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Post by dsparil on Nov 14, 2023 7:56:23 GMT -5
Mahjong Academy 麻雀学園 東間宗四郎登場Developer Sankindo which may have been a division of Face Publisher Face Format HuCard Release (JP) November 24, 1989 Release (US) Unreleased
In addition to giving the system its first original shooter with Hanii in the Sky, Face was also responsible for another first. The arcade derived Mahjong Academy was not only the first officially licensed eroge on the platform but potentially the first on any home console. Academy mode provides this content via a series of one on one matches, but it also intermixes lighter fare and fist fights with teachers. A second fantasy tinged story mode is also available where Japan must be reclaimed from eight bosses with each prefecture having its own match. Strangely, the game was also released with a Face Video Special VHS titled Baachan Rakuen. Mahjong does make an appearance in this thirty minute comedic short film, but it otherwise has nothing to do with the game and was merely a marketing gimmick. What’s truly interesting about Mahjong Academy is not its PC Engine incarnation but the arcade game. Yuga released the original in 1988 which proved to be a big hit moving more cabinets than Ghouls ’n Ghosts from the same year. A sequel quickly followed which was later rereleased by Face themselves. None of this is particularly remarkable except for one key detail. Mahjong Academy is in fact a Capcom game. In the late 80s, Capcom was on the verge of bankruptcy. Developer Yoshiki Okamoto clandestinely initiated the project and brought on artist Akira Yasuda and programmer Takashi Aoki. Once it was completed, Capcom refused to release it themselves but did permit the game to published under Yuga’s banner. Whether Capcom still had involvement in further derivatives is hard to tell. It might be a stretch to say that Mahjong Academy single handedly saved the company, but their 1988 release slate was unusually thin and the cash infusion would have helped in any case. Opponents have varying "health" and they get quite low in the story mode. Hanii makes a cameo appearance during power up selection. On the low end, the visual content is very proto dating sim.
For anyone interested, Baachan Rakuen is available on YouTube. The manual also has some interesting info on Face. Apparently the had a magazine, fan club and openly solicited game pitches. I was hoping that the manual would shed some light on the subtitle, Tōma Sōshiro Tōjō, but it does little more than confirm that this is a reasonable transliteration of it. It might simply be Tōma Sōshiro Appears, but this leads to the question of "who is Tōma Sōshiro" which the manual does not answer. For the Capcom angle, the three key developers have all confirmed this account at this point. I didn't want to spoil this weird surprise in the other thread, but this is a game that dovetails with the eroge as necessity angle.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 16, 2023 10:41:04 GMT -5
Self-Centered Gambler School CD — Everyone's Assembled!! 36 Player Fierce Fight ぎゅわんぶらあ自己中心派 CDだよ全員集合!! 激闘36雀士Developer Game Arts Publisher Hudson Soft Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) November 24, 1989 Release (US) Unreleased Masayuki Katayama made mahjong his speciality as a player, parlor owner and manga artist. His twin series Super Zugan and Self-Centered Gambler School are credited with a greater embrace of the game by younger generations. Super Zugan was initially the more popular of the two and was the only one to receive an anime adaption, but the more hardcore sibling had a longer tail. It should come as no surprise that a popular mahjong manga would produce a long running series of video games. The PCE edition was the fifth in what would eventually became a fourteen game grouping with most but not all coming from Game Arts. On PCE, the game is the second four player mahjong game which gives it a leg up over its 1989 rivals, and the wide variety of opponent characters taken from the manga gives the game an appeal to fans of the property. However, the licensing is a double edged sword as the comparatively high difficulty makes it a poor choice for less experienced players. The cast of characters is very unique ranging from main character Mochisugi and his eternal cigarette to inexplicable pop culture inclusions like ET. The actual game is fairly staid. In addition to standard free and tournament modes, there is also a mysterious Octopus Battle mode using this map; the octopodes in question being the "villains" of the manga. Unlike similarly titled modes in other adaptations, it's completely unclear what you're supposed to do and winning six games in a row in a single location didn't do anything. The manual doesn't seem to be online and there's no video footage of this mode either making it impenetrable.
A note on the title, it's a bit rough since the title is so long, but Self-Centered Gambler School does seem to be what the series is normally called in English. Like I implied above, this specific adaptation seems significantly more obscure than others. Game Art's website doesn't list it despite including the other eight adaptions of the manga they made. The series as a whole isn't really that obscure as the Mega Drive game from 1990 was included in the MD Mini 2. I'd like to think the Octopus Battle mode is actually a full story mode, but I have my doubts.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 20, 2023 14:32:53 GMT -5
Bari Bari Legend バリバリ伝説Developer Taito Publisher Taito Format HuCard Release (JP) November 29, 1989 Release (US) Unrelased Shuichi Shigeno’s award winning manga Bari Bari Legend began in 1983 and ran until 1991. It is in essence a motorcycle themed precursor to his much more famous Initial D and follows a similar plot trajectory. Main character Gun Koma begins as a high school student and street racer and eventually becomes a professional first in Japan then as a competitor in the world Grand Prix. It’s in this final portion that Taito’s game takes its inspiration. The manga itself is a light window dressing with the 1989 Grand Prix getting the real focus. All fifteen of that year’s races are included along and the names of some of the real world racers. Tracks are tackled in their real order along with a final sixteenth track based on the historical Circuit No. 3 at Buenos Aires’s Autódromo Oscar y Juan Gálvez. It’s also the first game to use actual brands in trackside signage giving it a greater air of verisimilitude. The specificity does have some downsides. Key among them is that sticking to the original schedule produces a very uneven difficulty, and the extra track doesn’t act as a grand finale. Additionally, the game doesn’t feel quite finished as if Taito had to have the game released before the end of the year. Several elements like bike customization, opponent AI and general physics could have used tweaking and expansion as if they didn’t get enough testing. Bari Bari Legend does capture the differing feel of motorcycle racing compared auto racing, but it is otherwise a fairly middling experience despite some positive aspects. However, on a platform that’s only seen two other good choices, being mediocre still gets to the rostrum. It's nice that there is some element of customization and modeling of weather, but it's simplistic overall. The really bad typo for Intermediate is indicative of the game's lack of polish. On the other hand, no "Hor-boro" here! There's a surprisingly large number of real brands that appear with tracks having different mixes.
There isn't really a good translation of Bari Bari which is obviously an onomatopoeia. バリ is used for a number of different sounds. I think something like Rip-Roaring Legend is closer to the intention. Wikipedia "claims" it's Vroom Vroom Legend which is so wrong and a little childish that it wouldn't be surprising to find out it was outright vandalism.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 24, 2023 6:10:02 GMT -5
USA Pro Basketball USAプロバスケットボール Takin' It to the HoopDeveloper Aicom Publisher Aicom, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) December 1, 1989 Release (US) March 15, 1990 USA Pro Basketball is a minimal take on the sport, but it’s minimal to the point that it’s missing significant elements. For instance, the game simply does not include free throws. Possibly more egregious is that the sole defensive option is a finicky steal making the game a dull back and forth; technically, dunks may be blocked but the timing is so exact that it might as well not exist. The eight fictitious teams do at least have varying player stats, but the overall game seems like someone’s interpretation of basketball based on a dictionary definition. What is perplexing is that Aicom was in the midst of a flurry of basketball releases. Two years prior, they had developed the generally more full featured Great Basketball for Sega. Although it has plenty of its own problems ironically including the inability to steal, whatever success it had lead them to release no less than five more basketball games on four platforms in 1989 and 1990. Four of those five, USA Pro Basketball included, are largely similar to each other. The fifth, American!! Pro Basket / All-Pro Basketball, at least differentiated itself with a vertical orientation. It’s hard to believe that all these games got the attention they needed despite their similarities. The PCE sadly got the least love, fewest features and not even the best graphics. The colorful graphics are the game's sole positive. Hawaii unsurprisingly has never had a professional basketball team although I'm sure some players wish there was one!
The nicest of Aicom's basketball games is probably Basketball Nightmare on SMS from earlier in the year. Graphics aside, it and USA Pro Basketball are the most similar to each other out of the four, but the shortcoming are a lot easier to swallow when you're playing basketball against werewolves, vampires and other fantasy creatures.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 28, 2023 13:35:14 GMT -5
Bull Fight: Champion of the Ring Bull Fight リングの覇者Developer Cream Publisher Cream Format HuCard Release (JP) December 8, 1989 Release (US) Unreleased Short lived developer Cream made their rather inauspicious debut on the PC Engine with boxing game Bull Fight. Like too many games, it marries an interesting concept with poor implementation. The game features two modes, Champion (arcade) and Fighter (story), both of which are ultimately let down by the poor quality of the boxing itself. Despite greater complexity than Digital Champ, the game has a similar Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots quality. The AI is somehow both unrelenting and mindless in equal measure during a match making them feel like they come down to luck more than anything else. It’s nearly impossible to get anything than the longest range punch in, but the AI will sometimes just keep walking into it without blocking. Other times, the AI will stun lock the player and drain most of their stamina in a moment or two. The story mode also stands out for the secondary failing of its interstitial brawling sections. Although it has the aesthetics of Vigilante, the gameplay in spirit and practice bears more in common with Hudson’s execrable The Kung Fu / China Warrior. The stages are short enough to feel pointless and simply replace the minor training element of arcade mode with a shop that sells stat upgrades directly. Bull Fight is not the absolute worst game the platform has seen, but the margin is not especially wide. The boxing matches have commentary, but also some graphical weirdness. The knives flying at you in Fighter's brawling sections feels straight out of The Kung Fu.
This, Digital Champ and Champions Forever do seem to be all of the system's boxing titles. Champions Forever is a bit dry and bland, but it is at least passable which is more than can be said about the other two. Andre Panza Kick Boxing is the only truly good combat sports game on the platform though. Its only failing is that it's hypothetically better on other platforms, but it is otherwise excellent. Cream will show up again a few more times hopefully with better games. This was the only title they self published though, and perhaps the lack of a publisher providing oversight led to the game's issues.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 30, 2023 10:35:41 GMT -5
ShinobiDeveloper Dual Publisher Asmik Format HuCard Release (JP) December 8, 1989 Release (US) Unreleased While the later Genesis Shinobi games have arguably overshadowed the original, it was a major arcade hit in its day. The gameplay is simple with the eponymous shinobi Joe Musashi throwing shurikens, using melee attacks and occasionally casting magic in service of rescuing hostages and stopping the terrorist organization Zeed. Considering its success, Shinobi was ported to a multitude of systems, but sadly the PCE port is one of the poorer ones. Outside of ports to higher end computers, the PCE port does have the best graphics, but that’s all it has for positives. Simply put, the game is extremely cut down. The second stage has been removed entirely a rather critical omission considering the full game only has five. In addition, the gameplay itself is degraded with bonus stages, power ups and even melee attacks missing entirely from the game along with a few enemy types. The lack of melee attacks has subtle but impactful implications for the difficulty which is artificially raised without them. Like many straight ports, there is little reason to revisit this particular version of the game. Of the contemporaneous ports, the Mark III / SMS port is both the first and the best as it tweaks the game for the home environment. In 2020, the Switch also received a direct port of the arcade game under the Sega Ages brand which includes the obligatory tweaked Ages mode along with other extras. Either of those is the best option nowadays except in the US where the Switch port was mysteriously delisted towards the end of September 2023. Most of the game takes place in modern environments, but some more natural and traditional areas are mixed in. The first phase of the second/third boss is a wall of enemies in other versions, but it was changed to a parade of them instead. Lest anyone think this was a positive change, each individual one has more health and it's just as tedious as in any other version.
There's no official announcement of the Sega Ages version being delisted so it's potentially a mistake. I noticed it wasn't available, and the only other reference to this is a thread on Nintendo Life's forum from last month. Deku Deals shows it as being available until some time between 9/26 and 9/28. Some retailers are still selling download codes, but it's a mystery if they'd still work. A single Reddit post says yes, but buyer beware.
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Post by dsparil on Dec 5, 2023 11:01:30 GMT -5
PC Genjin PC原人 Bonk's AdventureDeveloper Red and Atlus possibly subtracting to A.I Publisher Hudson, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) December 15, 1989 Release (US) April 15, 1990 With PC Genjin, the PCE finally gained something resembling an actual mascot aside from the personifications of distressed HuCards found in Japanese manuals. Although the series did essentially become the platform’s Mario, the gameplay leans much more towards action than platforming. The title hominid’s attacks all come from his head either from jumping up, forward hits or dive bombs enhanced by eating hunks of meat. In this regard, the gameplay bears more in common with some fantasy action games with the sword replaced with a massive cranium than anything seen in the Mario series. In the US market, the retitled Bonk’s Adventure was as much of a hit as the system could muster. Considering NEC’s many unforced missteps with the TG16, it is open question whether Bonk could have truly turned the system’s fortunes around like Sonic did for the Genesis a year later. Bonk did at least give the system some positive press in the region, and the game’s overall quality was enough to sustain a series across the entire 16-bit era. It almost goes without saying that Genjin more or less means caveman, and the game does lean heavily into the ahistorical but popular juxtaposition of primitive humans and dinosaurs. There's a lot of fun and sometimes cutely grotesque graphics. The wall climbing mechanic gets little use though despite the detailed sprite.
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Post by dsparil on Dec 5, 2023 11:39:43 GMT -5
When trying to find any development info on Bonk (I surprisingly found none), I came across an interesting retrospective covering the system's difficulties that Gama Sutra (now Game Developer after its defunct sibling magazine) published in 2014 for the TG16's 25th anniversary. There's a lot of good information and interview material there. The short version should come as no surprise. The US branch of NEC was hamstrung by the Japanese branch, and there were plenty of people that wanted to do all the really obvious things that never happened. What I find interesting specifically is there's actually some real system sales estimates. For the system's launch NEC produced about 750,000 units but never sold all of them. Total sales were about 550k to 650k before the system was discontinued and leftover stock got sold in Brazil with CD support removed. Victor Ireland of Working Designs fame estimates that there were only 20k CD units sold and 20K Duos. The remains Duo and TurboExpress stock got sold to specialty reseller Turbo Zone Direct. They only ran out of Duos in mid-2003 and the Express in 2004!
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grad
Full Member
Enlarge my avatar, yea or nay?
Posts: 129
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Post by grad on Dec 7, 2023 1:07:09 GMT -5
What a treasure trove of information. I never even knew the origin of Keith Courage's name. It's also interesting that a production run of 750,000 units was considered huge at the time.
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Post by excelsior on Dec 7, 2023 2:39:14 GMT -5
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Post by dsparil on Dec 7, 2023 8:53:59 GMT -5
I'll have to check that out sometime. I stand by all my criticism of Far East of Eden (stale gameplay, inconsistent CD use), but I'd assume that the text having its original flavor is nothing but beneficial.
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Post by dsparil on Dec 7, 2023 10:55:21 GMT -5
This is Pro Baseball '89 これがプロ野球 '89Developer TOSE Publisher Intec Format HuCard Release (JP) December 15, 1989 Release (US) Unreleased TOSE and Intec return with the initial entry in the eventual Pro Baseball franchise, the first game on the platform to include real teams and players. Intec itself was founded in 1964 as an outsourcing and data processing company and continues to focus strictly on business services. Despite this, they did dabble in the PCE market along with two later SFC titles. As such, a stock market “simulation” is unsurprising, but someone at the company must have had a passion for baseball to make the series five of their thirteen games. Going along with their pedigree, This is Pro Baseball ’89 is mainly a management simulation rather than a traditional sports title. Although it is presented in the same manner as any other game in the genre, the player is the manager of the team with a variety of suggested actions for the players which are largely controlled by the AI. It is possible to directly control a player during batting and fielding, but attempting to control every player when batting is a clunky process involving repeated trips into the game menu. Due to its hands off nature, This is Pro Baseball ’89 is more a game for people that yell at the TV during a game and possibly may want to pretend to be a favored player. The availability of the entire Japanese pro league is a major plus if only for the better team logos, but anyone that finds baseball more fun to play than watch is better served elsewhere. Both views are typical, and the currently controlled player get a little marking indicated which pad using being used for them. The system's full suite of five controllers is supported. In Pennant mode which can be 70 or 130 games, a single player can get a bit of training between games. A backup unit is luckily supported as the passwords are comically complicated 120 character affairs with hiragana, katakana, Latin characters and numbers.
Intec had a core team of clearly credited in-house developers a bit later on so it'll be interesting to see how things progress over time including games in other genres. It's less clear if this team existed for this specific game or the sequel as the credits are mainly pseudonyms or for Double Buy Stock Game which appears to have no credits at all.
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Post by dsparil on Dec 12, 2023 7:39:30 GMT -5
Red Alert Last AlertDeveloper Shin-Nihon Laser Soft Publisher Telenet Japan Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) December 15, 1989 Release (US) January 1991 Telenet’s Red Alert, retitled Last Alert in the US, seems to be most remembered for its poor English dub, but it is without a doubt a genuine classic. This largely comes from how well it fuses a Stallone or Schwarzenegger style “one man army” with a globetrotting plot more akin to James Bond. The game largely plays like a more frantic and forgiving Bloody Wolf with an RPG element that gradually boosts health and seamlessly adds new weapons. The storyline is what sets it apart with a variety of environs across its nearly two dozen levels. The Japanese release is essentially faultless for what it is attempting to do, but the US release does have its dub as a black mark. There’s no getting around its generally mediocre quality especially in light of its intrinsic American appeal. This holds back its successful nature as a playable action movie with even the runtime of one. Despite this, Red Alert in either incarnation remains a compelling experience. Not that this is secretly a goofy game, but the faces on the snowmen in the mountains set portion is a nice touch. There's also the mandated shootout at a fancy reception. Most levels are simple action, but there are a handful of hostage rescue missions. In a few places you also have a choice of mission order.
The article I linked to mentions that NEC wouldn't pay some figurative pennies to license the rising Pete Sampras presumably for World Court Tennis only for him to win the US Open in 1990. That same attitude feels to have infected the dub here. Getting some real big names would never have happened, but some recognizable names could have made this a real shining star in the US.
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Post by excelsior on Dec 12, 2023 10:26:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I really liked this one, though I think it's a bit underappreciated amongst Engine fans.
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Post by dsparil on Dec 21, 2023 8:00:26 GMT -5
Ys I & II イース I·II Ys Book I & IIDeveloper Alfa System Publisher Hudson Soft, NEC Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) December 21, 1989 Release (US) May 1990 Falcom’s Ys series almost needs no introduction. Initially released for the PC-88 in June 1987, the first Ys was deliberately designed as an easier and gentler game than other RPGs of its time with an emphasis on story over complex gameplay. That story introduced Adol Christin, an intrepid and (mostly) pure-hearted adventurer who finds himself in the center of world changing events time and time again. T&E Soft’s Hydlide from December ’84 is generally cited by outside observers as the game’s inspiration, but this does not quite paint the full picture. Ys does have a clear influence from it and shares a contact-based combat system, but it should be seen as further refinement of a formula that started with The Tower of Druaga from mid-1984 which used a button to hold out a sword for ramming into enemies. Hydlide turned the hold into a toggle and added stats and enemy facing as combat factors. Ys took out the button completely then added in off center vs. head on attacks as an additional advancement. Falcom has said that the game’s genesis came from a desire to transform their adventure game Temple of the Sun — Asteka II into an RPG; its later Famicom and NES release as Tombs & Treasures added in minor RPG elements of its own. They have specifically citing its overhead exploration as an inspiration. They also experimented with modeless contact-based combat in October ’84’s Dragon Slayer beating out T&E by a few months. As such, Ys can be seen as more of a pastiche of Falcom’s own projects with Hydlide merely being a sprinkling on top. For the CD-ROM², Ys I & II was one of the marquee titles. By the cusp of 1990, its narrative aspirations were less remarkable than they may have been in mid-1987. However, the game more than makes up for it with the full combination of its fast gameplay and music. Unlike other games that mainly stuck to CD audio as the main enhancement, Ys I & II has the benefit of of having an all time great soundtrack. In this case, prioritizing music over cutscenes doesn’t come across as a cheap choice. In the US market, Ys Book I & II is one of the best remembered games for the system and certainly the best remembered RPG giving the slim pickings. It helps that the game’s small amount of voiced dialogue is done well enough to escape being an overshadowing object of ridicule. It was also one of the pack-ins for the TurboDuo further heightening its profile despite the system’s low sales. Considering the overall series’s sporadic presence in the US until relatively recently, the TurboCD edition was the best version of the game to see an official English release for several decades. Whether Ys I & II in any region is still the best version is a different story however. After some ports and a minor remake, Falcom expanded out the duology with the Eternal versions in 2000 and 2001 which roughly remained the basis for future remakes. The US would finally see a new edition after nearly twenty years with Ys Legacy for DS but that also switched the game to a standard action-RPG unless using the finicky touch screen controls. However, 2013’s Chronicles+ for PC, itself an update of a PSP exclusive remake, is in essence the definitive version barring aesthetic preferences as it only tweaks the original’s combat. The game isn't really much of a looker, but it does have its moments. The large graphics look nice too. The US release includes a choice of font including an inexplicable Art Nouveau option.
Where's my Ys X: Nordics Falcom 😤
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