing moves when activated by a taunt. If you've played any of those Toukon or Aki games, you know how to play this.

Camera-wise, the game has a tendency to focus on a horizontal ringside view, which can get old after years of being spoiled by games like Wrestlemania 2000 for variety. The controls feel okay, but there are awkward moments due to the smooth animation being interrupted by move inputs and some slidey-floaty movement animation. The character models look good and are recognizeable for the most part, and the roster is huge. Pretty much anybody worth a damn in 2005 is represented along with a few legends. For me, this just means I get to kick the crap out of snotty up and comers like KENTA (NXT's Hideo Itami) and Hiroshi Tanahashi (Japan's John Cena) with Keiji Mutoh.

There are the modes you'd expect from modern wrestling games, such as editing wrestlers, exhibition matches, and drama mode, which is your career mode here, complete with training minigames. Compared to WWE games, there's more of a sports presentation to this mode than entertainment, which is a nice change of pace and reflects the difference in how the product is presented regionally.

Honestly, if you've played modern wrestling games, there's nothing systematically here to make it worthwhile. Wrestle Kingdom is really only relevant to puroresu fans, specifically those interested in the wrestlers who were popular during what was a tumultuous, transitional time in the Japanese industry. I can't recommend it to just a video game importer. Wrestle Kingdom is a game for puro die hards and no one else, as it doesn't offer new modes or gameplay, and it's not region free.

[celerystalker]

8123I'm not exactly sure what to call Gal*Gun in regard to its obscurity. Depending on who you are and the sort of places you frequent, this is either quite unknown or a pretty well-known joke. Either way, it's certainly an interesting experience, especially to expose your friends to...

What Gal*Gun is, though, is a rail shooter that plays out largely like Virtua Cop or Time Crisis, but with a SORELY different theme. The version I own is for the Xbox 360, though it was later released on PS3 as well with some additional content and perhaps most interestingly, Playstation Move support, which allows it to be played more like a proper light gun game. On 360, the only option is to play using the analog stick to move a cursor, like the many controller modes on other console gun game ports. So, given the previous unnecessary capitalization, clearly the theme of the game is what is likely to pique a prospective player's interest.

No terrorist, no robbers, no rogue army, no robots... no, your foe in Gal*Gun is far, far more insidious: the hormone-stricken teenage girl. Droves of them, each and every one dumbstruck with affection compelling them to pursue you like animals throughout your high school grounds to fulfill their carnal needs. The problem? You have a crush you're trying to win over, and these crazy bitches won't leave you alone! It's not their fault, though...

See, a well-meaning cupid has noticed how badly you want to woo your crush, which you select at the beginning of the game. In a moment of compassion, she lets fly what was meant to be a single arrow of attraction, but accidentally kinda sorta nails you with, like, 50 arrows. This causes every young lady to be overcome with a hormonal imbalance of lust, and you're the target. They'll chase you, blow kisses, read love poems, and otherwise attempt to subdue you. Realizing how badly she's mucked up your situation, cupid arms you with a love gun that fires little pheromone hearts at your would be assailants, overloading their senses and causing them to collapse in a heap of ecstasy.

There are a few quirks in aid of this absurdist fantasy, such as the questions asked of you by cupid or your crush in between levels, which have dating sim elements, affecting your attractiveness to your prospective mate. Occasionally, there are also boss fights, some of which present a language barrier issue, but none are so tough that they can't be fumbled through. Each girl chasing you also has a preferred erogenous zone, and shooting her there will trigger an "ecstasy shot," subduing her instantly. Lastly, there's your heart meter.

As you progress, you can fill an increasing number of levels to your heart meter, and by pressing Y, you, um... yeah. You get a super close up of the girl you shot. Super close. You can look her up and down, shooting her in various places to find what she likes best. Fill up her ecstasy meter, push Y again, and she will burst with pleasure, setting off a bomb attack that will make every lady on screen show her O face. Yeah... yeah. It's definitely a "Did that seriously just happen?" moment. Doing this will also make her viewable in gallery mode.

If this all sounds ridiculous, it is. However, it is more tame than it sounds. No real nudity to speak of, no tentacle nonsense... just a whole bunch of gratuitous panty shots and moaning. It's silly, and tounge-in-cheek, much like the sort of nonsense you'd see in a Choaniki game, just slightly less insane and heterosexual in nature as opposed to the wondrous marvels that series has put out there.

Honestly, as dirty as it sounds, it's all a pretty harmless love story that is very fun to watch others play and become uncomfortable. As a game, it's a decent rail shooter with very good cel-shaded anime-style graphics and a "mom just walked in" button that pauses the game and makes it look like a Famicom RPG. It's comical, and pretty enjoyable with a fun soundtrack. If part of your importing entails bewildering friends with Japanese insanity, Gal*Gun is a must. If you're into rail shooters and have a flexible sense of humor, it's pretty fun. Otherwise, feel free to shake your head and ponder where this world is headed.

Edit: I should note that the Xbox 360 version is not region free, whereas the PS3 of course is.

[celerystalker]

8124
Death Crimson is not particularly obscure as a franchise. The original Saturn game is a bonafide kusoge legend in its native country, and Death Crimson Ox managed to eke out a late US Dreamcast release somehow. The middle child, though, is the one that gets largely ignored, in spite of the fact that it at least tries to do more. Like the other 2 games in the series, Death Crimson 2 is a light gun shooter with absolutely abysmal cover art. It wants to be House of the Dead 2 so bad it can taste it in its stage design and atmosphere, but it does some things that that game doesn't. Now, I'm not saying those things are executed particularly well, mind you, but they're there for what they are.

The first big difference is the game's story mode. Designed to utilize the Dreamcast gun's D-pad for more than navigating menus, Death Crimson 2 has a would-be Resident Evil-style mode in which you control your character in a third person perspective using tank controls with the pad. This is a bit shoehorned in as between shooting stage exposition (and entirely in Japanese), and is rudimentary at best. The language barrier makes it difficult to figure out where to go, and there are quiz questions, too. The control is an overly sensitive mess as well, so be warned. Without language skills, these segments will slow you down while adding little other than atmosphere.

The next difference is multiplayer. You can take on various stages as a team, and this was one of the first gun games to support 4 player simultaneous fun. This is actually quite cool and competitive, and is the main way I tend to play. It is compatible with both US and Japanese light guns, and the shooting is responsive. The music is dull, though, and the voice acting is noticeably bad even in Japanese. But...

The last big difference is that you can plug in your old Seaman mic and record various voices and screams in 3 second bursts to replace the game's garbage voices! As one might imagine, the potential for childish vulgarity is endless, and you'd be amazed at what you can spit out in 3 seconds. This is a truly stupid and wonderful addition to the multiplayer experience, especially if you have enough guns and VMUs.

The enemies are a bit repetitive and on the robotic/alien side as opposed to the demonic and undead imagery in House of the Dead, but the graphics aren't terrible. The single player campaign is artificially lengthened by the unique, fundamentally flawed adventure segments, but the multiplayer is solid fun that is only enhanced by the microphone support. If you'll be playing alone, this is probably bottom of the list for DC gun games. In a group, though, it's very much worthwhile, and gives some legs to that microphone that's been packed away since you got bored and screwed with your internal clock to see what your Seaman was going to be like all grown up.

[celerystalker]

8127Here's one that Dreamcast enthusiasts may be aware of, but seems to have gotten swept away in the last 15 years. Nanatsu no Hikan, also known as 7 Mansions, is a Dreamcast survival horror game from the year 2000 (you can begin having decade-old Conan O'Brien flashbacks now), but with a twist that has been copied surprisingly little. Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't seen more talk about this game than I have, given the popularity of horror properties in this day and age. Okay, now that I've utterly wasted a paragraph thanks to being tired, the game.

I first learned about 7 Mansions from a preview in the long defunct, but fondly remembered (apparently by only me) Silicon Magazine, which was given away for free at my local Game Xchange stores which have now been closed for many years. They had a single paragraph preview that at the time, I glossed over and never thought twice about it. Years later, taking a trip down memory lane, there it was. Knowing that it never released in the states, I did a little research, and 8 bucks later, BAM!
8128
This was the snippet that caught my attention.

The big deal here is not that the items and menus are in english (though they are), that it's a relatively unknown horror game, or even that it's from Koei, who at the time mainly made historical sims, and since has been a pile of Kessen and Dynasty Warriors I'd prefer to forget. The big deal is that it's 2 player co-op.

Sure, you can play a single player campaign from the point of view of either character, which isn't bad, but contains tons of escorting. The controls are traditional tank controls, but there are some neat tweaks. For one, with a press of the X button, there are 3 different camera angles: third-person cinematic (like RE), third-person over the shoulder, and first-person. You have your full range of motion and actions in any view, which is cool, and allows you to play in your own style. The different campaigns are unique, and offer varying visions of the plot, which is pretty cookie cutter, but at least you're vacationing young adults instead of special forces grunts, even if their sense of fashion is highly questionable.

Two-player mode, though, is good fun. You can trade items, go to different buildings, choose horizontal or vertical split screen views, and fight bosses in tandem. The puzzles are different as well, so it's not just a rehash of the one player mode, which is cool as well. The one quirk, though, is that both players must be standing in front of a laptop to save. Still, a minor quibble, and this mode is a great time if you have an adventurous friend.

The graphics are about average for a DC game of its time, and the music is appropriate if forgettable. What 7 Mansions is is a very competent Resident Evil clone with english menus and item listings, a convenient map screen, easy targeting, and an awesome co-op mode. I know this is a bit disjointed due to my being extremely sleep deprived, but 7 Mansions is no joke. If you're a Dreamcast fan or horror afficionado, it beats the pants off of Carrier or The Ring even without a second player... but the co-op really works, making this somewhat of a unique animal having such a concept in the traditional survival horror mold. Neat!

[sfchakan]

http://churchm.ag/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/in-the-year-2000.jpg


I had forgotten all about 7 Mansions. I don't recall hearing about the co-op mode in the game. I know the later survival horror game Obscure had one.

[celerystalker]

8132
Speedball for Sega's Master System is a futuristic sports game from Bitmap Bros., the famous Spectrum/Amiga jockeys responsible for loads of Euro-style action such as Soldiers of Fortune. Various iterations of this game have arrived in the states such as Speedball 2100 on Playstation and Klashball on NES, but the Master System game was exclusive to Europe.

The game is a 5 on 5 futuristic sport that functions like a mix of lacrosse and American Gladiators, where armored combatants attempt to throw a ball into the opposing teams goal. You can throw, punch, and jump around the arena, which has a goal at each end, spherical barriers in various locations, tunnels through which you can pass the ball Pac-Man style through the wall, and a cannon that randomly fires the ball from mid-court for face-offs. Each round has a differing barrier configuration, but the strategies are basically the same for each.

During the game, you can collect powerups to briefly increase your speed or skill, and money that you can use between rounds to do things such as power up your skill, bribe the official to keep the game going if you lost, or reduce opponent abilities. You automatically control the player closest to the ball, and you simultaneously control the goalie, so you must pay close attention on defense when jockeying for position. The control is solid, but you move faster diagonally, and it is easy to get stuck on your own players.

The single player game is the knockout game, in which you progress through a series of opponents in a best 2 of 3 series in order to advance your way through to the championship. There is also a 2 player vs mode, which is considerably more fun in my estimation, as the computer will always fall for the same few strategies. There is also a demo mode in which you can watch the computer play itself if you are bored or confused.

The graphics are okay, but the background blue dominates what you see. The character animations are about par for the time, and there is the slight blur that finds its way into many Master System games. The music/sound effects are minimalistic and overly simple, and at best don't detract from the experience.

Speedball is a fun game if you have someone to play with you, but a fairly repetitive single player game. It's certainly not a shining jewel that should be sought out at all costs, but it can be a pleasant diversion if you stumble across it. There are some neat ideas with the power up and bribery system, but this sort of thing is better implemented in other games like Super Baseball 2020. At least it's inexpensive.

[celerystalker]

8134The Legend of Xanadu II on PC Engine CD is a game that deserves so much more of a following than it has. It is an action RPG adventure that is part of Falcom's long and diverse Dragon Slayer series, and is a spinoff of sorts of Xanadu, but that's another story you can poke around HG101 to read. What is so interesting about the Legend of Xanadu games, and specifically the second in this case, is how they take just about every lesson Falcom had learned in creating action RPGs and manage to apply them all to create a game that brings together different styles of play and systems to create a game that is not only fun, engaging, and acessible, but also displays the company's legacy in a way that even the Ys series should envy.

Speaking of Ys, that's what will first leap to mind to any new player tackling the Legend of Xanadu II, as it initially seems to employ an update on the Ys formula: a top-down adventure in which combat is performed not with the press of a button, but rather by rushing headlong into your enemies at a good angle as attacks happen automatically. This is a method Falcom has employed for years in games on systems with limited inputs in order to conserve buttons for other functions. What is satisfying here, though, is that you actually get sword swipe animation instead of just walking through your enemies, with attacks bouncing them back. It is as quick as Ys, but for those who grew up on the likes of Zelda or Soul Blazer, it adds a level of comfort to combat not present in Ys. In these overhead portions, you'll explore dungeons, fields, and towns, completing tasks and killing enemies to move forward.

The towns... these towns are big and detailed, with a lot to see and people to talk to. The graphics are top-notch for a PCE game, having all of the detailed sprites and backgrounds you'd expect even from the best SNES RPGs. Navigating towns isn't too bad, though, as icons denote important shops easily, and important characters generally have distinct sprites, making the usual trial and error of playing Japanese games a tad easier. You'll also meet party members who will join you, up to two at a time of which will follow you on the map, attacking alongside you with pretty fair AI.

Once you've found your way forward and through the dungeons, you'll inevitably hit a boss, and all of the sudden you find yourself in a stunning 2D side-scrolling battle with wonderful sprites reminiscent of the Sega CD Popful Mail, also from Falcom. These fights play out much like that game, ans you now can jump and have an attack button, but that isn't all... you'll notice that you get asked a question before each boss fight. What it's asking is, do you want to fight alone, or do you want to bring one of your companions into battle... which can be controlled by a second player! It's strange that multi-player only exists in these scenes, but for what it is, it's pretty neat. This will generally seem awesome to many players, as the scenes and sprites here are huge, and some of the coolest 16-bit bosses around, but if you're a veteran of the first game, they may be a disappointment, as that game had full-blown stages in this style leading up to the bosses instead of just a fight.

Systematically, you level up in interesting ways based on what you do. Taking damage gets you more max HP in the long run, and taking hits levels up your armor. Attacking makes your sword stronger, but items take damage and must be repaired. This sounds annoying, but the game never puts you in a situation that is too much for your equipment, and leveling up weapons happens fast enough that it's less cumbersome than, say, Secret of Mana or Evermore. It's a simple, elegant system that is so well implemented that you'll generally find yourself where you need to be through normal play with all but no grinding.

I can't overstate how great looking The Legend of Xanadu II is. It's simply one of the prettiest games on the system, and that's not including its excellent anime cutscenes. The music is also great and appropriate, though it often uses the sound chip instead of CD or redbook audio for music. Production values here represent Falcom at its pinnacle in design, especially in those wonderful horizontal segments.

The only people who will find anything to dislike here either hate action RPGs to begin with or just wish it was as long as the first Legend of Xanadu, which was immense. Still, this is every bit as long as a Soul Blazer or Illusion of Gaia, and is so superbly designed and balanced that it's a treat to play, and is pretty darn navigable even in Japanese. In fact, that is why I wanted to write about this one before the original; it is so accessible and about a third of the length of its predecessor, so while its story does continue the adventures of those characters, it involves far less back tracking and guess work, making it a great primer for those larger, more tricky games on the PCE. If you like Ys or Zelda and want something better than Neutopia could ever be, give it a shot. It's a load of fun.

[sfchakan]

Love the Xanadu series but haven't played this one yet.

[celerystalker]

8138Lupin the Third for Super Famicom is not particularly obscure. Heck, at the time of this post, its between level intermission is a gif in Tanooki's signature, so it's all over the site. So, while I will discuss the game's basics, the main thing I'd like to disambiguate is what "Barcode Battler Enhanced" means in relation to this game, as it does support Epoch's Barcode Battler II/SFC interface.

The actual game itself is a platformer/action game of sorts with a Die Hard twist. Lupin (or Rupan for those who bought the old AnimEigo releases) is out to rescue a captured Fujiko, his personal femme fatale, who is tucked away at the top of a skyscraper. Lupin must use his wits, athleticism, and gadgets to traverse each stage, figure out how to open and reach the exit, and once in a blue moon fight a boss. The levels are large and maze-like, and traps are a bigger hazard than enemies in most stages, be it electrical discharge, spikes, falling blocks, or exploding armor.

To navigate these roadblocks, Lupin has a bunch of good tools to play with, such as his trademark sleeve grappling hook, a gun, healing tonics, and spring shoes. He starts with a limited number of most of his items, and can find more scattered throughout each stage, so stockpiling can be as important as combat. These items control pretty well, and their use, coupled with the trap-laden mazes of the building, can create more of a puzzle feel than an action game at times.

The graphics are pretty solid, but the metallic backgrounds can get a bit repetitive. The cinemas, though, are dynamite for an SNES game, even if the music doesn't quite filter out right through the sound chip. Seriously, the cutscenes and large character portraits during dialogue really aid this game in feeling like a Lupin game and not a generic action puzzler, and they do it well.

So, the always cryptic Barcode Battler Enhancement, which the internet states allows "extra content to be unlocked." This is not accurate. The Barcode Battler interface works like Donald Duck in that it's another game in which you swipe barcodes in at the password screen to get various cheats, such as skipping levels, viewing specific story cutscenes, or having unlimited use of your items. While interesting, getting the complete story and level content of the game is possible without utilizing this feature at all. Disappointing... I'd have liked to have seen some bonus stages or content.

What Lupin is is a competent puzzle-based action game that does a decent job representing its license without being a digital novel. It is a thoroughly average game, but if you're a big fan of the property, there's a lot to like... but seriously, Barcode Battler enhanced my ass...

[celerystalker]

8139Kishin Korinden Oni for the Super Famicom is a traditional JRPG in the mold of a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, and comes from a similarly expansive series from Banpresto. Honestly, it seems like every time I think I have seen every game in the franchise, another Game Boy game or something pops up. I wanted to start with this game because it was my entry point into the series, and because the Super Famicom entries are still my favorites. So, why play this instead of the many translated RPGs out there?

For me, it started with the anime Rurouni Kenshin, which I was watching in the late '90s on VCD, and I was in the mood for some samurais, and feudal Japan provides the setting for Kishin Korinden Oni, a theme not present in any of the US released RPGs of the time. The colors, youkai-inspired monsters, and anime portrait art in the packaging all convey the anime samurai flavor I was hoping for. That setting was the first thing to really separate this game for me.

Next, the game has a cool hook in which you search for special weapons for each party member you find in order to unleash their Oni form. This functions quite a bit like the dragon transformations in the original Breath of Fire, in which you remain a demon for the duration of the battle. This unlocks powerful attacks and abilities, which adds a strategic layer to the game's later battles.

Aside from those unique elements, the core of the game is an extremely high-quality RPG with the feel of a Breath of Fire or Lufia II with a very standard, fast-paced battle system. The menus are not overly complicated, and can easily be figured out even without any knowledge of Japanese. The game remains fairly linear with modest town size, which makes progressing through the first 3/4 of the game through trial and error extremely doable.

It's difficult to recommend a 20+ year old JRPG in Japanese when there are so many other options in English these days. However, if you're in the mood for that anime, feudal Japan flavor on the SNES, it does it so well that it deserves a look. If nothing else, at the rate SNES games get fan translations, it's worth keeping an eye out for one if it hasn't happened already. Anyhow, I wanted to talk about it, as it was my first JRPG that I played through in Japanese years and years ago, and this is apparently the 100th little game discussion I've done in this thread. I'm a fan, and its sequel, Bakumatsu Korinden Oni, offers more of the same on the system with even higher production values.

[celerystalker]

8146Few series are as long, enjoyable, and convoluted as Falcom's Dragon Slayer series. Most often action RPGs, although there are a few side-steps, these games are often looked at as a large part of the foundation of the Japanese RPG development history. This Game Boy game, Dragon Slayer I, is a portable version of the series' progenitor. So, having loved so many games in the franchise, how well does this one hold up the legacy?

Well... um... for starters, no matter how you slice it, the original Dragon Slayer sucks. Archaic in all of the wrong ways, it manages to apply one of the harshest grinds I can think of to what to a new player would feel like Diablo's special needs cousin without all the loot. It appears as an early top-down adventure, and your goal in each stage is to power up and slay a dragon. You can only power up by finding power crystals and killing enemies, and you are woefully underpowered to begin the game. I cannot overstate this, as it is an enormous stumbling block to getting started. Combat simply involves being adjacent to an enemy and trading hits, and even the enemies on the first screen can annihilate you with ease. Not only this, but you must take items back to your home to get the money and experience, so you basically have to run around and collect crystals until you're finally badass enough to kill the equivalent of a Dragon Quest Green Slime.

This is not hyperbole to create some comedic effect; it's just a really brutal beginning to a game that never lets up. No saves, no continues. Just you trying to stay alive and somehow get tough enough to kill a dragon. It can get almost like Stockholm Syndrome, where you find yourself masochistically forging ahead at a snail's pace in order to finally feel like you've conquered something megalithic, but it's never particularly rewarding.

The graphics are pretty average for the Game Boy at the time, but what music there is is ass. Very little here is set up in a way to be immediately appealing to anyone other than those diehard players of the PC-88 original looking for a version on the go, which I am decidedly not.

Truthfully, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone other than a collector trying to collect the whole series. It's a brutal experience here, and in my opinion the only reasonable way to play it and get even a modicum of enjoyment out of it is by playing Falcom Classics Vol. 1 on Saturn. It is truly difficult, unrewarding, and despite the fact that I absolutely love this series, I recommend it to no one. At least there's no language barrier!

[celerystalker]

8148
Martian Successor Nadesico is one of my very favorite anime shows. It had such a great and bizarre cast, and if you saw it and didn't love Gai to pieces, you are a heartless animal. Anyhow, Nadesico had a couple of Saturn games that were largely digital comics. This Dreamcast version, Nadesico the Mission, is actually a turn-based strategy game with some digital comic elements in between missions that picks up on the Prince of Darkness movie storyline.

Taking command of the Battleship Nadesico with Captain Ruri is a nice change of pace from your typical grid-based console strategy. Instead, you have a movement radius represented by a blue streak you can move about not unlike a shot in Mario Golf. As long as the streak remains blue, you will also have the opportunity to take another action such as firing, doing repairs, or defending with shields. If the streak becomes red, you can move, but you will be unable to take any other actions that turn. Depending on the mission, you may have support vessels or Aestevalis' to maneuver as well. Aestevalis' operate as they would in the anime, and must remain within a certain proximity in order to receive energy from the Nadesico. You have a wide array of attacks, ranging from Gekigan Flares to the Nadesico's mighty gravity cannon.

In between missions, the digital comic elements are played out. As a chibi version of your character, you roam the ship, interacting and building relationships with your crew. Most often, you'll have simple, pre-scripted conveesations that are occasionally interrupted by questions. These segments serve to tell the game's story and improve your team's efficiency. I'd like to be able to share details about this, but the segments are entirely in Japanese, and I honestly fumble my way through them to get to the next mission. Thankfully, they are quite brief and navigable.

There are a nice variety to the missions, ranging from limited resource skirmishes, open-space war, and Aestevalis battles in enclosed spaces. The graphics are solid, and the music is straight from the anime, along with the voice actors. While far from the flashiest game on the Dreamcast, it does convey the look of the show well. The menus are almost entirely in kanji, though, so be prepared to do some memorizing or taking notes if you intend to get into it.

I have fond memories of this game. My old roommate and I ordered copies together, and had a great time playing it side by side all day one day, seeing who could get farther (it was me). It really capture Nadesico well, and is a solid strategy game to boot. If you're a Nadesico fan who is looking for a Nadesico game to play, this is the one to play. It's easily the most accessible and has the most actual gameplay to offer. If you just want a strategy games
, you have other options that are easier to get into, but if you want Naf
desico, it's doable. I'm a fan, for what it's worth.

[celerystalker]

8166Anime fandom tends to go hand in hand with the import scene, and I am no exception to that trend. Bastard!! on the Super Famicom is based on the manga, which spawned a brief OVA. It chronicles the re-awakening of the dark sorcerer Dark Schneider, who for years has been sealed away in the body of a child. Released, he sets out to reclaim what is his in the kingdom of Metallicana.
8167
Dark Schneider in action figure form, spiked codpiece and all

I love this series. It's over the top, loaded with metal references, and violent. Dark Schneider is a depraved asshole of an anti-hero that would make Ronnie James Dio smile. As the series is essentially a series of fights between Dark Schneider and whoever he's pissed off, it makes perfect sense to translate the story into a one on one fighter. Rather than go the conventional route here, though, they chose to make a unique game that forces players apart, causing it to be more of a battle of foresight and magic than counters and combos.

All battles feature scaling sprites hovering over mode 7 backgrounds. One player is in the foreground, and the other is in the background, and you begin by dashing about tossing projectiles at one another in a manner not unlike Psychic Force. The control scheme to support this is unique. For a basic projectile, press any of the 4 face buttons. B curves downward, Y left, X upward, and A curves to the right. Anticipating your opponent's movements will score you hits, but these attacks are weak. The real money is in your spells. You can hold down R, and then input a series of button presses shown in the manual and then releasing R. These attacks are powerful, but if you are hit while performing them or even while a projectile is moving, your attack is canceled, so you must pick your spots. Pressing L will cause you to fly into the foreground or background, changing places with your foe.

As it probably sounds, battles are fast and frenzied, and if you don't know what you're doing, impossible. However, master the odd control scheme and you get a very fast game of anticipating and setting up magic strikes. The music is a nice attempt at heavy metal for the SNES sound chip, and works for the fast fights. The graphics are unique in perspective, with nice scaling and a very different use for mode 7 graphics.

There are three modes: story, which follows the manga's beginning, free battle, and team battle, in which both sides select the order of six characters and battle endurance style, one after the other. They're pretty basic, but there are some nice cutscenes to relate the story.

Bastard!! takes some getting used to, but has a nice payoff for fans willing to dig into its systems. It's another fine and unique fighter to go alongside oddities like Choaniki Bakaretsu Rantouden on the system, and does a decent job portraying the property's atmosphere. I should note that there is an FAQ/movelist on GameFAQs, but it is wildly inaccurate. If you're interested, I'd recommend getting a copy with the manual so you can see the correct inputs for magic, or ask me and I can provide photos. It's a really solid game for fans of the manga or anime, and fun for people who like oddball fighters. If not, you'll likely find this one cumbersome and uninteresting with its small roster. Personally, I like it quite a bit.

[sfchakan]

Never played the game, but I've watched the anime. I'll have to check it out sometime.

[celerystalker]

It's pretty neat, and that complete copy cost me less than $10 on ebay, so it's not a super high risk. If you liked the anime, the manga was really great. It restored all of the altered names back to the metal references they're meant to be in the english translation, and the story of course goes on much farther than could be fit into the handful of episodes. I did like the anime a lot, though... especially when he goes off on the fire elemental and burns it to death. :D

[celerystalker]

8176So, not even sort of obscure as a franchise, the Makaimura (Ghosts 'n Goblins/Ghouls 'n Ghosts) series is one of the best known among classic game players. However, this Wonderswan edition is one of the least talked about, and it's pretty much entirely due to being a Wonderswan game. Wonderswan fans will already be more than familiar with this one, but I wanted to talk about it anyway, as it's an entirely unique Makaimura game that's almost entirely in english, and while the game can get a little pricey (about $25-30 for a loose cart), a Wonderswan can be had for cheap, as black and white versions (as is this game) typically sell for about $15.

So, yeah, Makaimura for Wonderswan is a fully unique Ghosts 'n Goblins game featuring all new levels, bosses, and an extras gallery that isn't available in any other format. It follows the typical side-scrolling format, with the usual 2-hits-per-life gameplay that likes to leave you dead in your underoos. The controls are true to the original game, with no double jumping to be done, no re-direction mid-air, and the jump/turn/throw mechanics that series veterans will find comfortable. Everything feels correct, and the difficulty is maybe a tad on the easy side given the series pedigree.

This all comes together in a form that works really well for a portable system. The game auto saves between levels and has reasonable checkpoints, so playing on the go works like a champ. The music is true to the series with familiar tunes, and the graphics are great, though the view is a tad zoomed in compared to other entries in the series. It allows for detailed sprites, but when fighting larger bosses, they are rarely entirely on screen to enjoy.

Makaimura for Wonderswan is pretty great, but it has one real drawback: it looks like shit in typical indoor lighting unless you have a Wonderswan Crystal. It was designed as a black and white game, and is compatible with all variants, but I had to play it either outside on my patio or in my basement, where I use overhead flourescent lighting, where I can get direct, bright light without glare. Still, it is very much worthwhile for any fan of the series, as its unique stages are a fun experience. It's a tad easier and shorter than most, but for a Wonderswan game, it's a treat. If you're a fan, don't be afraid to dive in!

[celerystalker]

8214This is a weird one to talk about in a thread about lesser-known imports, but there are two reasons I want to talk about Akumajou Dracula for Playstation 2, which is part of the Oretachi Game Center line, which if you're one of the few fans of Castlevania that don't know, is an emulated port of the arcade game, also known as Haunted Castle. The big things I want to talk about with this one are: first, the extras packed in with the game, and second, the fact that this game is regularly taken to the woodshed for being terrible and impossible.

To knock out a brief overview as a courtesy, this game is one of the many re-tellings of Simon Belmont's encounter with Dracula, who steals away his newly-wed wife on their wedding day. Simon puts on his best Conan the Barbarian cosplay, grabs the Vampire Killer, and heads out to beat the holy hell out of the unholy hellions. The game is a traditional scrolling, level-based Castlevania in which you power up your weapons (oddly to a mace and sword in this one), grab the right sub-weapons, and kill the undead, but now with big, bad sprites reminiscent of the other side-scrollers of the era like Rastan and Shinobi.

So, first off, the extra features. On disc, this is straight emulation of the arcade game with very few options, such as stretching the screen. However, the packaging contains a manual, hint book, collector's card, and two mini-discs to sift through. The manual is pretty straight forward, but does contain pictures of the arcade pcb, which is kinda neat. The hint book is entirely in Japanese with a handful of screenshots, and is ostensibly useless if you only speak English. The collector's card is pretty neat, and features the artwork from the arcade flyer on a thick, glossy card. The mini-discs, though are the best part. One contains a DVD with commercials for Hamster products, a music video feature with a medley set to dark imagery, game background information, and what is supposed to be a superplay video, which is played somewhat poorly and only covers the first three levels. The second disc is a CD containing some cool songs from the game's soundtrack. For what was a budget release, pretty neat!

8215

Secondly, though, Haunted Castle is NOT a piece of shit. It is not impossible. It is simply difficult, but no moreso than Ghosts 'n Goblins or Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The graphics are dark, and the sprites are a tad under-animated for an arcade game of the time. Simon's walk is especially stiff, and enemies, while large and appealing, have startlingly little animation. Castlevania fans spoiled by the NES games that really suited the hardware well will usually be a little put off by the game feeling and looking just a bit more stiff than they'd like. However, if you're a Rastan Saga fan, welcome home, because this game feels oddly closer to Taito's awesome game. The levels are extremely diverse, and in a change for the series, use less enemy patterns and more set pieces like an attacking wall, flames bursting from a graveyard, warping to an alternate dimension to fight harpies, furniture springing to life, collapsing bridges, etc. Overall, you'll fight less total monsters, but fight through more cinematic situations, which give the game a different yet cool feel.

The difficulty, though, stems mostly from the fact that you only get 2 additional credits. You can use them either as continues or to extend your life bar. What is usually overlooked here is that you should use these strategically in order to get through the game. You recover health from finishing levels, so why max out your life bar at the beginning? Using one continue as needed and saving one for the last level to make the bridge to Dracula's keep passable by taking hits and refilling my life for the fight worked best for me the first time I finished it. It didn't take months of trying, either; just solid platforming skills and the willingness to figure out the best approach to the intermittent set pieces. I found the game to be a pleasant challenge, and it was considerably less frustrating than the likes of Magician Lord.

This PS2 package should be in your collection if you're a Castlevania fan. As far as I know, it's the only physical console release of the game, and it has some nifty extras. It just requires the right approach to the gameplay in order to take it down, so just don't think your NES skills will translate. Adapt, and you'll find a nice, tough challenge to get your Castlevania fix in a new way.

[Aussie2B]

This is a very cool topic, I've been enjoying following it. I love seeing discussion of genuinely obscure imports like PC-FX games and N64 imports other than, like, Sin & Punishment.

Yeah, I believe the PS2 port of Haunted Castle is still the only way to play the game outside of the arcade board or emulation. I agree that the game is not as bad or difficult as people make it out to be. I beat it after a few days of practice, and I had fun with it. Heck, it's worth playing just for the music alone. I never did find a use for lives/continues myself. Pumping up the life bar to the maximum at the very beginning seemed to work best for me.

[Sailorneorune]

That's really cool. I tried Haunted Castle way back when a little hole-in-the-wall pizza place had it and Daytona USA (Daytona had no sound :( ). I'd be happy just playing Haunted Castle if its PS2 port came to the Japanese PSN store (or even better, the North American one!)

[celerystalker]

Thanks very much for all the positivity. I really enjoy digging into this sort of thing, and it's been nice having an outlet for some conversation about it. I mean, games like Sin and Punishment are really great, but I feel like they're pretty ubiquitous at this point.

It always seems like those dive pizza places and bowling alleys had the best games tucked away in them. I developed a bit of a Black Tiger addiction back in the day from a local place.

[celerystalker]

8218The Sega Ages 2500 series started off really strangely, with those sloppy 3D remakes of classic games. Toward the end of the line, though, there were just great, straight emulation/ports of Sega's legacy and some great compilations. This one, SDI and Quartet, tends to get swept aside and maligned for containing unimportant games. Even a site I really enjoy, HG101, was particularly dismissive of these two games, which Japanese fans apparently voted for to be included. When I bought this on day one, it was to play arcade Quartet, because it's fucking Quartet. I was unfamiliar with SDI. Or was I?

Turns out, I did know SDI, but I knew it as Global Defense for Master System. It's a one or two player shooter in which you control a defense satellite, alternating between horizontally scrolling stages and single screen defensive stages that aren't entirely unlike Missile Command. You move your satellite with the D-pad, and control a reticule with your right stick or a mouse, which is an enormous upgrade from the SMS version, in which you held down a button to move the reticule, but couldn't move both at once. This better simulates the arcade experience as well, as from what I've heard it used an interesting stick/trackball combo, though admittedly I've never seen one. It's a pretty nifty game when you get a feel for it, and it's immenently more playable than the SMS port.

Speaking of which, the SMS port is included as well. You can even select between the US and Japan versions, and the same goes for the arcade version. There is also an arrange version with different patterns included, and access to the arcade dip switch settings.

Quartet, though... God, I love Quartet. If you are unfamiliar with the game, it is probably most easily described as a side-scrolling Gauntlet, where up to 4 players romp through brief levels filled with power ups and monster generators, competing for points along the way, not unlike Zelda: Four Swords on Gamecube. Each level has a boss monster with the key to the exit, but exiting first nets you more points. There are jump boots, jet packs, and an assortment of guns that will have you cussing at you friends when they pick up your item of choice. It's long and awesome, and it was out in the US in arcades (or in my case, a 7-11). Again, you can pick your region or to play the two or four player version of the board.

The Master System version is again here, though it is a completely redesigned game. It now of course only supports two players, and is much shorter. The levels are now completely different, and are in my opinion more difficult, with bottomless pits and the like added in. Your continues are also limited in this version, making it more of a console experience. Both are good, though I much prefer the arcade 4-player insanity when I can get it together.

While these games tend to illicit little more than a shrug from most, I adore Quartet, and SDI is pretty cool and different. I also happen to really dig the '80s anime sci-fi cover art, with that color scheme you just don't see used these days. If you think it sounds kinda cool, you're probably going to find it's right up your alley, and it's not crazy expensive, as no one seems to care much about these two. I do.

[Koa Zo]

Some fantastic music in both of those games too!

The Sega Direct DX Pack of SegaAges2500 Vol.21 SDI & Quartet Sega System 16 Collection included a nice SDI printed metal tin and a mini USB mouse with retractable cord, along with the jammin' OST.
I was lucky enough to buy a dented tin on clearence sale from PlayAsia, shit 9 years ago now.

[celerystalker]

That is freaking awesome. Mine is unfortunately the standard version, as I was unaware of the Sega direct version at the time. I'd love to see a picture of that set if you have one to post!

[celerystalker]

8237
So, this one is still a little obscure, but it's started to pick up a little notoriety in the last few years thanks to the rise of horror games over the last several years. War of the Dead on PC Engine is an early survival horror game that combines the theme and resource management of Resident Evil with gameplay stylings much closer to Zelda II. After seeing the cool cover art and finding a couple of screenshots, I was expecting something along those lines, so I gave it a shot. In the meantime while waiting for shipping, I found an article that had just gone up on videogameden.com that warned of a very hefty language barrier, a crippling but documented bug with the experience system, and unwieldly passwords. Still, those screenshots looked right up my alley...

When the game arrived, I waited until a 3 day weekend I had coming up to give it a go. I wanted to play this the way I prefer to play games; no FAQs, just figuring it out and talking to friends. Now, none of my friends have a PC Engine, so I was on my own, and I started to wander, and I did encounter each of those issues. Here's how I dealt with them.

First off, saving and passwords. You get passwords not upon dying, but by going to the altar at the church. The passwords are indeed lengthly and in Japanese. However, that's what smart phones are for, right? Snapping a quick photo saves time and errors. Yeah, it takes awhile to enter them, but it's not so tough to stay alive if you take just a few minutes and level up a couple of times.

That brings me to the second issue, which is the experience bug, in which you die if you go past level 15 if I recall. This sounds like it might be a tightrope walk in meting out your levels as you progress, but it's really nothing. See, you don't get experience by killing enemies, but rather by picking up the orbs they leave behind. Ignore the experience orbs when you get your level to the max, and you're good, so it's really a non-issue so long as you're aware of it.

Lastly, there's the language barrier, which is uniquely odd in this game. I was able to muddle through about 80% of the game by talking to everyone multiple times and exploring. However, there is a segment late in the game in which you must talk to several people in a specific order to be able to go on, and I was pretty friggin' stumped. I found a roughly translated FAQ, which was not entirely correct, but got me on the right path to figure it out. It was perplexing, and I'm not sure I'd have figured it out on my own, so be warned.

Challenge wise, War of the Dead is rather accessible. Your weapons are powerful as you go up, and the overworld battle scenes, like Zelda II, can be escaped by working your way to the edge of the horizontally-scrolling battle area. The rest of the game takes place in an overhead perspective akin to nearly any JRPG of the time.

War of the Dead has good music, atmospheric graphics, and a cool quest involving rounding up survivors of a demon invasion and escorting them back to the church for sanctuary. You then must find the opening to hell and seal it off. It's awesome, and the graphics support the atmosphere well. There are only a few enemy sprites that are recycled throughout the game, but it's brief enough that it doesn't ruin things.

I really enjoyed the heck out of War of the Dead, both for its atmosphere and because there aren't enough games like Zelda II for my liking. It's an inexpensive HuCard that offers about 6 to 10 hours of game to play through for a first playthrough. Mine only cost abou $7, but as it's starting to get a bit of coverage, it's likely to eventually cost a little more. If it sounds like your thing, it probably is.

[Koa Zo]

That is freaking awesome. Mine is unfortunately the standard version, as I was unaware of the Sega direct version at the time. I'd love to see a picture of that set if you have one to post!
As you can see with the US quarter there for reference, the mouse is straight up tiny. The cord is very thin and seems almost delicate.
824182428243


Regarding War of the Dead, I got that many years ago after hearing about Dead of the Brain. Mainly the artwork tricked me into thinking it would be really cool, but also in my mind I remembered reading impressions of Dead of the Brain, and I got confused and thought it was that there HuCard game.
Never did give War of the Dead a serious try. The section you describe having to talk to multiple NPCs in the correct order sounds discouraging.

[celerystalker]

As you can see with the US quarter there for reference, the mouse is straight up tiny. The cord is very thin and seems almost delicate.
824182428243


Regarding War of the Dead, I got that many years ago after hearing about Dead of the Brain. Mainly the artwork tricked me into thinking it would be really cool, but also in my mind I remembered reading impressions of Dead of the Brain, and I got confused and thought it was that there HuCard game.
Never did give War of the Dead a serious try. The section you describe having to talk to multiple NPCs in the correct order sounds discouraging.

That looks awesome. Thanks for posting those pictures! Wish I'd known about that at the time.

War of the Dead was a trip to get through. I wish there was a translation out there to make it more accessible, because aside from that one part, I loved it, but it truly was a stumbling block.

I also took some time to post a few more photos throughout this thread of some of the extras and bonuses packed in with games if I have them. I'm gonna try and post some more tonight.

[celerystalker]

8250
So, this one, Dragon Force II... The reason I wanted to talk about this one a little is because posthumously, the Saturn gets lauded for its great shooters (true), its great 2D fighters (also true), its excellent arcade ports (super true), and its expensive rarities. The original Dragon Force tends to be spoken of more as a part of the Working Designs legacy or itw value than as an innovative, bad-ass strategy game that minimizes micromanagement in favor of fast-paced battles and a great take on maximizing strength of units vs opponent weaknesses. Even moreso, its sequel has become somewhat of an untranslated forgotten relic that can't even buy its way into a conversation about games that should have come out in the US anymore.

If you aren't familiar with the series, you basically have an overworld map of the vast land of Legendra divided up between castles and the roadways in between. You assemble groups of up to five generals, each with varying types and amounts of troops, and travel the roads in attempt to conquer the continent. Think almost an arcade-like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, eschewing all of the provincial management and getting down to brass tacks of battle. Battles are also streamlined, allowing you to pit varying troops under your generals in skirmishes on a horizontal, belt-scrolling playfield. You give general formation and attack commands instead of controllong your troops directly, and can use special attacks from each leader to sway the tide. Wipe out your opponent's army, then let them whittle away at the leader. If both sides armies are wiped out, a duel begins. It's all about matching the soldiers that are strong against your rival's type, and matching up well team vs. team.

Where Dragon Force II ups the ante is by allowing each general to command and separately direct two types of soldiers at once. That may sound like nothing, but it is a radical game changer to an experienced player, and allows for more strategic play and wild battles. Also, with new leaders, types of troops, and special attacks, it's a whole new ball game.

Think of Dragon Force as the protestant to Koei's Catholocism, rejecting its orthodox PC-style strategy and economic management and getting hard and fast into quick battles with more immediate payoff. Both have their audience, but Dragon Force really reaches out to players who want to like strategy games but are easily bored or turned off by excess menus. Dragon Force II ends up being rather playable, as its menus are largely the same as its english predecessor.

I love Dragon Force II. To me, that second layer of additional infantry is just what the doctor ordered for a great sequel, and the fact that the game gets largely ignored by a fanbase still pissed about the other two Shining Force III scenarios is a shame. Its anime characters, nifty sprites and scaling, and fast pace are a real treat, and I'd especially recommend it to Ogre Battle fans. If you've never played a Dragon Force game but love Sega, strategy, or the Saturn, just... just do. They're freaking awesome.

[sfchakan]

I'll just leave this right here (http://www.verve-fanworks.com/dragonforceii.html).

[celerystalker]

I'll just leave this right here (http://www.verve-fanworks.com/dragonforceii.html).

That... is beautiful... Wish there was an official disc or even a nice repro that didn't require a modded Saturn, but super cool all the same. That series would have also lent itself so well to a portable like the PSP. So quick and accessible.

[Tron 2.0]

That... is beautiful... Wish there was an official disc or even a nice repro that didn't require a modded Saturn, but super cool all the same. That series would have also lent itself so well to a portable like the PSP. So quick and accessible.
I was about to say DFII has a fan translation to.I've had a copy of the game myself for a long time but i never took the time to play it.Recently i thought about buying another (pro action replay) and have it modded to play burns.

[celerystalker]

8259J-League Excite Stage '94 and '95 aren't the sort of game I'd usually care to talk about. I do like video game soccer most of the time, but I already love Super Sidekicks 2, FIFA (on SNES), and Kunio's games enough to render most irrelevant. Hell, Excite Stage '94 even came out in the US as Capcom Soccer Shootout. No, the only reason I want to talk about these is... Barcode Battler II Interface results! Hooray (or substitute that with a fart noise and make fun of the rest of this if you don't care)!

So these are horizontally oriented soccer games on a slightly tilted perspective. They play faster and more arcade-like than the likes of ISS or FIFA, but not so much as Super Sidekicks or Hat Trick Hero. I could go on about the specifics, but given that one is widely available in English and is dirt cheap, why bother. The exclusive Japanese feature is the J-League license and Barcode Battler II compatability. Each game was packaged with a set of exclusive barcodes to scan:

82608261

Excite Stage '94 was packaged with a set of 12 cards featuring the J-League mascots on the front and a barcode on the back. '95 cheaped out and put its barcodes in the margins of the instruction manual. It works the same in both games. You pick enabling Barcode Battler in the option menu. Then, after selecting your team, you can swipe barcodes on the lineup screen. This will allot stat boosts to specific position players for the game. It generally works best in exhibition 2 player matches, having players blind draw cards at random.

Realistically, this feature feels like another waste of a cool idea. Aside from the novelty of gaining an advantage for owning everything you need to do this (which I explained elsewhere in this thread) and some multiplayer hijinx, it doesn't add much of note. It is not available in the US release as an option, though, so I guess there's that. They're fun, cheap games, but hardly better than what is readily available, so unless you're curious to mess with the Barcode Battler or love '90s J-League, these are just... there.

[celerystalker]

82628263
Legend of Dekoboko (or Dekoboko Densetsu sometimes) is an overhead racing game for the PC Engine CD that aims very much to ape the likes of Micro Machines. I picked this one up in a pile the day I picked up my Duo-R, and at the time it fell to the wayside as Legend of Xanadu II really captured my attention at that moment. It took a few years for me to give this one an honest shake. With the promise of wild top-down racing with weapons and 5 player simultaneous play, it looked to have a lot of promise.

Well, as one might imagine, issues began to show their ugly faces pretty much right away. With 5 racers, there's no real good way to split up the screen, so everybody is stuck on one. This is where everything goes to shit. In order to accomodate all of those players, no one can really fall behind, and on large courses not unlike Micro Machines, this means if you start to fall off screen, you get boosted back into the field, which diminishes the advatage of obtaining any large disparity in skill. To make matters worse, in a foolish attempt to give distance the frontrunner, the lead cars end up at the very top of the screen, allowing for virtually no reaction time to what are obstacle-laden courses. Instead of frantic fun, you get abundant frustration.

That said, you do have a lot of fun tweaks reminiscent of RC Pro Am, where you can power uo between races and collect itens and weapons to take into the chaos. The computer-controlled cars tend to cluster, so it can be easy to get good use out of weapons. Realistically, though, the game is so disorganized due to its aforementioned design flaws that it just feels sloppy.

Graphically, it has an extremely simplistic look with mostly monochromatic cars and tiny sprites, and it reminds me of Micro Machines... too bad everyone is either bunched together at the top of the screen or incessantly bouncing up from the bottom.

As a multiplayer experience, Legend of Dekoboko works okay, but there are just a ton of better similar games out there. Moto Roader manages to do this formula well better on the Turbo, so this one is more of a curiosity than a secret masterpiece. I'll put up a picture in the morning. There's a power outage tonight that has me up, so I figured I may as well do something with my phone.

[celerystalker]

82688269Gain Ground for the PS2 is a remake of the arcade/Genesis classic in the Sega Ages 2500 line. I have a soft spot for this one, as several friends and I used to take serious runs at this one from time to time. Given that the Genesis game not only came out here, but is also included in several compilations and flashback plug and play systems, what makes this version special?

Well, for anyone unfamiliar, Gain Ground is an overhead action/strategy game that is fairly unique. In each level, your goal is to either clear each stage of enemies or run all of your characters through the exit. Each set of ten stages ends with a boss fight that must be completed. When I say characters, there are a ton of them. You start with three, but in most stagesthere are characters to rescue. By getting them through the exit, you can take control of them and their abilities, many of which are game changers, such as Verbal, an archer with good speed, range, and the ability to hit characters on high elevations or behind barriers, or Water Knight, with his spinning typhoons. These varying abilities are often the key to clearing each stage, so choosing the right characters for the right situation is a big part of the game's strategic component. The game can be played cooperatively with 2 players working together, so communicating about who does what makes the game all the better.

So, the PS2 differences. First off, you have 3D character and stage models, but it still plays in the same overhead view roughly, but now you can tweak the camera if you want. Secondly, this remake is based on the arcade game instead of the Genesis, so it actually has fewer levels. However... the Genesis game only allowed enemies to aim in 8 directions, making it easy to play the angles and clear the game relatively easily. In this version, they have 360 degrees of firing direction, making it much easier to get annihilated. Make no mistake; this version is ball-bustingly difficult, and it is more than happy to kick the shit out of you, offering unlimited continues until the final set of stages. Hard, hard, killer robot infested stages... but I digress. If you have the mettle to take the sumbitch down, you unlock extra mode, which changes up some of the backgrounds, adds new music, and puts new twists on some abilities. It's basically an arrange mode, but it's pretty neat.

The other difference is that this version actually displays the character names, which doesn't sound like much, but it adds some flavor to the game, and makes it easier to coordinate when playing co-op.

So, basically, the gist of what I'm saying is that if you're a Gain Ground fan, this is an awesome, challenging version to play with a friend. It's not super pricey, so I really recommend it to fans. If you aren't familiar with the game, take a look at your compilations. You probably have it somewhere, and it's a great multiplayer game.

[celerystalker]

8282
Lost in the Rain for PS3 is actually available in the US as a digital-only release on PSN. In Japan and Asian regions, though, it received a physical release with a few bells and whistles. If you're like me, and averse to picking up digital copies, and find it awfully difficult to keep up with the vast amount of games released over these services, this was easy to miss.

Lost in the Rain (or just Rain in the west) is an adventure game not unlike Ico or Shadow of the Colossus in tone. Take a simple storybook premise with very average 3D play control, add in heaps of atmosphere with that creepy, twisted feel, and hope nobody notices that there isn't all that much game to play. You control a boy who was sick in bed, and he sees as invisible girl formed in falling rain, chased by some sort of beast. You go out to help her, only to end up invisible in the rainy night yourself, chasing her and trying to avoid death. It is definitely style over substance, but that style is not without charm.

Actually, the game really reminds me more of games like Out of this World or Heart of Darkness. It's that cinematic platformer, where you are supposed to memorize and navigate traps from one set piece to the next as the story unfolds silently in front of you. It's trial and error, memorization over motor skills fare, and as such it's a very niche game. That story, though, is told elegantly. The choice to use watercolors for the cutscene opening cleverly intertwined with the theme of rain water and a lack of definition, and invisibility in dry areas helps keep tension high throughout the brief adventure while aiding the sense of isolation.

The bonus features for actually owning the physical disc include an active theme for your PS3, the game's theme song with a video, and a couple of extra themes. Underwhelming, really, but they're there.

I like Lost in the Rain, but I certainly wouldn't rant and rave about it to anyone willing to listen. However, if you like games like Out of this World, Oddworld, or Ico, this is probably in your wheelhouse, and the Asian region version contains full English language options, and it can be had for about $20 new right now.

[celerystalker]

8338
Another of the massive Simple Series collection (Ultimate Vol. 17), Taisen! Bakuden PoiPoi is the handicapable love child of Bomberman and Trap Gunner on the trusty PS2. It is a competitive arena-based 3D bomb blasting rumble in which Japanese stereotypes gather explosives and endeavor to blow up all of the everybody.

You start in your part of an open arena in which bombs with numbers on them constantly drop. These represent the length of fuse on each bomb. You simply run through them to pick them up, and they drag behind you inert, forming a train as you build an arsenal. Any time you want to use one, simply push any face button to raise the first bomb in your explosive tail. This raises the bomb over your head and ignites the fuse, which you can deal with in three ways: drop, roll, or throw. At the timer's end, it will blow up, also igniting other bombs in its blast radius. The goal is to set up a good enough trap to catch your opponent in the blast, sending them sky high. Drain their three hearts to win and move on to the next level.

Other hazards and a few powerups fall from the sky as well, such as glowing zones that slow time down for those unfortunate enough to tread, heart piece refills, running shoes, and more. These can add an interesting wrinkle to keep things fresh. There are also unlockable characters to give some shaky legs to the single player game.

So, pretty straight forward, but let's be real. It's a slapped together D3 Publisher game that has funny visuals, cheap production values, and sloppy but passable game play. It only supports 2 players, so it can't quite make it as a party game. The fun here comes from workaday Japanese citizens flying through the air in a ball of fire. It's a novelty game that isn't balanced or fast paced enough to really catch my attention. It was fun to laugh with for a bit, though, so that's something.

[celerystalker]

8341
Simple Series 2000 vol. 24, The Bowling Hyper caught my eye when I looked at the back of the case and saw some sci-fi bowling land curved out into space. I'm almost always down for an oddball bizarre super sports game, and all of my bowling games are pretty samey, even with Nester's involvement in one. So, I picked it up for just a few dollars and gave it a whirl.

Mode wise, there's three main ways to play. The standard mode is just basic bowling game for up to four players. No season or career, just a single, bare bones game of bowling. Next is Quest Mode, which gives a series of pin formations as challenges to knock them all down in a limited amount of tries. There are five stages with several formations in each, and only a handful are difficult splits. Third is the reason they named it Hyper. You have a series of challenges like in quest mode, but now on new challenging lanes of changing lengths, curves, conveyors, and holes. This easily represents the most interesting challenge in the game, as the bizarre lanes really task you to master your angles, spin, and timing.

The mechanics for rolling are simple and effective. Left and right position your character on the lane, L1 and R1 ange your shot, and up and down adjust your power. The harder you throw, the faster your spin meter moves as you approach the lane. Stopping it at the center causes a straight shot, and the farther left or right, the more english in that direction. It all actually works rather well, and I felt very quickly like I had great control of what I wanted to do... but there's a problem.

It's not the graphics. They're serviceable enough, and are at least on par with the better D3 games. It's not the sound, which is bland, but not detrimental to the experience. It's not even the lack of any career mode or anything, as multi-player is what bowling is all about anyway, and the Hyper lanes are fun. It's the pin physics. The pins have horrid hit detection, and you'll see pins roll straight through standing ones, and you'll rarely get proper ricochets. The initial impact is sound, but afterward, it just goes to shit. This makes getting strikes and picking up splits considerably more difficult than they ought to be, which really can take some of the satisfaction out of the challenge modes.

So, what this is is a bowling game with decent modes and options such as ball weight, good bowling shot mechanics, and poor pin physics. If those were spot on, I'd heartily recommend this game with no reservations, as it's cheap with a lot to like. As it is, though, I'd mainly recommend it to someone who likes the idea of the challenge modes and could enjoy a simple time waster. I really do like the Hyper lanes.

[sfchakan]

Hey celerystalker, have you ever checked out Linda³ Kanzenban (http://segafans.com/linda%c2%b3-kanzenban/) or it's PS1 counterpart Linda³ Again?

http://segafans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Linda%C2%B3-Kanzenban-JP-Front-Cover-150x150.png

[celerystalker]

Hey celerystalker, have you ever checked out Linda³ Kanzenban (http://segafans.com/linda%c2%b3-kanzenban/) or it's PS1 counterpart Linda³ Again?

http://segafans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Linda%C2%B3-Kanzenban-JP-Front-Cover-150x150.png

I am in fact familiar with the Saturn version. I haven't finished it, though, as I picked it up in a group of RPGs one day for just a few bucks a piece... I think the others were Blue Forest Story, Oreshika, and Blue Seed. I liked that the items have icons by their names, which is always handy when playing RPGs in Japanese. I need to try and finish that one. Oreshika turned out to be really cool, too, but has a really rough language barrier.

Edit: just read your write up on your site, and enjoyed it quite a bit!

[celerystalker]

8355
This isn't a particularly obscure franchise, but I thought it might be fun to write about these two versions of Sailor moon for a couple of reasons. First, there are a lot of Sailor Moon games, so if anyone were to be looking to buy one, knowing which is which is always beneficial. Secondly, both the SNES and Genesis versions of Bishoujou Senshi Sailor Moon are based on the same arcade game, but the Genesis version costs a ton more. So, I thought it might be worth doing what a couple of obscure websites have already done, but without all those helpful screenshots (because I don't have a capture card), but with more of a focus on the actual gameplay and not just a graphics comparison.

So, first off, the games pictured here are just known as Bishoujou Senshi Sailor Moon, and are beat 'em ups based on the early '90s arcade brawler. The game is heavily stylized in the Capcom mold set forth in Final Fight, using throws, basic combos, and character-specific special moves. You can pick from the main group of Sailor Scouts, each of which feels a bit different, some even using kicks instead of punches and so on. There are only a handful of levels and enemy types, complete with palette swapping enemies and a cameo at each boss fight from good old heart throb Tuxedo Mask in which he drops a rose that can refill your life bar in its entirety. Punch the bad guys, eat some food off of the ground, and watch the boss patterns and you'll be through in no time.

So, differences. The SNES game uses more colors and slightly larger sprites in order to put out better-looking characters and more varied backgrounds closer to the arcade game. Without modification, the ability to run the SNES through S-Video also allows for a super clean picture that looks undeniably better in stills. However, the animation on the SNES is decidedly choppier and slower, causing the game to feel considerably less fluid, which detracts from the visual appeal quite a bit. The Genesis version makes a few smart cuts and redesigns in the background imagery to keep it competitive and not outclassed badly. At a glance, the SNES game looks way better, but in motion, things get murkier.

Sound-wise, I almost universally prefer SNES games... but not here. The SNES game sounds like shit, with sluggish music using strange sounds for the melody. It's slow and almost like some crummy carnival version of the Sailor Moon music. The Genesis version is, to the contrary, very upbeat sounding, and sounds more like it should, even given the limitations of the chip'd synth. The sound effects in game are comparable, but the Genesis just comes off as more crisp through and through. There's no question as to which sounds better, and Sega takes it easily.

Play control-wise is where the differences start to really mount. I mentioned how the SNES game looks slower and choppier, and it moves that way as well. You move at about 2/3-3/4 speed, so mundane fights seem to last forever. Jumps are floaty, strikes are lazy-looking, and the charging for your special attack is very slow. The Genesis version, however, plays comparatively fast and smooth, with crisp strikes, better hit detection (some enemies and bosses in the SNES game are a chore to hit), and not only do your specials charge faster, but they look better, too. The Genesis version just feels better by a long shot.

There are a few other differences to note. For one, the Genesis game has less weird distortion on the stage title screens. The SNES game uses some mild censoring to make the transformations slightly less provocative. The biggest thing, though, is that the SNES game supports two player co-op, whereas the Genesis gane does not. This is a clear advantage on the SNES, which also has a translated PAL version. The level designs also vary a bit between versions... actually, quite a bit, with some completely different in each and different bosses (with the same story).

So, which is better? Like I said before, I'm really more of an SNES guy, and I don't hide it. However, that's why I can be truly honest and admit it that the Genesis version is more fun to play, and I like its levels slightly better. I do prefer to play beat 'em ups multi-player, so it feels like a waste to have thar absent from Sega's version. So, I played both, and I did the SNES game with a friend as well for good measure... and I still prefer the Genesis game. The co-op is almost enough to sway me, and the SNES game is dramatically less expensive, so it's not an awful pickup, but if you usually play alone, the Genesis game honestly beats it silly. Don't be fooled by screenshots. In action, especially with controller in hand, the SNES game feels significantly worse. But, hey... if you were gonna buy the Genesis game, just snag a Japanese SFC copy too for less than $10.

[celerystalker]

8436
I stumbled across Zombies vs Ambulance at the dearly departed Game Trader in St Charles, MO some 12 years or so ago, and it really took me off guard. A zombie virus outbreak has occurred, and the city is now overflowing with the undead. Zombies meander everywhere, continuing to infect the ever-dwindling masses. However... a cure has been found, so long as it is administered early enough. So, asan intrepid ambulance driver, your job is to brave the deadly streets, rounding up survivors to bring them to the hospital in order to slow the spread of the plague and begin to mass a healthy civilian force.

The game plays largely like Crazy Taxi, and you round up survivors like fares from Sega's classic, delivering them to the hospital. Instead of a timer, the virus slowly overtakes your passengers, causing them to wreck your ambulance from inside. There is also a timer for how long you can be away from the hospital, which you can keep from filling by killing zombies along the way. Powerups like blood transfusions and toolboxes will keep you afloat, and you cam grab up as many survivors as possible before returning.

When you save people, you get the ability to power up your ambulance, changing its capacity, speed, adding weapons, and even cow-catchers or tiller blades to the front, allowing you to save more and kill more efficiently. It's funny to see what upgrades are available, and it adds some progression to what would otherwise be a simplistic Crazy Taxi clone.

There is also a score attack mode, as well as the optionfor a more complex technical control mode, which I personally eschew in favor of the streamlined simple mode.

Zombies vs Ambulance is fun and comical, even if it is a tad rough around the edges in typical D3 style. It certainly isn't a masterpiece, but it's kitschy and has a little depth that can turn it into a fun game to spend time with now and again, and it is a great Halloween season game. I like it, warts and all, but it is mostly a fall season game for me.

[celerystalker]

8442
Otogirisou for the Super Famicom was a game I bought seeing it cold and unlabeled at a store for $2. I was intrigued by the creepy looking mansion on the sticker art, and at that price, it hardly seemed like a risk...

Well, turns out it was a sound novel, which is basically the same thing as a graphic novel, but with a little more emphasis on the sound effects and music. The game definitely gets it right in that respect, with nice, crisp sounds, pleasant ambient music, and the occasional growl or shriek for good measure.

You play as a young man who is in a car crash during a thunderstorm with his girlfriend, and desperate for cover, you find yourself in a creepy old mansion. You mostly just read and soak in the ambience, but the text is entirely in Japanese, so ambience may be your only choice. Still, in best Choose Your Own Adventure tradition, you are occasionally presented with a choice to make, which can lead to brief asides or an untimely end. The game does pretty well in delivering nice still portraits to aid your imagination, and goes for broke on the odd jump scare with startling visuals at specific times.

Whether or not this is for you has more to do with your understanding of the language than anything, but there is some cool atmosphere to soak in with the sound and images. It was popular enough in Japan to get sequels and a remake on PS1, but much of its charm is lost if you can't read it. I kinda like it, but I also get the occasional sleepy night where I enjoy soaking in this sort of thing.

[celerystalker]

8456
Not a single day goes by where I don't get at least 0 PMs requesting some conversation about pachinko RPGs. So, for the nobody who asked, and the one person high out of their mind enough to find this one interesting, here's Pachio-kun: Maboroshi no Densetsu!

Coconuts put out quite a few pachinko or pachinko-themed games, and they had their anthropomorphic pachinko ball mascot, Pachio-kun, star in many of them, including this PC Engine CD game. In this case, you travel about town from gambling parlor to gambling parlor in a setup that feels a little like Casino Kid or Card Fighters Clash, playing pachinko to earn... um, more balls? Like a traditional JRPG, you have your overhead view, and you can talk to other patrons or staff, save, or, when you're ready, walk up to your machine of choice and start to play.

I'm not going to go too in depth on how to play pachinko. You control by turning a knob, which adjusts the force by which your balls are launched onto the vertical playfield, which is strewn with pins and targets. Your goal is to hit targets to score points, which grants extra balls. Hitting certain targets causes special targets to open briefly, and your goal in this game isto try to drain each machine you can. You can zoom in and scrutinize the pin layout, which is a must if you actually intend to play seriously, in order to find the best launch trajectory to maximize your scoring chances.

If you for some insane reason want to play this game, the custom pachinko controller is a must. Yeah, you can control it kinda clumsily with the D-pad, but if you do, you're missing the point of playing pachinko seriously enough to play an RPG about it starring a living ball. The spring-loaded lever actually works quite well, and a steady hand can actually help you take some tables down. Fortunately, it is also functional as a standard PC Engine controller, so you can let the friend you like the least use it when you play Dungeon Explorer II.

There is some fun to be had here, especially with the controller. There is a weird story, too, involving your girlfriend (also a pachinko ball... no ball on human relations here!) getting kidnapped, and the way I've been able to advance it is by completely cleaning out individual machines, but I can't guarantee that that is the trigger and not a specific amount of balls earned. I can't say I'd recommend it to everyone, but if you are a pachinko enthusiast, this controller setup is pretty cool.

Heh. Balls.

[Koa Zo]

8456
and the one person high out of their mind enough to find this one interesting, here's Pachio-kun: Maboroshi no Densetsu!


Ha! I have this one! And no I wasn't high out of my mind when I purchased it. That might've helped though when I tried to play it.
I've been a controller fetishist for some time, and who could really resist that funky looking PC-Engine controller?!

iirc that controller is compatible with 2 or 3 other Pachinko games on PCE as well. I've played a little bit, but pachinko just doesn't excite me :monkey:

[celerystalker]

Ha! I have this one! And no I wasn't high out of my mind when I purchased it. That might've helped though when I tried to play it.
I've been a controller fetishist for some time, and who could really resist that funky looking PC-Engine controller?!

iirc that controller is compatible with 2 or 3 other Pachinko games on PCE as well. I've played a little bit, but pachinko just doesn't excite me :monkey:

I do seriously dig the controller, and it does work with a few others as well. It's definitely the highlight of the experience.

[Steve W]

I just wanted to chime in here and say that I'm really enjoying this thread. It's giving me some interesting games to try out in emulation, and I've even got a couple of those titles already, just randomly picked up in the wild over the years. And your mentioning of your love of the Xanadu series, I was wondering if you had picked up Xanadu Next on the Nokia N-Gage, and what you thought about it.

[celerystalker]

I just wanted to chime in here and say that I'm really enjoying this thread. It's giving me some interesting games to try out in emulation, and I've even got a couple of those titles already, just randomly picked up in the wild over the years. And your mentioning of your love of the Xanadu series, I was wondering if you had picked up Xanadu Next on the Nokia N-Gage, and what you thought about it.

Thanks! I do love Xanadu. I haven't played Next yet, as I unfortunately haven't picked up an N-gage yet. I've done Xanadu (the Saturn remake on Falcom Classics vol. 1), Faxanadu, Legend of Xanadu, and Legend of Xanadu 2, and I love all of them, so I hope it at least sort of lives up to its heritage.

[Steve W]

I played Xanadu Next briefly, but I don't remember anything about it other than I thought the 3D characters looked good. This was close to the end of the N-Gage's run, and GameStop was selling the games off dirt cheap. I played Xanadu Next briefly and moved on to the other five or six titles I picked up at the same time for something like $2.99 each.

Looking up screenshots for the N-Gage version, I found out that it was an English port from the Japanese PC version. And that a company is finally going to release a localized English language version of the PC game this upcoming summer, 11 years after its original Japanese release. So it looks like you won't need to get an N-Gage.

I think it's weird that a Japanese company made a port of their game to a phone that was never released in Japan. And a multi-language European release, too. And they couldn't be bothered with translating the PC version.

[celerystalker]

Thanks for the heads up on that PC version. That might be the first PC game I've bought in... sheesh, I don't remember... maybe 15 years? I do love Falcom, though.

[celerystalker]

8490
I've gone on before about Keith Courage/Wataru games, and these were some of the last ones I tracked down, as it was difficult to discern at the time what they were. Chou Majin Eiyuuden Wataru: Mazekko Monster looked like it might be some sort of Pokémon knock off, so I figured what the hell, I'll give it a spin.

Well, Mazekko Monster is a little less Pokémon and a lot more Tamagotchi. You begin raising a monster as an egg in a jar. It hatches, and you begin playing, feeding, and nurturing your monster until it grows strong. You can then begin raising other monsters, and cross-breeding them to create new monsters, rinse, and repeat.

The sequel is more of the same, but with more activities to do with your monsters and new ones to raise. The character portraits are bigger and more detailed, and there are more cameos from the Wataru universe in this one.

I don't have a ton to say about these two, unfortunately. Virtual pets really aren't my thing, even if they're themed from a property of which I'm rather fond, and it's all the more cumbersome in Japanese. Only a very special combination of Japanese-speaking Wataru and Tamagotchi enthusiast will get a fulfilling experience from these. For me, I'll go back to the other three Wataru games to get my fix.

[celerystalker]

8506
Time for another Peach Boy game, and this time it's not an RPG or a board game! Momotaro Katsugeki is an action platformer that's less hop 'n bop and more hack and slash. You start on an overworld map like Super Mario 3, and you work your way through lengthly side scrolling levels filled with towns, items, enemies and boss fights in a cartoony style like Goemon or Hammerin' Harry.

You get three lives with which to complete each stage, though you can continue after dying. You attack with a sword that also shoots a projectile, and killing enemies gives you coins. When you stumble across a town, you can spend your money on items such as health restoratives, invincibility, or new swords that temporarily give you improved strength and range. You select your items from a menu to use whenever you want, though you do lose most of your money each time you die. Clearing large chunks of a stage gives you checkpoints in the form of monk statues from which you continue if you die. There are also bonus huts from time to time such as the quiz challenge, where if you answer five questions in a row correctly, you can get a cool bonus like a free life... but they're all in Japanese.

The graphics are super bright and colorful, and the music is cheerful as well. The level design quickly becomes super cool, with moving platforms, spikes, gears, ropes, ladders, and all manner of hazards layered over cool backgrounds to create a nice pace and challenge that's focused more on skillful platforming and attacking than anything else. It's a pretty tight package that works really well once you get used to the movement of your character, who takes a second to build a little momentum.

Momotaro is a good looking and playing game that fits right in with Goemon, Alex Kidd, Hammerin' Harry, and Chiki Chiki Boys, and is one of the few games from the franchise with only a minor language barrier in selecting items to use from your menu and the quiz bonus game, which will not make or break your chances at finishing the game, and it's still at this time pretty inexpensive. The Momotaro games are tough to tell apart, so if you can't tell and it doesn't say Katsugeki, it's vol. 32 in Hudson's PC Engine series. I like it.