|
Post by dsparil on Jan 7, 2023 7:23:07 GMT -5
Camp CaliforniaDeveloper ICOM Simulations Publisher Turbo Technologies Format Super CD Release (JP) Unreleased Release (US) January 1993 The second and final Camp California game is what would come to mind at the concept of a licensed Beach Boys mascot game rather than the Gauntlet-esque Yo, Bro. As countless movies and TV shows had done at this point, the crew’s beloved beach has been bought by an evil rat named The Big Cheese who wants to build a nuclear power plant on the land. They’re all set to put on a big concert that’ll save the beach only for nearly all the members to get kidnapped and their instruments stolen. What follows is a typical platformer although one that is much better made compared to ICOM’s prior action-oriented work. Only Byron the bear is initially available, but additional characters become playable as they are rescued. Each controls and attacks differently leading to some variety. For example, Byron is a typical action-platformer protagonist and attacks with punches and kicks while Shred the seagull is small, high jumping, and attacks by spinning which also grants invincibility. Not every level is a winner, but some have nice graphical and gameplay touches such as the amusement park level. While it is an improvement, several issues still hold the game back. Most significantly, there is a serious design oversight that can potentially force a restart if the interior portion of the Aztec temple level is entered with a character unable to complete it i.e. Byron, Lil’ Bro and Pouch. They potentially become stuck inside it and unable to leave in order to select a different character. The boss design is also somewhat underwhelming, and it’s a shame that Kelly, the only female member of the Camp California crew, is unplayable. The inclusion of this Nagel style art is a nice graphical touch, but it's emblematic of a perspective on culture that seems stuck in the 80s. Nagel has come back around as an icon of pop art, and enough time has passed that the inherent corniness of game is almost a historical time capsule. The full roster. Each one of these characters is supposedly based on a Beach Boy. The use of a world map adds a fair amount of non-linearity. It's a bit confusing because the game itself doesn't explain anything, but the manual has a full map which includes the locations of the characters and instruments.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 10, 2023 11:23:00 GMT -5
John Madden Duo CD FootballDeveloper Hudson Soft Publisher Turbo Technologies Format Super CD Release (JP) Unreleased Release (US) October 1993 (estimated) In absolute terms, John Madden Duo CD Football is a perfectly serviceable game. It is a decent port of John Madden Football ’93 with some added CD flourishes like brief FMV scenes at certain points. A few feature omissions like a graphically simpler passing system make it inferior to the Genesis version. However, performance is better than on SNES making this version a reasonable option. The issue is that ’93 was the previous year’s game. The retitled Madden NFL ’94 was the first game in the series to feature real team branding and the Super Bowl, additions that did not trickle down. ’94 also featured numerous gameplay enhancements and a greatly improved SNES port. Had Duo CD Football launched a year earlier with the Duo itself, NEC could have pointed towards the bonuses the format provided. Instead, the passing of a single year made the game feel like a relic next to its series contemporaries. When passing, Duo CD Football just puts the button to press on screen making longer throws a bit tough. Others platforms have inset views showing the receiver. The included FMVs are small and don't really add that much to the game.
|
|
|
Post by excelsior on Jan 20, 2023 6:18:19 GMT -5
Gekisha Boy/Gekibo/Photograph Boy - Publisher - Irem
- Developer - Tomcat System
- JP Release - October 2 1992
- USA Release - NA
- Format - HuCard
Gekisha Boy (or Gekibo) is one of the more unique offerings in the PC Engine library. It's a take on the action-platformer genre, though there's no combat to speak of. Instead we take control of Photography school student David Goldman, and wield a camera with a target reticule seen onscreen. The screen auto-scrolls, though we are given the ability to move David left to right, whilst also moving the reticule in all directions. Of course, these are handled in unison which involves some skill in positioning; moreso because there'll be objects to out manoeuvre along the way. Our camera does double duty. One, we must take photo's along the way. Gekisha Boy is a score attack game at heart as beating each stage requires clearing a specified points total for each given stage. Each photo will grant points, but we're also provided a limited amount of film, which can be replenished by capturing certain shots. Much of the games hook comes with this idea, as stages must be learned, hidden shots discovered, and those that would provide more film prioritised in order to gain the highest score. The other use of the camera is as a defence mechanism as we can take out oncoming projectiles. It's all a matter of efficiency with the camera, learning when to defend, when to dodge and when to focus on particular shots needed to capture a good score. There's a few power ups that make things easier. They're pretty simple, but offer a good deal of help, as we can increase the size of the reticule, or its speed of movement. Get hit, and powerups are lost, as are some film cells which will jump from David's body, so avoiding taking hits is paramount to success. Fortunately, there's a nice difficulty curve. Yes, it does get pretty tricky by the halfway point, though there's enough stages where you're given the space to practice getting to grips with the controls and mechanisms at play. The ease of the initial stages in terms of obstacles may sound dull, but these levels do a wonderful job of selling the games photography theme and score attack aspect. Just the first stage contains so many unique events that it'll take a number of plays to catch each one of them. Within the game we're given pop culture references such as multiple appearances by Michael Jackson, light nudity, and just oddball occurrences. As a whole, it's all played for laughs, and is brought to life on a variety of backgrounds, such as seedy back alleys a museum or a graveyard offering some variety to the visuals. Sprites are given a caricature appearance with oversized features, with various background objects given a waviness that compliments the wackiness of events. One of the more noteworthy aspects of Gekisha Boy is it's frankly bizarrely dark storyline. David's parents have been killed in a plane crash, leaving David an orphan. The school dean offers him the opportunity to graduate by passing 8 tests - one per stage of course. There's a feeling that it's making light of David's misfortune, though, as we see just how distraught he is at this loss, whilst the dean's character is also portrayed as demanding and unsympathetic. Heck, he even strikes David with a newspaper on the title screen. The sense of humour on display just feels a little twisted. As a whole Gekisha Boy is more than just a worthwhile visit. For me it's a personal favourite, as I enjoy the photography theme a great deal, as well as simple platforming and the in-level humour on display here. This style of gameplay was rarely revisited, with just one sequel, also only released in Japan, although a PAL version was intended at one point. Some of the references could simply have not been included in an international release, so perhaps it's best for the title that it stayed away, but the gameplay concept certainly deserves another visit.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 20, 2023 16:30:00 GMT -5
Beyond ShadowgateDeveloper ICOM Simulations Publisher Turbo Technologies Format Super CD Release (JP) Unreleased Release (US) December 1993 ICOM’s original success came from their Macintosh exclusive adventure games released yearly between 1985 and 1988; although these four games are colloquially called the MacVenture series due to the appearance of this term in some minor contexts, these games never had an official unified branding. Towards the end of this period until 1991, their games started to move beyond the Mac with Shadowgate arriving on Famicom and NES in 1989. The success of this release led publisher Kemco to also port the two earlier games, 1985’s Déjà Vu and 1986’s Uninvited, to the platform although they skipped the final game of the set, 1988’s Déjà Vu II. Of the two companies, Kemco was the one first interested in following up Shadowgate despite its infamous Japanese translation. Six months after the Famicom port, they released their own take on the game. Selection: The Chosen One—released in the US as The Sword of Hope—was the Game Boy’s second RPG and came days after the first, the initial game in Square’s SaGa series. The first game in the eventual duology is somewhat mediocre, but the sequel is vastly improved and a classic on the platform. ICOM took a much longer time to make their official sequel. The adventure side of the company primarily focused on the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective trilogy of FMV adventure games. The first two were released on a number of platforms including worldwide PCE/TG16 CD releases. It instead fell upon the team that worked on action-platformer Shape Shifter to produce a true follow up to Shadowgate. Unlike the text adventure inspired MacVentures, Beyond Shadowgate most clearly takes influence from Sierra adventure games. Its leanings towards light comedy, a cartoony graphical style and use of the royal Prince Eric as main character may point towards King’s Quest, but the game’s somewhat regular combat, lighter puzzle complexity and multiple paths and solutions may indicate Quest for Glory as the real inspiration. That series took a more action oriented turn inspired by Street Fighter II in 1993 which amusingly parallels Beyond’s brawler combat. In some ways, the game is so close to being an actual RPG that it would not be surprising if it was planned as one only to have that stripped out possibly late in development. The overall game world is fairly large and open ended after the linear opening, but many of the screens are empty as if they were intended to be areas where random combat could happen. The three possible endgame solutions also align somewhat towards fighter, wizard and thief paths. There’s even a main town that already includes shops although they only sell puzzle related items. ICOM was purchased by Viacom in the spring of 1993 and became the main in-house developer in its New Media division which was started to create adaptations of their various properties. Viacom clearly wanted to move on from ICOM’s existing projects with only a few ports appearing under the ICOM name in 1994. The small install base of the Duo may have spurred VNM to rein in the game. The result is still an overlooked gem that compares well to its contemporaries, but it’s painful how it seems like the game is on the verge of being something more expansive. More so than other games on the platform, Beyond Shadowgate really needs to be emulated with a filter that properly simulates a CRT screen's fuzziness due to the extensive use of dithering. The colors also seem to take NTSC signaling into account. The green stone and garish hay of the opening room become much more natural looking. MAME HLSL is one of the few good options. One of the game's many filler screens. To its credit, each has a unique description. The volume of text when taking room and item descriptions into account is surprisingly high even though there isn't much dialogue. The game has a strange mix of goofiness and extreme violence beyond that of Yo, Bro. It's genuinely shocking in a game of this vintage and makes this not a game for the faint of heart. Had this had even a reasonable fraction of Mortal Kombat's success, this would have been the subject of Congressional hearings. Early MK has a cartoonish quality to it's violence almost entirely lacking in this game although the hard to see bouncing eyeballs are a little silly.
As part of Viacom, the former ICOM did not last long. During this time, they produced a few 16-bit games early on, but their main achievement was the cult classic adventure game Beavis & Butthead in Virtual Stupidity. VNM itself largely fell into the hype of a large multimedia boom that did not come to pass and closed in 1997. As a result, "ICOM"’s final game ended up being the PC RPG Septerra Core which bridged the closure. The rights were bought by the team, but their new studio, Valkyrie, closed after the release of the game. After VNM’s shutdown, the rights to ICOM’s back catalog fell to semi-successor Infinite Ventures. They partnered with Kemco once again and released a new Shadowgate for Nintendo 64 to a mixed reception. The company otherwise mostly rereleased the existing games on new platforms in addition to consulting work. After Infinite Ventures folded, the rights were acquired by key ICOM designer David Marsh who has since done more rereleases but also a remake of the original Shadowgate. The question threading all of ICOM’s TG16 work is simply “Why?” Most of their exclusives were in a genre foreign to them, limited to the US market and made by overly small staffs which only exacerbated their poor quality. Their most obvious course of action would have been to continue partnering with Kemco who clearly was interested in further MacVenture style games. The only logical answer is that NEC entered into a formal partnership with them just as they had with Cinemaware although for Cinemaware, that arrangement ended up driving the company deeply into debt and destroying them in the process. Considering that their entire TG16 presence lasted barely over two years from first release to last, perhaps the Viacom purchase was a bailout and not a strategic move.
|
|
|
Post by windfisch on Jan 20, 2023 19:53:38 GMT -5
I love reading about the weirder PCE stuff, including the wonderful excelsior guest post. I've tried Gekisha Boy before, but not nearly enough, it seems! Camp California looks exactly like the kind of half-baked, non-Japanese software, that I do get a kick out of occasionally. Presentation-wise it appears to oscillate between skilled and crude.* Gameplay seems similarly uneven, but mostly competent, from what you describe, dsparil . In that regard it does remind me of Realtime Associates' output - from Toxic Crusaders (GB) to Ren and Stimpy (GG). Sometimes it's just nice to play something that deviates from the norm, if ever so slightly, even if, or because, the product as a whole isn't exactly polished. And even though I might've encountered his style before, I wasn’t aware of Nagel. The more you know. Lastly, I do find Beyond Shadowgate's (unfiltered) grainy backgrounds weirdly appealing.
*see also: CD-i Zelda.
|
|
|
Post by excelsior on Jan 21, 2023 0:43:39 GMT -5
Beyond Shadowgate is another crazy expensive one. I've had an interest in it for some time. Sounds like its worth a play.
Since you mentioned it in passing - I always found it weird that Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective was adapted into a video game series. For one, they needed to break down the content of the table top game into several releases. Also, that game doesn't follow any strict rules as you're expected to go about detecting in your own way, taking notes and coming up with your own theories, that hopefully match the actual solution - but the game is in deducing the logic that's not exactly plain to see so you could go off in all kind of directions of thought. The video game version is able to keep the clues, and resembles the table top version in many ways, but it feels much more guided in the information that's available to you, and that you can only finish a case when you're deemed to have the correct information. The multiple choice options for questions given at the end game are the only real way it could be handled, but it feels like such a deviation from how broadly you can interpret things in the original game.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 21, 2023 5:13:37 GMT -5
Gekibo sounds like a weird one. It's sort of shooting gallery style game?
I didn't know the Consulting Detective games were table top originally until very recently. It does seem like a weird choice to make into a marquee series. Supposedly the first game actually launched on TGCD first, but it wasn't specifically designed for it. I've been interested in checking them out for a while, but I've only poked around the first game a bit.
|
|
|
Post by excelsior on Jan 21, 2023 8:50:55 GMT -5
For all intents and purposes it is a shooting gallery game, yes. A bit more simple since developers don't have to concern themselves with things like enemy AI or destructible environments. The scrolling screen is different from most of that genre also
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jan 21, 2023 9:46:44 GMT -5
I remember Gekibo was a frequent target of reviews and commentary on ancient video game websites when emulation was still pretty new and people were interested in finding the weirdest stuff possible. It looks a lot of fun honestly.
|
|
|
Post by excelsior on Jan 23, 2023 12:42:57 GMT -5
Bit of a strange coincidence here but an alternative sequel to Shadowgate, also under the Beyond Shadowgate name just got announced. I guess its intended as a retcon or retelling in the original games style but we'll have to wait for more info.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 23, 2023 14:04:49 GMT -5
The remake from 2015 actually had a teaser for a sequel also called Beyond Shadowgate that was either a remake of Shadowgate 64 or at least inspired by it (same main character and starting scenario). That was actually supposed to be out in 2016, but porting the remake to other platforms, an original project and a VR game got in the way. It's hard to tell if this is still the same game or a new alternate sequel. Funny coincidence in any case!
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 27, 2023 10:08:07 GMT -5
Bonk III — Bonk's Big Adventure (Super CD) Developer A.I Publisher Hudson Format Super CD Release (JP) Unreleased Release (US) December 1994 NEC/TTI had some optimism that the TurboDuo could be a fresh start for the platform in the US. Considering the system’s bizarre limited rollout, that optimism was misplaced. 1993 did have a somewhat regular release slate for the region, about twenty games, but 1994 saw a mere two: A Wonder Boy V port retitled The Dynastic Hero and Bonk III on Super CD. What makes this version so odd is that it is identical to the HuCard and TurboChip release from mid-1993 aside from the addition of CD music and a few mini-games. This puts it more in line with earlier non-Super CD re-releases but those made greater effort to justify a potential double dip. Graphically, the original is no slouch and is one of the few to come out on an 8Mb card, but it is subpar for this format since it does not utilize the larger memory pool. Considering the long gap between this and Dynastic Hero, Bonk III on Super CD feels like it only exists to fulfill a CD duplication contract. The copyright date on the title screen wasn’t even updated! The graphics and environments are more eclectic than the earlier games in the series and look quite good if you ignore other games on the format.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 27, 2023 13:04:11 GMT -5
On this exact anniversary of starting this thread, all the US exclusive games are down. It is a very small group of twenty-one although four also saw some kind of Japanese release and another six are ports. Of the eleven that are left, only Beyond Shadowgate is really recommendable although Order of the Griffon comes close as does It Came from the Desert if you like cheesy FMV games. This is a dusty corner of the library mostly for a reason.
What interested me initially at looking at this grouping mainly comes from seeing if anything can be teased of a regional strategy. Sadly, I don’t think so because there are so few. Everything that has to be said about NEC’s poor handling of the system in the US has been said*, but the small number of exclusives might not be a symptom of that. There’s a lot of games like Cinemaware’s TV Sports series that got a Japanese release when I would not have expected it.
As for continuing, I think I’ll go through the rest of the games in Japanese release order and skip over everything that requires too much Japanese knowledge so most of the RPGs that didn’t get translated. Fan translations do come out sporadically e.g. the adventure game Private Eye Dol got one two weeks ago.
* Short version, the Genesis beat it to market by two weeks so the system never had a chance to establish itself unlike in Japan where it was mainly competing with the Famicom at the beginning. One small idea is that since the CD-ROM² had already been released a year earlier, maybe the US version could have always been a "Duo" at a slightly higher price point.
Way later edit because I noticed this wrong info: The above is the common "knowledge" that I thought was correct, but the reality is that Sega underperformed their own projections with the Genesis in the beginning. It wasn't until Sonic was out two years later that NEC's window was genuinely closed.
|
|
|
Post by excelsior on Jan 29, 2023 6:49:48 GMT -5
This is an even greater commitment! I don't have a clue how you do it, but all the best with it. I really need to borrow some of your energy in commitment when it comes to some of my own projects.
|
|
|
Post by kaoru on Feb 2, 2023 2:50:16 GMT -5
Pia Carrot e Youkoso!!Developer HuneX Publisher Cocktail Soft Format PC-FX Release (JP) May 23, 1997There is exactly one PC-FX game I ever played, and it is the first in the Welcome to Pia Carrot series, back when I was searching for any officially or inofficially (which it is in this case) translated Dating Sim I could find. The game is originally a PC98 eroge and I was surprised to see that the NSFW scenes are still there. Usually console publishers don't like that and have them replaced with more tame alternatives, but I guess NEC/Hudson Soft didn't mind. It's honestly pretty tame by today's standards anyways and tends to amount to one scene at the end of a girl's route. Like most eroge Dating Sims, this one doesn't span several years of high school, but only a final vacation just before graduating. Our dad makes us find a job, and we pick the one at the Pia Carrot restaurant, which is full of girls in their cute uniform. As usual you win them over by spending time with them/giving them the rigth answers during those to raise affection, and also training your stats via activities to become the kind of type they like. Once a week you can schedule your daily tasks at the cafe, which is how both the associated stats rise but also how you might end up at the same station that a specific girl works her weekly shift. You also got a before work time slot that you can use to study for your academics, go out to town to once again run into an off-work girl or you might just call them to try to get them onto a date. A route isn't too long, since the game only spans a few weeks of doing these things, after all the developers want you to work for your nudity but not too long either. Still a pretty cute short term Dating Sim overall. It must have been pretty popular in Japan, as it spanned a dozen other games and a few anime, mostly in the mid 90s to mid 2000s.
|
|