Thoughts on various obscure Saturn imports as they come

[Steven]

Hey guys, I have a slew of lesser known JP games in/coming in, thought I'd jam all my thoughts on these games in this one thread here over the next month or two or so. Maybe you'll find something new you might be interested in. Here we go.

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KERIOTOSSE!

Keriotosse! is like Poy Poy. 4 characters in an arena (sorry no 2 story arenas) where the goal is to be the last person remaining. You eliminate your foes by kicking them out of the playing field, or you can use your designated special move to help knock them out.

Yes, the game is 1-4 players. If you love Saturn Bomberman or "party games" -- it's a safe bet you'll enjoy Keriotosse!

The game's 3D graphics were more than adequate I felt. The characters look OK, but the stages are well done graphically. The sound and music are catchy, especially the bop bop tunes of stage 1. They're not TOO memorable though. But serviceable enough.

There are a total of 21 characters to select and 8 stages with which to do battle. You start out with 5 characters to pick from, to unlock the others you gotta beat the 1P mode. Some characters are anime-esque and range from humans (i.e. girl wearing bunny costume, nurse, businessman, sword carrying Guardian Hero wannabe) to robots to even, a ghost and a baby panda.

"A" does a special move according to your character
(everyone has a different one, and can only be used once per round)
Each character's special move is unique and fits the character's personality.

For example, "BirdBoy" flies in the air and here you can move around for a bit flapping your wings trying to shove the opponent off the field.
The little girl who wants to be a nurse can grab people and inject them to make their characters all goofy. It all adds to the quirky fun. It also makes sure that each character is different and that you want to try each one.

Saturn Bomberman is awesome and my top fave, but having characters stand out with abilities does add some depth to a game. I mean, there's NO difference (other than visually) between white bomberman and Bonk. In Keriotosse! each character is different thanks to their special move.

"B" kicks

"C" jumps

3 wins equals the conquering of that stage. Like Saturn Bomberman you can do any combination of Human-CPU players.

There are also beach balls that drop down on the playing field... and they work like the green shells from Mario Kart fame. i.e. you kick them and they go in a straight line in the direction you kicked it.

In the story mode you play thru the 8 stages as status quo and in stage 9 you battle this huge dragon. I doubt he's unlockable but I duno since I never could beat him.

Some other notes...

-Intro is well done; kinda looks like a high-end PS1 game

-The stages all have their own names, I totally forgot about this. Here they are:

1. Welcome to Keriotosse
Playground complete with swings you can interact on and see-saws. Beachballs at your disposal here.

2. Signing in a Rain
Stage is raining and the water on the ground looks convincing. Get on the water and your character will slide. Big green leaves scatter the stage, one on top kinda skews the playing view if your character decides to try and hide there.

3. What a Wonderful World
This is where the bomb debuts. Once kicked, they'll flash red. After a while BOOM! It's similar to Bomberman Fight's big blasts, but looks more "oomphful." If the blast hits you you fly a good ways.

4. Malfunction
Bombs and beachballs. You battle it out on top of some demonic totem looking creature's head, he'll flip the field to and 'fro every once in a while. Fitting name!

5. Into the Storm
The misty wind pushes everyone depending on the direction it's blowing. There are pillars and they're scattered at the edges of the screen. Might save ya, like it did me once!

6. Winter Wonderland
I like this stage a lot. There's crack marks in the ice just for details and graphic variety, rather than looking at a boring blue playing field. The ice looks thick and convincing. Very colorful! Screenshots don't do this stage justice. The background here is great with picture-esque ice caps in the distance.

7. Volcanoes
Red. Lava on the scene which pulsates. Volcano in the middle of the screen that periodically chucks out molten rocks in four directions. Get hit by the rocks and watch your poor character get pushed toward the edge. Can connect up to 2 times. Since the molten rocks are hazardous enough, there are no beachballs or bombs found here.

8. The Meteor
The battle in outer space. You fight on a clear see-thru circle, in the background meteors are busy descending.

As stated earlier, every character has a distinct special move.

The girl with bunny ears grabs her victim, makes them drink some sort of beverage, and then they are temporary stunned. Ideal for nabbing them when they're close to the edge... easy pickings then.

One guy's special sees him increase in size by about 20 times! It's impressive to see this HUGE polygon running around without the game slowing down.

The ghost becomes invisible except for his shadow.

You can't kill yourself, per se. Like if you go all the way to the edge of a scene, your character will do the whole "whooooa!" thing for about 2 seconds, then from here you can control him/her back to safety. You can, however, jump off the stage and kill yourself instantly. You can change direction in mid-air but it's not that much. But other than that, it's up to the others to eliminate you. So that makes the Ghost's special even better since you don't have to worry about wandering off the scene.

One girl throws out Hadokens. One guy chucks out a red airplane model that chases after you knocking you about. etc.

Keriotosse! likely won't cost you more than 20 bucks, and at that price it's definitely worth a look. Some special moves are definitely more "advantageous" than others, but there's a 1 limit per round.

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=603

Recommended.

[Steven]

Shingata Kururin-PA! is a puzzle game you might have heard of before. If you were like me, I heard of Kururin before, but never played it. All I knew from the one or two pics I happened to run across was that it was a puzzle game where you try to connect pieces of rope, attach them to bombs, and use flame blocks to light the wicks and blow up the bombs.

There are two Kururin games on Saturn. Kururin-PA! and Shingata Kururin-PA! I only own and have played the latter. It's the "sequel."

I'll say it now: it's a wonderful puzzle game. Absolutely fun and addicting. It probably wouldn't run you more than $15 as well, and is well worth it. I paid $10 for mine from Yamatoku a while back.

Game pieces include:

-Various pieces of rope

-Bomb

-Fire

-Character item

-Snow faces (this is the 'debris' in SKP!)

The pieces of rope are shaped as:

L

l

S (like how a 5 appears on a calculator)

[

I might have missed one.

The bombs work like such. Say you line up your rope and place a bomb on it. Nothing will happen. You need a flame block to ignite it, and then bam the fire goes all the way through the rope AS LONG AS it's connected.

You don't need a bomb though. You can just place a fire at the end of a rope and it'll also do its thing.

What's the use of the bomb then? Let's see...

[] []

Say you got that there with 1 space inbetween. A flame CANNOT ignite either of those two as it has NO opening. However, you place a bomb on top of the first one and BAM!

EVEN BETTER, place the bomb at the BOTTOM IN-BETWEEN the two, then place a flame block on top of the bomb, and guess what happens? Correct-o-mundo, everything explodes.

Pretty cool puzzle system eh? Once you get the hang of it, it's very addicting.

Another intriguing kink to the gameplay system. Say you do put a flame block on a rope that it can't light ... what happens? Well, the flame gets enclosed in this circle. Now if you place more rope on top and burn those pieces of rope, eventually the reaction will free the flame, and if there's a rope opening around it, that now free flame will attack it. This causes for some "WOW YEAH I MEANT TO DO THAT!" chain combo's.

If there's nothing there for the free'd flame to attack, it simply disappears. Ace eh?

There are 10 bizzare characters to select from in SKP! Each one has a distinct item that will occasionally drop in the playing field. It suits each character to a tee and each item has its own individual uses, so no two are alike. This increases the game depth and strategy TEN FOLD.

The characters range from a 16 year old school girl to a 16 year old kid with a bomb as a face (!) to a 12 year old boy in a dragon's costume. Heh, it's out there as Japanese gets. But there are old characters too. A 42 year old dark-skinned evil looking guy, a 256 year old fairy, and what appears to be a disturbing 35 year old transvesite. Uhhh, no comment there.

My favorite character so far is the cute 7 year old girl who rides a dolphin. Her item is a dolphin and what this sucker does is he eats. If there is snow debris on your playing field, dropping a dolphin on it causes the creature to swallow the snow in that row.

Say:

snow
snow
snow
rope

it'll become just rope.

snow
rope
snow

becomes

rope
snow

As long as there's straight snow, the dolphin will plow its way through. Pretty useful little thing. Basic, though. Other characters' items, get very complex and really crazy. Blowing up all sorts of matter.

Although there are 10 different characters to pick from, no one has a "block pattern." It's really only the Character Item that separates each character, not to mention the myriad of voice samples. I look forward to trying out all the characters.

The game's sound and music is great. It doesn't distract you from the action but adds to the frenzy. The game is very user-friendly, all menu's are in English! Only game endings are in JP text. Heck, in the option mode there is a "How to Play" video for each of the 10 characters that explains how to use their individual Item icon. Awesome.

There's 3 modes:

Story Mode
Versus Mode
Practice

Story Mode you pick your character and go through all ten. 5 Difficulty levels. Then you're challenged by two bosses who may or may not be unlockable. 1st one is some old man who reminds me of Cap N Crunch. The 2nd boss is some weird JigglyPuff wannabe sporting a jester cap. Yeah, that's your typical end boss all right.

Each character has their own ending. The girl with the dolphin, they're riding along in the ocean when the dolphin comes upon its homeland where all its other dolphin playmates are. The little kawaii girl goes through all sorts of exaggerated facial expressions those crazy Japanese anime shows are famous for.

VS. Mode is what you think it is. There's also an option to play VS. CPU so you can just try out various characters in a fast manner as in Story Mode if you continue you keep going as the same character.

Practice mode is just basically "stand alone mode."

So mode-wise, SKP's got the bases covered.

Opinions I've read on the net of Kururin have all been favorable. There haven't been too many comments on it, but the few there are everyone seems to really enjoy it. Here's one guy I found who had this to say about SKP!

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During this trip, it seems like i finally lucked into some of the games i'd been searching for, for a long time. i've had my eye on harmful park for years now. the reason, which is different than most people's, is that it was developed and published by sky think system. who's sky think system, you ask? they happen to be the publisher behind one of my favorite 32-bit games, the next-to-completely-unknown puzzle game, kururin pa! i lucked into kururin pa! on a saturn demo disc i bought from NCS back in the day, and i was instantly hooked -- in fact, most of my friends were too. i eventually ended up buying shingata kururin pa!, which was the sequel, and played the heck out of that too. kururin pa! (and shingata kururin pa!) both came out for the PS1, too. (i eventually nabbed the PS1 version of kururin pa! for around $10 at the short-lived US wanpaku.) i highly recommend them

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Well that about sums it up. The game has good graphics and sound for a puzzle game, good replay value, and very nice presentation. The title screen is very cool. You got the title in Japanese above some sort of kingdom in the background and in the foreground inbetween the kingdom are two huge trees that look like they come outta some Enchanted Forest.

Recommended!

[Steven]

Alright let's get back with the flow. Like the sound of Keriotosse! did you? Like offbeat 4 player games?

Well then!

Hansha de Spark! is as off beat as off beat 4 player games get. It comes to us from the fine folks at SIEG (who? This was the sole game they ever made) It opens with a 3D intro introducing us to our "Fantasic 4" team of heroes. The 4 heroes are the only characters selectable from the get-go. More may be unlockable as there are other characters but since I can't beat the rock-hard 1P mode this is unconfirmed. The four Heroes are as such:

1. Hansha (blue guy)
The typical all-around leader type. Has one bar in four categories, but I can only make out one category as "speed." Looks like MegaMan a bit.

2. Chammy (girl)
Sports, you got it, pink and even has the bunny ears down. Fast like a rabbit too.

3. Hayate (black and purple guy)
Sort of the "cool looking non-leader rebel type"

4. Wappaa (big guy)
The typical big guy... this one wears sheepskin (?) and has a mask complete with tusks. SLOW

So what is the premise of the game?

Do you drop bombs like in Bomberman and run away?

Is it like Grid Runner where you play virtual tag?

Is it like hide n seek?

OK, enough with the suspense.

Bascially, each character shoots a circular shot. If you hit your opponent head on with it, it doesn't kill or harm them -- it merely pushes them back a few steps. The only way to eliminate them is to bounce your shot off of a lever, which in each of the 10 stages, multiple levers are positioned.

Once the shot hits a lever and bounces off, it becomes a spark which if it hits an opponent, he is then eliminated. You have to rely on the multiple levers to richochet your shots off of.

The levers come in these directions:

1. |

2. /

3. \

4. _

And reverse for a total of 8 positions.

Basically, if you're facing to the right of _ and you fire a shot at it, it will go through.

However, if you're facing North or South of _ and fire, it will bounce back at you.

Stand to the left of "/" and fire means it'll go up.

Stand to the right of "/" and fire means it'll go down.

Same principle with \ (only reverse them)

And yes, your own shot, much like your own bomb in Bomberman, can kill you.

Sometimes there will be four, five sparks flying around the playing field! Watch your step...

Thankfully in HDS! the levers can be switched with the press of Button Y in any of the 8 directions. So you're not just a sitting duck based on predetermined factors.

But just like the cardinal rule in baseball and basketball, remember that a pass or a fastball ALWAYS travels faster than a guy running. In other words, the sparks come off the levers pretty fast. If you're in the direction of an incoming spark you better change the lever real quick. You literally have to anticipate and see the play happening before it happens. Otherwise you stand no chance.

There are also red levers, these levers cannot be altered.

This game has strategy and technique thanks to the ability to switch up levers.

The more times a spark bounces off a lever, the faster it travels and the bigger it gets. Also, it gets louder too. Nice.

Each field has blocks to clear too, much like Bomberman. Sometimes these blocks hold powerups.

With the exception of a double shot powerup, only one shot from your character can be in play. It needs to either dissipate or destroy something before you can fire another. If the shot has been bounced into a spark, that spark will keep bouncing along the path set by the levers until it hits something. There are the usual power ups like speed, shield, life extenders, etc. There are no cheap dinosaurs or kangeroos here to save your butt though!

The graphics are a notch below Saturn Bomberman, but still pretty decent. The music is pretty good, my friend describes it as "the music, which sounds like Kraftwerk if they OD'd on happy pills" lol.

There is some technique such as switching the levers in one of 8 directions as pointed out. It definitely has a learning curve too. Whereas in Bomberman you could just pick it up and play, this one you can't just hand the controller over to your 8 year old nephew and expect him to get it.

The 3 game modes are:

1. Free play 1-4 player battles
There are 10 mazes with each having its own gimmicks and design, a la Bomberman. Though some stages aren't really THAT much different and only sort of aesthetically come off different. You can do any combo of 1-4 player Human or CPU. You can do a 1-on-1 human vs. CPU battle or even watch 4 CPU's battle it out on any one of the 10 stages. There might be 2 hidden stages as the select screen shows 6 on top and 4 on bottom with room for two.

The game is very customable a la Saturn Bomberman. Also an unique concept is that you can pick from 1 through 10 rounds, NOT wins. So say you pick 2 rounds and 2 players each won 1. What happens next is those two are placed in a smaller version of the stage you picked... death match style. If you play 1 round and everyone dies, the next match pits all four in a VERY small version of the arena you had chosen.

2. 1 Player Quest
Kinda like Bomberman's 1 player quest. This mode was fun as it is more of a brainteaser than Bomberman as you don't just lay bombs and run about. You gotta watch those levers... enemies range from zombie skeletons to headless knights to dragons to pumpkin-headed demons.

I was able to beat the first 2 bosses. (each stage has 3 rounds then you face a boss) First boss was a cool looking giant brown castle that emits bats from its forthold. Not hard at all.

2nd boss was this flower-looking monster. He spits out a circle of white spears. Use your MAD SHMUP DODGING SKILLS! After you kill him he splits into 3 smaller forms. Blasphemy! No rest for the wicked eh?

You got to use the levers to flip the sparks off of to hurt the bosses. Shooting the spark directly at them does no good.

Based on the manual here are some of the other bosses:

-A towering blue bipedal Hammerhead Shark.. his head glows yellow

-A giant white Kirby

-Three enormous yellow Aliens (fun...)

-A fire monster

-Some sort of white Creature from the Lagoon...

Looks like good stuff.

3. Pre-arranged scenarios where you gotta get to the exit
There are 36 total. Kinda reminds me of the one found in N64's Pokemon Puzzle League or those Side Pocket games where you have specific things to unlock and they get increasingly harder. You start off here and the exit door is there. Use your spark and levers to get to the exit.

Here are some brief notes on the 10 stages:

1. Green shrubbery surrounds the outside playing field. Looks like a castle surrounds the play area (which makes sense as you fight a giant castle in the 1P mode in this level). Spikes pop outta the ground after a while. Touch and you die

2. Green shrubs are the blocks here. Fire errupts outside the arena. There are a couple red levers in this stage (red levers cannot be changed)

3. Bigger playing field than the previous two, colorful stage with water.

4. Carnival theme as carnival-esque lights light up the top of the screen. Very small field... things get up close and personal here. Better think on your feet!

5. Destroy box-like blocks as fog sweeps through this brown-hued stage.. cool affect!

6. Gearworks stage, gears rotate outside the arena. Big stage. Nice and simple.

7. Another watery stage, only this time the water moves and looks very lovely indeed. It's slippery... the water sways you to the left.

8. Same design as stage 3 only in lava. The characters must have some special shoes. The lava bubbles and glistens.

9. Dinosaur bones litter the arena. Every once in a while a giant dust storm clouds the entire screen. Some purple levers are present -- bouncing a shot off a purple lever results in the Mega, Ultimate Speeding Spark of Disaster!

10. Houses surround you and fog comes in and out. Done differently than the fog found in stage 5. Great affect.

Due to waiting factor for the spark... this game is more of a "thinking man's" survival of the fittest. You can't go "super crazy" like you can in Bomberman, Bomberman Fight!! or Keriotosse! I like this aspect of the game. It's not really a "chaotic" title like the other 3 mentioned... rather more of a thinking man's 4 player game.

I got this game for $14 a month ago. When I first played it I was HORRIBLY disappointed. But the more I played it the more I understood the little intracies of this little game and it warmed up to me.

It's safe to say HDS! is a hit or a miss title, for me it was a (small) hit. Not a great game, and it will definitely NEVER replace Saturn Bomberman, but it's decent and can prove to be a nifty little diversion of a game. Whereas I highly recommended Keriotosse! and Shingata Kururin Pa!... for this obscure exclamation Saturn title I will say "buyer cautioned." It's def. not for everyone. Only buy it if you *really* feel you might like it.

[Steven]

Today we look at two late '97 3D action/adventure titles I think have some close similarities with each other. Ironically, I got both off the same US seller sometime last year. Not the greatest games in the world, but they are niche games that may have a place in your collection...


NINPEN MANMARU

You control a penguin in a 3D world. It reminds me a lot of Croc, I guess this is due to the insane kiddy feel. But the graphic engine is a lot worse than Croc's. The controls are a little iffy. Sometimes you'll get a little ticked off as you're trying to move Ninpen one way but the camera angle contorts and he goes the other way. You can control the camera angle with the L and R buttons, but the thing is, Ninpen will move too. It's really odd. But you get used to it.

The game has a bizarre cast of characters. There are a few enemies scattered throughout each level, but I would call them more "obstacles." You see, Ninpen, being the innocent little goober he is, has no forms of attacks. The enemies are really easy to avoid though. It's basically a game of racing, or waddling, to the exit before the designated 10:00 runs up.

The first few levels were very 'meh' to me. Then came a new looking level that peaked my interest. This was where the game picked up for me. One part of this level had you jumping high, way high in the sky on these tiny circular platforms suspended magically in the air. This part is certainly not for those scared of heights!

The one really cool moment though, I was standing there inbetween two brown hillsides. The sky overhead was cast with grey shadows. I zoomed and looked up from 1st person view. There I saw the upper parts of the hillsides, and the now looming... ENORMOUS thunderclouds all moving in succession... this was a great moment. Then I unzoomed and proceeded to play out the rest of the level.

Overall it's not a bad game. Not the greatest game but I liked it. It is pretty hard to find though, but it seems to not command a high dollar. For $10-$15 it's not bad.

http://www.sega-saturn.com/saturn/ninjapenguin.htm


NINJA JAJA MARUKUN

I came into this one with high hopes. It's a 3D action adventure title with some platforming thrown in. It feels a bit like a Mario 64 meets Tomb Raider... then thrown up and tossed into the ground and stepped on. Unlike Ninpen Manmaru, our little Ninja friend definitely can hurt the enemies. At his disposal are his trusty ninja stars and sword slashes.

The enemies are quite bizarre. i.e. an umbrella with one leg. a green one-eyed basketball player who throws "basketball bombs." There are boss battles but these boss battles are too quick, easy and generally poorly done. They're sloppy.

There's no arguing this game is "one of a kind" on Saturn, but something is just not clicking on all cylinders. It feels a little hollow. The levels are short, and all you have to do is get to the finish spot. You don't have to kill the enemies. It's up to you if you wanna go through the stages Terminator style or "Ninpen Manmaru" style.

I came into this game expecting one of those "great Saturn smash surprises" but sadly it's not all that great. It's still worth a look though, but it's purely for the diehards. The screen shots make it look a lot better than the gameplay experience IMHO. The gameplay isn't as smooth as I would have liked it. Just feels a little herky jerky, if you know what I mean. But who knows, you might like it a lot more than I did.

Like Ninpen, Jaja is very uncommon and doesn't seem to command too high a dollar.

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=1468

[Steven]

*cue movie trailer voice*

There is a HOUSE...

That is hardly ever spoken of

There is a HOUSE...

Where evil laughter lurks in the winding hallways

There is a HOUSE...

That is unlike any other

Resident Evil mansion, Amityville Horror house, the crib in the film Darkness... these places have NOTHING on this HOUSE...

Taking place on a most malevolent Holiday...

You will enter the longest day of your life.

Once inside THERE'S NO WAY OUT.

Welcome to this House of Pain.

Welcome to...

WELCOME HOUSE

So is this game as good as the "teaser intro"? Carry on...

The story goes something like this: Keaton is in Miami to visit his crazy Uncle Parkinson. For what wacky reason is unbeknownst to us. Beknownst to us however, is that inexplicably Keaton's car completely breaks down in front of his Uncle's huge 2 story house. The doors to the house are open, Keaton walks in and as soon as he does they slam shut bolted. As Keaton looks frantically around, the windows downstairs all clamp down as well. He is stuck.

And his Uncle has a little game... essentially "Survive my house of tricks and traps!" Why is his uncle like this? Well, if he wasn't, there wouldn't be much of a game eh?

The game takes place on April Fools' Day... and Uncle Parkinson sure has some gags on hand for Keaton!

Welcome House is a 3D adventure (I think the manual dubbed it a "Cartoon Adventure" which is fitting) where you guide Keaton around a big house looking for a way to escape the house. You pick up items, figure out where to use what items and the like. Some doors are readily openable, others are locked and required finding the proper key. Sounds like Resident Evil for kids? In a way, the premise very much so is.

It controls like RE too. Left and right to spin our man Keaton around, up and down gets him walking. Sadly, Keaton can't run, and his walking pace ain't gonna set the world on fire. Controlling Keaton is a bit clunky due to his walking pace and the click-clat turning style. A surveys whatever Keaton is facing. C brings up any items you are carrying. Pressing C again uses item if applicable in that spot. To open a door, face any door and press Up.

There are some open windows in the house. If you press A at a window Keaton goes to touch it but then the window slams down on his fingers while somewhere in the house mysteriously Uncle Parkinson laughs devilishy.

Graphically the polygons are a little rough though certainly manageable. I guess if you're not spoiled by today's graphics by now, Welcome House won't look THAT rough, but it ain't winning any beauty contests either. I dunno, I kinda enjoyed the tacky polygon graphics in that B-Movie way. Keaton is a likeable chap, I just wish he moved faster. Game speed is slowly paced somewhat, but I guess that's the nature of the game the makers were shooting for.

The house is somewhat reminiscent to the Resident Evil mansion. The controls are similar as are the Camera angles. They have the same kind of fixed view point where when Keaton moves to a certain spot the camera angle changes to a new and different viewpoint. Overall it works well, especially without the troubling zombies coming after you that makes you curse at the control system.

The game has a chill, mellow pace/feel.

But here's the downside: the game on the whole is mediocre at best IMHO. Once you beat it (I haven't yet, but I know you can save your progress), I don't see a reason why you'd want to beat it again... thus replay value is lacking. The gameplay is simple with the hardest part being mixing and matching which items do what and go where (i.e. the puzzle element)

As for Japanese text, there isn't too much. Sure whatever Keaton observes is in Japanese so you miss out on that, but logically speaking you can figure things out. Though I haven't beaten this game, so I can't say for sure how much a lack of the knowledge of JP might hinder one later on, but early in the game you can get by without hassle. But if you're like me though, you'll quip at not being able to read the little details that Keaton observes. Ah well.

You REALLY have to be into this kind of game style or else you'll be bored off your keyster wondering why you bought this game to begin with (heh... don't look at me). It took me about two years to find a copy of this game though, and I haven't seen it once since I bought the 1 copy I finally spotted several months back. It's safe to assume this game is pretty rare.

My copy came with a sticker card. Ahh those cool little extra's the Japanese give you. :D

My copy ran me $10 and if you can locate a copy going for that much, and you want to give it a shot, it's worth it.

It also came out on PS1 as an import and Welcome House 2 (which GameFan previewed moons ago) is exclusive to PS1. From the sceenshots I saw in the preview, WH2 (not World Heroes 2 haha) graphically is much enhanced and looks like a more involving title based on GameFan's description of improvements made.

So... don't expect a whole lot from Welcome House. I know two others who have played it. One thought it was a dud (see link) and the other played it through, calling it a "decent game for what it was."

For me I fall much closer to the latter. If you're into different, unique quirky games, this one may appeal to you. But again, know what you'd be getting. I suppose the search in itself would be half the fun. (took me close to 2 years...)

http://www.segagagadomain.com/saturn2/welcomehouse.htm

[fishsandwich]

You know...

this post is neat. I'm a big Saturn fan, yet I have never heard of any of these games and some of them appear to be pretty darn interesting. I didn't know the Saturn had more 3-D platformers. I'm going to be on the lookout for some of these games.

Thanks!

:D

[Steven]

You're welcome, Fish.

Well time for a break from the norm... at this time I'll be presenting to you guys THE CAPCOM INTERVIEW (part 1 of 3) conducted by SSM in their 2nd to last issue, # 36, October 1998. Parts 2 and 3 to come at a later time. I will also add other various SSM pieces before I finish this thread. Still a TON left to go! I will also have Hansha De Spark! pictures up within the coming weeks, so until next time... you know where to find me... same bat time, same bat channel...

Have a nice day. :)


The CAPCOM Interview

Possibly the greatest videogame developer in the world, Capcom rarely opens its doors to western journalists. This month, we're proud to have an EXCLUSIVE interview with Mr. Noritaka Funamizu, General Producer of Capcom's Development Division, as he reveals future plans, Dreamcast development and Biohazard secrets. WARREN HARROD reports.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/capcom2/c2b.jpg

SSM: Can you tell us what Capcom's plans for the Sega market now that Dreamcast has been announced?

NF: We'll continue producing Saturn games for the rest of this year. Our line-up consists of Capcom Generations, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter in October, Dungeons and Dragons Collection in November and Street Fighter Zero 3 in spring next year. That will probably be our final Saturn game. SFZ3, MSH vs. SF and D&D part 2 will all use the 4 MB RAM cart.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723063805/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/DDOGRE2.JPG

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/mr/mvssf/ps1b.jpg

{my note: Final Fight Revenge turned out to be their final Saturn game}

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723063821/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/DDUNDEAD.JPG

SSM: Do you think the Saturn market will collapse after the Dreamcast release?

NF: No, there are still over two million Saturn owners out there. Of course, I don't expect that they will all continue to purchase Saturn games, but I think many of them will still be active users that we can target with our titles.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/mr/mvssf/ps2b.jpg

SSM: Will you continue to port all of your CP-System II arcade games to Saturn?

NF: We're not considering releasing any games after April '99 because we can't be sure that there will be anyone out there still buying Saturn games. Sega has stopped all development on new Saturn titles and will only release a collection of budget games from now on. Most shops will remove their Saturn section of games and replace it with something else.

SSM: Will there ever be another Biohazard game on the Saturn?

http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/residentevil31.jpg

NF: No, there won't. We've already announced this in Japan but we haven't officially stated this overseas yet. We did consider doing Biohazard 2 and we had started it, but we cancelled the project because of Dreamcast.

SSM: Is the Saturn capable of handling Biohazard 2 or would you have needed to use the 4 MB RAM cart?

NF: It wouldn't have been impossible to do a Saturn Biohazard 2. We don't really need any more RAM, the real problem is that the CPU is too slow and it doesn't have the power to handle the graphics calculations. Maybe Sega's own development teams could push the CPU closer to its top performance, but we couldn't.

SSM: What was your first impression on Dreamcast?

NF: It was completely different to what I thought it was going to be. I was surprised to see that it was even more powerful than Model 3. The hardware looks very interesting indeed.

SSM: Did Capcom give any advice to Sega about what it would like to see from the Dreamcast hardware?

NF: We did ask Sega to make sure that it supported 2D titles as well as 3D. However, at the moment the Dreamcast's 2D tools aren't as good as we would like them to be. We're hoping, that before the final version is released, Sega will be able to improve our expectations.

SSM: So will your 2D programming teams be able to produce perfect conversions of CP-System III games on Dreamcast?

NF: That really depends on whether Sega has listened to us or not. If it makes the amendments we've asked for then it should be possible.

http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/sfa31.jpg

[Steven]

Next we look at WONDER 3

I had very high hopes for Wonder 3. For a while I loved it but then I came down to earth with it after realizing its limitations and getting off that initial early 90's high.

Wonder 3 (W3) features three arcade games on one disc. These games all originated from the early 90s. Roosters (AKA Midnight Wanderers), Don't Pull, and Chariot. The action, puzzle and shooting genre is represented here respectively.

So why do I feel it comes up short? Well, it is fun for a while... when I played it the first couple times my reaction was: This is a high quality Saturn title.

After six hours of game play or so, I was left wanting much more, and for a disc that has 3 games in 1, I found the replay value to be surprisingly limited.

~ MIDNIGHT WANDERERS ~ (you gotta love that name)

My favorite of the lot, MW is like a Metal Slug Junior set in a fantasy world. This is a basic side-scroller where you play the role of an elf who must return peace to his land.
The game play here is very simple. The damage system is like Ghosts N Goblins, one hit causes our good elf to lose his clothes, and two hits total will kill him.

The enemies consist of elf foot-soldiers (who pop out of the ground) and other strange beings. There are 5 stages total and each stage has 2 areas that are respectively guarded by a boss (2 bosses per stage). Your elf's standard shot is an arrow. He can upgrade it by breaking open treasure chests and collecting certain colored orbs. The shot can turn into sort of a boomerang projectile, or a big blue-ish blast.
There is a 2 Player mode that works as you might expect, very well. Me and my brother have enjoyed romping through this one together.

Overall this is a nice little vintage-esque platform blaster but it's very basic and you got to be a fan of these type of simple games to enjoy this one. The bosses are pretty cool (especially Stage 1 Area 2 Boss 2 BALGOSS) and the graphics are a delightful splash of vibrancy, although the animation on our elf friends is a bit lacking.
Goofy sense of humor.
A is shoot, B is jump. Very simple.


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/wonder3/saturn2b.jpg


~ CHARIOT ~

Chariot is my least favorite. Our elf friends are back at it. With hang gliders equipped, they take off toward the unfriendly skies to battle the evil-doers. There are 7 stages total and all bosses in this game are of the Zodiac. Cancer (giant crab), Sagga-what's-his-name, etc. The enemies here are the same baddies found from Midnight Wanderers. It's like a continuation except in the form of a SHMUP. With the exception being new bosses. A is shoot, B is to unleash your bomb shot. On paper a great concept.

But like the ole sport saying goes, "On paper means just that... you gotta play the game to see what is real."

Chariot at times just dragged on -- at least until you reach the bosses. I just couldn't get into it because I found it very plain and bland. And unlike Midnight Wanderers, it just didn't have that charm value. To be brutally honest, I see no reason to play Chariot more than just a few times, because AT BEST it's average and why play an average ho-hum shooter when you got the likes of Soukyugurentai, Battle Garegga, and Galactic Attack on Saturn? You know what I'm saying? I mean, for God's sake just take a glander at this:


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/terra/t3b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/battleg/b1b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/layer/layer1b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/wonder3/saturn1b.jpg
This over Saturn's smash hit library of SHMUPS? Ya gotta be damn crazy


Now conversely we could make the same argument between Midnight Wanderers and Saturn platform blasters like Metal Slug, Elevator Action Returns and Mega Man X4, but *at least* Midnight Wanderers is unique enough to bring something different and worth playing to the table. Chariot, sadly, in my book, does not.


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/af/elevator/saturn2b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/rockx4/r1b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/neogeo/mr/metal/metal2b.jpg
Even in a tough and crowded genre well covered on Saturn, Midnight Wanderers manages to stand out with its charm and unique look.


~ DON'T PULL ~

It reminds me a bit of a souped up version of Rodent's Revenge. Perhaps Pengo is a better comparison, yes. The elf guys are nowhere to be found here; you control a rabbit in a square area containing blocks and bad guys (green blobs, dinosaurs, etc.) Control is a bit stiff, I assume it's because of the alignment you must make with a block so you can push it up, down, left or right. The instruction booklet says there are 32 levels, and so far I have yet to beat this game. It's not too bad but just don't expect a ''traditional'' puzzle game because it's no Tetris clone. It's an action puzzle game. No falling blocks to be found here. The playing field looks like a Bomberman scene kinda.

Your goal is to eliminate all the enemies within each stage. By kicking the blocks into them which crushes them. Sound easy? On paper, maybe, but in-game you will have to be quick on your feet. There is a 2 player mode and it can make for some good times... teamwork or lack thereof, can make things real interesting real quick. Sometimes you want a block to be there, but if your partner kicks it blindly elsewhere, you might be sorry outta luck! Keeping an open line of communication is crucial.

But overall, I only found Don't Pull to be barely above average.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/wonder3/saturn3b.jpg


I expected a lot out of Wonder 3, maybe unrealistically so, but I really thought going in to this one, that this could have been one of the Saturn's sleeper gem hits.

As stated previously, W3's replay value for me is surprisingly limited. I have no desire to return to CHARIOT, I see little desire to return to DON'T PULL, and MIDNIGHT WANDERERS is one of those ''couple times a year'' types. I played W3 for about four days straight and really liked it. Then time passed and I am left with an empty feeling. It is really truly Midnight Wanderers that "saves" this comp for me. Otherwise, this would be on the trade list.

Bottom Line:

A decent compilation; the likes of which only the craziest gamers will want to hunt down. In the end, I just came out disappointed. But again, I was expecting probably TOO much.

If I had to rate each title independently:

Midnight Wanderers- 7.5
Pretty fun, a decent ''kiddie'' version of fantasy Metal Slug if you will. A little goofy, colorful and very whimsical

Don't Pull- 6.0
Strictly slightly above average. Decent fun with 2 players; trying to plot out the mazes. If you have a girlfriend this might be a good game to play. If not, Don't Pull is almost Don't Play. OK that's a little harsh... Don't Pull feels like an old game that you played on a very old computer many moons ago. I guess there's some charm in that.

Chariot- 4.5
Just not all that fun or appealing. Very ho-hum, very *yawn*

Overall, I score Wonder 3 a 7.0

Please note that it's no cheap game. I believe it commands at least a solid $45. To buy or not to buy, that is the question. If you enjoy these games, I say hell yeah go for it. If you always were a non-fan, skip.

For more pics go here:

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=349

note: the funny square graphical thing you'll see is NOT in the game (dunno what happened there)

[Steven]

Thanks for all the comments. Keep 'em coming.

Let's continue on with the Capcom Interview Part II.

SSM: The Biohazard franchise seems ideally suited to the Dreamcast hardware. Can you let us in on any of you plans for bringing the world of survival horror to the 128-bit generation?

NF: On October 6th, Sega will hold its New Challenge Conference: Part 2. Capcom will be there to make a joint announcement with Sega about Biohazard on Dreamcast.

SSM: Who from Capcom will be at the Sega New Challenge Conference?

NF: Probably myself, Mr. Yoshiki Okamoto (President of Flagship, Managing Director of Capcom's R&D Division) and Mr. Shinji Mikami (a Biohazard Producer). There might be more staff present because we will be announcing several titles, not just Biohazard.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/xmenvssf/x1b.jpg

SSM: What are your thoughts on the non-release of Grade A quality titles like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Vampire Savior in the US and Europe?

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/vsavior/saturn1b.jpg

NF: Of course we are very disappointed with this. The problem is that overseas sales companies were really opposed to the use of the 4MB RAM cart because of the additional expense involved. The European and American markets are very hard, so they didn't want the extra risk. Personally, I think that they should have been able to support these titles, but instead consumers have to pay very expensive import prices instead.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/vsavior/saturn2b.jpg

SSM: Dreamcast will appear in an arcade form as the Naomi board. Since Capcom supported the PlayStation System 11 and 12 hardware, are you at all tempted to switch to the far greater 3D power of this new Sega machine?

NF: We will make an official announcement about this at the JAMMA Show in Mid-September, but I think that we will eventually stop using the PlayStation board for arcade games sometime soon. We've pretty much pushed that hardware as far as we can.

SSM: You didn't port any of your PlayStation board games to the Saturn. Does this mean that Naomi board games will all become Dreamcast exclusive games?

NF: It would be very difficult to convert Naomi games to the PS. However, we'll be able to port all our PS board games to the DC.

SSM: Will you improve your PS board games to make more use of the DC?

NF: No, we won't. We won't alter the game to make it look better on the DC hardware. However, if we have a PS board gae that we can't port to the PS then it will only be ported to the DC. We won't let the quality of games suffer.

SSM: Are there any other plans to convert your CP-System III titles to the home market?

NF: As far as DC conversions go, we will make an announcement about that as the New Challenge Conference in October, but it's not possible to port them to the PS. Even CP-System II titles have been very difficult to do. Even Street Fighter Zero was pushing the PS to its limits.

SSM: Apart from WarZard and SF III, do you have plans to release any more titles for your CP-System III board?

NF: Yes, there's a title called JoJo's Adventure. That's going to be a fighting game based on a Manga story which we plan to release in December. We'll show some video footage of it at the JAMMA Show.

SSM: Why has it taken so long for a new CP-System III game to appear in arcades?

NF: It's similar to the problem that Sony has with the PS and PS2. We have so many CP-System II boards out there, that it's difficult for us to introduce a new board into the market place. Many arcades don't have a CP-System III board at all, but they still have their CP-System II boards, so we can't give up on it just yet.

SSM: Would you prefer everyone to change over to CP-System III?

NF: Not really. We're thinking of giving up on the CP-System III. To be honest, it wasn't very good. Many companies didn't like it because it had a lot of hardware faults.

SSM: Will you only use other manufacturers boards from now on or will you create a CP-System IV?

NF: A CP-System IV board does exist, but we haven't decided whether or not to market it yet.

SSM: Can you say when we might see the first real 3D Street Fighter game from Capcom?

NF: The year 2000 (laughs)! We have an in-house joke where we say that it'll be called Street Fighter 2000. From a creative point of view our designers are always asking why they have to create a 3D Street Fighter game. They originally wanted to create a new world of characters, like Star Gladiator. That's what they all strongly felt and they didn't want to think simply about the sales aspects. However, none of our new 3D characters have been very successful, so they're slowly coming round to the idea that it would actually be OK to create a 3D Street Fighter.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/sfex/s1b.jpg

SSM: Will Arika continue to make all the 3D versions of the SF series?

NF: No, they won't be. The last 3D game they developed for us was SF EX2.

SSM: What are are your plans for the SF III series?

NF: In spring of next year, we are planning to release SF III: 3rd Impact. At the moment there are too many fighting games in the arcade, so we can't release a sequel any faster than one every six months. We've only just released SF Zero 3, so we don't really want to launch anything just yet.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/sfz3/ps3b.jpg

SSM: Will 'Impact' become the official sub-name for the SF III series?

NF: We want to make SF III: 3rd Impact the very best version of this series and possibly the last. After that, we will think about a new Street Fighter series. SF Zero 3 will probably be the last in that series as well. SF III: 3rd Impact wil keep all the old characters, but we'll add some new ones as well. Although it'll be a major change over the 2nd Impact game system, it won't be a major departure from the first two games in the series.

[Steven]

Tonight we examine the first of 3 import beat em ups.


CROWS: THE BATTLE ACTION FOR SEGA SATURN


Back in 2002 this game was VERY unknown to all except a select few handful. Today it's not really an obscure game any more, especially if you're talking about the diehard Saturn community. Everyone by now has heard of it. I don't mean to toot my own horn but I remember when I first posted on several different websites about Crows in 2003, a lot of people commented "WOW it looks like River City Ransom on steroids!" Interest peaked, and through word of mouth knowledge of Crows shot through the roof, and it's thanks to bastards like me. :p


Graphics
--
Really good, particularly on paper. Big ass sprites, a semi Super Deformed-esque look, quite a bright colorful looking game, though the backgrounds sometimes look bland. You will trek across streets with stores (even one store called River... a little secret homage to River City Ransom by the folks at Athena? Perhaps, and how devious...), bars, parks, a bathroom, and even a high school! In fact, a high school is where the final fight (no pun intended) takes place. Animation is just average, don't expect Capcom quality.


Music/sound
--
Eh, your typical beat em up fair. You won't remember the music, and your standard whacks and cracks.


Control
--
Responsive.
A=punch
B=kick
C=jump
X=retreat
Y=taunt (your Crow spews some Japanese bad words I'm told)
Z=block
L and R are your combo buttons... you can adjust your combos in the combo maker screen... double tap to dash in desired direction


Gameplay
--
Nothing new. Very basic. Punch, kick, grapple into 2 headbutts and throw, you seen it all before. Kick bums while they're down, etc. You can pick up knives and such. Stages aren't long. If you played Combatribes before, think THAT short... and EVEN shorter are the "stages" (more like segments) in Crows. Some levels you just battle goons til the end while other stages have an end boss waiting for you. You start out with a choice of 2 characters but later on 2 more is added on once you beat them (the 2 bosses then become playable).

I gotta say, the bosses disappointed me. They're not big or ugly or any of the "traditional" qualities you find in most Beat Em Up bosses.
The gameplay has some flaws though, like when you carry a box of bottles you can't move. It's pretty useless as it's hard to time. Also, the hit detection and collision is off a little bit. You'll get used to it but it's not as smooth as it should have been.


Replay
--
Not something you'll pull out every Saturday morning but... every now and then I can see how this game would be enticing to play. You gotta be in the mood.


Overall:

It's really nothing special but... there's a charm to this game that diehard Saturn gamers would enjoy adding it to their collection.
Very Japanese-y in some spots.

I must admit, I enjoyed Crows more the 2nd time around, after I got over my initial disappointment. I was hoping for a great beat em up, but once you accept Crows for what it is, you might just come to enjoy its zaniness. For a little-known company like Athena, this ain't half-bad. A nice little game for them rainy days... it could have been a lot better, yes, but not shabby nonetheless. It's pretty rare and goes for about $85-$100+

Crows' best thing it got going for itself is its quirkiness, presentation and charm. Hey, any game where you can punch an innocent street sweeper, cop and pound on drunks... c'mon how bad can it be? ;)

Overall: 6.5/10

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=2066
ignore the funny line breaks... the game doesn't have those lines.

Tomorrow we look at another 2D beat em up... and the day after we'll look at a 3D beat em up... haha just kidding. All 2D flavor here... ;)

[fishsandwich]

That Crows is one silly-looking game, but I'd really like to try it. Is this a rare game? I see it on Ebay now... one is at about $40 with 7 days to go, the other two are $120 and bloody *$250* for a sealed copy! I can't see paying any of those prices for what seems to be a simply beat-em-up.

More info and the next games, please!!!

:popcorn:



.

[Trevor Belmont]

Dear god, this thread is awesome. Somehow I completely missed it. Thanks for the reviews Steven and keep up the great commentary!

[Steven]

That Crows is one silly-looking game, but I'd really like to try it. Is this a rare game? I see it on Ebay now... one is at about $40 with 7 days to go, the other two are $120 and bloody *$250* for a sealed copy! I can't see paying any of those prices for what seems to be a simply beat-em-up.

More info and the next games, please!!!

:popcorn:



.

Yes it is quite rare. It's been debated how many copies of Crows have been published... some believe it's less than Taromaru, which had about 7,500 copies. Crows goes for $75+ consistently.

Ah thanks Trevor.

[Steven]

NEKKETSU OYAKO


Good ole N.O. I still remember sniping this eBay auction on November 15, 2002. It was this game and Tetris S that got me interested in buying and playing the lesser known Saturn games. I realized there was more on offering than the Radiant Silverguns, NiGHTS and Guardian Heroes of our world.

This 2D brawler has a lot of trademark features that harkens back to classics like the Streets of Rage games. For example, when you fight enemies, their energy bar will pop up under yours. Also, along the journey will be food to consume and weapons to take advantage of.

The weapons include bombs, bazookas (only big Rando can use the bazooka), rifles, machine guns, daggers, and my personal favorite: the sharp disc. It works like a boomerang and gives new meaning to the phrase, ''It slices! It dices!!''

Sometimes weapons will be lying down in the open. Other times you'll have to destroy barrels, crates, or colorful vending machines to unveil them.

There's a punch, jump, and ''super special move'' button. The super special move will automatically damage all onscreen enemies, even kill some of them, but it will also take away some of your own health.

You get three characters to choose from: Haggar-clone Rando, the all-around Tora, or the girl Rio.

The enemies and bosses in this game are OK. Some designs are decent; others are borderline laughable. There are 5 stages total. Loading times are good and slowdown only occurs in a few sections of the game. Nothing too bad though.

What really disappointed me was that there was no real "Andore" or "Abobo" clone. The closest is "VanDamme" -- a tall (but not towering) bald freak weilding a spiked chainball.

Low-end enemies consist of weird looking foot soldiers wearing masks, orange pants and sporting the boxing gloves. There's one pretty cool enemy named "Freddy." He is a cross between Freddy Kreuger, Jason Vorhees, and boogeyman Michael Myers. He has Myers' hair and clothes, Jason's mask, and Freddy's claws. Tough bastard.

The bosses are a little disappointing as well. Stage 1 and 2 bosses were like, "..." Stage 3 had a cool "throwback" boss though -- big, tough looking, and just a bully of a man. I wished the bosses were more like him.

In stage 5 you go through all four bosses again before meeting the final boss. Stage 5 is very cool. Watch the battle with Hammer. If the owner doesn't kill the cow... the saws will!


Graphics: 5.5
They resemble the Final Fight games more than Streets of Rage. It has a cartoony look, not a gritty one. Some of the animation is quite lackluster. This game just doesn't have trademark A-Class animation. Especially Rando's moves; the animation on them is quite awkward-looking at first. The throws are also lacking animation. However, attention to detail is very nice in some areas. Knocked down poles will break into segmented pieces. Statues broken will shatter apart and cars demolished will flip wildly in the air with tires flying every which way. The flames look pretty nice. More cool details -- on the second stage, you'll see some sort of fish swimming in the water beneath you, nice touch. Although the artwork could have been better.
Overall, the graphics could be improved, but they're not a complete eye sore and the details are there. The backgrounds are your typical beat em up fare, though with some strange spices thrown in, like the battle on the roller coaster or the battle inside the whale's stomach.
All in all, the graphics just scream 16-bit. The Saturn's 2D graphic powerhorse probably didn't even break a sweat here.

Sound/Music: 6
Sound is a mixed bag. Some great sound effects are present, like Rando's explosive and loud super special, but then you have areas where the game doesn't register any sound effects at all, which is very disappointing and uncalled for in a 32-bit game. (e.g. the sharp disc attack, I wish it made some sort of slicing sound as it juggles its victims. But no, there's just silence as it cuts through enemies, what a shame)
The music was fairly adequate. Maybe a little too relaxed sounding at times, but nonetheless there are some nice beats in the soundtrack. I noticed that when you pause the game and unpause it back, the soundtrack restarts.
Enemies have decent ''death cries.''
But nothing that you will really remember.

Control: 9
I do not have any major complaints. These type of games usually have simple controls anyhow. Only thing is the item/icon issue. Sometimes there are too many icons lying near one another and in the heat of battle, as I press attack with intention to whack the enemy, my character will bend down to pick up the item/icon and get nailed in the process. Too bad they didn't make use of the extra buttons on the Saturn controller. Perhaps this lies in the gameplay issue more than the controls, however.

Gameplay: 7
Nothing special. You've seen it before. The various weapons scattered about help keep the action somewhat fresh but it can get a little repetitive. On the higher difficulties, the CPU AI can be a pain.
The ability to juggle the enemies and also to hit them while they're lying down breathes some fresh air in. The boss fights were a little too easy. In the instruction manual there's quite a few combinations of moves possible for the 3 characters.
Is it a shallow game? Yes. Is it linear? Of course.
You pretty much should know what to expect coming in. People either like these games or don't. I fall in the former category and I think Nekketsu Oyako's gameplay is decent enough, but nothing really worth writing home about.

Replay Value: 6
Like many others in this genre, this is not a game I plan to play 10 hours every week. It's best in small doses. Although there's only 5 levels, the game is long, taking you about 50 minutes to beat. It's something you might pull out every now and then. Then again, you might not, after beating the game 4 or 5 times.

Fun Factor: 7
Sometimes it's just fun to beat up anything that moves. What I enjoy most about this game is that it doesn't always take itself seriously (look no further than the squid enemies with boxing gloves). Nekketsu Oyako doesn't set out to be the genre defining game.

Bottom Line:

I feel that Nekketsu Oyako had a lot of potential. Some areas were filled in adequately while others left a small to large gap. Better graphics, better sound, and night time battles would have been great. Also I must say this game doesn't feel very impactful. The punches you deliver to enemies don't feel very crisp or have that ''OOMPH!'' impact. That disappointed me.
But personally, seeing as these types of games are sparse on the Saturn, I'm not going to complain all that much. Nekketsu Oyako lived up to my expectations as a semi-competent 2D beat 'em up that doesn't do the genre disgrace. If you're a fan of this old genre and find a copy for $20 or under, it's worth picking up.

Just don't expect too much.

My overall feeling with it is that it's a cross -- a Final Fight clone with a touch of "Parodius bastardization" to it.

Overall: 6.0

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=1446

TENCHI WO KURAU II


I'm slightly disappointed with TWK II. But I was expecting far too much.

The game is long. I think there are 9 stages total, and the first time I was playing I got to level 8, which took me over an hour.

You get to pick from 1 of 5 warriors. They're all pretty slow in speed, and there is no dash button -- this irked me quite a bits. Gameplay felt slow.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/dynast/dynast2b.jpg

The game itself is what you expect. It does get repetitive, especially if you play alone. I haven't played it 2 player yet but I can see where having a friend take out the goons with you be some good fun.

The enemy AI is quite annoying. They like to putz around, meaning, staying off the screen a bit and then attacking you. I despise the enemies who jump right at you with their knives. But hey you gotta have a challenge...

The game can throw up to 15-20 enemies at you at once. It can feel very overwhelming at times. It does have a cool "1 man versus an army of 20" atmosphere.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/dynast/dynast3b.jpg
it gets much more crowded than this

The bosses are great because they are exaggerated to gigantic proportions, are beefy as hell and their energy bars are very intimidating. All boss fights come equipped with many foot soldiers. Tough love eh?

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/dynast/dynast1b.jpg
Damn that's just not right...

Loading times were good, except when you lost a continue they take you to this black continue screen instead of just staying on the screen where you died... there is a 1.5 second or so pause and it's minor but still manages to break up the rhythm of the action.

You can pick up giant swords and other ancient weaponry along the way and can slice an enemy (or boss even) in two. Not easy to do though, as enemies swarm you from every which direction.
You can also ride horseback, but I found fighting on foot to be better.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/dynast/saturnb.jpg

The graphics are not great. Choppy animation, and coming from Capcom this caught me as a disappointment. Yeah I know it's a 1992 game at heart but still, I guess I've been spoiled.

Overall, a good game, for sure, but worth the 45-50 bucks it usually goes for?

Overall: 7.5


So basically, IMO:

TWK II > CROWS > NO

If you love beat em ups and Saturn, you'll want to get all three. Not bad rainy day titles... not bad at all.

[Steven]

I'm still alive... just busy around FINALS time. I've been tackling this game lately... it's really grown on me. It might grow on you too, if you give it a chance.


PD ULTRAMAN LINK


No matter what I do this game will forever be linked to me, no pun intended. This is a game that I've been after for two years. It's a hard bugger to come by. But the real interesting thing here is, my ex-girlfriend gave me this game as part of my Christmas gift set last year.

Now there's your common 2004 Christmas gift -- an outdated, out of circulation obscure Saturn puzzle game. =P

Yes PD Ultraman Link is a puzzle game. There are a couple UM games on Saturn, I have never played the rest, but me being the puzzle fanatic, was always after this one. Two years, man. Two bloody years. It just doesn't pop up on eBay very much. Or elsewhere on the net.

So how is it? What's it like? And is it worth hunting down? Let's examine PD Xiga Link... uh, excuse me I meant PD Ultraman Link ;)

There are 5 blocks:

_l (red)

l_ (blue)

[ (green)

l (yellow)

l
- (purple, hard to show, but they're connected)

I know, the pieces may seem slightly reminiscent of Shingata Kururin Pa! (boy was that game covered a long time ago...) The basic concept of PD Link is to link together 3... doesn't matter what color.

Say a green drops down

[

And then another green

]

You combine them to be

[]

They will all disappear (because you connected four links together)

Each piece has two links already. (The purple one is unique because they're not linked together)

So you can easily go for the link 3 here and there and keep your field clean, which won't damage your opponent much.
The key here is, like all puzzle games, to work on a big chain.

The purple block is unique because it usually leaves one piece behind. This part is hard to explain because you really need a visual to see how it works.

Debris comes in the form of light black link pieces. Once you connect 2 or more to a black debris piece, it turns gray... repeat again and it disappears for good.

You can turn around and do some crazy stuff with the debris if you strategize well. One time I nailed an 8 chainer that just made the screen go crazy (pop pop pop pop pop .... good feeling for sure) Killed my enemy easily after that.

Yeah, when I first played this game I was like "What the hell... this puzzle game is weird."

But over the past week or so it's really grown on me after I learned more about the kinks in the gameplay.

There are 10 characters to select from. 5 versions of UltraMan and 5 of his monster foes. The game has a different look. It's not really colorful or bright or "sugary" looking so to speak. The character models are funky looking and of the SD mode more than anything else.

During gameplay you can press 'X' to change the way the pieces look.

A. One mode makes them all lines. Here it REALLY looks like Kururin. The lines are colored appropriately.

B. Your standard mode, where you get capsule-like pieces. Only, when you link them together you can see the individual breaks.

C. Like above, except they link together... and start to look like a box of MIKE AND IKE'S after not too long.

You have a story mode (it's hard), 2P mode, VS. CPU mode, and a "see if you can clear me all" puzzle mode.

I'll give you an example of a nice little 4 hit combo

note. the 'X' you will see indicates to leave it blank here

First you set up four blues on your bottom left hand corner as such:

BBBB

Then you drop a couple reds on top of them blue suckers:

XRRR
BBBB

Finally get a green piece and stick it next to the blue.

XRRR
BBBBG

What happens?

Blue meets green. They link and disappear:

l_ <---> ]

The red on top of the blue that just cancelled drops down to greet blue

l_ <----> _l

And then after they disappear the other reds drop down in succession.

There are more advanced crazy combo's but I'll let your imaginations work it out.

Overall this is not a puzzle game that will appeal to every one. Puzzle fans may even be indifferent toward it as it has a bit of an acquired taste, much like Hansha de Spark! in my opinion. However, give it a shot, learn the kinks of the gameplay, and it just may grow on you like it did me.

Keep in mind that it is a VERY hard to find video game. (look around, no one sells it)

But it cost me $12... so it should be had cheap. Well, I should say it cost my ex GF 12 dollars, haha.

Not bad... not bad at all. Where does it rank? It definitely is no Puzzle Fighter, Puyo Puyo or Bust A Move.... doesn't quite have the charm as those games... but it's got a unique puzzle system worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre. It's a different spin on the ole "connect 3" formula. I would say it's worth hunting down. But not a top priority.

Oh yeah, hawk-eyed GameFan magazine readers may remember the small quarter of a page preview of this game in some 1997 (96?) GameFan issue (where I discovered this game)... other than that itty bitty preview, I haven't been able to find ANY info on this game anywhere. Glad to see that things will change now.

See you guys next time.

[Steven]

STEAMGEAR MASH


What a pleasant surprise this game turned out for me. An isometric adventure action game by Takara in 1995, it features a robot on a mission to rescue his friend Mina after she got kidnapped by aliens (hey, it could happen)

Graphics are colorful and quite bold, especially for a '95 title; to me it still looks very strong today. From the second you turn on the game you can feel a special quality in the game. The intro has great tunes and is very well done. Our hero, Mash, is like MegaMan in some ways. He has a green buster that when you hold down can charge up for one big mega blast. SGM is like MegaMan meets Sonic 3D Blast.


http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/steamgearmash1.jpg


When enemies are killed, they explode to a nice sound effect and various hues explode in their place -- very cool. There are 6 stages total. Music in game is very good; very happy-sounding.


http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/steamgearmash2.jpg


Mash is a cool character to control. He can jump, he has his trusty green laser bullets, he has bombs, spread shuriken shot, boxing glove, etc. (the last 3 mentioned are specials and have a limited quantity while the green laser shot is infinite).

Other functions in his arsenal includes: Roll, Lock, and Stop. There is also 3 more but I have yet to acquire them. What does roll do? First click L to activate it then hold R to use it. D-Pad to move Mash. Now you can move and spin his upper half in a circle shooting. Nifty! Lock is just that: Mash faces a certain direction and you can shoot and strafe to your heart's content. Stop has Mash stopping dead in his tracks and standing there spinning his upper half body around. Here you can blast away.


http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/steamgearmash3.jpg


Any complains about the game so far? Well, enemies will reappear if you leave a room and come back. However, it's not as bad as the MegaMan games where enemies respawn in that very annoying way that probably doesn't need to be explained. Since this is an isometric game, at first you'll be bugged by some aiming issues, but it gets better and more natural as you progress.

The game seems easy. You take some damage but slain enemies often times leave behind a small or big heart (health, another MegaMan similarity).

I easily recommend this game with high praise to any action/adventure fan. It is a nice little Saturn "hidden gem," though not nearly as obscure as other titles already discussed and titles that I will share with you later on as the weeks progress.

BTW, Mina in the intro looks a lot like Capcom's Sakura. And the CD cover, like much of the game, is just so darn adorable. Did I just say that? That darn Mash... like MegaMan, he's cute yet rugged. A very good game... one that kids and adults alike should enjoy.


http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_steamgear_cvr.jpg
should run you less than $15 shipped, and well worth it

[Steven]

Today we look at a game that probably no Saturn gamer would define as "obscure," but it isn't a household name either, so let's give it a moment to bask in the sunshine shall we

---

The Saturn is home to many shooters (AKA ''shmups''). The general consensus on Shienryu seems mixed. Many believe it's average and nothing special. Others will contest it's ''underrated, under appreciated and well, damn good.'' Where do I fall? Somewhere in the middle but more toward the latter than the former. Oh and, past the ladder over the hill down the stream and through the gate... sorry, I figure you might be so confused by now :D

Graphics: 8.5
Early on the graphics may not jump out at you much, but later on things get rather eye-catchy and impressive. In one of the later stages, there's this giant white ship that appears almost cel-shaded. My brother was playing with me and said, ''Whoa, check out the cel-shading power of Saturn! Albeit first generation...'' :D
The graphics are rock solid and well drawn. The bullets often times appear in the blue hue. Enemies are well animated. You can see damage on bigger enemies before they blow up... very neat.

Sound/music: 7.5
The sounds are nice and explosions are fairly loud with a nice oomph. Music however is too bland for my liking and sounds like generic guitar riffs. Nothing to write home about.

Control: 9
As in most shooter games, great. Controls are very basic (shoot, bomb). Ship speed feels about right which is something shooter fans should never take for granted.

Gameplay: 8.5
Solid. Just solid. Although you only have one ship (some other shmups give you a choice between 3 or 4 ships) the gameplay zips along at a nice pace; it never gets TOO frustrating (on the easier difficulty levels anyway) and yet always manages to keep the pressure on at all times, especially in the later levels. There are lots of bullets to dodge and lots of turrets to destroy. It's just well done and done in a very respectable way. One small gripe though. If you lose a life, the action stops and you either go back to a certain segment, or go forward (depending on how much damage you did to the enemy ship(s) before you died. Like, you're on stage 5 and there are increments... i.e. 5-2, 5-5. Say you're on 5-4 and badly damage a mini-boss but he ends up killing you. Instead of going back to face him, in this case the game automatically takes you to 5-5 even though you did not ''earn it.'')

Replay Value: 7
I know I'll come back to it someday. Not a game I'll play every week but I'll break it out every once in a while. It's not as replayable as other shooters in my book, but without a shadow of a doubt I'll come back to it more than just once because it's solid good challenging fun.

Fun Factor: 8.5
It's something I can get down for and just have a blast with. However, I never really feel like I'm ''locked in'' with the game... I just kinda go through the motions so to speak. Still, I enjoy playing it quite a bit and one thing about Shienryu that is extra special in my heart is that it has an incredible arcade feel to it. When I'm battling the stage 3 end boss -- that red rad robotic octopus -- I almost can smell the aroma of cheese in the air and hear the joyous laughter of children as they're scampering about downstairs...

MISC:

-Loading times are quick!
-Yes, you have the all-mighty Bomb button in Shienryu
-The bosses are all pretty cool
-The last stage and last boss is very difficult
-The CG intro is well done and puts you in a good mood to blast and save the universe
-2 Player simultaneous play is a go!

Bottom Line:

Shienryu's a good shooter. Unfortunately, it finds itself in a crowded genre. Saturn's shooter library runs deep and rich. From the superb (Radiant Silvergun, Soukyugurentai) to the ho-hum (Gekirindan, Sol Divide) it's hard to be noticed in the crowd. You have to be REALLY good. And that Shienryu falls a bit short of being a superb shooter, but don't get me wrong. It's a solid shooter worth $35 (but not a penny more). I wouldn't classify Shienryu as a ''front-of-the-line'' shooter but I will stamp my seal of approval on it, and hope that once you finish buying and playing the likes of Soukyugurentai and Battle Garegga, that you give Shienryu a fighting (or should I say shooting) chance.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/shienryu/s1b.jpg


Now if you would kindly excuse me, I would like to resume my rightful position as Shienryu scores champion... *turns back* ''Hey you -- drop that quarter! Yeah -- you in the big gray mouse suit!* Drop it buddy!''

Overall: 8.0


http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_shienryu_cvr.jpg


*Chuck E. Cheese's baby! :P

[fishsandwich]

More, man, more!

:D

[Steven]

haha fish. as you wish (hey just call me the new Dr. Seuss lol)

"Hey man, you've spoke on a lot of games but are there any fighters I might have missed or not heard of? I'm a huge 2D fighting fan in particular, HOOK IT UP!"

Alright.

I recently discovered this game oh maybe at the turn of the new year. I had seen its name sparsely here and there over the years but never made the effort to figure out what genre it was. As soon as I learned it was a 2D fighter I immediately popped it on my want list.

And here we are today.

ADVANCED V.G.

(The VG apparently stands for "Variable Geo")

This is a 2D all-girl fighter, and what I dug up on it hasn't been very favorable... many saying skip this fighter.

In truth, they are somewhat right. AVG is nothing to write home about, in fact it's a very ho-hum fighter that I can only recommend to fighting FREAKS. However, even though it's ho-hum on the whole, it doesn't play or control bad at all... not at all. It just misses that all important X-Factor.

It does play a lot better than the tragically appalling Golden Axe: The Duel (remember that no combo system fighter? Yesh). It controls responsively. Hell, I'd recommend it if you are a HUGE fighter fan who must have every 2D fighter ever made. Because it's not a BAD game, per se.

The graphics are Super Nintendo personafied. The music is kinda catchy and good in places. The sound, however, is horrible. When you crack someone with a hard punch or kick, out comes this weak low sound. Stages were decent. One stage takes place in front of old fashioned townshops and to the far left of the screen is this girl holding her skirt so the wind doesn't shoot it up. Comedic. Another stage pits you at battle at night in front of a mansion with well-lit windows a-plenty and a rose bed in the background. etc.

Modes include 1P, Story Mode (you only can use Yuka), 2P mode, 1P vs. CPU mode, and COM vs. COM mode. In the VS. modes you can pick any stage, your handicap and a speed setting from 1-5 (5 is very very fast)

There are 9 characters total. They are as follows:

YUKA
The main character and as predicted has a fireball, hurricane kick type move and a Dragon Punch.

CHIHO
This ninja-looking female sports a purple sparkball and Burning Knuckle-type 5 hit attack

MANAMI
Really weird little character in a maid's dress with tiger paws. She plays like Blanka -- has his Rolling Ball Attack and a variation of the Rolling Ball Attack. Also has a long-string attack.

JUN
This huge brown-ish skin Amazon predictably is like the Zangief of the cast. Has a powerful throw and a J.Carn like Mongolian Fire anti-air special.

SATOMI
The fire fighter. Has an anti-air fire move that screams KOF. Another move she jumps high in the air and lands down with a fire strike to the head.

AYAKO
She is the "Stacey Kiebler" of the group... i.e. extremely leggy. She uses those long legs to good use too (hey now). Sort of a rolling leg attack and then an anti-air break dance type leg kick.

ELIRIN
Bunny costume! Oh c'mon, you had to see this one coming! Has a gun blast Yoga Flame style (but lasts on-screen nowhere as long as even jab Yoga Flame). Has a "jump in with fist" attack and an E.Honda rapid punch attack

KAORI
Leg kick into fireball. Airtwisting attack (like Dhalsim)

REIMI
Huge projectile. Shoulder rush attack, and a Flash Kick variant.

Everything about this game screams Super Nintendo. In this aspect it reminds me a lot of a fellow obscure Saturn 2D fighter "Sonic Council." I liked SC a lot better than this game, but don't get me wrong. It's a keeper for me. Typical 2-in-1 combo's. A basic combo system. It's like Street Fighter II but of course nowhere near as damn good.

It's just old school. Heck, there isn't even a power bar! However, there are some awesome desperation moves to be discovered (there's a GREAT FAQ of it on GameFAQs). For instance Yuka the main character has two desperation attacks.

DM 1: 3 fireballs in a row

DM 2: Crazy. I've done this and it's keeer-azy. Hurricane Kick attack into Fireball into Dragon Punch... Ken style (twice!)

Every character has two desperation attacks I believe, one girl throws out about a Dozen fireballs (a la Remy from SF III Third Strike fame).

Some good stuff.

So even though there's no Power Bar, when your energy widdles down to about a quarter left or so, you can pull out these devestating attacks and they're not too hard to pull off unlike some SNK fighters!

Overall, AVG lived up to my not-high expectations. It's a basic fighter.... don't expect an overly technically deep fighter and you should be OK. There's only 2 or 3 special moves per character listed in the manual, but I have discovered extra moves on my own. But this ain't KOF '98 we're talking about here, folks.

I got mine for just under $20. Overall I am satisfied with the game. It's not as bad as I have read some others ripped it waaaay back in the day (late 90's) but it's not (or should not) be a top priority purchase either. Something to get off to the side, know what I mean? There are a ton better fighters out there, but if you have a special place in your heart for these 16-bit-esque basic fighters, you will probably enjoy AVG.

[Steven]

The last game we observed was an all-gal fighter in Advanced V.G. Now we look at another all-girl brawl-for-all... ASUKA 120% BURNING FESTIVAL LIMITED

Marvel Super Heroes, MSH vs. SF, X-Men vs. SF, and Astra SuperStar... if you can match the intensity and combo juggling of these games, you're mighty impressive. And Asuka does just that. This is a COMBO FEST. It's juggle city. It's counters and super specials galore.

I know a lot of games we've looked at so far have been given the "something to maybe get off to the side" well I'm glad to say that Asuka is definitely a game that may shoot right to the top of your list... for it is quality through and through.

It's not going to be for everyone, however. The juggle factor may turn off "old school 2D fighting" fans, but if you like the crazier 2D fighters, you've come to the right place.

It's amazing to me how Asuka goes unnoticed, for this is one of the coolest craziest games on Saturn! A lot of people are after Astra SuperStars and I can see why, but for a much cheaper bang for the buck, check out Asuka.

It's like Street Fighter, but then it's not. (Moves/Commands)

It's like some SNK fighters, but then it's not. (You get "Ippon!" for first match won like SS, it scales in and out in a similar manner to SS)

It's like Darkstalkers, but then it's not. (Chaining weak into strong attacks)

It's like the Capcom VS. games but then it's not (You get the down-up super jump from Capcom games starting with X-Men, and some later. You get "air combos" from MSH and later Capcom games)

It's like SF III but then it's not (You can block an attack with a correctly timed attack of the same power... a bit like a SF3 parry I guess, but it's just a button press)

It's like Mortal Kombat but then it's not (double tap commands)

It's like Pocket Fighter but then it's not (zany cheery atmosphere)

It's like Astra Superstars but then it's not (easy super specials and super specials a-plenty)

Basically Asuka is like a ton of fighters, but manages to stand on its own two feet. You can do anything in this fighting game you've ever seen from other fighters (counters, air combos, juggling, cancel, etc.) except air-block. Everyone I've talked to in the past who has played Asuka has said nothing but great things about it.

So what more do you need to know? Again, it's not going to appeal to everyone, but it's a quality game no doubt.

AVG vs. Asuka -- no contest. Asuka wins hands down. It's much more "modernized" and it's much much crazier and overall just the better fighter.

AVG uses four buttons of strength, while Asuka has just two (weak, strong). At first this may catch you a little off-guard but like Real Bout Special soon it becomes second nature.

Every character has the same commands. There are no charge moves, and only one character who uses the Dragon Punch command. Every character has a Hadoken command (and a fireball as a result, except for the She-male character) and a double tap down command (which produces either an anti-air attack or a rushing attack). Some have Hurricane Kick command (which produces usually a Hurricane Kick type move)

Super Specials are done by Hadoken, Hurricane Kick or double tap down commands with the button C (which configures to A+B).

The bar works like this: when it flashes 100 you can use one SS, but then the bar depletes itself. If you get to 100, and connect a few more hits, or receive them -- the bar jumps to 120%.... what this does is... you can do multiple SS's. Sometimes up to four or five, depending on how fast you can get it off. As you can see, super specials are a crazy part of Asuka's gameplay. The screen just explodes into an impressive fireshow.

When I first played this it took me back how much LITTLE energy is taken off when you're hit by a normal or special move. The energy bar looks kinda small compared to other fighters, but when you see the damage you might be shocked. But it all becomes 2nd nature before long.

Not really sure what the story is but it's a bunch of High School looking girls battling. Many have a theme. i.e. baseball, tennis, chemical student, etc.

Here are the characters:

HONDA ASUKA
Has a fireball that scorches her opponents and makes use of combusting chemical capsules. All of which can be done in the air. Her SS fireball connects 7 times

TOYOTA KARINA
A bizarre fighter who uses her pet friend Froggy in battle. Frog acts as a projectile, and her two SS's involves Froggy. One she launches a stampede of frogs at you and the other Froggy charges you, chucks you high in the sky and drops you down in one burning slam.

OKUBO KUMI
Leg jump attacks and has some crazy ribbon attacks, including a SS that makes her go ribbon-insane.

OWADA NANA
Fights with a fan.. tossing it and such.

SUZUKI MEGUMI
A most charming character, this cheerleader puts her pom pom's to good use. It acts like a boomerang so her opponent has to watch out it doesn't hit them on the way back! Has a 7 hit Pom Pom Punch that reminds me of Sagat's 7 hit Tiger Uppercut. Her SS is a wild 20 hit combo that finishes with the Pom Pom Punch.

YAMASAKI RYUKO
Sliding fist attack and a devastating backbreaker (OUCH!)

CATHY WILD
I swear she and Jeffrey McWild are perfect for each other. Only character to NOT possess a projectile. She's all throws and rushing knee/fist attacks. Her SS is a 10 hit screen-shaking wrestling headache.

MITARI KIYOKO
I like how her name rolls off the tongue, haha. A baseball player -- exactly -- OUCH! Has one mean giant baseball swing. Tosses wicked energy baseballs.

SHINDO TAMAKI
Sports the tennis racket. That's bad news if you're fighting her. Has a Racket Uppercut and lobs fire tennis balls at you. She's an INSANE character. Has also a charging racket attack that produces energy waves "V" on screen.

HOJYO TORAMI
Shoots out multi blue fireballs and possesses a variety of longing kicks. All of which can be done in air as well.

KAWASAKI SHINOBU
Sweet sweet Ryu-type character that has a mean energy fireball, a nice Sakura-like DP, and a Dan-like Hurricane Kick. Her DP and fireball SS's are simple beauties to behold.

Other notes:

-3 stars difficulty, sorry no typical SF 1-8 difficulty levels
-Story (Arcade) mode
-VS mode
-VS. CPU mode
-Ranking mode
-Long intro that has anime-like quality, lots of JP voice in intro
-Number of hits in combos flash on screen with the word RUSH in front (i.e. RUSH 21)
-Decent loading times

Overall Asuka is a flat-out wicked fighter, and it has appealed to fighting and non-fighting fans I've known over the years. When I first played it I never got into it. I shelfed it but recently picked it up again and learned the kinks... and it indeed is a very solid game.

I would highly recommend it to fighting fans.

Good graphics, control, sound/music, everything is better than AVG significantly. The PSX got 2 versions but the Saturn version is by far the best. They reupped the graphics for the Saturn version. Big sprites! Lovely sprites. Lots of color. It's only too bad there are static backgrounds, but the backgrounds are nice with lots of people. It doesn't really take much away from the game. The onscreen action in the foreground is crazy enough.

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_asuka_cvr.jpg

Asuka -- a winner is you.

[Steven]

You know... damn the Saturn is some good shit. Every once in a while it hits me again just how wonderful this system is... as long as you have the right games ;)

I still got a TON left to touch on in this topic... so many games to go... we ain't done yet... not much by a longshot. Trust me the best is yet to come! So much more good stuff to share... keep it tuned right here. Some real good gems are in the works....

(So how is your want game list eh? heh heh)

Tonight we take a look at one of my personal favorites. IMO it's the best game on Saturn with the title "Waku Waku" in it... and no I'm not talking about Waku Waku 7. (which was a sloppy port at best BTW)

It's a shame it's so little-known, but perhaps I can help to change that a bit tonight.

In 1998 Altron (makers of the ole cult favorite Robo-Pit) released two puzzle games. I was after both puzzlers for 2 and a half years. They just never popped up on the internet.

One was called ROX. A dice puzzler I thought it would be a kick-ass combo of Tetris meets Devil Dice, but its overly complicated gameplay system and drab graphics/sound really killed it. Ah what a disappointment. But the other game in the batch, the one I had less expectations for... actually turned out to be a hell of a puzzler.

WAKU WAKU MONSTER

There are six colors (red, purple, white, green, yellow and blue) and you have to get a color combo of 3 touching each other to disappear.

The blocks/bubbles come in the cute form of a little creature... most similar to a rabbit or hamster (think Hamtaro). The game options however allow you to change the blocks to any of the following:

-Yoshi like eggs
-Magical Drop style bubbles
-Jewels and diamonds

Hey why not? But I always play with the creature bubbles, they're just too darn cool to pass on.

It's a battle of monsters and their caretakers. You can select from a total of 15 monsters (3 by which you must unlock), but there are a total of six caretakers... so each one represents 3 or so monsters. Each of the 6 caretakers have their own "falling debris pattern".

The monsters just give you different animations and sounds. I guess you could say there's really only 6 characters but IMO the monsters have personality so it feels more like 15 different characters.

They include the dreaded two-headed red dragon Guren, the pink little bunny (and our animal on the front cover) Myu Myu, the yellow little Pikachu wannabe Pomul, a kangeroo Woodhead, etc.

So what makes WWM stand out from the crowd of puzzlers?

-You drop one block at a time
-The caretaker appears in small form at the top of your puzzle field
-Caretaker holds one block in his or her hands
-One by one, you guide the caretaker left or right and press "A" to drop

Because of this unique twist on the ole Tetris theme, WWM becomes a game of Speed and Hand Eye Coordination. If you ever played Speed the card game, WWM is a good virtual simulation of that.

There is also a bar. Every time you pop the blocks it rises up. At any time you can press B to launch an onscreen attack which throws debris on the opponent's field. Or you can hold back on pressing B and wait til it hits MAX where then it automatically sends debris over. The higher the bar, the more debris there will be.

You can also counter the opponent's attack by pressing B once they pressed B.

It cancels (well, depends on how much of the bar was charged for both you and your opponent).

So there's some strategy there. Do you counter and cancel the debris? Or do you take it and then, knowing full well his bar is zero, unleash your fury to which he cannot counter? Good stuff.

Debris are just black bubbles that turn into regular colored bubbles once you connect 3 or more regular bubbles next to it. This can often times unleash a MAJOR 5+ hit chain.

D= Debris
W= White
Y= Yellow

Note: remember different caretakers have different block patterns, this is just an example, and not universal

D
DW
DW
DY
DY

Now you got a white block in your hands... drop it on the two white's already on top of each other:

DW
DW
DW
DY
DY

The white blocks will burst and pop out of play, unlocking the three Debris pieces, in this case we'll say each three will turn into green


G
G
G
DY
DY

The 3 greens will pop out of play, unlocking only the debris piece directly below it. It may very well turn yellow (depends on block patterns of your opponent a la Puzzle Figher, but let's say it does turn yellow)

YY
DY

Those 3 yellow's are touching, bam gone!

A nice little 3 hit chain... and believe me you can get much more complex.

So WWM stresses speed and high combo's. It's fun to start racking up the chain and watching the monsters yell and duke it out onscreen with an onslaught of flames and what have you. It gets pretty intense!

My ex girlfriend absolutely LOVED this game. She loved it more than Puzzle Fighter, if that means anything to you. And she loves Puzzle Fighter, but she just happened to like WWM that MUCH more. It definitely would be a big hit if you had a significant other...

Charming characters/animals/monsters, bright luscious simple graphics, an addicting puzzle system, nice sound and just a whimsical atmosphere adds up for one great package. 2 player mode is awesome flat out competitive fun. Against the CPU it just fails to capture the same intensity and taunting and what have you.

If you have a significant other who likes puzzle games or gaming friends who are down with the odd puzzle fight here and there I highly highly recommend this hard to find puzzler.

If you like puzzlers but are a lone gamer, I'd still recommend it.

But again, 2P mode is where it's at.

The rush of tapping "A" and "left" and "right"... it's different in a way, and it works! Waku Waku Monster is an awesome puzzler!

http://vgrebirth.org/games/game.asp?id=2473

Please keep in mind: once you press "A" the caretaker drops the bubble straight down... you can't change its flight once you commit. So... work fast! A misplaced block can ruin the game... you have to be fast and accurate... against a strong competitor this game is exhilarating...

[Dire 51]

And speaking of obscure Saturn imports, anyone heard of Bulk Slash (http://www.geocities.com/opcfg3/bslashreview.html)?

[Steven]

And speaking of obscure Saturn imports, anyone heard of Bulk Slash (http://www.geocities.com/opcfg3/bslashreview.html)?

Ah yes, Bulk Slash. I know a friend who was crazy about that game. Said to be a real gem. I'll touch on it eventually later on...

[Dire 51]

Excellent, excellent game Bulk Slash is. Wish I still had it...

[Iron Draggon]

Seikai-Risshiden:

This seems to be something like a weird cross between The Game of Life, Sorry, and Bonkers. If you don't know what Bonkers is, it was a game where you were always moving forward and backward so much that you mostly seemed to be getting nowhere. But Bonkers was fun. This game isn't.

Or at least, it isn't much fun if you can't read any Japanese. It may actually be very enjoyable if you knew exactly what you were supposed to be doing, and what all was going on.

The board is huge, tons of screens, and divided into many sections. I have no idea what the ultimate goal is, I guess it's to win obviously, but there seem to be mini goals along the way. There's about a dozen different types of spaces.

You roll 3 dice. Two are regular 6 sided dice, and the other one is too, but the numbers on it are all negative numbers. So, the highest you can roll is 11, the lowest you can roll is -4, and you can even roll a 0, oh what fun that is to do.

But oh no, that's not fun enough. Some spaces make you move backwards too, so you can move alot further than just 4 spaces back in your turn. There are spaces that let you move forward alot further too, but how much all the spaces affect your movement depends on what they do when you land on them. They aren't constant, they change every time. So you're rolling the dice getting nowhere and landing on spaces getting nowhere and it seems like OK, this must be a game designed to keep the kids occupied for a very long time. It must take way longer than a game of Monopoly takes to end to finally complete whatever it is you're supposed to be doing, and we all know how boring Monopoly gets after an hour of it, so this is a hellish game.

It tries to be interesting with all the decisions you have to make when you land on certain spaces, and all the choices you have to make about your fate because of someone else, and who will you make suffer, and even changes in the weather and all kinds of things going on in the world that all the spaces are navigating through, or trying like hell to navigate through, if it weren't for the evil fact that you never seem to be getting anywhere, and that ruins it all!

But wait! There's more! Before you choose which color you're gonna be, you get to choose your character, and all the characters have stats, so there seem to be some kind of RPG elements to it as well. You move a piece around the board that's like a colored pawn, and yet you also have a character that has some kind of stats, what's that about?

So no wonder it was only $5 shipped for a shiny new copy, and nobody can even give away a used copy. But the art on the cover is cool, which is why I thought I'd try it out for only $5, but I honestly wouldn't feel very guilty at all if I just threw it away now, and I may do just that too, unless somebody who can read Japanese would like to try it out?

I'll even ship it free of charge, maybe it should become like some kind of DP import mania running joke around here. Who has Seikai-Risshiden now? Yeah, who has the most boring import Saturn game in the world? Did you play it? OMG, you actually played it? So how long did it take before you wanted to play frisbee with it? Get it out of my Saturn!

So yeah, Japanese knowledge required to get the most enjoyment out of it, which probably still isn't very much. But, I was able to play it and make things happen and find out that I have no idea what it is, but it's boring as hell! Definitely a bored game, and not a board game as claimed.

[Steven]

BTW here's a shot of AVG:

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/advancedvgss.jpg


Coin Puzzle Moujiya is a great little gem for the Saturn.
I know 3 people who own this game, and all 3 like it very much.

Make that 4 now. :)

CPM is 1996 Virgin/FPS puzzler that features Japanese coins AKA yen.
The object is to match up yen, combine them and, ultimately, make a 1000 bill to make it disappear for good.

Those cats are variations of "Maneki Neko." They're those infamous cats with their paw raised... the "good fortune" creatures for our Asian friends. You might have seen them around at the local mall, an Asian restaurant, etc.

http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/~mono93/cat/english/what_e.html

There are 6 different coins:

1 (blue)
5 (yellow)
10 (red)
50 (green)
100 (magenta-ish)
500 (purple)

It's like Money Puzzle Exchanger. EXCEPT instead of Magical Drop style, CPM works Puyo Puyo style. Two coins drop at a time. Also, CPM won't cost you an arm and leg! Always a plus, right?

Form 5 blue coins to get 1 yellow coin, as 1+1+1+1+1 = 5. And 5 is represented by yellow. Not only did you just clear up some clutter but you have bigger money on your playing field now in a more accessible manner.
(you cannot add a blue yen [1] to a green one [50] and expect anything to happen as it is... however, convert the 1 to 5... then 10... then 50... it touches the other 50 and wham 100!)

Confused? Do not be. It's simple once you get the hang of it. And addicting.

Yellow + Yellow = 5+5 which equals 10. (you now have a single red coin, representing 10)

You also get two special cat head icons that operates differently from your typical "Clear-All" icon. In fact there is NO clear-all icon, unlike Puzzle Fighter's diamond. One works like this: whichever yen you wish to drop the cat head icon on, all yen of that denomination upgrades to the next largest denomination.

For example, if you drop the special cat head icon on a 50, all 50's on your field will turn into 100's. It's a very nifty little thing. You definitely want to drop it on whatever similar coins are touching each other most. That way you can get some easy chains and killer combos going.

The thing I like about the cat head icon is that as it descends, whichever block it currently targets, all respective blocks of that denomination will light up... giving you eye-candy to contemplate where to drop the almighty cat head icon. Try to place it wherever you see the most flashing blocks touching each other for easy chains.

But if you have debris blocking your coins... you're sorry outta luck. The cat head icon will touch the debris and nothing will happen. That is when you just wanna let out an expletive. ;)

2P mode is extra competitive because a good opponent will know when to time an attack to counter the cat head icon. Coz remember, if a field is covered with debris, and the cat head icon comes down... hahaha... your opponent is screwed!

But how does one know when the opponent's cat head icon comes? Isn't the display in the "Next Coin" screen too little time to tell?

I'm glad you were shrewd enough to ask that question. :p

The cat head icon is NOT random. There's an empty cat body at the bottom of the screen, and as you score points it fills up gradually. The bigger the chains the faster it charges up. Once full it will flash and your next piece will then automatically be the cat head icon.

Cool huh?

So just keep an eye on when it's about full... then concentrate on unleashing that all-vital precounter attack!

Most other (if not all) puzzlers the "special piece" is assigned randomly during play, whereas CPM awards advanced players and punishes slow-podding rookies with a bar-charged system.

So what's the SECOND special piece? Well, per round, you can press "C" for a one time shot to access a special icon that will come down and eat up any debris on your field. Use it wisely... you only have it once per round.

It adds a lot of strategy to the mix and intensifies the cut throat matches. Do you use it now? But wait, your opponent still hasn't used his... better save it... etc.

There's a VS. CPU mode, a VS. mode and a "stand-alone" mode. I suggest starting on the standalone to get the kinks of gameplay.

Graphics is like any other puzzle game almost -- colorful and bright. Though CPM isn't quite as bright as say, Puzzle Fighter. Still gets the job done though.

Gameplay is fun and frenetic. Strategy is much involved, with careful planning and trying to nail off some huge combos. It's cool how, say for example you got four 100's and need one more 100 to make a 500 coin.

Your next dropped coins include a 5 and 50.

Rats right?

Not so fast.

Simply drop the 50 on the 100.

Next batch... say you get another 50. Drop the 50 on the previously placed 50 and you made a 100!

Now that 100 touches the four 100's and wah-lah! One 500 coin.

You can visualize the chain ability of this system as we speak, I bet. Well you can, can't you?
;)

This combining and consolidating feature of CPM is what makes it stand out from the crowd. Not to mention what makes it so fun and refreshing.

Music is typical puzzle affair. It can get annoying but it also can be kind of catchy and bob along to the gameplay. You know how it is.

No complains about the controls -- a critical must in puzzle games.

Chaining in this game feels great. Some puzzle games you chain and feel "Eh" but in CPM you do feel "cooooooool." So far I've hit several 4-chainers and even a few 5-chainers; it feels sweet lemme tell ya!

My only complaint is the VS. human mode. After one battle you're whisked away to the main screen. A la Saturn Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Unlike Saturn MKT however, the loading in CPM is quick as a cat (no pun intended!) and while a minor annoyance, isn't that major in the end.
Besides, you get a larger window of opportunity to taunt your friend or sibling after you win! (it's all about perspective!)

Oh yeah, the intro's pretty odd in that Japanese way.

CPM -- overall, is a nice little fun puzzle game worth having. For 10-15 bucks I can't see how you can go wrong. Really just a charming addition to the genre, and my second favorite puzzler, only behind Puzzle Fighter.

It's pretty uncommon but I'm sure a copy or 2 will pop up here and there.
Take my word, CPM is a MUST for puzzle fans who own a Saturn capable of playing imports.


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/coinpuzzlemouja.jpg
*cue Sega Rally voice guy* "FAAAN-TASTIC YEEEAH!"

[E Nice]

AVG vs. Asuka -- no contest. Asuka wins hands down. It's much more "modernized" and it's much much crazier and overall just the better fighter.

But one has to remember that AVG is a upgraded port of a game that first appeared on the PC Engine CD. By those respects the game is superior, as it's actually playable. They added dashing and the use of four attack buttons instead of two. They also added those desperation moves.

The animation has been changed from the PC Engine CD original, basically censored, in-game and in story mode. However the PSX version is the most heavily censored of the versions. They removed the character voiceover introduction that plays after the intro cg and it now just plays music. They also removed Reimi's stage and replaced it with the K-1 and K-2's stage. They also removed mood music in the story mode, so now that's nothing but speech.

The backgrounds have all been changed to new backgrounds, as the P{C Engine AVG backgrounds where up there with the earlier computer game of the series. So now on Saturn/PSX they no longer look like so computer primitive as the game series looked on the PC9801/9800 Japanese home computers.

They basically touched up an old game that was released in 1994 and not released on Saturn until 1997, a year after the PSX version in 1996.

Story Mode is still very well done, something most fighters still can't do right even today. The story written for this game was strong enough to basically be a foundation for future games in the series, culminating heavily in the impressive VG Neo story.

[Steven]

Happy Memorial Day everyone.

Our next Saturn import is a very difficult to find game, and commands quite a dollar. Thought Crows was hard to find? It's arguable that this is as rare if not a little rarer.

MIZUBAKU ADVENTURE (AKA Liquid Kids or Mizubaku Daibouken)

From the excellent maestros at TAITO comes this charming and colorful little adventure platformer. Released in Arcades in 1990, then ported to TG 16 in 1992 and finally Saturn in late October 1998, MA has players transversing all matter of worlds through the form of a platypus named Hipopo. Your weapon is a water bubble (known as a Mizubaku) that you toss at enemies. For smaller enemies it will freeze them where you can thereby touch them launching them across the screen taking out any other enemies in its path (works much like the shells in Mario games).

For bigger enemies the water doesn't freeze them -- it just damages them but you have to keep throwing the bubbles at them to eliminate them. The cool thing about the water is that it also makes a trail of water if it doesn't immediately hit an enemy, so even if you're on one plane and the enemy one below, you can still freeze/hurt them. Pretty cool stuff.

Very basic controls. A is bubble, B is jump. Look before you leap! Once in air you have minimal control of going left or right (unlike Mario) and jumping on enemy heads will kill you. MA employs the classic 1 hit and you're dead gameplay style. No mistakes here -- you have to be extra sharp. You can hold down A to make a bigger bubble that is stronger and leaves a much bigger water trail.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/liquid/saturn2b.jpg

There are 7 worlds in all with each world consisting of 2-3 zones before you face an end boss. All the worlds have their own theme and enemies appropriate to that theme. All bosses are pretty huge creations which take up about 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen and have a long yellow energy bar at the top. The 7 worlds are:

1. Woodland Forest
An easy world to aclimate gamers into the game. Boss is a huge floating fire-breathing mechanical rabbit.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/liquid/saturn3b.jpg

2. Waterworld
No not the Kevin Costner film that bombed in the mid 90's but rather a lovely world where you guide Hipopo across water fighting green plant monsters, squids and other forms of beasties. There is a cool golden cup where you use bubbles to break the handles one by one before the cup comes crashing down revealing goodies (bonus points in the form of food)... nice sound effects and a nice touch overall. Boss is a giant weird see-through monstrosity that chucks out yellow poison. I refer to him as the Popcorn Man.

3. Gearworks Factory
A cool world featuring zany enemies and introduces us to the Knights. Knights take several hits to die and have a killer (literally) stretch attack with their javelin-like weapon. It also introduces us to arguably the game's biggest headache regular enemy -- a big nasty blue meanie that takes about 20 bubble hits and swings a long chained spiked ball. Better load up!
Lots of classic platform touches found in this world. Falling platforms, timed jumps, etc. Boss is a mechanical flame-torching, foot-solider laying machine of destruction.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/liquid/saturn1b.jpg

4. Pyramid
Scampering shrimps, ghouls, mummies, giant rock throwing stone men, and little sand worms are but some of the baddies you'll face in this yellow-colored world. The boss is a giant Camel-Rider... once defeated he chucks the camel and then you fight him! A double duel so to speak... but he is very weak -- watch those bubbles rapidly drain his health!

5. Wood Tree
You move up to the top facing some enemies from level 1 and some new ones like the fire breathing green dragons. The boss is a weird gorilla-like creature who climbs up throwing rocks at you -- his arms are made of fire and that's his main weak point.

6. Cloud Land
Filled with dangerous fires and lightning, trek your way to the end to meet up with Giant Clown Face and his three joker henchmen.

7. ????????
Spanning 4 zones or so the end boss I'll leave for you to find out.....

MA is good ole fashioned platforming fun. The pastel-colored worlds, the tricky little enemies, the goal to get the highest score possible, this is 90's gaming at its best. After you beat each world you have a choice to go left or right... so the game gives you multiple paths to provide further longevity. I'll give you a hint... after you beat Cloud Land do NOT select the left door! Why? There's an incredibly HARD mid-boss....

The friend who sold me MA really liked it but he needed the money, and another friend of mine really loves this game. In fact, he loved it so much that in his college film about a guy who was obssessed with video games, shots of MA in gameplay is seen on screen for about 15 seconds or so. It was really this friend who made me aware of this cool little gem. (his movie was about a girl friend moving in and handling her video game obssessive boyfriend... good stuff, and I believe his professor gave him an A for his efforts)

I've beaten MA once, but haven't been able to since. It's a fairly challenging game but with 99 continues and fair continue points, it's possible to beat the game. If you have controller chucking anxiety though, buckle up... some parts in the game could have you ready to throw a fit.

Overall MA is a great game that I'd recommend, but again it is pricey and very very hard to find. Is it worth it? Only a question you yourself can answer....

But definitely one of the many cool oddball Saturn imports out there. Good luck!

BTW, at title screen press left, right, left, right, left, right, A, B, C, A to unlock semi-translucent bubble mode and English option! Groovy!

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_mizubaku_cvr.jpg

[Iron Draggon]

Well I recently got Hansha de Spark, and have finally had a chance to play it a bit, but I must say this game is HARD!

I like it alot, or at least I want to like it alot, but I couldn't even get past the first boss in the one player quest mode, so I don't know why Steven says that it's not hard at all.

The playing fields are extremely small, and it doesn't help that I'm trying to play it on a 13" Samsung GXTV either.

But, it is very cool. I'm glad that I got it after reading his review of it, but he's right, it's all about tactics and reflexes.

[Steven]

Well I recently got Hansha de Spark, and have finally had a chance to play it a bit, but I must say this game is HARD!

I like it alot, or at least I want to like it alot, but I couldn't even get past the first boss in the one player quest mode, so I don't know why Steven says that it's not hard at all.

The playing fields are extremely small, and it doesn't help that I'm trying to play it on a 13" Samsung GXTV either.

But, it is very cool. I'm glad that I got it after reading his review of it, but he's right, it's all about tactics and reflexes.

Heh cool, I was wondering when you would post on HDS! yeah, the play arenas are a bit small-ish. The Castle boss isn't hard. When he jumps just look at his shadow and where he lands, and move out of the way, then, avoid the bats and attack. Repeat. It just takes to getting use to, then it's a cinch.

The later bosses are bitches though, I can only beat the 1st 2 bosses.

I started out disappointed in it, but it came around the more I discovered the little nuances. I give it a 7.5/10

[Steven]

Tonight is a triple whammy. And I apologize to your sanity/wallet if your want list has increased mucho, but I'm just the messenger. =P

Fortunately, maybe you won't have to lift that pencil after this entry... we'll see.

Leading off tonight's batting order is a funky little puzzle game PAPPARA PAOON

http://nfg.2y.net/wolfgames/pappara.jpg


Got a chance to finally play this 1995 puzzle from the folks at Ecole. It had long been on my "that looks interesting but I'm in no rush to get it" list.

It's very bare bones, what you see is what you get. There is a vs. CPU mode and a 2P mode.

You shoot colored "blocks" (ranging from triangles to circles, etc.) to the side of the screen, trying to "push out" your opponent. It's a halfway interesting concept. If you liked playing "connect four" growing up (I know I did) I guess there are some similarities.

You connect four or more like-colors to burst blocks.

It's not a terrible game per se, it's just not all that exciting or addicting. It's only worth it if you're a diehard puzzle nut and I would not pay more than 10 bucks for it.

Interesting note though, in 2P mode you can play it one of two different ways. One is where you and your opponent can go all out crazy and keep launching blocks OR you can make it more like Chess where there are turns. This is probably the coolest feature of the game. It slows the game down and makes it into a real thinking man's kind of puzzler. For this gameplay system, it works brilliantly.

Like I said, not a great game, not a horrible game. Your mileage may vary. If you're mainly a solo gamer I'd probably skip. If you got a fellow puzzle fan who is open minded this could be fun.

BTW, too bad those drab graphics are quite bad looking. I normally don't really care for graphics but these are so low-res you can't help but point it out. If it had colorful graphics like Puzzle Fighter then that certainly wouldn't have hurt..

Overall, a decent little game but remember -- it's just that -- a little nice game.


Next we have CLOCKWORKS

From the guy who made Tetris comes this interesting little game of get to the exit unharmed. The intro is claymation and it's just bizarre. We have a regular Joe sleeping in bed when his alarm clock rings off the hook. He shuts it up but realizes the clock turns into a vile monster that then transport him into a whole 'nother world! From here the game begins and it's up to you to guide our Regular Joe friend through a variety of mazes unharmed.

You remember those geoboards we got to play with in Geometry right? The boards where you placed rubber bands on to see how many different squares you can make?

The gameplay field basically looks like that... and we have a midget version of Joe swinging around. Scattered about are hazards like bombs and rotating clock hands. Touch either one and it's bye bye. You have 3 minutes to successfully move Joe from point A to point B -- the exit onto the next level.

This is a rather cool little game -- a nifty brain teaser if there ever was one. There are 100 levels I've been told, and some of them get really difficult!

Joe is constantly rotating clockwise or counter clockwise. You can change direction by pressing up. This is essential because as you move Joe to a new point, a clock hand might be nearby coming at you that you will have to quickly switch directions.

B moves Joe in a rotating U and upside down U. C moves Joe in an upside down U from one to the next. Mastery of these commands and knowing when to use which and when not to use which is key to survival.

There are other things in the playing field later on like walls, doors which need to be opened by touching a box somewhere away from the door, guns that when Joe presses a button will shoot a bullet, etc. It all adds to the challenge. Easy is easy while normal and hard will test the truest of the hardcore.

The more I played it the more I became addicted to it. It's not close to capturing the magic of Tetris but it ain't a half-bad game. It's also known as Clockwerx on the PC. All levels have names and you can save your progress. It's a nice little game.

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/saturn/tn_clockwork1_jpg.jpg

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/saturn/tn_clockwork2_jpg.jpg

Lastly we have K-1 FIGHTING ILLUSION SHOW


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/k1fighting.jpg


This was also released on PSX but for Saturn came out import only. US gamers didn't lose out on much; the gameplay doesn't capture the intense lightning-quick fury of these savage fighters, but the more I played K-1 the more it grew on me. Though the game doesn't move fast, there was a certain satisfying feeling to kicking the CPU upside his head silly... the feeling of the 1-2-3 combo's, and the leg sweeps.

You have VS. CPU mode where you pick 1 of 12 K-1 fighters, go through the rest and then you meet your ultimate challenge in Master Ishii. You have VS. Mode for 2P. You have Team Battle mode for VS CPU or VS 2P. Here each person selects 3 fighters and whoever wins the most battles wins the overall competition. Then you have Tournament mode where you can play up to 8 humans to find out who is the ultimate fighting machine.

Remember Center Ring Boxing on Saturn? It's kinda like that. Low polygon count on the characters, kind of a slow game, but here we have the addition of kicking. Each character has their own moveset, and I found it kinda fun to go through each fighter.

It's not a bad game, but it's not something that will on your playing list too much. I guess if you can find a 2nd player to play with, this game would be a lot better... as can be said for most games. My bro was watching me play it but he quickly returned to his Final Fantasy 11 in the next room. I bet I would have taken him, lol.

Option mode where you adjust difficulty, rules, rounds and such.

Each fighter has an energy bar that which hit will deplete but there's always a lighted section where you can recover a bit -- a la Vampire Savior. It employs that kind of system.

Knockouts feel pretty sweet, and when you win a match with a knockout there's a pretty cool replay system showing it three times with last replay being in slow mo.

My favorite moment came when I kicked this fool's head and he bounced off the nearby ropes... he was then temporarily stunned when I unleashed my character's special dashing knee. RIGHT IN THE GUT! KO'ed his sorry butt! That was sweet.

Not a game I would actively hunt, but if you happen to buy it for 5-10 dollars, hey, you could do a lot worse.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/af/fight/saturnb.jpg
can you defeat Master Ishii?

[Iron Draggon]

Well I recently got Hansha de Spark, and have finally had a chance to play it a bit, but I must say this game is HARD!

I like it alot, or at least I want to like it alot, but I couldn't even get past the first boss in the one player quest mode, so I don't know why Steven says that it's not hard at all.

The playing fields are extremely small, and it doesn't help that I'm trying to play it on a 13" Samsung GXTV either.

But, it is very cool. I'm glad that I got it after reading his review of it, but he's right, it's all about tactics and reflexes.

Heh cool, I was wondering when you would post on HDS! yeah, the play arenas are a bit small-ish. The Castle boss isn't hard. When he jumps just look at his shadow and where he lands, and move out of the way, then, avoid the bats and attack. Repeat. It just takes to getting use to, then it's a cinch.

The later bosses are bitches though, I can only beat the 1st 2 bosses.

I started out disappointed in it, but it came around the more I discovered the little nuances. I give it a 7.5/10

Avoiding the castle isn't the problem I'm having. I already figured out to watch it's shadow. It's all the damned bats that I'm having trouble avoiding. It seems that those shoes they give you are necessary to make you agile enough to avoid them, at least with the character that I've tried so far, the blue guy. And I haven't landed a single hit on that boss yet. I'm firing sparks, but they just turn into stuff and then sit there. I fire more sparks, finally one bounces around and kills me while I'm trying to avoid all the damn bats, or a bat gets me while I'm avoiding everything else.

[Steven]

The year was 1994.

It was the year of the 2D fighter.

The year of the Doom clones.

The year "T.G.I.F" was in its absolute prime

The year of the 16-bit wars in full throttle

The age of innocence.

It was a hot summer night, and somewhere in Sacramento was a 2 story house filled with laughter and joy. The parents talked and laughed with the other parents, and us kids, we did our own thing. We spent the night Dragon Punching*, slam dunking** and blowing each other up***. In fact, we spent much of the early-mid 90's doing just that on our get-together sleepover bonanza's. Ohh it was the best of times... THE BEST.

Basic overview: our group was an out of town friendship thing... 5 families, 18 kids... est. circa mid-late 80's. The dads who survived the Vietnam War, bonded and kept in touch; we all grew up together... our get-together sleepovers were legendary -- truly some of the defining moments of my childhood with plenty of coming-of-age moments. I could write a whole novel on it but I'm sure no one came here for that, heh heh.

Ah yes, '94... it was the best of times...


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/sf2t/sn5b.jpg
*


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/mr/nbate/mdb.jpg
**


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/supern/sz/sbomb2/s1b.jpg
***


*tires screeching sound effect*

Then 1995 came.

Couple of the older friends in our group got girlfriends. Or became more involved with local friends. Some lost interest in video games. Times were a'changing. The parents got a little older. Suddenly the long drives were looking less and less attractive. The 16 bit wars was pretty much over, with the 32-bit generation breathing down its neck and SNES clearly beating out the poor Genny. I wanted no part of it. Too much change... too fast

*steps out of time machine*

Ah that was an interestng look back at more innocent, fonder days. And what the hell did that have to do with my next writeup?

I'm happy to say that this next game is a pure rocket buster straight from the days of old. It's just a kick to play, and harkens back to the days of innocence when wide-eyed kids would gather round the TV and stay there for hours on end.

What game am I talking about?

HATTRICK HERO S!!

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/hattrickheros.jpg


We recently took a look at Taito's magnificent Mizubaku Adventure, now let's check out their ace soccer game. (by the title one might easily assume it's a hockey game but it's not)

HHS is an arcade-type game as opposed to a sim. Kind of like Neo-Geo's Super Side Kicks series except it was on Taito's F3/Cyber Core arcade system.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/neogeo/sz/sskicks2/s1b.jpg
Super Side Kicks 2 from Neo Geo fame

HHS is a smooth playing soccer game with funny old school blocky sprites running about kicking a rubber ball. The game is almost entirely in English. You have:

-Arcade Mode: pick an ace and a team, and see how far you can advance! Can you reach the final team -- the dreaded MAX team??

-World League: Basically a tournament type mode

-Exhibition: One game

-PK Mode: Penalty Kick mode... nice little mode for bragging rights.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/gl/hhero/hero2b.jpg


There are 8 "aces" to select from (players), once you select an ace you get to pick 1 of 42 country teams. Everyone from China to Nigeria is represented. Then you can set up formation and your lineup of players.

A is shoot, B is pass, C is turbo on Offense

On defense, A is sliding kick, B is punch/jump kick/sweep kick

On defense I recommend using A. It's not as effective as jarring the ball loose from your opponent, but B is a violation that sometimes gets called for a yellow card! (depends on whether the ref caught you or not... it seems about 50/50) But you know... sometimes you just see that punk there and you wanna punch his lights out. ^_^

Camera angle is adjustable and very nice. You can go high, low, near, far, etc. All on the fly too. L and R for near or far. X and Z changes the angle, and Y sets it back to default. Good stuff.

On offense, you can pass the ball then hold the pass button down to set up overhead kick passes. The announcer yells "GOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!" quite enthusiastically when someone scores, then there's a shot of the two coaches- one cheering and the other cringing. Some players even celebrate by doing a fancy dance. It's hilarious. Also there is a neat slow mo replay system after goals are scored.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/gl/hhero/hero1b.jpg


You can power up your players to do a "Super Shot"- this is sweet, the game will stop and the announcer yells "Super Shot!" followed by a close up of your player kicking the ball toward the screen. You've got to get the ball to the right player for this to happen though. After this, it goes back to the in-game screen where the ball flies insanely fast toward the goalie, it knocks him into the net, and you get a goal. You have to earn enough "Units" to use this though. "Super Play" (this allows super shots, hyper shots and whatnot) can be turned off at the option screen if you'd rather not use it. Shaolin Soccer, anyone? ;)

And then if this wasn't all enough good old fashioned fun for you, Taito pulls something wickedly random out of their sleeves....

Take a guess...

FEMALE STREAKER!!!! LOL, the first time I saw this I was both befuddled and cracking up! I thought it was a bug at first but then realized... hey crazy things happen during soccer games all the time, Taito just wanted to capture that! Don't get TOO excited though, she's not a "full-fledged" streaker. Haha I think I just heard a collective groan. "Yes Bob take a point off." To top off the hilarity of this event the word HAPPENING! flashes on screen. LOL... gotta love that "broken english/old english" type usage there. There is at least one more "happening"... and that involves an animal scurrying through the field. There might be more, but those are the two I've seen so far. They happen like once every 3 games or so...

I dunno bout you but it's little things like that that makes video games so cool and fun... it's always about the little things...

Another random cool feature: you can knock out the ref! I've seen soccer balls that have knocked the poor ref down, and sometimes he gets caught in a melee! He gets up after about 4 seconds lying on the ground. When he is down you can attack your opponents with "B" as the ref can't yellow card you since he's obviously stunned on the ground. Good stuff.

Here is another person's (quick) take on HHS:

Before the time of polygon based soccer games there was sprites. Hat Trick Hero is a perfect example of the older times. Blocky sprites wobbling up and down the pitch in what looks like a feeble attempt to run (^o^), hahaha. Great game for those nostalgic nights.

--

Overall, Hattrick Hero S scores a definite GOAL! for me. The best thing was, I got this game for a measly $2.99. So it's NOT expensive AT ALL.

I'll never forget the first time I played it. It was 0-0 down to the wire. I kicked the ball toward the goal... the goalie left his feet to block it... the ball then ricochet to my other player, and I quickly kicked it in! I ended up winning 1-0.

Overall especially at its low price I recommend this game particularly if you're not opposed to the odd arcade soccer game here or there. It has a solid pick-me-up-and-play factor... and yes, it's 1-4 players. Just a fun, fun game. Of course I'm sure someone will play it and say "I don't get it? What's so fun? It seems a little crappy to me." Hey, not everyone liked even Tetris.

To end this I do want to say that the group is still cool. No we don't meet up every month like we did in the old days, and no we don't spend every major holiday together like we used to, but whenever we do get together, we pick up where we last left. We still manage to crank out good times. Like the big "Reunion" Lake Tahoe trip in '99... damn good times still. So... its a new era, generation, whatever you want to call it... but.... it's a friendship/bond for life.

Just like the oleee SEGA Saturn. ;)
Have a good one.

[Steven]

double post oops :P

[fishsandwich]

You know... I hate sports game, but this review coupled with the pictures, the arcade-like gameplay, and the streaker makes me want to play this. I believe I shall ebay it.

Cheers

:D

[Steven]

OK the next game we are looking at is actually two... but both are fairly similar. By the way, tomorrow's game will be very interesting indeed...

LODE RUNNER: THE LEGEND RETURNS and LODE RUNNER EXTRA

No, this isn't the SUPER old school Lode Runner, these games are based upon the revamped mid-90s PC versions of Lode Runner. They feature new gameplay kinks and better graphics, but the characters are still that small Command & Conquer size.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/lode/c64b.jpg
wow... talk about old skool!

Lode Runner is a classic game and is represented well on Saturn. For anyone who never played LR before, it's basically a never-ending series of levels, maze-like levels with ladders and such, where you aim to collect all the gold and get to the exit before the evils can get you. Classic stuff, and gets ROCK hard later on.

Going deep beneath the Earth to find piles and piles of gold may sound exciting (and profitable), but when you throw in a bunch of mad cannibal monks chasing after you trying to protect these riches, the scenario changes.

Here's the story...

You are Jack Peril, an adventurous chap who tries his darnest to take back the gold that the keepers of the underground stole from above. But to do so, you must avoid dozens of traps, deadly gaping holes and of course, those crazy monks. But Jake is able to set traps of his own and use various items like the jackhammer to get away from the evil-doers.

The 1st level is simple with no monks. The 2nd introduces monks, the 3rd even more monks and so forth. Before you know it, levels will seem IMPOSSIBLE to beat. Toward the end most mortal gamers want to pull their hair out from how hectic it is. But for puzzle action games, this is a good thing.

These games also has a level editor option where you can fill your own levels with whatever you want and make them as easy or difficult as you wish. When you're done you can save the levels to the memory card.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/lode/lode2b.jpg

It may look dated, but plays well and the classic 2D thinking man's feel will attract to die hard gamers and gamers who miss the days of ole.

In these two games you will go through 10 "stages" with each "stage" having PLENTY of levels. They are:

1. Moss Caverns

2. Fungus Delvings

3. Lost City of Ur

4. Crystal Hoard

5. Winter's Dungeon (you guessed it, an icy world)

6. Skeleton's Keep

7. Inferno's Playground

8. Shimmering Caverns

9. The Shadowlands (insanely unfair)

10. Meltdown Metropolis

Those monks are fast and relentless! Even when you kill them, they respawn immediately and continue hunting you. Poor Jack... we hardly knew ya!

Here's the difference between Saturn LR and PSX LR:

PlayStation: Lode Runner

Pros:

-- Includes both Lode Runner: The Legend Returns and Lode Runner Extra.

-- Includes the same ten music and backgrounds used in the two Saturn games; the construction mode is the same, and all the levels are there.

-- Includes a nice, brief video introduction from Douglas E. Smith, the creator of Lode Runner.

Cons:

-- Doesn't have all the options available in the Saturn games.

-- The speed seems stuck somewhere between "normal" and "slow." It only bothers me when I play it after the Saturn ones.

The Saturn games:

Pros:

-- You can jump to any level in both versions. If you're stumped on a particular stage, skip it and try later.

-- Infinite lives! Note that a Japanese warning pops up when you do this -- I believe it simply won't save any record created with infinite lives on.

-- You can choose from three speed settings: Slow, Normal, and Fast. This can be a life saver sometimes on Slow, or a time saver on Fast when having to repeat stages a lot.

-- I don't believe the PSX game lets you switch between mono and stereo. The Saturn games do.

-- Each include the construction kit, and both appear to be identical. I don't know if the save files are compatible between versions, but I'd imagine they must be.

-- Only 10 memory blocks to save.

Cons:

-- No video introduction by Doug Smith.

-- You have to buy two games. Then again, it won't cost that much more than the single PSX disc. I've seen Legend Returns go for $12-$18 and same for Extra.

Note that Lode Runner: The Legend Returns was released first. It has 150 levels and is a good bit easier than the follow-up. Lode Runner Extra contains 110 all new levels and is more difficult than the first release. INSANELY difficult. The 32-bit Lode Runner games introduce new weapons to use to avoid enemies and collect gold, all of which work well though it may take a bit to get used to them. There is a pick axes to dig up into the ceiling, a jack hammer to dig straight down (including through material you can't dig through), an "ice gas" gun to stun enemies, bombs to blow up parts of levels, booby traps to permanently eliminate one enemy (or yourself if you're not careful), sticky paint cans to slow down walking speed along a small strip, and some others like keys, teleports, and so forth.

Overall, if you gotta get one, I recommend Saturn Lode Runner The Legend Returns. It has some slick production values (back of manual and front of disc is much more aesthically pleasing than EXTRA) and the game is VERY hard but not as CRAZY HARD as Lode Runner Extra.

But hell, get both and spend the rest of your lifetime JUST trying to get to Skeleton's Keep. ;)

I recommend them both, but if you're kinda iffy, I'd just recommend The Legend Returns. Keep in mind, I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say these games are ROCK HARD. But the level jumping feature and whatnot, it's worth trying your hand at each level at least once. Good stuff.

I'll be back tomorrow with a most intriguing obscure import.... til then!


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/lode/lode3b.jpg
and so it begins... run Jack run! Those savage monks move fast! 1 more level down... only 142 to go....

[Steven]

*cue movie trailer voice guy*

You have heard of him.

You have feared him.

You know his name.

He is the manifestation of all horror put into one.

It doesn't matter who you are or where you grew up.

He is a universal DEMON.

Hollywood has tried to capture him.

From a recent 2005 horror movie to one of the most notorious screen slashers -- MICHAEL MYERS from the Halloween films, he's been displayed and he's slayed.

That's right baby.

He's the one older brothers use to scare their little brothers.

He's the reason you got that uneasy feeling whenever your back was turned to an open dark closet.

He's why the hair on the back of your neck stood up as a child when your mommy and daddy said good night and turned off the lights.

He lurks in the shadows...

Watching...

Waiting....

And tonight... you will know him better than ever.

TONIGHT, you will come face to face with an old nemesis.

TONIGHT, he will invade your SEGA Saturn.

*end movie trailer voice guy*

Well OK... not THAT Boogeyman... but his cousin, for sure. :p

This game was on my want list since 2001. 4 years.

Was it worth the long wait? Or is it a horrible bust?

The package was received on a warm May day. I thought to myself again. 4 bloody years -- VINDICATED! I ripped the package open.

Popped it in.

The intro began to play.

Little grainy.

But the intro set the tone just right. I was on the edge of my seat. The dreamy-ness and the spookiness of it all... this is right up my alley.

Figured out what game I'm talking about yet?

Here's a hint:

It's NOT a Japanese import!

NO!

It's a PAL (European game) exclusive.

Still stumped?

Mix the the following and whadaya get?

-NiGHTS
-Pandemonium!
-Zombies Ate My Neighbors
-Zelda
-Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
-Nightmare on Elm Street
-Haunting (yes, that old cult-hit MegaDrive game)
-Things That Go Bump In The Night
-Boogeyman

And what do you get?

That's right!

You get

SWAGMAN !!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/wokhoss/swagman.JPG


It came out on US PS1 and on eBay is very common and can be had for 5-10 bucks easily. The Saturn PAL version is hard to find and a lot more expensive. You could just get the PS1 version.... but why? :p

Basically, Swagman is a top down action/adventure game with classic elements borrowed from other games. I guess "NiGHTS in platform well, form" is not too bad a description. You first start out upstairs at your house, and make your way through the house fending off some of Swagman's henchmen, before going to places beyond just your house. You locate keys, use them to open locked doors, collect various items, solve simple puzzles and classic trademarks like timed jumps, etc.

You first start out in Zack's upstair bedroom. You collect a flashlight to use as a weapon. You leave the room and there's a huge gaping hole in the ground. There are gaping holes in a lot of the rooms. From here spits fire and fireslugs.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/sz/swagman/saturn1b.jpg


You go through the house exploring, killing, and trying to piece the clues to the puzzle and unlock new areas to explore and what have you.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/sz/swagman/saturn2b.jpg
Kitchen Mayhem


There are mirrors that when you enter you enter Swagman's evil worlds, and here you take on the form of a beast where the game becomes much more action-oriented.

Here's a basic study guide:

Paradise Falls: The town that has been cursed on one fateful night. Population: 220

Zack: Good guy. 8 years old. You control him

Hannah: Good girl. Zack's twin. You control her too (once you rescue her)

Swagman: Evil demon. Leader of the Night Terrors

Night Terrors: Swagman's henchmen.

Dreamash: The bad stuff Swagman spreads around to keep nightmares alive

Dreamflight: A good group of angels. You must save them to restore peace to Paradise Falls.

Dreamdew: Like Dream-Ash, except used by the Dreamflight for good purposes i.e. keeps nightmares away

Dreambeasts: What Zack and Hannah turn into once entering the Terrortries

Terrortries: Swagman's dark evil worlds

Scarab Leader: The leader of Zack's bug collection. Will pop up here and there to lend advice and save games

The rest... well.... I'll let SEGA SATURN MAGAZINE take it away...


OI! YOU DIRTY SWAG!

Been having bad dreams lately? Sleepless nights spent tossing and turning, your mind drifting off into a nightmare world of strange creatures and shadowed places? If the answer's "yes," you've probably just entered the creepy twilight world of the Swagman. Matt Yeo catches 40 winks...

Are you sitting comfortably children? You are? Very well, then I'll begin... "Late one night when the small town of Paradise Falls had fallen asleep, Zack and his twin sister Hannah decided to read a poem about the Swagman and his gruesome gang of Night Terrors. It tells the tale of how these sinister characters emerge from their twisted, bad-dream landscape -- the Terrortries -- to spread nightmare-inducing Dreamash on sleeping folk.

As Zack and Hannah read this, a rush of wind and a noise from the window freezes them in alarm. But a soft light illuminates the room around them and as they turn, they see a Dreamfly sprinkling Dreamdew into their room. The kids rush to the window, watching as she flies back off across town. But hunched in the darkness on the bough of a tree is the Swagman. Reaching his crooked hand up toward the Dreamfly, he captures her in a swarm of Dreamash. She is fated to be imprisoned in one of his bell-jars -- just like the other members of the Dreamflight.

With them captured in this way, the Swagman can safely send his Terrors through the portals between his and our world to extend the boundaries of the Terrortries. Without the Dreamflight to neutralize the bad dreams coiling through sleepers' minds, they will never waken from his nightmare. As Zack and Hannah witness this from their bedroom window, a loud splintering sound from the landing and the kids cower in fear!

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
Whoa, spooky stuff, eh? Well at least that's what Core are hoping. You see, the Derby based company have been patiently waiting for Swagman to emerge from the development time warp it's been stuck in for the last few years and finally make it to the Saturn sometime before the end of the decade. Of course the two year wait is nothing compared to Virgin's oft delayed Heart of Darkness but when a title constantly overshoots its deadlines it's often a miracle if the game ever makes it to store shelves at all. Fortunately, the good news is that Swagman has been completed at last. What's more, Saturn owners are in for a rare treat as this creepy mix of Tim Burton cast-offs, Halloween has-beens and classic puzzle games is something of a fresh breath of air in an industry where who's-got-the-highest-polygon-count are the order of the day.

Taking its inspiration from a number of obvious sources, Swagman represents something of a departure for Core whose recent products, such as Tomb Raider, have pushed the boundaries of 3D gaming even further. Settling for a unique 2D overhead playing angle, the game follows the adventures of twins, Zack and Hannah, as they enter the enchanted and deadly nightmare world of the Swagman. If there's something about these screenshots that seems strangely familiar, you'd be right. The Swagman team are more than happy to cite their influences and are keen to point out that the films of Tim Burton have been the main inspiration behind the style and mood of the game's characters and settings. However, while the visual allure may be blatantly "borrowed" from the likes of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice, the gameplay takes it cues from the legendary Zelda series and a cult 16-bit title some of you maye recall, Konami's Zombies Ate My Neighbors.

[Steven]

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
As the game begins, players discover that Hannah has been shrunk by one of the Swagman's devious Skallywags (a bizarre green-skulled monstrosity) and imprisoned within the twins' toy bird cage. As if that wasn't worrying enough, the Swagman has also cast a powerful spell over Paradise Falls permanently trapping the inhabitants (all 220 of them) within a deep, never-ending sleep. Zack knows that he and Hannah are the only people awake in the entire town and the only ones who can fight the Swagman and his invading army of Night Terrors. It's now up to him to free Hannah, discover the whereabouts of the Good Great Dreamfly and the eleven members of her Dreamflight, and to rescue them from the clutches of the Swagman and his terrifying Night Terrors so that we can all sleep peacefully once again.

Players are initially only able to control Zack as he searches valiantly for a way to free his trapped sister. Fortunately he won't have to face this frightening task all on his lonesome as he enlists the aid of some creepy crawler friends.

In the world of dreams, Zack's proud bug collection becomes one of his greatest tools and in fact the leader of the insects is even transformed into a mystical guide who pops up from time to time in order to impart wisdom and handy hints upon weary adventurers. During your journey through each of the game's 16 massive levels (there are also an additional 56 sub-stages to discover), players are required to collect as many bugs as possible. In later levels the bugs reveal their true usefulness by mapping out safe routes through certain danger filled stages. The twins also employ a number of special devices to protect them from the Night Terrors including a powerful torch, a homing frisbee, a nifty yo-yo and mini bombs.

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE
Once Hannah has been rescued, the game takes on a completely new life as players are able to combine the twins' abilities and are often required to make them act co-operatively to complete certain tasks. For instance, if a ledge is out of reach, Zach and Hannah may stand on each other thereby gaining a much need height boost. Once players have mastered the individual and combined abilities of both characters, their world is turned upside down once again as they access the Dreamworld proper.

While the initial levels are set in a slightly warped version of our own world, the twins now enter a new dimension: the Swagman's Terrortries. These truly bizarre levels not only feature environments that exist purely in the realm of dreams but they also see the twins undertaking a radical transformation. By entering strategically placed mirrors in the Real World, Zack and Hannah are physically altered and take on the form of Dreambeasts, monstrous creatures with inhuman strength and fiery breath. During these stages, players find themselves fending off attacks by even more bizarre creatures but Zack's Power Punch and Fiery Breath and Hannah's Claw Ripper and Eye Laserbeams are usually powerful enough to fend off any assault. As the game's many levels are travelled and discovered, Zack and Hannah find themselves spending more and more time in both the Terrortries and in their new bodies.

Swagman Interview (cut and condensed)

SSM: How long has Swagman been in development?

Chris Long: It seems forever now, but about 2 years.

SSM: Why so long?

CL: Swagman is an arcade adventure with RPG undertones. All of the backgrounds and enemies are fully 3D rendered images. The game itself is enormous -- level one alone has over 20 different graphic sets so it's taken quite a while to get everything finished!

SSM: Why did you decide to produce this type of game?

CL: One of the original reasons was the fact that most games tend to be polygon-based these days -- we wanted to get away from that. Even though Swagman uses polygons for certain objects, most of the game is set in a pre-rendered two-dimensional world. We felt that there was enough room in the market place for a different type of game.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/sz/swagman/ps2b.jpg


SSM: What did you set out to achieve with Swagman? How does it differ from other games of the genre?

CL: We wanted to create a virtual cartoon world for the players to explore -- in doing so I think we've managed to create a virtually unique graphical style. I don't think there's really anything similar around at the moment. Also, the main characters, Zack and Hannah, interact in a fairly unique way -- they help each other through the adventure. The game world is split into two halves: the Real World and the Swagman's Terrortries. When Zack and Hannah enter the Terrortries they transform into two new Dreambeast characters and the gameplay becomes more action-charged.

SSM: What factors influenced Swagman's development?

CL: The strongest influence is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. The style and mood seemed to fit perfectly to the initial concept for the game. We also looked at Zelda and Zombies Ate My Neighbors on the SNES -- elements from both of these games have been blended into Swagman in an attempt to create one mega adventure!

SSM: How many spooky foes can players expect to encounter in Swagman?

CL: There are around 50 enemies in the adventure but some areas are secret and could contain some nasty surprises....

SSM: How do the twins interact with each other?

CL: The two characters can co-operate with each other in a number of ways. Once can jump on top of the other thus allowing access to otherwise unreachable places, or pressure pads must have the combined weight of both characters on them to stay active. Also Zack and Hannah have different weapons/abilities so it requires a combination of efforts from each character in order to progress.

SSM: Have you usrd any special graphical effects to achieve Swagman's unique look?

CL: One of the main goals was to incorporate as many new FX as possible. This include mirrors, true light-sourcing, shadow casting from fixed or moving lights, swirling abyss holes, polygonal warps and many more.

SSM: Finally, although a technically proficient machine some 2D Saturn games still run at quite a slow frame rate. How does Swagman compare?

CL: Swagman runs at 60 frames per second which many other games simply can't achieve using multi-linked objects, particle FX, polygon objects, transparencies, etc. The result is a smooth, solid enviroment that we hope will scare the wits out of players!

---

SSM awarded Swagman with a very respectable 88%. Here are some bits pulled out from their review:

"The real challenge soon becomes apparent as players are required to figure out how best to utilize the twins' abilities in certain situations while being attacked from all sides by creatures of all shapes and sizes. That's not to say Swagman becomes a frustrating game. In fact there's nothing more rewarding than finally solving a tricky puzzle room and being rewarded with a level warp, secret stage or power-up. It soon becomes apparent Swagman's lengthy development period has been spent wisely, resulting in a clever, engaging and enjoyable title that harkens back to the glory days of 16-bit gaming.

Give it time, patiently tackle each level and puzzle logically and you'll soon discover that Swagman is a clever, ingenious little title that's guaranteed to give you many sleepless nights.

Another triumph for Core and another top quality title for Saturn. A creepy blend of puzzles, platforms and phantoms."


What do I think of it? Not an essential game, but it's solid and worth adding to the ole library if you have the means. If you particularly enjoyed Zelda, Legend of Oasis or Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Herc's Adventures, and you loved the whole NiGHTS storyline, you'll probably get quite a thrill out of Swagman.

It really does harken back to the glory days of 16-bit gaming. And I must say the music is flat out awesome, composed by the talented duo of Nathan McCree and Martin Iveson.

Swagman might not be the best game ever, but it's sure to leave you with a certain satisfying feeling.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/sz/swagman/ps1b.jpg
Swagman awaits.... but first you must go through terrors like this one! Can you save Paradise Falls? Find out... on a Saturn (or PlayStation) near you!

[Steven]

double post, oops

[Steven]

Ah the last title we looked at was Swagman, a nice little game as cool as the other side of the pillow.

Like monsters?

Good.

We'll keep that theme.

Quick question:

What Saturn game features a dracula?

OK so Dracula X comes to mind.

K, lemme add, also features a frankenstein, werewolf, mummy and merman? And is chain combo city?

OK so the 2 Capcom Darkstalker games come to mind...

Alright...

This game was released only in Japanese arcades and Saturn.

AH-HA!

Now I've got you stumped.

Let's take a glander at...

MONSTER SLIDER


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/monsterslider.jpg


This is a gimmicky puzzle game that features quasi-SD monster characters in a very chain-combo-friendly system.

WAKU WAKU MONSTER, reviewed not too long ago, featured monsters of the POKEMON variety, MONSTER SLIDER on the other hand gives us creatures we would more readily define as actual monsters. Two obscure puzzle games featuring monsters? Only on SEGA Saturn, baby, only on SEGA Saturn. ;)

As the title suggests, sliding is a factor in the game. The field is slanted left or right, and at any time you can hit R to shift the field right, whereby gravity takes over and shifts the pieces accordingly, or you can hit L to shift the field left, and the pieces go accordingly likewise. As these pieces slide, any 3 or more like-colors touch, they disappear. It doesn't matter if they're "suppose" to keep sliding -- as long as any 3 or more touch -- it automatically disappears. So, as you might imagine, pure luck of the draw adds up to numerous 5+ hit chains that really, requires little skill and is all luck.

This just causes for all-matter implosion of chain "whoa I meant to do that!" combos. Thought Deron Dero Dero (AKA Tecmo Stackers) was "scrub friendly?" Thought there was too much luck involved with Puzzle Fighter? You haven't seen SHIT til you see this.

A minimum of three like-colors must touch to disappear. Due to the field being on a slant, you have two chances for the price of one to touch. OK that sounded wrong, and I know it's hard without a proper visual (QUIET YOU) but once you see it you get it. There are six colors:

sky blue
dark blue
red
yellow
green
purple

There is also a special block that comes in each of the six colors, but has a distinctive look to it in the middle. Say you get a red block like this. Basically pop any 3 pieces touching this special block and ALL the red pieces on the field will disappear. This also can lead to some huge chain attacks.

The controls are not super. It's not that moving pieces left and right are too slow, in fact it's too DAMN fast!

You can select from 12 monsters, and each has their own unique form of attack.

-Dracula (as seen on cover)
-Girl (as seen on cover)
-Skeleton
-Merman
-Old Ice Monster
-Faceless Knight
-Frankenstein
-Mummy
-Werewolf
-Madusa
-Sucubus (sp?)
-Rock Monster

In the options mode there is a cool music test feature where the
monsters pop outta graves to dance to the beat.

Each character has an appropriate attack. For example:

-Big Frank makes your field black out... with only streaks of lightning to light the field
-Madusa turns your pieces into statues
-Ice monster freezes your blocks

etc. Pretty cool.

There is a Story mode (where you have to control the main girl character on front cover and only her). There is a 2P mode and a standalone mode. Overall pretty bare stuff. I was hoping for a VS. CPU mode or at least that the story mode allowed us to pick any of the 11 other monsters. Standalone mode does let you pick out of the 12, but it's just not the same.

So, if you're a lone gamer, the mileage here automatically dips.

I actually bought this game back in July of 2003. I remember playing this game 4th of July. I was scheduled to take my cousins to go see the fireworks show, and thought "eh can't hurt to try this game out for 15 minutes." I fired up the stand alone mode and well... couldn't die quite frankly.

47 minutes later and I was already late on schedule but I just couldn't believe my eyes that I was still alive.... It just sucked me in. Not so much the gameplay but the fact that I was never in any REAL threat to die, as the chains kept COMING AND COMING. It was insane combos galore!

My highest chain (on my 1st time playing too) was 9. I got several 8's and 7's. So unbelievable that when I *wanted to die* I just stacked them up as to die. And yet STILL somehow I created 5 and 6 hit chains! Unbelievable.

I dunno why, but this game feels like an N64 game... can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's just me though.

Overall, I'd say skip this unless you're a hardcore puzzle fanatic. It's not that it's a wretched (puzzle) game by any means, but it just isn't as addicting or charming as other puzzlers out there. I also question its longevity if you're a lone gamer, and quite frankly, it's WAY too much on the luck side of things... I want a little more skill and thinking in my puzzle games.

Monster Slider has unique gimmicks and may appeal to some, but me I just never could get into it like I hoped. It is oozing with personality but... at the same time lacks personality. It's hard to explain. In the end this is like eating a candy bar. Leaves you feeling empty and wanting something with more substance.

[Steven]

GUN FRONTIER


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/gunfrontier.jpg

GF is one of the harder to find shmups on the SEGA Saturn today. It commands a rather hefty tag, going anywhere from 55 to 80 dollars. To borrow the headline from DAM's review of GF: Here's a solid home conversion of an obscure Taito F2 top-down Arcade shooter from 1990, notable for an unusual and surreal graphic style and some tough hardcore gameplay.

It does indeed have an unusual and surreal graphic style. In fact, watch the intro... watch the stage where there's a huge B&W flickering theatre screen that pops outta nowhere... this game has a sort of desperate "Diary of Anne Frank" feel to it.

And the gameplay -- ah yes this is a tough one. Not the toughest shmup you'll ever play but it surely will test the hardest of the hardcore. A old-fashioned game that features punishing re-start points, this one is no Sunday picnic.

Your initial weapon is very weak and hopeless, and you upgrade by shooting specific powerup drone ships. Even then, rapid fire in this game is not constantly streaming. It comes out in bursts, and this is something more modern shooter fans will have to adjust to. It's a little frustrating at first but you adjust to it eventually...

Gun Frontier is definitely an acquired taste. I hate using the term "for hardcore players only" but it really is. Graphically it won't blow anyone away, and gameplay wise it's not flashy like Souky or RSG.

Battle Garegga resembles GF quite a bit now that I've played it. In fact I've heard the makers of BG paid homage to GF with some similar elements found in Garegga, just a lot more modernized.

The best part of this game for me is no doubt the music. Wow what a soundtrack. Some of the music here qualifies as "good workout" music... it just gets your blood pumping and your adrenaline racing. Good good stuff.

I almost beat this game, made it to the final boss. He is very unique... I won't spoil the surprise. But yeah, there are 6 levels and then you go to the boss. You can't really call it a 7th level.

GUN Frontier is right... the bosses are all shapes of guns IIRC.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/gfront/saturn1b.jpg
one of 7 big bad gun-related bosses


For a more in-depth view and pictures go here:

www.stickycarpet.com/dam/gunfrev.htm

For just pictures go here:

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=213

Overall, GF will surely not appeal to everyone. I can't whole heartedly recommend it, as there are better shooters available on Saturn. However, if you love a challenge, don't mind old school games and got all the big-name shooters already, GF's worth a look. Just stick with it, trust me, when you first play it your first reaction might be "UGH". I know for me it was that way... but the more I stuck with it the more I liked it. Overall it's a solid (but not essential) shooter.

[Iron Draggon]

Tama

(Adventurous Ball in Giddy Labyrinth)

This is the very first game ever released for the Saturn in Japan, or it's very close to whichever game was the first.

If you've ever played with one of those wooden labyrinth mazes, this game is basically a bunch of those in a game. But of course they're far more interesting and far more challenging as a video game than as just a wooden toy.

One of the biggest parts of the challenge in this game is keeping the ball where you can see it while you're playing. It's only a major problem when you have to tilt the board away from you, but unfortunately, that happens often.

So let me explain the controls, which can be customized to your liking, or at least they can be changed in the options. The left and right shoulder buttons rotate the board left or right. They have no other effect on it. So that's what you use to spin the board around to where you can see the ball. The D pad controls the tilt of the board, which causes the ball to move around. The A & B buttons zoom in or out on the board, but the camera reacts to them rather poorly.

So this game is a major test of eye and hand coordination. There's a good sized world divided up into several areas, with each area divided up into several mazes. And it works like any good puzzle game should, you have to unlock all the more complex mazes by starting out with the simplest ones and working your way up to the more advanced ones.

I must say though, I hope there's some cheat codes for this game, because even the simplest mazes are a real challenge, and not just because of the control scheme or the camera, they are every bit as hard as the wooden toy!

Speaking of the wooden toy, some of the mazes do have holes like the wooden toy does, and if you fall into one, the ball will reappear somewhere that it was before it fell in the hole, so you have to try to get past it again. There are also lots of other obstacles to avoid or find a way to get past too, like ramps that the ball has to jump over. So at times you have to make the ball go fast, and at times you have to make the ball go slow, so you must control its speed.

And finally, as if all that wasn't enough, there's a time limit! This is the most challenging aspect of the game to me, so hopefully there's a code to turn it off. That would help alot. You do get some continues, and you can choose how many in the options, but you can't choose an infinite amount of them, you can only choose up to 9 for the entire game. So there needs to be a code to fix that too. 9 isn't enough.

The graphics are 3D flat shaded polygons, and the board hovers over textured backgrounds. There's also a very lengthy cinematic intro with some nice special effects that were obviously intended to attract potential buyers to buy a Saturn. So it's one of those showcase the new hardware games, but it pulls off its job pretty well, and I imagine it did help to sell at least a few Saturns in Japan in the shops that had this game running where people could try it out.

The sounds are mostly just background music that plays while you play, and it's about average I guess. It hasn't really grated on my nerves, but I haven't really jammed to it either, so I guess it's just typical Japanese game music.

I like the game alot, but it is very hard. And I would say that my eye and hand coordination is above average, but not way above average, and I think that's what you need to be able to complete this game. Maybe not, but it's like Hansha de Spark, you must anticipate your moves ahead of time and be ready to execute your next move in order to get the ball to the goal so you can go to the next maze.

So there you have it, that's about all that I can say about it. Sorry I don't have any screenshots or cover scans of the game. Oh yeah it isn't very rare or expensive as far as know, I only paid $10 for a new copy of it, so it shouldn't be too hard to find it used, but apparently its old age has made it very obscure these days, so it may be hard to find.

[Steven]

The next game we look at is quite scarce. In fact, the last copy I saw of it on eBay it ended right around the grand century mark. That's crazy, especially seeing as how I recalled back in 2002 it didn't go beyond the $30 mark but I guess its scarcity in past years has really drove the demand up on this sucker.

Name a platformer where you ressurrect the dead souls of the Musical Bremen Town animals? (remember that book/story from your childhood?)

Name a platformer with a wicked sense of humor.

Name a platformer with a horizontal SHMUP section.

Keio Yugekitai? NO! We already went over that game :P

Name a platformer where the intro opens up with "Yo you know what I'm talking about, homey! PEEP THIS!"

Name a platformer where there's a section you'll swear you're on LSD.

Stumped?

Hey I'm here to help.

Loved Keio Yugekitai? Crazy about the Bonk games?

Then I'm sure you'll get a kick outta SUPER TEMPO

ST is the sequel to the 32X game Tempo. Tempo was known for turning heads with its vibrantly colorful and beautifully animated graphics, but the gameplay was only so-so... the level designs weren't particularly interesting and the control became frustrating quickly.

I've never played it but what I hear is that and that ST fixes the sub-par level designs and controls. And it most definitely retains its WICKED brightly colored worlds full with humor and animation.

You haven't seen a world this RICH since... well, maybe Rayman.

You haven't seen such humor since maybe Earthworm Jim 2.

You haven't seen much overall zaniness and interesting boss fights since Keio Yugekitai. Playing ST I can't help but feel it's sort of a meshing of those 3 very good platformers.

Game has a great sense of humor. The jokes in the game are every bit as demented and clever as they were in Earthworm Jim and its sequel. For instance, you'll find a pool of water with a raging waterfall spilling into it. Only when you reach the top of the hill do you discover the source of the waterfall... a tiny man relieving himself! He may want to talk to his urologist about that... :P

Players control Tempo or his girlfriend. Tempo shoots out bubbles from his violin that encases his enemies whereby then he just to merely touch them to erase them for good. If you jump and hold down the attack button Tempo smoothly glides along... useful for hanging in the air after big jumps to collect musical notes. Killed enemies also releases musical notes that are collected for money. What does the money do? Well, at the end of a stage however much $ you have you spin the big wheel of fortune and use up all the money you earned on that stage for a nice prize.

The new toy/item you win is then displayed and Tempo and his girlfriend's room. Bizarre? You betcha!

You can control Tempo's girlfriend by going into a telephone looking booth strategically placed in certain levels. Some stages you just can't complete without using one specific character. Tempo's GF has a hair blow dryer that shoots out fire, and when you jump and press fire, she can fly... critical for those otherwise unreachable areas.

Both Tempo and his GF can turn into their superhero alter-ego's... both during boss fights and regular stages. It's really funny and cool. They can only turn into it when you reveal the suit or boxing glove icon. Trust me, it's a hoot. They can increase in size mucho.

As previously mentioned, you'll resurrect the long-dead members of the Bremen Town Musician Animals... only once do you collect their four souls in an eerie ghost town can you enter through the locked door. As for the SHMUP section, you'll glide through a shooting stage with thinly veiled references to ancient arcade games like Asteroids and Rally-X... splashed with a giant overdose of LSD. Crazy flashing lights and oddities like cowboys racing their horses by... stick figures which you collect for points, but if you shoot, they'll scream and die (they're innocent!) Can't forget to mention the awesome NUMBERS scene, where the screen is filled with giant green digital numbers randomly selected 1-9. Shoot the numbers the indicated amount of time to eliminate it before you crash into it.... awesome stuff.

Boss fights are all cool. Giant electrical crab... giant mechanical chicken...

This is a fun and very entertaining platformer. I'd recommend it, but be aware it's hard to find (I don't think MediaQuest pushed out that many copies) and in recent times the price on ST has really sky-rocketed. Still, it's worth keeping an eye out for. At first you might be disappointed that ST isn't exactly a "Super Mario Brothers" clone, but stick with it and I guarantee you'll see that it's a good quality game.

[Steven]

This next game here is rather intriguing.

I have only seen it once or twice on eBay in the last 3 years or so. I had been hunting this game for some dang time. It just never popped up. One morning last summer I was surfing eBay and happened to see it, at a reasonable BIN, and I jumped all over it.

Since that auction, I just have never seen this game appear again.

Some Saturn games are indeed a pain in the butt to locate. Ultraman PD Link comes to mind. I haven't seen Keriotosse! in a long while, nor Shingata Kururin PA! or Welcome House. Oh and Ninja Jaja Marukun.... never saw it again. Waku Waku Monster and Coin Puzzle Moujiya also aren't exactly prancing around out there.

And Super Tempo? Let's not go there...

At any rate, speaking on Super Tempo this next extremely hard to find game is what I would describe partly as.... "Super Tempo meets Bust-A-Move."


PASTEL MUSES


http://nfg.2y.net/wolfgames/pastel.jpg


Like Super Tempo, it's extremely colorful with beautiful pastel graphics. Like Tempo, Muses has musical notes and in general incorporates a side-music gimmick in gameplay. Like Tempo, you can control either our cute hero or his cute girlfriend.

Like BAM, PM employs aiming techniques. Like BAM, you launch one bubble at a time. Like BAM, you have a launcher that you can move (instead of left and right it's up and down).

You can't help but think the makers sat down and thought.....

*circa early 1997 in some Japan office*

"Hooookay, I want to make a puzzle game.... how can we put a spin on the ole Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble gameplay?"

Then one executive raised his hand.

"How about we put it to the side!"

"... I like that idea. But if it's on the side, how can we still employ the aiming techniques? I don't want our top secret puzzler to be known as a PAPPARA PAOON clone! That game was rather ho-hum.."

"Hmmmm."

They all rubbed their chins.

"I got it! On its side... on a slanted hill!"

"And we can give it a very pastel look. With cute furry wide-eyed creatures and add in musical notes in bubbles so when players deliver a long chain their ears shall be treated to the sweet sounds of victory -- literally!"

".. Bust-A-Move... on a hill.... pastel graphics... musical notes... furry cute wide-eyed creatures... brilliant! Commence Project Pastel Muses!"

And that's how it came to be.

Well maybe not but let's not ruin the magic for the kids eh. :P

PM has four modes.

1. Story Mode
Here you can pick the guy or girl. You then go through several stages, each stage having four levels and on the 4th level you face the boss of that stage before moving on. After you move on you can pick to go left or right. First 3 levels of each stage you just try to clear the playing field. 4th level is the same idea... only this time the boss for that stage is on the playing field... slowly advancing toward you. When he reaches the cross line you're toast. If you hit him with your bubble he will throw a fit and advance a little faster forward before resuming his regular speed. So you have to work fast and accurately. The bosses start from being small and then gradually get larger and larger... later on they will really tax you. I was playing this mode for over an hour, and just couldn't beat this huge clown lion... damn.

2. 2P Mode
Ah the game's best mode. First one to squeeze or push their opponent's playing field over the crossline wins. Last summer when I got this game I played it a bit with my ex. She didn't like it as much as Waku Waku Monster, but it probably was because I crushed her all the time, haha. Gotta love the trash talking.

3. Stand Alone mode
self-explanatory.

4. Single stages with a time limit
How fast can you advance and how far can you get?

The launcher has four positions. It's all parabolic. Ranges from roughly 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock. Press A and your furry friend will jump in the air. The longer you hold the higher he jumps. Release A and he will slam down on the launcher releasing the bubble. Connect 3 or more like colored bubbles. Some heavy chains can be accomplished here, and due to the hill gravity does play a role, sliding some bubbles appropriately if you burst a lot, perhaps unleashing nearby bubbles downward.

The higher he jumps the further the bubble will go. So, basically, first pick one of the four positions the launcher can go to, then decide how strong you want the bubble to fly, and then press A and follow thru.

Graphics are great. Beautiful pastel colors... you can almost feel your teeth rotting coz it's so sweet. Music is excellent. The musical notes are a nice touch, and as such you'd expect this game to have pretty ace music -- which it does. The continue screen has the SAME exact music as the infamous "girls jumping on a trampoline" end sequence/credits on the ole show THE MAN SHOW. It's the same I swear. That same catchy, beaty theme... without, of course, the visual flare... ah wellz can't have 'em all, right? :P

Intro is well done and introduces us to the many bosses the game will throw at you, with a sneak peak at the sinister end boss.

It's a nice little puzzle game. It gets pretty frantic when you're on the verge of dying... every so often the field will shrink... or when the boss comes waddling your way... and the music races and your furry friend goes into "AISH!" mode... haha good stuff.

I recommend it. It's a nice ole twist to the ole Puzzle Bobble formula. Only problem of course is locating a copy... but what else is new. This one may take a while to figure out and come to an understanding of with its physics, but when you figure it out it quickly becomes very fun and charming.

Another ace Saturn puzzler... who woulda thunk it? Good day all. See ya later tonight with my next write-up.

[Steven]

IMAGE FIGHT & X-MULTIPLY

I swear, these are two of the hardest shmups you will ever play in your lifetime. It makes Souky and Gun Frontier look like a cakewalk. Two shooters whose 3rd levels will probably never be seen by anybody other than the extremely dedicated weekend warriors.

I have a funny story with this compilation that is part of the Arcade Gears lineup. I'll clear the air right now. There is NO double jewel case sized version of Image Fight and X-Multiply. This is the only AG game to come in a single jewel case and has NO Gamest book attached with it.

Because this game is so hard to find I think a lot of people assumed it comes with a Gamest book and a double jewel case just like the other AG releases.

When an auction came up with the picture showing it in single jewel case with no Gamest book, I made out like a thief in the night.

I put in my max of $53. (this game usually goes in the $80's and $90's from what I've seen in years past). I too was confused about if there was a double jewel case version with a Gamest book, so therefore my max was only $53. I rather go for completeness as much as possible, but hey I'll take this too since it's been so long since I've spotted a copy.

Well when I got home later that night I expected there was no way I'd win. Someone must have sniped me, I thought.

No.

One guy tried sniping, and I actually was familiar with his handle. He's a very knowledgable Saturn buyer who knows how much games go for.

Well, his max was only $37... leading me to believe that he too was confused by the "urban myth" that Saturn Image Fight and X-Multiply comes in double jewel case size with Gamest book. Of course he wasn't gonna bid the barn on a "lesser" version. He basically had the same mentality as I did. That's why you see auctions of Cotton 2 that don't include the calender, go cheaper than those that comes with the calender. Many people just want things as complete as possible....

Turns out... the single jewel case no Gamest book version is the ONLY version.

Lucky me :)

Anyway on to the game. Image Fight is the older of the two, and features "regular" ship enemies in a vertical style. X-Multiply though is infested with ugly monsters and aliens in a horizontal setting. Both are rock hard.

Now I'll step aside and let SEGA SATURN MAGAZINE take it away.....

There have been some truly magical moments in the large and dusty archives of gaming history, and a company with more than its fair share of classics is Japanese 2D specialist, Irem. You'll know Irem as the company behind the rightly beloved R-Type, as well as the stunning X-Multiply and the not-bad Image Fight. Now, Irem has bundled its two second-best titles onto a single Saturn disc. We're in Heaven!

The gameplay in X-Multiply (1989) is more advanced than R-Type, mainly due to the fact that your ship comes equipped with two massive and free-moving tentacles bolted onto the top and bottom. This opens up more possibilities for attack and defense, as they act as a shield from enemy shots and smaller enemies themselves. A quick press of the D-pad flings these protective barriers wherever you like. These tentacles also become significant offensive weapons, as dragging them across huge motherships causes massive damage (leaving players free to attack whatever's coming from above), and the collection of power ups, like forward lasers and heavy-artillery bombs, further adds to the experience.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/gl/imagef/i2b.jpg

Image Fight (1988) is an altogether different kettle of tech-no-organic fish. Punishing use of the restart points make this 2D shoot 'em up even tougher than its X-prefixed soul mate, and the simple fact that it's over a year older than X-Multiply leads to an all-round less-impressive display of visuals. Still, if R-Type and X-Multiply were all about style and design, Image Fight was more of an all-out test of survival and weapon accumulation, with unique (at the time) features, such as being able to set the ship's speed manually, along with free-floating drone-weapons which fire in the opposite direction to the ship's movement (this bit I especially liked!), Image Fight does boast an excellent array of power-ups but the super-tough nature of the game makes it a massive struggle to see the more advanced weapons.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/ps/gl/imagef/i1b.jpg

One of the reasons why these older shooters always seem so much harder than their modern counterparts is their use of the old restart point, which has been phased-out in newer blasters. Even the mighty Radiant Silvergun - the best shooter in years - may be completed by virtue of infinite continues and simple perseverence, whereas the notion of forcing the player to replay the section they've just died on (often restarting way behind as a 'punishment' for the error) makes it downright essential to master every inch, every attack wave and every boss in these old blasters. Both X-Multiply and Image Fight use this restart point philosophy to make players redo areas they've messed up (usually without those hard-earned weapons too!), and it's the reason why modern shooters will never compare to these classic blasters (though thankfully Irem's new baby, R-Type Delta retains the use of restart points.) It's also probably the reason why they're so ingrained in our memories as well..

History will probably record R-Type as being Irem's finest hour, but connoisseurs may argue that the innovation-packed X-Multiply, or mega-tough Image Fight are both equally worthy of a place in the blaster hall of fame.

---

Ahhhh, SSM we sure miss ya. What times, indeed. I like both IF and XM... but I prefer XM more due to its wicked Alien atmosphere what with its wicked monster foes (and bosses). The graphics are also a lot better than Image Fight and indeed I feel (as I believe many do) that XM is the real bread winner of the package, while Image Fight is not shabby and definitely a nice dessert. Both games do have a lot of collidable scenery though, coupled with hordes of enemies and punishing restart points this is NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART.

Play on normal -- or God help you -- hard, and be ready to see your ship explode over and over until the giant digits appear on screen asking you to continue.

Overall it's a good package of two old school blasters that are worth a look for any diehard shooter fan, but its difficulty (both in gameplay and in the ability to find the game on the market) and high price may detract lesser mortals.

For some great pictures go here:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bevhome/imf-xmultrev.htm

[Steven]

I haven't heard much about this game in years past, but whenever I did I heard nothing but pure raves for this little-known 3D action adventure title.

It will remind you a lot of Virtual On, Gundam, and even Burning Rangers.

Yes. It's BULK SLASH

I got this game from a friend last year but just recently played it. I know, for shame, but it just got lost in the to-play pile.

After playing it for a couple hours I came to one simple conclusion:

WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!

Bulk Slash is one of the coolest games on Saturn. If you love robots you'll love this. If you love Virtual On you'll love this. If you love quality games you'll love this.

There are 7 stages total, and to begin with you can start on stages 1, 2, or 3. Once all 3 missions are completed, you can pick from 4, 5, or 6. Beat those 3 and you come to the last level.

Each stage is a huge sprawling 3D world. The graphics are solid and very colorful, one guy said "It's very PCE-esque." Gameplay is sweet. You start off each mission on foot, B fires your standard blaster gun or chucks a bomb. C jumps. L and R are used to rotate the camera. You can hold B and press left or right to shoot and strafe... it becomes 2nd nature not before too long.

The cool part is when you press A. Here your robot transforms into a flying ship... and you have lock-on missiles and a standard blaster. So anytime you wish, you can run on foot blowing things up, or take to the skies and deliver a deadly aerial assault. Whatever suits you. Ace huh!

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062759/www.saturnworld.com/media/previews/Saturn/image/BSlockon.JPG
Lock loaded and ready to make someone have a baaad night!


Speaking of blowing up, man you do a lot of that. And thanks to the mission variety, you never get bored doing it. But before we get into that let's go back to the blowing up part. Futuristic stop lights, billboards, you can blow anything up except buildings. And enemies? They're scattered everywhere on the 3D landscape... firing missiles and lasers at you... it's quite a sight.

Like Virtual On, when you get up close your robot will deal out a lethal Light Saber-esque blow. Nothing is more satisfying than slicing a tank in two and watching the polygons crumble before you. *MAD LAUGHTER* AHAHAHAHA!

*ahem*

I love the feel and look of this game. It's just... really like nothing you've seen on Saturn before. Our robot hero appears to be about 20 feet tall... it's fun to manuever him across city buildings and whatnot. It's like you vs. the world in a very cool futuristic world.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062718/www.saturnworld.com/media/reviews/Saturn/image/BKexplode.JPG
whether on foot or flight, the action never ceases


Here are the missions:

Level 1- Standard day time city. Gets you used to controls and kinks. Your goal here is to dismantle 4 or 5 pods... once all targets are destroyed, look out for the spider-like boss.... he's HUGE!

Level 2- Wow. The first time I saw this I just dropped my jaw. Talk about atmosphere! Neon green lights ... look up and you'll see the moon even! Great details. Your goal here is to destroy 4 bases. Once you do that, prepare for one of the coolest bosses you will ever see... a HUGE HUGE butterfly robot with an extremely long tail. Remember the stage 1 boss from Thunder Force V? Here he is in a true 3D setting....

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062751/www.saturnworld.com/media/previews/Saturn/image/BSjetmode.JPG


Level 3- Here is where the game makers decided to give Bulk Slash some variety. Instead of making each stage the ole "destroy a set of items then face boss" this is where stage 3 shows you how good the minds at HudsonSoft really were. A huge ship takes off to the (not-so) friendly skies, with a long energy bar, and it's up to you to protect it from the many enemy forces! If you do your job successfully, the ship will reach its destination and you'd have completed the primary mission. But wait! Here comes another big mutha of a boss.....

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062806/www.saturnworld.com/media/previews/Saturn/image/BSescort.JPG
can you escort this bad boy to safety while fending off hordes of machinery?


Level 4- More variety ensues. Here you're in the vast darkness with blazing streaks of outer space. You must fly and transport 4 pods into a fixed base to fulfill your primary mission. (Think NiGHTS here). Then, try and defeat the Mothership boss....

*breathes, whew, this is a lot of good action, but we're not done yet!*

Level 5- This level screams BURNING RANGERS. Here it really emphasizes the platform part of Bulk Slash. You're indoors in some strange looking factory. Enemies litter the floors, you start on floor one and must find the key on each floor. You do this til you reach floor 5 where you face off with another mean nasty boss. Once you defeat him, he turns into a huge mechanical spidey creature. AH! No rest for the wicked! But cheer up, this is where the game introduces us to the baddest weapon of all -- the Bezier gun! Like the old Ghostbuster cartoon gun, it homes in and shoots a constant strong green stream of destruction!

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062737/www.saturnworld.com/media/reviews/Saturn/image/BKbezier.JPG
the beautiful and most powerful Bezier gun in full effect


Level 6- A city in winter... snow is everywhere as are enemy tanks, ships and what have you. Your primary mission here is to destroy four HUGE and boss-like-tough AT-esque walkers. All in the snow... hmmmm.... I wonder where Hudsonsoft got the inspiration.... ;)

Man, they're hard! And if you can destroy the four boss-like death machines... you then face off with this bad boy...

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062705/www.saturnworld.com/media/reviews/Saturn/image/BKnemesis.JPG
holy shit!

-Level 7
???? Let's not spoil everything now shall we....

Overall Bulk Slash scores and scores high. An extremely enjoyable and playable blaster/shooter, it's got a bit of everything. When you're flying, it's true go-anywhere flying. No rails. You're weaving, ducking, dodging, jumping, strafing, shooting, locking in, all while bullets are screaming your way like there's no tomorrow.

Just like NiGHTS, the replay lies in scoring as many points as you can. If you liked NiGHTS but wished there was more action and overall a bigger OMPH, it's safe to say you'll like Bulk Slash. At first I was a little overwhelmed. But on my 2nd go I just got completely addicted to it. It's a beautiful game with classic gameplay in a "modern" look. Great details, great feel, great atmosphere. And the boss battles... they're very intense and epic. It's really satisfying to zap them and watch parts of them flash before finally you have destroyed another giant machine of destruction. Put this baby at the top of your wish list, folks. Bulk Slash is one hell of a game.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062813/www.saturnworld.com/media/previews/Saturn/image/BScitydetail.JPG
ahhhh, and just wait til you see how it is in motion with zero slowdown..


http://web.archive.org/web/19970723062731/www.saturnworld.com/media/reviews/Saturn/image/BKrocket.JPG
It's the 4th of July -- no! Just another day at the (Bulk Slash) office

[Dire 51]

Finally Bulk Slash gets covered. What a great game - everything said about it here is true, and I wholeheartedly second Steven's recommendation. GET IT! :D

Where'd those pics come from, btw?

[Steven]

Dire, they're from the old defunct Saturn-World.com

(a site that IMHO is 2nd only to Dave's Sega-Saturn.com)

HAHA and yes, BS finally got covered. I told you I'd get to it eventually... and damn glad I finally did :P

[Dire 51]

Is there any place I could get nice, big clear screenshots like that (minus the imprint)? I'm looking to replace the ones in the review I did with better ones.

[Steven]

Dire, none I know of, sorry.

IMO there is no better game than the following to follow up Bulk Slash.

BS was a great game partly because you could at any time transform into a flying ship or a bipedal robot. The next game allows you the same luxury...

it's

HYPER DUEL

http://nfg.2y.net/wolfgames/hyperd.jpg


Another hard to find and extremely expensive shooter, but unlike Gun Frontier and Image Fight & X-Multiply, this one often hits in the 100's. Ouch. Luckily for me I was able to secure it for not just under 100 bucks, but under 10. Right place right time. ;)

Technosoft horizontal shooter. Yeah, that says a lot. Made in 1994 and ported to Saturn in 1997, this is one kicking shmup. Like Bulk Slash at first you may be overwhelmed by the option to switch into another mode, but you soon learn where it's best to change forms and when. Then, it becomes balls-out-fun.

The first thing you will notice is that TechnoSoft presents us with an Arcade mode and a Saturn mode. What's the difference?

Well in Arcade mode you get the original Hyper Duel. As it was meant to be. This means graphics that harken back to the Genesis days (not a bad thing at all, in fact it provides great nostaglia of old shooters like Thunder Force III).

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/hyperd/saturn2b.jpg


The Saturn mode features the same enemies, the same patterns, but this time the graphics takes a more updated approach, looking more like a Saturn-quality 2D game. The jump in graphics is quite impressive.

You can configure your controls but you basically have four buttons.

1 = rapid fire
2 = bomb (I'll explain the "unique system")
3 = Robot mode
4 = Gun Lock

There is no "invincible for a split second damage everything on screen automatically" bomb presented in Hyper Duel, no. Instead, you have an energy bar at the bottom of the screen. Anytime you shoot, it slowly builds up. When you press bomb, the bar depletes slowly as crazy gunfire shoots from around your ship which will likely hit any target on screen, but not always. I liked the bomb system because it's different and has its strategic places of implement.

When you're the robot you can bomb too, and here the bomb takes on a slightly different variation. Trust me, it's cool stuff.

Robot mode turns you into a flying bipedal robot. Here you have a blaster gun that can go in any 5 directions.

Gun Lock mode is useful as when you're in Robot mode you can lock in a direction and move the dpad without changing the direction of your shot.

Mind you, only the Saturn version allows gun lock as the arcade original didn't have this option. Therefore, the Arcade Mode is a bit tougher naturally than the Saturn version... for obvious reasons.

You can select from 3 different characters and their ship. Each has different weapons and different robot weapons... good stuff. Lisa Rowland (young girl), Dr. B Lloyd (old scientist) and Keith (young hero). So creative!!!! LOL. ;)

Graphics are good, whether you're playing ARC or SAT, with plenty of oooh and ahhh parallax scrolling. ARC is good for those nostalgic nights. SAT is good for some decent eye candy and a more modern feel. Big ups to TechnoSoft for including the Saturn mode. They could have been lazy and just programmed it into a straight up port, but giving us two ports almost gives us two entirely different games IMHO. Not quite, but hey, you'll take it. It's equivalent to the feeling of buying a DVD special edition, as opposed to buying a DVD only to see that its special edition will be released later.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970108050043/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/HD3.JPG
oooh, Saturn's special hi-colored mode


Sound and music is right on the target. Some great loud bass and whatnot, and while the Arcade retains the same music, the Saturn version gets a kicking ROCKING arranged recording. Feel your heart tremble as the loud hypnotic pulsing rythyms and guitars take you to another world. TechnoSoft wins again.

What makes Hyper Duel different from your average shmup is indeed the switch-a-roo option. Sometimes it pays off to be the robot... and other times the ship is called for. Also the unique bomb system, and this game has more strategy than your average mindless shoot 'em up.

Alright, now let's tackle the levels and bosses...

(no loading by the way! The levels merge into the next much like Layer Section AKA Galactic Attack... good stuff! No break of action...)

Level One
Space. The calm before the storm. Great parallax scrolling, with lots of big battle ships in background. Boss here is a giant mechanical octopus-like creature. Good stuff. When killed a meaty explosion is seen and heard. Ace.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970108050032/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/HD2.JPG


Level Two
From Space to their base. Lovely entrance for the mid-boss here. Tight space with collidable territory surrounding you. Base ships annoyingly toss fire your way. This is where your bomb weapon comes in handy. The boss is a huge Machine of destruction toting a big gun. Once his gun is destroyed, in its place is his trusty nasty eye laser beam. Background is all distorted and wavy for this epic clash. Kill him and you're treated to another nice loud explosion.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970108050058/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/HD5.JPG
Sonuvabitch!...


Level Three
You descend from space to a desert-like world. Lots of ground-based and air-based enemies... this is where two player co-op play really comes in handy. But for you solo weekend warriors, rely on speed, smarts and your bomb! Boss is a bipedal mechanical machine with a gun, who jumps and causes rock beneath to fly up. The rocks can kill you.

Level Four
Back to Space we go. No room to rest as you're immediately greeted by a mid-boss with his backup gang. The boss is fore-shadowing... he's like a black version of MegaTron! (yeah, the first original bad boss from the old Transformers). Watch out for his henchmen (the higher the difficulty level the more henchmen he has) and watch out for when he transforms into a gun! Vintage MegaTron! Remember, keep this boss in the back of your mind....

Level Five
Best described as Descent Into Hell. You fly down a dark and eerie sky... taking out bases while avoiding a descending battle ship. No boss battle here. Stage ends with a BIG BOOM and an explosion that takes you to level six....

http://web.archive.org/web/19970108050104/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/previews/HD6.JPG


Level Six
Rage Against the City I like to call this. Long stretching bridge, buildings and heavy dark thunder clouds rage by in the background as you fly by the ocean. Great looking stage. Destroy this big ship and you'll unleash the boss -- a big freak of a droid... and then the underwater battle ensues....

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/hyperd/saturn3b.jpg
Shoulda let sleeping dogs lie...


Level Seven
Lots of mech enemies and "knife-diving" mechs like those annoying bastards found in Metal Slug. You forge your way through a dock -- I like to think of it as "Sitting (duck) By the Dock of the Bay" lol for those of you who get that reference. Lots of sizable spider machines come scrambling your way looking to terminate you... it's all foreshadowing...

For the Mother Spider boss! Good luck...

Final Stage
This is odd but the stage 4 MegaTron boss you defeated, he joins forces with you here to dismantle a HUUUGE mothership. But as you defeat this mothership, before it goes out in a blaze, it extends a grapple and snatches MegaTron.... from here the final battle ensues.

You or him.

World peace or world abolition...

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/hyperd/saturn1b.jpg


Oh yeah, you get helper ships and droids. You just pick up floating icons to unleash these help buddies. They prove valuable as they even may take the hit for you. I found the droids to be more helpful, as they can shoot in many directions, while the helper ships only shoot forward.

Overall, Hyper Duel is a winner and I'd recommend it... BUT the high price is a definite turn-off. Still, what you have here is a very very good and fun shooter. It's not TOO hard, so for those who want a lesser insane shooter, you might like this, but don't get me wrong there are plenty of moments of "THERES NO WAY YOU CAN SURVIVE THAT!" The 2 modes add a lot to the replay value as do the 3 different characters. I played this game today for 2 plus hours. Awesome shooter.

If you have the means, go for it. Thumbs up for Hyper Duel. :)

for more shots go here:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bevhome/hyperdscans.htm

ps- Hyper Debt... I like that petname for this game lol. Others that spring to mind are Drag-On Force and Toshinden URA "moron to buy this" (geddit... as in Toshinden "you are a moron to buy this")... funny stuff :D

[Dire 51]

BS was a great game partly because you could at any time transform into a flying ship or a bipedal robot. The next game allows you the same luxury...

it's

HYPER DUEL

Holy shit, that's awesome. I ever get back into collecting Saturn games, I'm tracking that one down.

[Steven]

http://nfg.2y.net/wolfgames/groove.jpg


I played this game briefly (in the Power Instinct family lineup) back in 2003 when I got it, and enjoyed it for the 30 mintues or so I put into it. Recently I sat down with it longer and well, whereas once before I thought I preferred this to Astra Superstars, now I feel the opposite.

GoF is a 2-on-2 fighter where you can tag in and out. It's the only fighter on Saturn with 4 player capability. There are 11 immediately selectable characters, and they really are quite bizarre. In all honesty I don't feel they're a very memorable cast, and a fighting game, IMO, is only as good as its characters and special moves.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723065702/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/reviews/gof_two.jpg

Here are some of them:

Larry Light- Cool looking fireball, rushing Dragon Punch

Chris Wayne- Spark ground-based projectile. Flash Kick variant

Tenjinbashi- Weird big man with a lizard mask. Some bizarre special moves.

Hizumi- The quick ninja with flame attacks and a wicked slicing super special.

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723065755/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/reviews/gof_three.jpg

Remi- Witch. Disc projectiles, Flash Kick variant with her giant musical note friend that also looks like a scythe.

Popura-Shoots out a jelly fish like projectile. Probably has the coolest looking Super Special in the game... Audrey II!

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723065723/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/reviews/gof_eight.jpg

M.A.D- Weird-looking character in a jacket with shock attacks

Solis- Girl on cover. Tall police officer who fires her nightstick and has a jewel stunning move

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723065729/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/reviews/gof_six.jpg

Falco- Old man who fights with cards. SS he launches 5 exaggeratedly huge cards that ends in an explosion

http://web.archive.org/web/19970723065802/www.saturnworld.com/media/images/reviews/gof_five.jpg

Gartheimer- Big man who fights with two chained balls. Has a throw that sends your head through the ground.

The 2 old ladies- Most recalled for from the first Power Instinct game

The game's control feels kinda sluggish, and although the tag system is kinda cool, and the game has a nice gothic feel sorta, something is missing. Animation is below average. Loading times are KILLER. Even with shortcut on, they're incredibly long. I understand the game has to load up the four character sprites and whatnot, but it's way too long and ruins the rhythm of the enjoyment.

Still, there are cool ideas like when your teammate or the opponent's teammate is knocked out, they stay lying on the screen. You can actually bend down and chuck them toward your opponent taking off energy -- ace!

But all in all, after revisiting GoF I don't think it's a quality fighter. Sure, if you're a big fighting fan by all means go for it but keep in mind this game is quirky and not "all that" certainly. It can be had for under $35 last I checked, and I wouldn't pay more than $30 for it....

[Steven]

HANAGUMI TAISEN COLUMNS

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/newsakurataisencolumns.jpg

Taking the classic Columns puzzle gameplay, and inserting those infamous Sakura Wars characters, this puzzler is an instant winner.

This game feels like Puzzle Fighter as in battle each player has a bar. When 3 or more jewels are cleared the bar fills up slowly. Chains really add to the bar, and once filled it presents you with 3 choices:

1. Level 1 attack
2. Save and accumulate
3. Level 1 defense

You can go up to 3 levels. If on the 3rd level you select the 2nd option, what happens is that the game simply gives you three glowing star-like pieces, that pretty much act like the diamond found in Puzzle Fighter.

Because of this option to be on the offensive or the defensive, this game leads up to a lot of strategizing and one-up-man-ship. It's really addicting and with the choice of 6 different characters, all each with different strengths and weakness, and attack patterns, this game is flat out wicked fun.

The debris comes in the form of colored dice. They could be as high as 6 or low as the number 1... and it works just like the counter pieces in Puzzle Fighter. Once count down they unlock and turn into regular jewels. Nice.

Level 1 defense takes away the bottom 2 rows.

Level 2 defense takes away the bottom 4 rows.

Level 3 defense takes away the bottom 6 rows (can be very handy when you're near death)

And obviously the higher level on offense, the more debris that will be dumped on the opponent's field.

Game has Story mode, Cinderella mode, 1P Mode with classic (standalone) or puzzle (solve up to 90 different puzzles, ranging from "clear 20 jewels in under a minute" to "clear past this line") and of course the excellent 2 Player Mode. Options you have the choice to change the jewels from classic Columns look to a more modernized look. There is also an Omake mode (AKA art gallery) once you complete the game with a character.

The characters seem to be all very balanced and the CPU provides a tough but not unfair challenge. Graphics are solid, sound is great and control is right on the money. Hidden characters also abound. Beat the game and be treated to some J-Pop like music. Good stuff.

Overall this game is ace, ace, ace. Sakura Wars gets a lot of love on the Saturn, and the Japanese often regard to it as the best Saturn game ever, but if you want something you can play and understand, go for Hanagumi Taisen Columns. Shouldn't run ya more than $15, and is an absolute blast to play. It's like Columns meets Puzzle Fighter. Along with Columns Arcade Collection, you'll have all the Columns action you could ever want with these two excellent Saturn games.

for another review and some pictures go here:

http://www.shinforce.com/saturn/reviews/HanagumiColumns.htm

[Captain Wrong]

Can I just tell you this is probably the most awesome thread on this site?

Seriously. Have some Meseta. :)

[Steven]

Thanks Captain.

PRIKURA DAISAKUSEN

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/purikura.jpg


I remember GameFan's December 2000 From The Graveyard write-up of this game. It proclaimed that a handful of Saturn imports were already consistently striking the magical 80+ barrier, and that if you owned PD -- you can consider yourself the most hardcore of hardcore.

While I don't agree with that last statement I do agree with GameFan's overall feelings on Prikura... this game rocks.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p1b.jpg


It only has 5 stages, and true, the game doesn't take long to beat (under half an hour) but the 5 stages are fun while they last with some cool memorable boss tangles. Presented to us by Atlus in 1996, Prikura Daisakusen presents the gamer with 3 character choices. Two girls and a giant bipedal dog-like creature.

A is to shoot.

B is to pound.

C is special.

Y (or double tap in desired direction) is roll.

One girl shoots out stars from her magic wand. The other icy-like projectiles. Enemies are all robot-types that flash when hit. When destroyed an animal is left for you to collect and earn points. You can pound enemies, this is a close-range hammer spike, or spiked ball slam, or the dog's giant hand smack. This reveals jewels instead of animals. Also, with the pound button, you can unleash a sweet chain reaction of an enemy hitting another enemy and so on. See how high a combo you can land! It's impressive to see one enemy being taken out resulting in a domino-like effect, and this increases your score.

Each character has a helper that can evolved up to four stages (at the end of each stage it evolves accordingly) and has multiple paths to take depending on such and such. The helper helps you like how you'd expect... it shoots at the enemies helping you to take them out.

Also, in some stages there's an icon that when you pick up your character turns into a steroid-pumped character who is invincible and with the simple touch any enemy is instantly destroyed. Nice.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p2b.jpg


It is an isometric shooter. You might be wondering how the shooting is. Well, once you hold A... you can move the D-Pad and still remain locked in that position. So don't fret about shooting and not being able to lock in one direction. There are multiple directions to shoot at.

It's more of a shmup than a platformer because you can't jump. Whereas Steamgash Mash was a platform blaster, I'd catagorized PD as a "Shooter Blast Em Up"... well, all that matters is that it plays damn good. =P

You'll fight enemies ranging from worm-popping menaces to shield-weilding gun-toting foot soldiers.

Stage one is typical lightness to get you used to the game.

Stage two has some cool boxes for you to break open. Boss is a flying airplane of sorts.

The game really picks up when you battle with stage 3's enormous and impressive fire-breathing snake-like creature, JUDGMENT... after going through his castle lair.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p3b.jpg


Then stage 4's boss in the winterland is a giant mechanical crab known as DEATH SCISSOR. You must cross the wintery iceland safely first...

Finally, the last boss really screams Groove On Fight in the sense that in that game, in one of the backgrounds you'll see a disfigured face. That face... is pretty much like the face of the end boss in Prikura. This vile menace is known simply as the oddly titled FLASH-THE-ALL. You got to deal with his main face and his left and right hands... and oh he enjoys throwing odd projectiles at you along his creepy little ghoul jello-like friends. There's a lot of flashing all right. To get to him though, you'll have to survive his creepy underworld cavern.

I liked the dog the least. He's too big a target and doesn't have the good mobility of the girls. The girls are fun to use. Special move is same for all the characters. A bunch of fireballs cascade downward from the heavens, damaging everything on screen followed by one single extra large fireball. Classic Streets of Rage special feel, hehe.

Overall Prikura Daisakusen is an ace game. It can be had for under $50 too, so it's not too bad on the wallet. Don't be fooled by some auctions that end at $60. It can easily be had for $45 or so with a little patience. Hell I got mine for $30. Mind you, Atlus released two versions.

1. Double Jewel Case with calender

2. Single Jewel Case without calender

I bought the latter and the former seems to be more frequently offered on eBay and such. I didn't mind getting the "lesser" version of the two, all I need is the game. :-)

Overall, it's an excellent title worthy of a place in every Saturn fanatic's library. From the classic flash flash flash of the enemies and bosses, to the cool old school feel, Prikura's a winner.
And check out those cool J-Pop tunes!

Good work, Atlus.

[Steven]

TAITO CHASE HQ AND S.C.I

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_chasehq_cvr.jpg
no, that's not Isiah Thomas and Dennis Eckersly there!


Chase H.Q. plus S.C.I. is a bare-bones compilation of Taito's neo-classic arcade racer Chase H.Q. and its immediate sequel Special Criminal Investigation (S.C.I.). It is very bare bones so if you're looking for options and secret modes galore this one is not for you. Mind you also that Chase HQ came out in 1988 with SCI following in 1989. Graphically you can almost expect neither title to win any beauty contests. However, the graphics have that pleasant OutRun touch, and is satisfyingly nostaglic.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/chasesci/s2b.jpg
ahh


In Chase HQ instead of racing laps or clearing check points your goal in each of the 5 stages is to ram a car until its energy is depleted. Each stage the enemy starts far away, and you have 60 seconds to reach it. If you don't, you are asked to continue. Once you reach the enemy car, his energy bar is displayed and the ramming begins. You also have lots of civilian cars on the road. Avoid them and earn bonus points. Crash into them and well, they die. But you live. Ahh the magic of video games.

In SCI it's the same concept except you have a shotgun partner who fires off shots at enemies. You can still ram cars, but you can shoot too. Game has more hazards and special effects like raining and even yellow flash lightning. Cool stuff. Even an odd section where you're driving on what appears to be water...

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/chasesci/c1b.jpg


I love the stage where there's 3 buses going across the screen horizontally while you're racing vertically. Hit the bus and live to tell the tale! Again, the magic of video games. :D

A is drive.

B is brake.

C is turbo boost (you have 3 per stage)

X is shoot (only in SCI)

L is lo-gear

R is hi-gear

I recommend trying to stay in hi-gear throughout. Sometimes though when it's tight and narrow using L is the better part of discretion. Allow me to comment on the controls now, as some have complained about it in the past. Well when I first played it it was very rough and I ended up crashing a lot or falling off the side of the road. But the more I played it, and the more I learned to switch gears and when to let go of the acceleration button, it suddenly became a much better, tighter experience. Overall I'd say the controls are decent to good, just hang in there and use common sense.

There are some annoying bends here and there (particularly in SCI) but remember these were arcade games and as such were meant to be somewhat of a quarter muncher. Also, at the same time these games aren't very long. You can beat each game in under 20 minutes... although the last level in SCI is a true bitch.

I only have been able to beat Chase HQ so far, and I was on my very last continue on the last boss. I needed to ram him one more time... but he sped up and I only had 3 seconds to go. I thought it was over but at the stroke of 0 my car managed to just grace the bumper of the boss and I had defeated the game and was rewarded my cheesey late 80s arcade ending, heh. Good stuff.

Overall, I started out very iffy on this game, I even questioned selling it or not, but on my 2nd go I had a lot more fun and see it as a keeper. It took me a while to get this game for a good price... I see it usually goes from $30-$40. If you see it in the 20's, and you're this kind of gamer, I say go for it.... but heed my words ONLY if you're this type of gamer.

It's a nice little retro racing/ramming/shooting experience, ideal for them nostalgic mornings.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/chasesci/s1b.jpg
Agent in blue: Ha, now you shut up and take this like a man!
Agent in red: Where you think YOU goin' punk? See these cuffs? If it ain't rough it ain't right!

[Spartacus]

The game Baroque has been released on multiple platforms so it could just as well fit in this thread as it would the "Top Imports - Sony Playstation" thread. I've been playing with the Saturn version lately and thought I would briefly share some of my impressions with the game and perhaps more importantly, whatever information I could find about it.
http://tinypic.com/6fyqfd.jpg
http://tinypic.com/6fyqmd.jpg


Baroque is a first person survival horror adventure that uses a "Rogue" type style of gameplay of randomly generated levels. The game has a great soundtrack by Masaharu Iwata and very well done sound effects that include the sound of your beating heart and labored breathing that really sets the mood while you play!
http://tinypic.com/6fyqsk.jpg
http://tinypic.com/6fyr20.jpg


My personal experience is that the amount of reading in Japanese is sufficient enough to be daunting and you really feel like you are missing alot of the game if you can't read the dialogue, but not so much as to become unplayable. There's just too much here that's unique and enjoyable not to at least give it a try.
http://tinypic.com/6fyr6w.jpg
http://tinypic.com/6fyr9s.jpg


I've seen two types of cover art for the Saturn game and both look to have the same back art. I'm not sure if there's any significance to the artwork versions. This is what the artwork on the copy I have looks like.
http://tinypic.com/6fzins.gif

The Playstation seems to have gotten a 2nd release of Baroque as well.
http://tinypic.com/6fziqc.gifhttp://tinypic.com/6fziv6.gif


For your consideration - a list of links I've gathered to get a better understanding of the world of "Baroque"

First one of the better descriptions of the game at Gaming Intelligence....
http://terror.snm-hgkz.ch/mirrors/www.thegia.com/mirror/psx/baroque/baroque.html

A link to gamefaqs for some personal takes on the game.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/saturn/review/574052.html

Links to Sting's Baroque homepages
Saturn version - terrible translation but does have some of the artwork.
http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://www.sting.co.jp/brq/brq_index.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbaroque%2Bsting%2BOR%2Bsaturn%2BOR%2B playstation%2BOR%2Bps1%2BOR%2Bpsx%2BOR%2Bstrategy% 2BOR%2Bhelp%2BOR%2Bstrategies%2BOR%2Bguide%2BOR%2B translation%26start%3D100%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26 lr%3D%26sa%3DN%26as_qdr%3Dall

Playstation version - a better translation and layout!
http://www.sting.co.jp/baroque/menu_e.htm
There's a link to the games opening at the top of the Playstation page that will play the same intro you'll get in the Saturn version and you can get a taste of some of the great music in the game.

The best help site I've found is the Diver's guide. It will give you some item charts and a floor list.
http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://www.tajimashowroom.com/baroque/top-left.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbaroque%2Bsting%2BOR%2Bsaturn%2BOR%2B playstation%2BOR%2Bps1%2BOR%2Bpsx%2BOR%2Bstrategy% 2BOR%2Bhelp%2BOR%2Bstrategies%2BOR%2Bguide%2BOR%2B translation%26start%3D100%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26 lr%3D%26sa%3DN%26as_qdr%3Dall

Masahura Itawa's homepage showing the impressive lists of games he has worked with!
http://www.cocoebiz.com/iwata/discography/index.shtml

History of Baroque
Baroque (Saturn) 1998
Baroque: Bent Illusion (PS1) 1999
Baroque Shooting (Windows) 2000
Baroque Syndrome (PS1) 2000
Baroque Typing (Windows) 2002
4/20/2005 Sting announced it finished the development of 'Baroque Online' to be on sale soon. I hope it's in English!

Baroque Shooting is a nice looking PC shareware shooter that uses the same cast of characters from 'Baroque'. The download is easy to find and playable.
http://tinypic.com/6fyxrm.jpg

Books about Baroque:
"Baroque In A Nutshell" O'Reily
A direction for Nerve Tower
Ki-bo Classic Baroque
I don't have an ISBN for this but I have seen a pic of the cover and it's in English so I've got my hopes up about this one.
http://tinypic.com/6fy5bq.png

"Baroque World Guidance" for SS
ISBN4-7973-0642-4 / 2,200 Yen
Software bank corporation publication division / B5 format / 128 page
Full-color cover + text full page full colors

The capture book "Baroque Official Guidebook" for PS
ISBN4-87719-755-9 / 1,400 Yen
Corporation honor / A5 format / 144 page
Full-color cover + text page full color & camaieu

[Steven]

BLAST WIND


http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_blastwind_cvr.jpg


Blast Wind, like Hyper Duel, is a hard to find and VERY pricey son of a gun. It is a vertical shmup. This game is an oddity in the sense that back in 2002 or so, it used to run for about 30 dollars. These days it's not uncommon to see copies topping out at around 95 bucks. I guess the scarity of this game finally caught up.

I read a lot of critism on Blast Wind in the past. But there was always a minority who really enjoyed this game. Even though I knew it was going to cost me some odd 70, 80 dollars, I wanted this game badly nonetheless.

The game opens with a very distinctive intro, you can tell TechnoSoft was going for a different atmosphere. It almost felt like Gun Frontier's odd-ball atmosphere. Pictures of barren wastelands and a couple nude back body shots... very distinct in style.

You have 2 guns and a bomb. One gun fires ahead and the other fires forward and backward homing style. You also have a helper.

Stage 1 - Iron Skyscraper
Boss - Strat Guard

Stage 2 - City of Night
Boss - Gamma Ray

Stage 3 - Atlantiss
Boss - Sodom

Stage 4 - Earth Breaker
Boss - Ostragle

Stage 5 - Dimension Cave
Boss - Drad

Final - Gorn LastBattle
Boss - Gorn himself

The stages are nice, especially Dimension Cave with its wicked flowing lava and sharp red hues all over your TV screen. Last stage is impressive too as you fly over a countryscape as horses scurry beneath you. Plenty of towers to blow up and collect goodies from.

Blast Wind employs a unique system where you can decide which path to take. In each stage, you can go left or right by deciding to press a switch, or not. The result -- different enemy patterns and a different end boss. Pretty good stuff. You definitely want to see (and conquer) all the cool bosses in this game.

The last boss starts out as a huge ship, but then goes into a 2nd animalistic form. I won't spoil it for you but let's just say it's pretty damn cool.

Overall I enjoyed Blast Wind. Worth the 80 bucks it goes for? I dunno, but hey if you got the means and are a fan of the genre -- why not. It's a fun, mindless shooter. It comes with TechnoSoft's traditional ace presentational style and possesses some decent tunes.

IMO not as good as Hyper Duel, but still good.

[Logicdustbin]

Can I just tell you this is probably the most awesome thread on this site?

Seriously. Have some Meseta. :)

I agree 8-)

(I just sent him 12,000 meseta :D )

[Iron Draggon]

TAITO CHASE HQ AND S.C.I

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_chasehq_cvr.jpg
no, that's not Isiah Thomas and Dennis Eckersly there!

Just a note for those looking for another opinion on this one, I have a review of this game and several other Saturn racers that probably qualify as "obscure" in this thread:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42216

More power to you Steven, this is a totally awesome thread!

[Tron 2.0]

Thanks Captain.

PRIKURA DAISAKUSEN

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/purikura.jpg


I remember GameFan's December 2000 From The Graveyard write-up of this game. It proclaimed that a handful of Saturn imports were already consistently striking the magical 80+ barrier, and that if you owned PD -- you can consider yourself the most hardcore of hardcore.

While I don't agree with that last statement I do agree with GameFan's overall feelings on Prikura... this game rocks.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p1b.jpg


It only has 5 stages, and true, the game doesn't take long to beat (under half an hour) but the 5 stages are fun while they last with some cool memorable boss tangles. Presented to us by Atlus in 1996, Prikura Daisakusen presents the gamer with 3 character choices. Two girls and a giant bipedal dog-like creature.

A is to shoot.

B is to pound.

C is special.

Y (or double tap in desired direction) is roll.

One girl shoots out stars from her magic wand. The other icy-like projectiles. Enemies are all robot-types that flash when hit. When destroyed an animal is left for you to collect and earn points. You can pound enemies, this is a close-range hammer spike, or spiked ball slam, or the dog's giant hand smack. This reveals jewels instead of animals. Also, with the pound button, you can unleash a sweet chain reaction of an enemy hitting another enemy and so on. See how high a combo you can land! It's impressive to see one enemy being taken out resulting in a domino-like effect, and this increases your score.

Each character has a helper that can evolved up to four stages (at the end of each stage it evolves accordingly) and has multiple paths to take depending on such and such. The helper helps you like how you'd expect... it shoots at the enemies helping you to take them out.

Also, in some stages there's an icon that when you pick up your character turns into a steroid-pumped character who is invincible and with the simple touch any enemy is instantly destroyed. Nice.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p2b.jpg


It is an isometric shooter. You might be wondering how the shooting is. Well, once you hold A... you can move the D-Pad and still remain locked in that position. So don't fret about shooting and not being able to lock in one direction. There are multiple directions to shoot at.

It's more of a shmup than a platformer because you can't jump. Whereas Steamgash Mash was a platform blaster, I'd catagorized PD as a "Shooter Blast Em Up"... well, all that matters is that it plays damn good. =P

You'll fight enemies ranging from worm-popping menaces to shield-weilding gun-toting foot soldiers.

Stage one is typical lightness to get you used to the game.

Stage two has some cool boxes for you to break open. Boss is a flying airplane of sorts.

The game really picks up when you battle with stage 3's enormous and impressive fire-breathing snake-like creature, JUDGMENT... after going through his castle lair.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/mr/prikura/p3b.jpg


Then stage 4's boss in the winterland is a giant mechanical crab known as DEATH SCISSOR. You must cross the wintery iceland safely first...

Finally, the last boss really screams Groove On Fight in the sense that in that game, in one of the backgrounds you'll see a disfigured face. That face... is pretty much like the face of the end boss in Prikura. This vile menace is known simply as the oddly titled FLASH-THE-ALL. You got to deal with his main face and his left and right hands... and oh he enjoys throwing odd projectiles at you along his creepy little ghoul jello-like friends. There's a lot of flashing all right. To get to him though, you'll have to survive his creepy underworld cavern.

I liked the dog the least. He's too big a target and doesn't have the good mobility of the girls. The girls are fun to use. Special move is same for all the characters. A bunch of fireballs cascade downward from the heavens, damaging everything on screen followed by one single extra large fireball. Classic Streets of Rage special feel, hehe.

Overall Prikura Daisakusen is an ace game. It can be had for under $50 too, so it's not too bad on the wallet. Don't be fooled by some auctions that end at $60. It can easily be had for $45 or so with a little patience. Hell I got mine for $30. Mind you, Atlus released two versions.

1. Double Jewel Case with calender

2. Single Jewel Case without calender

I bought the latter and the former seems to be more frequently offered on eBay and such. I didn't mind getting the "lesser" version of the two, all I need is the game. :-)

Overall, it's an excellent title worthy of a place in every Saturn fanatic's library. From the classic flash flash flash of the enemies and bosses, to the cool old school feel, Prikura's a winner.
And check out those cool J-Pop tunes!

Good work, Atlus.
PD is pure class every body should have that in there collection :D

[Drexel923]

I just wanted to say that this thread is amazing...I'm always looking for new Saturn imports to check out and this thread has shown me about 5 or 6 that I never knew about. Only problem is that all of those games sell for like $80+ :(

Got to hit the lottery soon ;)

Keep them coming :D

[Steven]

BTW, forgot to post these links. These links contains a good amount of pics.

Groove On Fight

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=208

Blast Wind

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=1955


Alright, time to move onto the next game. Like 3D fighters? Love Panzer Dragoon? Then this one will surely intrigue you.

ELAN DOREE


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/elandoree.jpg


Elan Doree: "Legend of Dragoon" is a 3D dragon-based fighter featuring 10 fighters (5 male and 5 females) mounted upon their dragons/flying creatures of choice. Each character has different weapons, and their flying friends all have projectiles and other attacks of varying sorts. Battles take place in air, but it's not like Astra Superstars in the sense that when you press down in ED you don't fly down. In fact, your friend stays in the same vertical base. If you jump, only your fighter jumps (and lands back down on the dragon)

A = light attack
B = heavy attack
C = jump
double tap up = circle up
double tap down = circle down

Each character has a special move bar. This is different. It starts out at 100%. Any time you do a special move with the heavy attack button it drains, and if you don't have enough in the bar, you can't do a special move. This may sound limiting but it works...

Special moves take off as low as 5% of the bar to as high as 60%.

If you are hit, your special move bar increases. If you block, it decreases.

Every character has two super special's to use per round. SS is really easy, one is A+B. The other is A+B+C. Kinda like Astra in that sense. Also, the characters reminded me of the Astra cast...

Speaking of which here is the cast:

KAIN-Thunder Dragon Master
Rides a blue dragon. Kain looks like Samurai Shodown's Charlotte. Even carries a sword similar to what Charlotte toted. Dragon shoots out blue balls (hey now). SS is a 5-hit extremely damaging fireball attack.

KEYAKI-Fire Dragon Master
Rides a red dragon. Keyaki is a cool-looking ninja-like girl in black and red with red shoulder-length hair. Carries 2 knives. Dragon shoots out fireballs. Keyaki does a 2 hit slash. Dragon also breathes fire. SS is a flame attack move.

SION-Wind Dragon Master
Rides a green dragon. She has the power to conjure tornado wind blasts. SS is a huge tornado attack.

TINA-Magical Girl
Rides an orange puffy cute looking creature. She carries a huge wand and throws out stars. SS is a big multiple star projectile.

MARIELLE-Magician
Rides a pink dolphin with wings. Marielle is a purple witch with mucho cleavage. She throws heart projectiles. Multiple sword attacks from her witch hat. SS she tosses a gigantic sword flipping your way.

LEVIE-Dark Dragon Master
Rides an evil-looking horned creature that wears a mask. Levie himself looks bad-ass as well, with one eye covered and a mysterious aura about himself. Wields a stick and twirls it around. His two SS involve his evil friend. One, the dragon turns around and emits this huge blast from outta you know where. The 2nd the dragon shoots outta his mouth an 11-hit massacre -- ouch!

ERIORNA-Light Dragon Master
Rides a white pure-looking dragon. Carries a sword. Dragon emits blast. Tail whip. SS the dragon surrounds itself with flame and you can ram your opponent for multiple hits. You can do a hit into SS for extra damage.

GARNIC-Cursed Sword
Rides a green dragon. Carries two swords. Multiple fireballs. SS is a huge 7-hit blue wave.

RUBONE-Poison Dragon Master
Rides a cool looking black winged creature whose face is like Alien. Rubone himself is a piece of work, a cool wicked looking old man you can't trust. Attacks with a scythe. Dragon shoots out multiple rings. SS dragon shoots out a projectile. Other SS dragon surrounds Rubone in a damaging force field.

GULF-Earth Dragon Master
Rides a brown dragon. Gulf's fists turns into rocks. Dragon spits out a 7-hit rock projectile. One of Gulf's SS he throws a HUGE rock at you. Takes off tons of energy. Other SS he chucks two stone projectiles at you.

SS can be easily interrupted mid-way. It leaves your character vulnerable so should be timed properly.

There are two boss characters:

BLACK KNIGHT

Once you beat him he morphs into...

KAISER DRAGON

Kasier Dragon looks just like the end boss dragon found in Keriotosse! The stage is impressive -- a flying battle in space. The stages in ED are all pretty nice, with great graphics and transparencies even. Rubone's creepy stage has candles in the background. Kain's stage has a building reflection on the riverbank. Some good stuff.

Overall I'd recommend ED but I hear it's a bit of a tough one to find. It's not a great fighter, but it's pretty unique and got some cool characters and background stages. It's a good addition to the ole library.

For two reviews go here:

http://www.shinforce.com/saturn/reviews/ElanDoree.htm

For pics go here:

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=106

[Steven]

Hanagumi Taisen Columns was an excellent puzzler featuring the infamous Sakura Wars characters. Here is another Saturn puzzler featuring more infamous characters -- this time from the Tenchi Muyo universe.

TENCHI MUYO! RENSA HITSUYOU

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/tenchimuyorensahitsuyo.jpg


This game, on the outset, kinda reminds me of two fellow obscure Saturn puzzlers:

Monster Slider (the well is non-flat)
Susume Bakabons (the ball graphics and lack of rotation on them, unlike SPF2T)

The best thing about the game IMHO is the way the playing field is uniquely shaped... you really have to adjust your mindset to the way chains can be formed and developed, it's very interesting.

Puzzle system employs the classic connect 3 like-colors or 3 like-shapes or more style.

The game also employs a unique "debris" system... technically there are no "debris blocks" that fall your way. Instead, you're playing in a well. Whenever you do chains or the CPU does chains, water builds up in the well. If the water fills your chamber you're toast.

It's different and works.

The gameplay is different too, as falling pieces are placed on top of the water, and cannot interact with pieces underwater, until drained. So how do you drain the water?

There are heart icons that fall down. Connect 3 hearts and the water will decrease.

Here are the pieces:

-Red
-Blue
-Green
-Yellow (same 4 colors as Puzzle Fighter)
-Anchor
-Heart
-Ryo-Ohki

Anchor drops any pieces on water underneath. Think about this now. Imagine shoving a bunch of like-colored/shaped pieces underneath the water. Then connect 3 hearts to clear some water. Once the water drains, the pieces may interact and it's major combo city! It's very satisfying to be near death then come back with a huge combo and securing the last laugh. AHAHAHAHA! ... whoa easy tiger :P

Ryo-Ohki blocks represent the face of the cute cat/rabbit in Tenchi Muyo known as the "Cabbit." They are another kind of block, that also work like standard colors, but they too have a special function, like the hearts and anchors. When you place three or more Ryo-Ohki blocks together, you will get a "Ryo-Ohki point" (I don't know if this is the proper name of it, but I call it that to make it easy to understand), which will be visible next to the chamber.

When you have gotten three Ryo-Ohki points, your character will perform a special move (draining water from your chamber, raising water in the opponents chamber drastically, or something else)

You can also raise your opponent's water level by connecting 4 or more pieces together, or doing 2 chain combos. The higher the chain the more water. Chains in this game feel really sweet. Some puzzlers you chain and you're like "eh" but in this one for some reason it feels really satisfying. Your character in the background will also do an animation and shout some Japanese words heh heh.

There are several different characters to select from with different strengths and weaknesses. Good good stuff. There are also secret characters to unlock.

The game has a Story mode, VS. CPU mode (with a mode that starts your chamber half-filled with water for an extra tough challenge), another kind of Story Mode, 2P and character art and information gallery. There is also a secret mode to unlock, if "you, the master of unlocking," can do it. ;)

There is a TREMENDOUS FAQ on all things Tenchi Muyo! Rensa Hitsuyou-related over at GameFAQs for those further interested.

Overall it's a FANTASTIC puzzler. It is not rare, but it isn't common either. The price hovers around 15 to 20 bucks and is WELL WORTH it. Last night I was playing Rensa and before I knew it, more than an hour had gone by -- the sun had gone completely down. Time flies when you're having fun!

In the end, Puzzle Fighter, Tenchi Rensa and Taisen Columns reminds me a lot of each other. Three great puzzlers employing a cast of famous characters (from which you have the liberty to choose from with each having different pluses and minuses) that originated outside the puzzle genre. And most important of all, 3 great games you should own and play. Sadly though, only PF is well known of these three. The argument could be made that Tenchi Rensa and Taisen Columns are every bit as good if not better than PF. At least now the world knows a bit more about these two under the radar puzzlers, so I'm happy to have helped a small part in this injustice.

TM!RH -- ugly acronym... beautiful game.


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/spf2x/s1b.jpg
Rensa and Taisen as good or better? Surely blasphemy?!? Find out for yourself....

[Steven]

KINGDOM GRANDPRIX

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_kingdom_cvr.jpg


One of three Raizing shooters to appear on Saturn, this one is the least known of the three. Soukyugurentai and Battle Garegga have both deservedly had their time in the spotlight so I feel it's time we took a closer look at one, Kingdom Grandprix AKA Shippu Mahou Daisakusen (which if you recall is the same word as Prikura Daisakusen, which means "Big Plan")

The unique thing about KG is that it's a hybrid racer/shooter. There are 8 characters to select from, and you'll race in shooting stages against the 7 competitors. First to race ahead of the others, dismantle the boss and cross the finish line wins. It's hard, even on Beginner.

This has been one of KG's biggest complaints. That it's difficult and that the "racing" element ruins the enjoyment of the game.

Well I'm here today to share with you all a great trick...

How to turn KG into a pure shooter!

Yes there is indeed a code that allows you to turn off the "race against the 7 competitors" gameplay and turn KG into a pure shmup.

Go to option. Go down to sound.

Press left, right, left, right, up, up, down, down start.

Now you should see a "race or shooter" mode at the bottom. Set it to shooter and off ya go.

I've gotten better at the racing mode, but I still kinda am iffy on it on the whole. As a straight shooter though, KG is pretty dope. It's definitely the "black sheep" to the Raizing Saturn trilogy, but that's only because Garegga and Souky are SO damn good.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/terra/t4b.jpg


http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/af/battleg/b1b.jpg


KG has 8 different ships/pilots with different weapons for you to choose from. You're bound to find a favorite. Also, after each stage it gives you a choice between two different levels, with the end stage giving you 3 choices... 6 stages in all for a total of 12. It enhances gameplay and definitely is a plus. Here are the stages with their funky old-school names:

1. BASALNA CITY
Easy 1st stage with enemy fodder. You're flying over townports. Boss looks like one of them dinosaur flying creatures -- latched onto a ship. He's tougher than most 1st stage shooter bosses, but shouldn't pose too great a challenge.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/kingdom/saturn1b.jpg
here's the stage 1 boss getting some "bomb" treatment

2A. VELMATIC OCEAN
Cool giant rocks to blow up. A neat mid-boss -- sort of a pirate wooden ship with turrets. Boss is a green dragon with gold plate armor on his chest. His long tail is submerged into the water underneath

2B. AIR CIRCUS
Tight space here as you ride along railings. The evil druids make their debut here (well, at least the easier breed... their nastier cousins appear later on). The boss hangs onto the railings and coupled with the limited space due to the railings, has some annoying almost sure-fire death patterns.

3A. CROSS FIRE
Battle against the side of a freakishly huge air battle ship, the boss bursts outta the top and he's one mean demon toting one big gun.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/gl/kingdom/saturn2b.jpg


3B. OUTCAST CASTLE
Fly through a castle full of outcasts (hence the name). Gets tight as you navigate through the castle's corridors battling bats and other assorted oddities. Stage is home to one of the cooler looking bosses in the game -- a huge dracula-like creature with card tossing attack patterns among others. Satisfying to blow his ass up.

4A. DEEPLY DUNGEON
Swamp area with dead trees. Eerie atmosphere here. Stage opens with two fire sprouting skeletons hanging onto the far right and left of the screen. Don't get caught though, you can blow up if the you hang around long and the screen scrolls up. In fact there is a lot of that in some stages, keep in the open and don't wait behind barriers! Creepy underwater openings where eels and leeches pop out. The boss is a disgusting bubbly organism that hangs onto the sides like the boss from AIR CIRCUS and the stage 4 boss found in Layer Section AKA Galactic Attack.

http://www.segalife.com/images/screens/layersect1.gif
Now imagine it set underwater against a disgusting bubbly organism..

4B. COLD CORRIDOR
Other than this "cheap" cop-out, each stage in KG is really different. This is a lot like DEEPLY DUNGEON only you're in the winter land with dead trees. Opens with the same looking skeletons chained off to the far sides. Thankfully it has different enemies after that, however. But get to the boss and he's basically the dragon gold plated boss from VELMATIC OCEAN, albeit with different attack patterns. I guess you didn't kill him the first time... so kill him for good now... oh yeah this stage has a speed-up section where the tight tunnels zoom left and right... so it takes a real pro to fly through this section unsmashed!

5A. STRATO STORM
An intense battle over dark thunder clouds... very moody, there's an isolated feeling of bleakness in this great looking stage. Boss is a HULKING good ole fashioned battleship.

5B. FOREST OF DEAD!
A cool stage with enough beasties to satisfy the biggest monster fan. Sections where you can blow giant 'shrooms and tombstones to hundreds of pieces -- sweet. The super hard druids debut here... very annoying attack pattern. The game's coolest mid-boss makes his appearence here... a flying rotting ghoul who shoots out fire and maggots. Tough sucker. Boss is a malpracticed oddity... a baby face in the front who shoots out a long disgusting tongue, and to the side are two eagle-like faces. Very difficult.

Then you make your way to the final stage, either

KOBOLOS TOWER
YASHIKI OF NINJA
or
KINGDOM GRANDPRIX itself

I won't spoil these stages for you but lemme just say...

Kobolos Tower is by far the easiest of the three.

Yashiki of Ninja has a boss that is agile with lots of sure-death patterns.

KG's end boss protects himself by first throwing about 20 midboss types at you.

Have fun...

Oh yeah the interesting thing to note about this game is that you can only die by enemy fire or staying behind a wall once the screen scrolls past. Yes, you can touch enemy ships (and even the bosses) and not be harmed. Only their fire can take you out.

Do I recommend this game? Well, it was made in 1994 so don't expect it to technically blow you away. But it has a nice old-school sort of feel, from the "choose your path next" system to the corny stage names to the choice of 8 different ships (the most I ever encountered in a shooter!)... KG is worth a look. For years I held out on it because my budget on this game was $30 or under. It usually went for 35+ a year or so ago, but I managed to get a copy for 32 dollars roughly. I wouldn't pay $45 for it, though, and I recommend you don't either.

It's easily Raizing's weakest Saturn shooter, but that's not to say KG is weak. That is only to say how good Souky and Garegga are.

Overall, KG has a nice feel and who knows, you may enjoy the racing part more than others did... and if not, hey, there's always the straight up shooter mode to fall back on.

for more pics go here:

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=1744

[Steven]

WOLF FANG


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/wolffangss.jpg


Oddly titled Wolf Fang 2001 SS, I'll just call it Wolf Fang. It's a side scrolling shooter where you control a mech. Assault Suit Leynos II? Well, yeah, there are definitely similarities. However, WF is a LOT LOT easier.

The game opens with a nice 3D intro that really puts you in the mood to kick some mech butt. Intro shows 2 mechs working together to destroy a horde of bad guys. From lasers to up-close saber light sword kills, it does a good job of pumping you up.

The actual game is 2D, and in fact, was an arcade release in 1994, so yeah, don't expect the graphics to overwhelm the senses. In fact, these graphics could be handled by the Super NES, if not the Genesis. That's not to say the graphics are bad, oh no. They're serviceable but yeah, don't expect Metal Slug detail or beauty.

Wolf Fang is not a pure 2D shooter, more like a hybrid between shooter and action platformer like Metal Slug or Assault Suit Leynos, but faster than MS or ASL, and with the forced scrolling characteristic of "pure" shooters.

A player can choose from one of four pre-set mechs or select from 16 parts -- a combination of their own for a custom mech. The instruction manual lists 63 possible mech types, but I've no idea if they are types to unlock or a list of in-game evolutions you can undergo as you collect power-ups. The mechs range from the standard two-legged variety, to tank treaded ones, to 4-legged hoppers.

All mechs shoot forward, and diagonally up.

R dashes. You can dash in mid-air, mid-jump, whatever you like. It comes in handy and can be done an unlimited number of times.

L holds. So when you want to constantly shoot diagonally up and not be bothered by simple d-pad switcharoos while avoiding crossfire and not changing directions of your bullet pattern, this is a must-master button.

You can face right, or left. To face either direction, simply press the D-Pad in the desired direction and don't shoot. Once you shoot, you cannot change directions, which is smart, otherwise the controls would be an ugly mess and render the game unplayable.

Get your mech upclose and he'll unleash his saber lightsword attack. It seems to be more powerful than your standard gun. There are icons floating around to get new guns. Laser guns, etc.

Interestingly enough, the game starts a player out with two lives. The first life is that of the mech; it can take six hits before it crashes and burns. Then the mech's pilot comes out of the wreckage wearing a tiny powersuit that allows him/her to fly around and continue to lay out the carnage. Said pilot can only take two hits before dying, and also has no over-weapon access. The good thing about the pilot is that he is SO MUCH smaller than the giant mechs. Consider this pilot system a last ditch effort, heh heh.

It is 2 player co-op.

Game takes about 45 minutes to complete, and well, most stages I played on you just fight the boss right away. It's a little odd. After some time, if the boss is not defeated, you move on to the next stage regardless, and get a boss bonus of 0 points. It's not what I'm used to. There were a few stages where I actually fought through some enemy fodder before facing the boss. I liked this style more because it's the "traditional" way and I feel at home with it. The boss battles are alright. Some are giant mechs while others are giant ships spanning many screens with many turrets to take out.

I can guarantee you at first Wolf Fang will overwhelm you with its control and boss fights. You may even get frustrated. However, like most games stick with it and it gets more natural and better, as a result.

In the end though, Wolf Fang is a mixed bag for me with too many ups and downs. It is not rare but not common either, and copies usually go for 30-45. I can't whole-heartedly recommend it but I'm sure there will be those who will love this game. For all others, try to get it for 30 or less.

[Steven]

WOLF FANG


http://www.thewestexit.net/images/wolffangss.jpg


Oddly titled Wolf Fang 2001 SS, I'll just call it Wolf Fang. It's a side scrolling shooter where you control a mech. Assault Suit Leynos II? Well, yeah, there are definitely similarities. However, WF is a LOT LOT easier.

The game opens with a nice 3D intro that really puts you in the mood to kick some mech butt. Intro shows 2 mechs working together to destroy a horde of bad guys. From lasers to up-close saber light sword kills, it does a good job of pumping you up.

The actual game is 2D, and in fact, was an arcade release in 1994, so yeah, don't expect the graphics to overwhelm the senses. In fact, these graphics could be handled by the Super NES, if not the Genesis. That's not to say the graphics are bad, oh no. They're serviceable but yeah, don't expect Metal Slug detail or beauty.

Wolf Fang is not a pure 2D shooter, more like a hybrid between shooter and action platformer like Metal Slug or Assault Suit Leynos, but faster than MS or ASL, and with the forced scrolling characteristic of "pure" shooters.

A player can choose from one of four pre-set mechs or select from 16 parts -- a combination of their own for a custom mech. The instruction manual lists 63 possible mech types, but I've no idea if they are types to unlock or a list of in-game evolutions you can undergo as you collect power-ups. The mechs range from the standard two-legged variety, to tank treaded ones, to 4-legged hoppers.

All mechs shoot forward, and diagonally up.

R dashes. You can dash in mid-air, mid-jump, whatever you like. It comes in handy and can be done an unlimited number of times.

L holds. So when you want to constantly shoot diagonally up and not be bothered by simple d-pad switcharoos while avoiding crossfire and not changing directions of your bullet pattern, this is a must-master button.

You can face right, or left. To face either direction, simply press the D-Pad in the desired direction and don't shoot. Once you shoot, you cannot change directions, which is smart, otherwise the controls would be an ugly mess and render the game unplayable.

Get your mech upclose and he'll unleash his saber lightsword attack. It seems to be more powerful than your standard gun. There are icons floating around to get new guns. Laser guns, etc.

Interestingly enough, the game starts a player out with two lives. The first life is that of the mech; it can take six hits before it crashes and burns. Then the mech's pilot comes out of the wreckage wearing a tiny powersuit that allows him/her to fly around and continue to lay out the carnage. Said pilot can only take two hits before dying, and also has no over-weapon access. The good thing about the pilot is that he is SO MUCH smaller than the giant mechs. Consider this pilot system a last ditch effort, heh heh.

It is 2 player co-op.

Game takes about 45 minutes to complete, and well, most stages I played on you just fight the boss right away. It's a little odd. After some time, if the boss is not defeated, you move on to the next stage regardless, and get a boss bonus of 0 points. It's not what I'm used to. There were a few stages where I actually fought through some enemy fodder before facing the boss. I liked this style more because it's the "traditional" way and I feel at home with it. The boss battles are alright. Some are giant mechs while others are giant ships spanning many screens with many turrets to take out.

I can guarantee you at first Wolf Fang will overwhelm you with its control and boss fights. You may even get frustrated. However, like most games stick with it and it gets more natural and better, as a result.

In the end though, Wolf Fang is a mixed bag for me with too many ups and downs. It is not rare but not common either, and copies usually go for 30-45. I can't whole-heartedly recommend it but I'm sure there will be those who will love this game. For all others, try to get it for 30 or less.

[Steven]

ZERO DIVIDE: THE FINAL CONFLICT


http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_zerodivide_cvr.jpg


One of the many great things about SEGA SATURN MAGAZINE is all the good games they've opened my eyes to, either genres I previously dismissed, or games I once felt were so rubbish they were not worth a look at to begin with.

Zero Divide, a 3D robot brawler on the PlayStation 1, was such. I knew about a ZD game on Saturn, but had always said "Ah whatever" to it. After reading SSM issues #27 and #28, I did a complete 180. I learned that PS1 had Zero Divide and ZD 2: The Secret Wish. Saturn got the 3rd and final game, aptly titled ZERO DIVIDE THE FINAL CONFLICT.

And well, any game that gets a 4 page showcase from SSM, I can put my good faith into!

I have played the game now and can come to my own conclusions. Here are some quick notes:

-Great hi-res graphics
-Combos feel impactful and sweet to execute
-A way cool "dangle on the edge of the platform" system
-Armor can break off! Leaving a 'bot completely naked! Its black body pulsating in a fashion that does RADIANT SILVERGUN proud!
-60 FPS no slowdown
-Good character variety

Overall, I'm digging ZD TFC. I'm so glad SSM did their part to spread the word on this game, otherwise I would have gone on dismissing it as a crappy fighter. So Virtua Fighter fans listen up! Put Zero Divide on your wish list and get those thumbs ready!

Without further ado... here's SSM's take on ZD: TFC!

----

Robots are great. They cannot be bargained with, they know no fear or pity, they don't feel pain or remorse, and they certainly don't have any problems when it comes to holding their own in the combat arena. No doubt Japanese coders Zoom are also keen on all things robotic, as they've taken fighters and levels from the two previous PlayStation versions of Zero Divide, and combined them to form this 'Special Edition' game. So let's take a look at the Saturn version of Zero Divide, the aptly subtitled "The Final Conflict."

CONSOLATION PRIZE
Those of you who are still upset at the lack of a Saturn version of Virtua Fighter 3 can take a bit of comfort from playing Zero Divide The Final Conflict -- the game completely copies the VF3 control system to perfection -- punch, kick, guard and evade are the four buttons players need to master, and it's pretty obvious that the programmers are big fans of Sega's VF games, as the gameplay is firmly rooted in the VF formula.

Most of the robots share some similar basic PPK moves, with special moves being accessed in the classic VF2 way -- towards, towards punch usually gets a result, and variations on PPPK and some A+B throw moves will make VF fans quickly feel at home.

ACCESSING DATA....
ZD is certainly well set up for fighting action. The game features ten initial fighters with a further three hidden robots, and they all play differently as well. Thanks to the weird shapes and styles of their mechanoid bodies, some truly strange moves can be pulled off. Cancer, one of the crab-like fighters, is quite spectacular -- due to his massive screen-filling size and plentiful supply of spare limbs to use, he can lunge across the whole screen to grab his opponent. In last month's preview we mentioned the similarities between ZD and VF2 -- and after another few weeks of playing it seems to have even more in common with Sega's classic beat 'em up! Hi-res fighters, 60 frames per second visuals, colorful backgrounds and rock-hard gameplay make Saturn Zero Divide one of the best looking 3D fighters we've seen.

LUBRICATING YOUR JOINTS
It really does look very good. Some of the stages are totally enclosed, some have walls around half of the arena while some are completely open and floating in space (more on those later). But that's not all -- the backgrounds are all incredibly colorful, and many feature pulsating colors and special effects. The fighters themselves look great and animate smoothly and well, with multi-limbed creatures rotating and scuttling around the battle zone, and armor plates being smashed off with every fierce move.

DON'T PUSH ME 'COS I'M CLOSE TO THE EDGE
Ooh, how exciting -- I've found an original feature! Some of the arenas have walls around them, while others have no borders at all -- they're just big floating platforms. This allows for some spectacular Ring Outs as robots plummet to their screaming death if they fall over the edge. There's also another cool feature here -- merely stumbling over the edge will often allow the falling fighter to grab hold of the ledge, and hang there trying to pull itself back into the ring. Particularly cold-hearted opponents will then stamp on their fingers so that they let go and fall off!

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/sz/zero3/z1b.jpg
different characters have different "stomp" moves!

ANALYSIS MISTER SPOCK?
After an exclusive playtest, we can reveal that the Saturn version of Zero Divide is pretty damn good. It's not quite up to Dead or Alive standards, but Zero Divide could easily be described as "the 2nd best import 3D fighter, behind Dead or Alive." Which is quite high praise really. The graphics are there, the gameplay is there, but will the UK release date appear on Sega's calender? We can only wait and see. Sega's decisions are illogical.


---------

Alright here are the 10 fighters with comments from both SSM and me.

ZERO
Robot Rating: 8/10
Fights in a very similar way to Jacky and Sarah from VF. Which is a good thing. He's also got some very complex combo's in a similar style to Akira. One for technical fighters only. me: With his fist attacks reminds me a lot of Akira.
Most Complex Move: B, DF, P, F, P, B, F, P+K

TAU
RR: 9/10
The best looking and most aggressive fighter, Tau has some incredible moves using his claws to grab and spin opponents around his head, before slamming them to the floor. me: Tau is a giant crab-like creature, has a cool whip throw that is very dramatic and painful looking.
MCM: F, F, B, P+G

WILD 3
RR: 7/10
Wild 3 managed to sneak a gun past the bouncers. His chunky weapon can also be used as a close-range club, but Wild 3's lack of basic PK combinations stop him from being a contender. me: Cool looking humanoid 'bot. Has a beautiful pro wrestling suplex that will smash your opponent's armor! Throw from behind and it's a wicked snap back suplex, crushing their cranium into the canvas. His gun is lodged in his back pocket, which he can take out to shoot a blast Sagat style (high or low). Has also a quick resourceful gun shot that is amazingly fast, and when you're hanging on the edge Wild 3 will shoot down at your hands. When opponents fall down, he can shoot them while they're lying down. A fun mercenary type personality... after he wins he shouts "HASTA LA VISA PUNK!"
MCM: B, F, F, P, P, B, P

EOS
RR: 6/10
Eos is unique amongst the Zero Dividers. He has no PPPK moves at all -- instead he relies on his incredible arsenal of eleven different throws! One for diehard gamers only. me: cool looking 1 eyed brown bot with big fists
MCM: B, B, P, BD, P

IO
RR: 8/10
IO shares so many moves with Sarah from VF that I'm convinced Sarah herself is underneath the armor! Sarah's rising knee and flip kick are prefectly 'reproduced' here. me: Pink female 'bot. Cool assortment of kicks including a quick Flash Kick.
MCM: D, P+K, P, K

CYGNUS
RR: 9/10
Hey, who let him use the knives? Cygnus is very powerful indeed, and his extra weapons give him some powerful individual moves, and he has a simple to use nine hit PPPK combo! me: My favorite ZD fighter, this cool one-eyed humanoid blue ninja bot is just way too cool, he sports two energy knives, has a vicious 5-hit knife combo throw, and a devestating bulldog takedown from behind. Has a spinning heel kick effective for catching opponents off guard. Has his own Flash Kick variant where he flips forward AFTER flipping backward attacking with his two energy knives. Has a cool 2 hit low sweep just like Guile. Sweet easy combo I did with him was kick my enemy in the air, as they fell I did the two hit low sweep. They got up, I spin heel kicked them and they ring'ed out. SWEET!
MCM: D, P+K, K, K, K, K, K, K, K

DRACO
RR: 8/10
Tough sci-fi robotic dragon Draco looks great, with huge spiky scales and armor -- he can even use his tail as an extra limb for even bigger combos. Head butts his opponents as well! me: Impressive looking dragon. Mean headbutt move that would make Andre the Giant proud. Behind throw he absolutely OWNZ JOO! First he shoves you face first down, takes one foot and pounds it on the small of your back and the other foot down empathically on the back of your head -- ouch! Also has a cool multi-hit flame blast.
MCM: F, F, B, P+G

NEREID
RR: 9/10
Another PPPK specialist, Nereid also has some very powerful kick. Something to do with having huge, metal feet I suppose. Five different throws as well. Very tough. me: interestingly designed red killer of a 'bot... with extra limbs to place more blows in. He does have some very huge metal feet attacks.
MCM: F, P, B, P, P, P

PIXEL
RR: 7/10
Another chick robot, Pixel compares best to VF2's Pai. Speedy PPPP moves and quick escapes are definitely her 'bag', although she lacks any really damaging single attacks. Shame. me: agile yellow female 'bot... I didn't dig her too much.
MCM: DF, K, F, P, B, F, K

CANCER
RR: 9/10
An awesome crab-like machine, very big, very powerful and also very fast. He has a huge reach and loads of easy-to-use PPK combos and awesome throws, making him one of the best fighters. me: Cancer has missile projectile attacks to boot, in addition to his devestating "cruncher" throw.. ouch.

Well that's it! Some other final notes:

Game opens with a bizarre space intro with these English words:

Welcome Crackers! We don't have much time will you go on and crack me please!

Check out the animation for when the face mask/armor flies off, it's so satisfying to hear the break sound effect and watching the bot stagger back holding its face... a thing of beauty

The break feature is awesome and really makes the game seem like a robot duel to the death. It has VF2 and Fighting Viper elements.

Game is in complete english. The boss spews out English words with JP subtitles. It is 100% in english...

1P, 2P, training (with a handy move guide), Story, Record and Replay modes await you.

Jumping is not too floaty and feels almost right. There is also a "short jump" feature that is handy in throwing the opposition off guard!

Overall, a very very good fighting game worth hunting down. Shouldn't run you more than $15 and if you liked VF2, you are sure to enjoy this. I'm not the biggest VF fan but I really enjoy this game. Cool crunching sound effects, great graphics, smooth controls and well... 2nd best import 3D fighter? Between this and Elan Doree it's a close battle, but I'll agree with Sega Saturn Magazine!

[fishsandwich]

Hey, cool! I have this game and I thoiught it was just a port of the first game! Thanks for the heads up, dude!

By the way... I really love the in-depth coverage you give these games. Thanks for the great work!

:D

[blissfulnoise]

Yes, thank you for these reviews. As I'm rapping up my US Saturn collection, I'm having to go overseas for my much needed Saturn fix. I've already ordered a few of the games you have reviewed, I can't wait to try them out!

[Steven]

SOL DIVIDE

http://neo-classic.org/shou/library/images/ss_sol_cvr.jpg


What better title to follow up Zero Divide than Sol Divide? Sol Divide is a horizontal shmup from the folks at Psikyo... and do they know how to make shooters. Unfortunately, they tried to stray away from the formula with Sol Divide, and while it has some unique features, ultimately it's quite average.

You have rapid fire, attack and magic. There are more than five different spells to cast, from fire to lightning, etc. Attack makes your character "slash" with his or her given close-range weapon. So when enemies get up close, you can either shoot or slice 'em up. There are 2 males and 1 female to select from. The enemies take a ton of hits before they die... lots of tough cookies here in the form of griffins, skeletons and guardsmen.

Because your character is so big, it's hard to effectively dodge bullets... and you can't help but blame the character size as fault. Luckily there's an energy bar so your guy can take several hits before he dies. Each level is presented with a giant end boss, sand worms, evil gods, Hydra's, are but a few of the creatures you'll fight. Oh and of course the standard dragons.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/sol/ps1b.jpg


Sega Saturn Magazine did a 2 page preview on Sol Divide and here it is

----

If the name Psikyo rings a bell, it should. This dedicated Japanese developer has been producing solid console titles for a number of years now, although none have ever been picked up for (Western) release. Regular readers will have encountered Psikyo's work with the 2D beat 'em up 'Groove on Fight' as well as the forthcoming coin-op, Fallen Angels. Sol Divide sees the company on familiar ground, with an impressive mix of fast-paced shoot 'em up action and screen-hogging end-of-level bosses.The game immerses players on yer typical fantasy environments, complete with monsters, magic and er.. musclebound men with ridiculous hero names like Kashon..

Selecting either Arcade or Saturn (Original) Modes launches your chosen hero into an epic, side-scrolling battle against the forces of darkness. Gameplay is fast and fluid with multiple on-screen enemies unleashing all manner of energy-leeching attacks, before players tackle massive stage guardians. Typical shooter elements are in full effect as players have basic shots and weapon strikes at their disposal, with more visually impressive magical assaults collected along the way. By blasting creatures, picking up treasure chests they leave behind and then unlocking these with the correct keys, players soon gain access to graphically staggering powers. And you'll need 'em.

Other items may also be collected, such as potions and health-icons, yet some of these often have a negative effect on the player's health. Knowing which icons to pick up and avoid proves almost as troublesome as some of the creatures encountered in the game's latter stages. Speaking of which, setting the game's difficulty to the easiest (the bizarrely labelled 'Monkey'!) and opting for a spot of two-player-team-up action enables even the most talentless of gamers to blast through to the final end-of-level boss in no time at all. Ho hum..

Still, Sol Divide's most impressive feature has to be its amazing animated bosses. Seemingly inspired by Ray Harryhausen's legendary stop-motion monster models, these creations are often so huge that they dwarf players and are sometimes actually larger than the screen. We've seen towering end-of-level guardians before but the fact that these gory giants are subtly animated and move with a speed that belies their bulk is testament to Psikyo's programming skills.

Recent 2D scrolling shoot 'em ups have either been retro blasters or space-based battlers, but Sol Divide's fantasy spin actually gives this title a personality of its own. At first glance we were convinced this was just another indecipherable Japanese offering. However, time spent with Sol Divide actually leaves you wanting more of the same. From challenging levels and creatures to a for the most-part lack of slow-down and cool spells, Sol divide proves its mettle. Of course additional levels, playable characters and fully rendered endings would not have gone amiss but maybe Psikyo could squeeze these features into a Dreamcast sequel? Fingers crossed..

---

Overall, I can't recommend Sol Divide unless you're a diehard shooter fan. The game goes for 30+ I believe, so I was pretty happy when I got it for $20 two years back. I hated it when I first played it. 2nd time around (these past couple days) I've grown to halfway like it... but yeeeah, it's no AAA shooter. It's got some nice things going for it, but in the end I just much rather play Souky or Radiant Silvergun. A lot of people hate Sol Divide with a passion, but I say it's average, if not slightly above mediocre. But yeah, that's about it. Oh, it does open with a KILLER CG intro. But on the downside again -- you can blow through this game in a measly dozen minutes -- yup. And you face 8 bosses no less! SD has that "poof! There's the boss!" syndrome... stages are incredibly short.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/automat/sz/sol/saturn1b.jpg


Not bad... you could do a whole lot worst... but definitely not a game to place the high-priority want sign on.

For more pics go here:

http://www.markinjapan.com/detail.php?selected=1764

[digitalpress]

Don't know how I've missed this topic until now.

Awesome.

+250 meseta to Steven. Thanks for the informative post!

[MuppetMaster]

Awsome thread man, keep up the good work!!

[maxlords]

Been quietly watching this one for a while...some GREAT stuff in here :D Sadly, I know about a bunch of these games and just can't afford them.

On my want list for a WHILE:

Prikura Daisakusen
Kingdom Grand Prix
Blast Wind
Hyper Duel
3 Wonders
Crows: Battle Action
Nekketsu Oyako
Image Fight/X-Multiply

Now added thanks to Steven:
Wolf Fang
Zero Divide
Waku Waku Monster
Coin Puzzle Moujiya
Monster Slider

There were a few others that look tempting too :D

Games I have that DO kick ass:
Tenchi Wo Kurau 2
Shienryu (released in the US as "Gekioh: Shooting King"

I've been really wanting Hyper Duel and Blast Wind as I'm a big Technosoft fan, but damned if they don't go for TOO much. Also, I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Guardian Force yet :P Great stuff as always man!

[Steven]

Thank you for all your kind words.

Tonight is a bonus 2-for-1 deal. First we examine how the people responsible for the famed and loved ThunderForce series fared with their Virtual On clone HYPER REVERTHION

http://www.thewestexit.net/images/hyperreverthion.jpg


The game opens with an incredibly corny intro, with a horrible English voice over. You have Story mode, 2P, Try Mode and Options. Try Mode is just you vs. any CPU of your choice in any stage of your choice. Good mode to play to get used to the 8 different characters In the options there is a bit of stuff going on. Time and difficulty adjustment, along with controls (you can even set special moves to one press of a button), ring size, energy size, etc.

L = dash left
R = dash right
down left = turn around clockwise
down right = turn around counter clockwise
up = move up
down = move down
left = go left
right = go right
A = shoot standard projectile (quite weak)
B = dash (you have a dash bar)
C = jump (you can dash in air forward or backward)

The game has 8 selectable characters. You only control and see the monsters, but behind every monster is represented by a human character.

TEAG
Red dragon, has a fire blast

ZILD
Blue shark-like monster. Ramming attack and force field-like attack

AIHAN
Green turtle-like creature. Opens shell to launch assault. Big and slow.

TIAMILLA
Butterfly. Her "A" button shoots out a single ray, as opposed to most of the other characters' 3-4 circular blasts. Her single pink ray also does more damage than most other A's. Has a multiple ray attack as one special move, and the other sees her shooting out a stinger that does the most damage in the game.

COOMA
Ugly grey-black spider. Also shoots a single red ray that is strong like Tiamilla's. Lounging attack and a spider web trap where you get stuck for easy pickings.

MYSARA
White dragon. Multiple rays, ray launcher and a powerful force field attack

KNUANI
Giant crab creature. Only character whose "button A" does not produce a projectile. Instead it's a mini (powerful) force field type attack. Has a nasty throw as a special, effective for Ring Out's. Strong potential 3 hit slash.

KISS
Hornet. Projectiles and stinger attack


I beat the game once, and you are treated to a nice ending (unfortunately all in JP so I knew jack). The 8th guy you face is your own replica monster, and the 9th is the final boss of the game, who is huge and very tough. All moves executed on him don't take off the NORMAL kind of damage they would the regular characters. The game gives you only 3 continues and I got to him on my last continue. Beat him by Ring Out. If you beat the game with all 8 characters you unlock the final boss in either Try or VS. mode.

http://www.maniac.de/oldhome/reviews/saturn/gl/hyper/h1b.jpg


Overall Hyper Reverthion is nothing to write home about. The graphics are so-so (compared to PSX's great looking graphics, I think Saturn users got hosed here in the port), and so-so gameplay... yet there's still a certain charm to this game I can't put my finger on. For $50 I'd hate this purchase, but for $10 it's not bad. Just don't expect a Virtual On beater, and you should be alright. The main thing to keep in mind is... you won't be pulling off any 2-in-1 combos... it simply can't be done. Gameplay is a bit on the slow side with some minor slowdown here and there. The 8 stages are nicely done, however, with each stage having walls and barriers to hide behind and use strategically. But yeah, it's nothing to write home about. For big time VO fans though, this may be worth a look at $10. And trust me, it is a lot better than the tragically appalling GEBOCKERS.