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Post by dsparil on Mar 2, 2023 8:24:16 GMT -5
Pro Baseball World Stadium プロ野球ワールドスタジアムDeveloper Namco Publisher Namco Format HuCard Release (JP) May 20, 1988 Release (US) Unreleased Namco’s Pro Baseball World Stadium is more or less a direct conversion of their earlier Pro Baseball Family Stadium for the Famicom. That version was a massive success with sales exceeding 2 million copies and leading to an American release as RBI Baseball. Part of the appeal is the more TV-esque presentation than earlier games with a behind the batter view for hitting and pitching. Players also have actual names and differing abilities which was also seen as a major advancement. The weakness of World Stadium is that it is a poorer single player game than the original. The major regression is in the AI which is noticeably worse. Coupled with the way all fielders move in the same direction, this frequently leads to bizarre situations where only one computer player is actually trying to get the ball despite being slower than it with everyone else actively running away from it. This isn't an issue in the two player mode, but it does make the question of which version is the best muddier. The batting view is nice as is Family Stadium's and well laid out. The running view is basically the same as every other game of the era. This screen shows the poor fielding AI as only the bottom outfielder is actually going towards the ball. The others are actually running away with one currently hitting the wall. This resulted in an inside-the-park home run which are rare in actual professional baseball, but common in this game. In another situation, I actually got an inside-the-park grand slam which generally only happen once a season due to unusual circumstances e.g. poor lighting not because one player is slower than the ball and the rest are scared of it.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 3, 2023 15:40:29 GMT -5
Power League World Class BaseballDeveloper Hudson Soft Publisher Hudson Soft Format HuCard Release (JP) June 24, 1988 Release (US) December 1989 To call Power League a Family/World Stadium clone is mostly fair. The feature sets are nearly identical as are the field and batting views. A few features were added however such as simple team customization and a diamond display with more information. The real differentiator is the single player AI which is less inept although a touch too good, but they are roughly equivalent experiences otherwise. The players are more realistically proportioned in this game, and the field is presented from the top down. The team names are actually different between Power League (left) and World Class Baseball which unsurprisingly has an international roster. There's a lot of groan inducing puns though like the Peking Ducks or the Moscow Bears with with a player named Vodca. The actual stats for teams in the same position are identical however.
I probably should have posted this and World Stadium at the same time since they are so similar, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has caught any substantial differences. I personally ended up preferring RBI/Family Stadium since the AI is less overtly bad than World Stadium's but a bit easier than Power League's. I also made a few small corrections to World's Stadium's post as I made a few errors in it.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 9, 2023 8:36:46 GMT -5
Sengoku MahjongDeveloper Hudson Soft Publisher Hudson Soft Format HuCard Release (JP) July 8, 1988 Release (US) Unreleased Perhaps feeling that Shanghai filled the requisite Mahjong slot in their launch line up, Hudson took some time to release a true game in the genre. As the title suggests, Sengoku Mahjong adds a Warring States theme to the traditional proceedings. Twelve different warlords are featured as potential opponents each with a different AI when computer controlled. What sets the game apart however is its single player “conquest mode” where the player unifies Japan through Mahjong against rivals. The other warlords have little bits of dialogue during games. At the start of conquest mode, you pick who you want to play as and then battle the surrounding territories and progress though the rest of the country.
The shortness of this entry doesn't quite capture how much time I actually spent with the game, but what mahjong experience I do have didn't quite transfer. Someone gifted my mom a set when I was younger, but those described the Chinese rules which are similar but do have differences including scoring. We also didn't really pay attention to the scoring element anyway since it was the two us playing. Hopefully I'll have a better handle on everything eventually since these are going to keep coming up.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 13, 2023 7:44:07 GMT -5
Pro Tennis World Court プロテニス ワールドコート World Court TennisDeveloper Namco Publisher Namco, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) August 11, 1988 Release (US) December 1989 As a sort of companion to Pro Baseball World Stadium came Pro Tennis World Court. The game features traditional singles and doubles matches with the standard three court types: hard, grass and clay. A selection of different players is available each with different stats that are outlined in the manual. The stand out mode is the single player Quest. A King of tennis land, implying there’s some unseen kings, tasks the player with stopping the evil King of Tennis and reclaiming the land’s tennis courts and the stolen royal treasure. The mode itself is not particularly complex consisting of single game random “battles” and single set “bosses” on the aforementioned courts. Several towns are included with small bits of dialogue, but they mostly exist as places to purchase new equipment. However, the AI cheats and almost always acts with foreknowledge of if the player's shot is going out of bounds. Some of the Quest portraits are quite out there, but the characters lack the strange look in-game. In Quest, Racket is a catch-all for swinging, Shirt controls your ability to reject random matches, and Shoes is movement speed. The stats outlined in the manual for standard modes are more fine grained.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 14, 2023 16:33:52 GMT -5
Mashin Hero Wataru 魔神英雄伝ワタル Keith Courage in Alpha ZonesDeveloper Hudson Soft and/or Advance Communications Publisher Hudson Soft Format HuCard Release (JP) August 30, 1988 Release (US) August 29, 1989 Hudson once again went to the Wonder Boy well for a licensed game but came up dry this time. Sunrise’s isekai anime had premiered a few months earlier and featured a young boy named Wataru who is whisked away by a dragon to save the land of Soukaizan. The show was nearly tailor made for a video game adaptation, but Hudson’s work is mostly uninspired. Each of the seven levels is divided into a Wataru section and a mecha section. Wataru slowly moves through his portions from left to right collecting coins from defeated enemies in order to buy new swords and ammo for the second half of the level. When playing as the mecha, movement is much faster and the levels are more maze-like but there is a blandness to the proceedings. The boss AI also has issues especially the final boss which can fail to activate. For the American market, NEC chose to rebrand the game as Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and use it as the initial pack-in game with the TurboGrafx-16. Aside from a new backstory involving invading aliens told in an accompanying mini-comic, the two versions are essentially identical. Considering that the game didn’t quite capture the comedic tone of the anime anyway, the grimmer American story might be better fitting. As a pack-in, Keith Courage was an odd choice. It still retained enough of the original license to bring Sunrise and the broadcaster as copyright holders. This then leads to why a different licensed game wasn’t chosen. Shanghai feels like a natural inclusion since it was popular on other American platforms and doesn’t feel substantial enough to justify a full retail release two years later. In a way, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones seems like it was chosen only because the name looks good in marketing material. The "upside down" second Wataru level is most imaginative in the game so it's a shame his portions are so short. The mecha stages have some freaky enemies, but there's too much visual repetition. Nurse Nancy (left) was originally Himiko. There's a roughness to the translation, this occurs in the Robo Zone and presumably refers the the conveyor belts, but the fan translation of the Japanese version seems a bit suspect to me.
A note on the title. There's a bunch of different fan variations and Mashin is obvious play on words for Machine. The fan translation turned out to use Mashin Hero Wataru so I went with that. 英雄伝 (eiyūden) seems like a word that should be in a dictionary since it pops up here and there, but I could never find a solid definition; it's literally hero legend and 英雄伝説 (eiyū densetsu) is the Japanese name of Falcom's Legend of Heroes series. Apparently Plutarch's Parallel Lives (a collection of contrasting paired biographies) is sometimes published as 英雄伝 in Japan. Then of course there's the Eiyuden Chronicle series (since the spin-off already came out) which side steps the issue entirely. Personally, I would go with The Legendary Machine Hero Wataru for something "literal" but that's also super clunky. One random thought for a different pack-in is Bikkuriman World but renamed Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. Maybe the licensing combo of Toei, Lotte and Westone proved too expensive or unworkable. MHW had been off the air nearly six moths by the time Keith Courage was out perhaps making Sunrise more amicable to a deal. It's also worth noting that NEC pretty thoroughly trounced Sega in Japan and the Genesis didn't pick up steam until Sonic so they had plenty of opportunity to get a solid footing in the US. In retrospect, Blazing Lazers would have been a perfect choice since it would have been a very recent release instead of warmed over leftovers. In NEC's defense, the genre was only starting to become established on the PCE in 1989 so it wasn't an obvious move compared to the Duo and Gate of Thunder. I'm getting ahead of myself, but The Legendary Axe would have also been a solid choice. It's actually good, has a cool name and was a soft-launch title anyway. The anime also got a Famicom RPG, Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden, which is very good. I started playing it just to have a little taste, and it's basically a proto-"Tales of …". It sucked me in so much I have to finish it. Strangely enough, it is actually a Hudson published game developed by Westone!
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Post by Snake on Mar 16, 2023 11:59:54 GMT -5
Mashin Hero Wataru 魔神英雄伝ワタル
In NEC's defense, the genre was only starting to become established on the PCE in 1989 so it wasn't an obvious move compared to the Duo and Gate of Thunder. I'm getting ahead of myself, but The Legendary Axe would have also been a solid choice. It's actually good, has a cool name and was a soft-launch title anyway. The anime also got a Famicom RPG, Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden, which is very good. I started playing it just to have a little taste, and it's basically a proto-"Tales of …". It sucked me in so much I have to finish it. Strangely enough, it is actually a Hudson published game developed by Westone! I think Legendary Axe would have a been a very fitting pack-in title for Turbografx. Even though the Duo was a bit, too-little-too-late, it came with a very solid set of Gate of Thunder, Ys 1 and 2, Bonk 1 and 2, Bomberman, and Ninja Spirit! Wish I had snagged a box set of the Turbo Duo. I'll have to look for the Wataru RPG, on Famicom. Sounds intriguing. Especially for decades after beating Keith Courage, I'm still waiting for "next Keith Courage adventure" as promised by the ending.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 17, 2023 7:40:39 GMT -5
It's a little surprising that for such a wide ranging series; 3 ~50 episode series, a few OVAs and a currently running manga; Keith Courage is its only US presence. That Gaiden was an FC game is weird to be honest. Westone had already released a TG16 by then although it was a sports game, but it's not like they had zero experience with the platform. Comparing it to Tales is a little generous (no party or tech combos) but the combat is a bit more action-y which keeps it from getting repetitive.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 21, 2023 11:52:43 GMT -5
Alien CrushDeveloper Compile Publisher Naxat Soft, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) September 14, 1988 Release (US) August 29, 1989 Compile and Naxat made their PC Engine debut with well regarded pinball game Alien Crush. Naxat itself had only been founded by parent company Kaga Electronics a few months earlier with this game being their first publishing effort. Compile had already established themselves as primarily a developer of arcade-style games, but they had also made three billiards titles—Lunar Ball/Pool for FC/NES, Champion Billiards for SG-1000 and Parlour Games for Mark III/SMS and later arcade—giving them experience with the general physics. Alien Crush itself was the most graphically impressive home pinball experience to date. The Giger-esque graphics exude a horrific atmosphere unsuitable for a family friendly physical table and contains visual flourishes and gameplay elements impossible to recreate in one. The downside is that the top and bottom are treated as two stacked mini-tables leaving each with only a small handful of gameplay elements. The two table halves do have a stylish appearance, but there isn't any kind of real synergy between them There are at least a variety of mini-games like this one involving hitting skulls and aliens.
I think having some kind of table goals would have gone a long way. This really came off as a bit shallow to me, and that would have given the game some structure it lacks. There's actually a very brief "ending" if the score is maxed out, but I estimate that it'd take around 30 hours or more of continuous play to get that far.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 24, 2023 9:48:10 GMT -5
Crest of Gaia イアの紋章Developer NCS Publisher NCS Format HuCard Release (JP) September 23, 1988 Release (US) Unreleased Over the course of 1987, NCS released a trilogy of turn-based strategy games on the PC-8801 and Sharp X1. The Elthlead games would go on to form the basis for the Langrisser series. Unlike the later series, the original games are firmly in the table top wargaming tradition from which computer turn-based strategy sprung. The first game, simply titled Elthlead, features a continent scale map with groups of units moving between fixed locations before clashing in traditional small scale maps. Although the games do not use hexes, the use of squares in staggered columns give a reasonable approximation. The second game, History of the Elthlead War, received a PC Engine release (as did the third game in 1990) retitled as Crest of Gaia. The game drops the grand strategy in favor of a series of twenty five maps tied together with a minimal but overt storyline. These are playable in two modes: a selectable Scenario mode and linear Campaign mode. The main difference is that Campaign mode allows the player to choose their units using points gained and lost based on their performance in the previous mission while Scenario uses fixed unit deployment. It also allows for player control of the enemy side with one or two human players and even includes a set of five fanciful missions about a modern military unit transported to the game’s world. Finally, there is also a Construct mode that allows for the free selection of units for both sides on any of the game’s maps. The first mission in Scenario mode also includes a whole bunch of civilians that aren't present in Story. The modern units in the extra missions feel like a reference to traditional wargaming. The manual actually lists out their complete stats too like every other unit, and the fan translation adds in the ability to enable them in Story and Construct modes. Crest of Gaia uses the same world map as Elthlead (MSX version here), and is "retelling" of the same events.
The title can either be Emblem of Gaia or Crest of Gaia, but the fan translation goes with Crest maybe to avoid any Fire Emblem comparisons since it came out later. The name of the computer version is Elthlead Senshi (war history), but the first two games got a later Sharp X68k port as History of Elthlead. Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War goes by Senshi in Japanese so a spin on that seems fitting. It's a shame that the hex-like layout never became popular. It's such a simple and elegant alternative to hexes, and Game Boy Wars is the only other series I can think of that uses them. I'm sure that anyone that's played even a single grid-based strategy game has gotten annoyed by the diamond-shaped ranges and how much diagonal range gets lost. NCS solved that problem right out the gate, but they didn't even keep using it past the third game in this trilogy. Also, if you want to play as the enemy in Scenario or Construct mode, you may need to use the player two controller even if the other side is set to the AI. I'm not sure if this is an emulation issue due to every controller always being "attached", but that's what I had to do to test it out.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 29, 2023 4:47:03 GMT -5
Demon Realm Legend — The Legendary Axe 魔境伝説 The Legendary Axe The Legendary AxeDeveloper Aicom Publisher Victor Musical Industries, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) September 23, 1988 Release (US) August 29, 1989 Aicom’s early classic, The Legendary Axe, seems like it was destined for western release, and it did end up being one of the three commercial releases at the TG-16’s soft launch alongside Victory Run and Alien Crush. The game takes on the sword and sorcery milieu popularized by series like Conan the Barbarian and presents a story of a warrior returning to his home village to save a childhood friend from a demonic cult. This takes the form of five primary action-platforming stages with the fifth being a procession of mini-areas organized into a maze. The eponymous axe can have its power upgraded four times with attack strength tied to a quickly recharging bar. This tweak makes the game a bit more deliberate than others of its type as the game goes on. The main disadvantage of the game's use of western tropes is that it sadly also follows the rather drab aesthetic that tends to follow. This isn't always the case as these bright green blocks demonstrate, but the overall game isn't much of a visual treat despite detailed graphics.
In some ways, Victor doesn't get enough acknowledgement. They were a rather workaday publisher, but they were one the system's major publishers especially on the CD side. Their problem was that they didn't publish anything in the US despite being a subsidiary of a multinational company JVC. NEC seems to have scooped up the US rights for what did get an American release relegating them to the copyright notice on the title screen.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 1, 2023 7:33:21 GMT -5
Sadakichi Seven: Hideyoshi's Gold 定吉七番 秀吉の黄金Developer Sofix Publisher Hudson Soft Format HuCard Release (JP) November 18, 1988 Release (US) Unreleased Sadakichi Seven marks the first adventure game to appear on the platform. As the title alludes, the game is James Bond inspired. The player’s secret much stop the villainous organization NATTO from stealing Lord Hideyoshi’s secret cache of gold. Gameplay is in the menu-based style popularized by Portopia Serial Murder Case. The dialogue is quite heavy on kanji usage marking it as a game for an older audience, and also one that’s a too challenging for beginning language learners. The graphics are nice at least.
Sorry for the delay on this one. I tried for a while to come up with a good solution to translating the text automatically. Ultimately the issue is that OCR works very poorly for low resolution Japanese text and no amount of upscaling helps. I mainly tried Tesseract since it seemed like the most mature open source project, but that was a total failure. The fancy AI driven version 4 and 5 actually worked worse than more traditional techniques of version 3! That one was at least able to recognize that there was text in my entirely text sample (although only small fragments were correct) which the newer ones couldn't do at all. At least it works great if you're trying to extract high resolution text.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 4, 2023 8:39:04 GMT -5
Fighting StreetDeveloper Alfa System Publisher Hudson Soft, NEC Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) December 4, 1988 Release (US) December 1989 Capcom has not completely forgotten the characters of the original Street Fighter, but the actual game has been left in the dustbin of history for good reason. While it did introduce the modern special move, all of Ryu’s traditional set started here, it’s also a difficult to play mess with unfair AI. The full story of its development sheds some light on the particulars. In short, Capcom prioritized the the high margin cabinet which used large pressure sensitive pads over the actual game which had limited production time and a main programmer with experience in a different field. The cabinet ended up being a colossal flop and was retooled in a modestly successful version that debuted the six button control scheme that became the series standard. Alfa System’s strangely titled port of the game was one of the two launch titles for the CD-ROM² in both Japan and the US. It’s more or less the original game but with a CD soundtrack and some gameplay tweaks. The game is much easier to actually finish compared to the arcade game although at the low end it seems actively broken e.g. the opponent will sometimes jump back and forth endlessly. It adapts the six button scheme to the system’s single pair by making attack strength vary with the length of the the button press. However, they did not make special moves any easier to pull off. Perfect rounds are much more likely in this port. In some situations, you could even just stand in one place mashing one of the attack buttons. Sagat on the other hand is a challenge but a manageable one. I don't know what he's like in the arcade game since Adon always destroys me in seconds.
Polygon has an oral history of the original Street Fighter. I hate that format, but it has some lesser known information. Estimates for how well the original pressure sensitive version sold vary from a few hundred to 2,500 and 10,000 to 50,000 for the six button. It spends a weird large amount of time on bad blood between SNK and Capcom which seems to mostly have been due to animosity between the heads of the two companies, but the actual employees were much friendlier with each other. At this point, seven of the twelve total fighters have made playable appearances. Ryu, Ken and Sagat are of course series mainstays with Adon, Birdie and Gen making various appearances in the Alpha series, IV and V. Eagle is the odd one appearing in Capcom vs. SNK 2 and the GBA and PSP ports of Alpha 3 only. That leaves Retsu, Geki, Joe, Mike and Lee. Retsu was supposed to make a playable debut in Capcom Fighting Evolution but got cut along with Eagle and SF1 era Sagat, but is fairly well integrated in the backstories of various characters. Geki was pretty much written out of the story and is dead according to supplementary material. Mike obviously morphed in M. Bison / Balrog so there isn't much reason for him to return. Lee has a few minor mentions in connection to Chun-Li but basically doesn't exist anymore either. That leaves poor Joe, the absolute most forgotten character. A blonde American kickboxer with no real distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. If Capcom really want to mess with people some April Fool's Day, they should make a fake annoncement for a new game starring him.
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Post by spanky on Apr 4, 2023 13:03:40 GMT -5
I think the closest thing Retsu has to an official reference is this art by Bengus where he's beating up Dan.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 5, 2023 9:53:11 GMT -5
He shows up in a stage background in SF6 so that's a step up! I'm not deep into the SF lore, but his entry in the official character guide mentions some things that I think originate in the SF comics which is probably where he ended up having the most prevalence even if it was still minor. There's somehow hundreds of entries in the guide, but it includes stuff like a robot that only showed up one time in the US SF cartoon. I guess everything is canonical in SF.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 6, 2023 10:28:57 GMT -5
No・Ri・KoDeveloper Alfa System Publisher Hudson Soft Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) December 4, 1988 Release (US) Unreleased Shigemi Yoshida née Tanimoto began her career as a child actress at the age of six. After close to a decade, she adopted the stage name Noriko Ogawa and went on to have a string of top 10 hit singles in the late 80s. Capitalizing on her recent rise to fame and roughly timed with her fourth single, Hudson released No・Ri・Ko as the second CD-ROM² launch title. The game has the player take Noriko out on a chaste date after a concert which mainly takes the form of a series of mini-games interspersed with dialogue. Since it is really less of a game and more of a multimedia experience, No・Ri・Ko is ultimate let down by the earliness of the hardware. The CD-ROM²’s System Card bumped up the system’s memory mainly for the purpose of streaming CD audio making FMV a dream yet to come. Because of this, the game has to make do with grainy still images paired with high quality audio. This is forgivable considering that it was released on the literal Day 1 of the eventual CD revolution, but this still makes for a jarring combination. This "music video" set to her first big hit "Kowareru" gets around the lack of FMV by adding some dynamism to the stills and their composition. Most of the game looks like visual novel with static photos though. The pixel art elements tend to simple but they're a minor element overall.
I'd say Noriko Ogawa was primarily an actress who also had a good multiyear run in the music industry but maybe wasn't a long term superstar. Brandy is probably the closest US equivalent. It's hard to find an exact comparison since a lot of the people that have the most similar trajectory e.g. Britney Spears and several of her co-Mouseketeers or Ariana Grande, transitioned away from acting rather than continuing to do both in equal measure.
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