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Post by dsparil on Jan 30, 2024 19:14:19 GMT -5
Gaiflame ガイフレームDeveloper NCS Publisher NCS Format HuCard Release (JP) January 26, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased NCS’s Elthlead trilogy saw its conclusion with Gaiflame originally released in late 1987. Set four thousand years after Elthlead, the game kept the staggered grid of earlier games but was otherwise a fairly radical departure. The changes can be summarized as enhancing the grand strategic elements at the expense of the immediacy of the original. However, NCS also expanded the story element and gave protagonist Elvin Lambert a more active role than his Elthlead equivalent. Perhaps sensing that they may have gone too far in revamping Elthlead, the PC Engine version of the game sticks much closer to its predecessor’s Risk-like fundamentals and enhances them. Since the game still centers on Elvin, he has the option of investigating an area’s map and talking to people inside buildings. He also collects Gaia Crystals found randomly while moving which gradually increases the pool of available spells. Unit construction is also expanded with upgraded unit types gained through time and new unit types through claiming enemy areas. In addition to the general gameplay, the world map even goes back to looking more like Elthlead's than the large full continent seen on computers. Minus the sci-fi theming, the combat looks like Crest of Gaia's but with large attack animations. One genuine regressions is that the scenario-based nature of Crest of Gaia allowed it to have better map designs than the more utilitarian ones here. Exploring maps is a bit tedious since every building has someone in it, but only one or two spots per map have any real dialogue.
A note on the title: Sometimes this game is called Gai Flame, Guyframe and even Guy Frame. I suspect that this is all because the PCE version does not include the name in English unlike the earlier versions where it is clearly given as Gaiflame. The justification for Guyframe that I've seen is that the robots are frames that look like a guy??? That seems very silly to me. As far as I can tell the PC-88, PC-98 and Sharp X-1 version is much more obscure than this one which isn't super well known either. In the original Elthlead and this game, you pretty much just start and deploy a few pre-built units. In the computer Gaiflame, you have to go through numerous spartan menus making all sorts of decisions before you're really in the game. Even with the high res (and easily Google Translatable) scans of the X-1 manual on Archive.org, it was just too much to fiddle with. In a way, it is like the later Langrisser III in making too radical a change only to walk that back the next available opportunity.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 2, 2024 19:00:12 GMT -5
Mahjong Assassin Chronicle — Mahjong Wars 麻雀刺客列伝 麻雀ウォーズDeveloper Nihon Bussan Publisher Nihon Bussan Format HuCard Release (JP) February 16, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Nihon Bussan is more associated with the Sexy Idol Mahjong series from later in the system’s life, but their first for it was the family friendly Mahjong Assassin Chronicle. It features a standard one on one mode against a small pool of opponents, but the main draw is the RPG mode. It is similar in concept to ones in Pro Tennis World Court / World Court Tennis and Final Lap Twin but strengthened in implementation to be a true RPG rather than something RPG-like. The player has been tasked by the Japanese Mahjong Association to stop the eponymous Mahjong Assassins who have made it impossible for everyday people to enjoy the pastime. The game has all the standard elements of an RPG with levels gained from winning rounds and HP lost by losing them. Beneficial spells are gained with levels, and there’s even a party system. However, a single round of mahjong is longer than a single tennis game or a quick race and more mentally taxing than either. This makes the game well oriented towards mahjong fans looking for a change of pace, but it might be too much mahjong for everyone else. The game looks pretty much what you'd expect for a mahjong themed RPG set in the modern day.
I found a reference to this game having a game breaking bug when you get to Okinawa, but there's not a whole lot of information beyond that. So beware of that if anyone decided to give this a try.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 6, 2024 8:11:01 GMT -5
Super VolleyballDeveloper Micronics Publisher Video System, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) February 7, 1990 Release (US) September 1990 Super Volleyball is both the first in a small series of volleyball games from Video System and the first volleyball game on the platform. Despite being ported by Micronics, the game is quite close to the arcade original. It lacks some of the graphical flourishes (and the spike landing indicator making the game harder) but makes up for it with the addition of custom teams. It is however slightly odd playing in any version. Chief among them is that it doesn’t quite match up with actual volleyball. Teams are ostensibly six on six, but only four players are usable with a dedicated fifth player purely used for serving. Additionally, only the middle player is directly controllable with the front three mapped to the I button for both blocking and returning shots. These quirks aside, Super Volleyball is the only option for indoor volleyball, and it can be enjoyable if a bit simplistic. One regional difference is that the team colors are different and make no sense in the Japanese version. This match up is the US vs. USSR in that order in both versions. There still are some nice graphical touches like ball animations that give the game better dynamism than it would otherwise. The Rabio Lepus shoutout is original to the arcade game.
Despite being from 1990, this is actually quite late for a Micronics game as their 90s output is very thin. I'll soft defend them as getting their act together at some point, and this is after that point. They also made a Genesis port which allows for swapping players mid match, but the arcade game doesn't allow for that so I wouldn't knock this port for lacking it.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 15, 2024 10:49:03 GMT -5
Flying Trooper X-SERD 飛装騎兵カイザードDeveloper NCS Publisher NCS Format HuCard Release (JP) February 23, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Released only a few weeks after Gaiflame, Flying Trooper X-SERD is closer to the modern conception of the console tactics genre than the Elthlead games. It drops the wargaming influence and instead adopts a framework very similar to Fire Emblem which would see release a few months later. There is a commander unit that must be protected at all costs, your carrier/repair ship here. New SERD units are gained over time and have permadeath although the small unit count of eight and greater unit differentiation makes unit loss more devastating. The only real drawback is the short length of ten maps although objectives do vary beyond simply defeating the enemy. More interesting than the game is the staff. Director Toshirou Tsuchida would later become the driving force behind Front Mission. In this regard, the game is best seen as a stepping stone to that fuller mech series. His strategy work for the company which consist of X-SERD, its Mega Drive sequel Vixen 357, and NCS’s Macross strategy game for PCE may not seem to be of the same lineage, but the same can be said of Elthlead and Langrisser. These games and X-SERD in particular gave Tsuchida the experience to design a more realistic and detailed game and successfully pitch it to Square and turn it into a long running series. The game starts out on Earth before moving to space in the second half which brings some mild gameplay changes. Despite being the title unit, the Χ-SERD isn't especially critical. It does however have a Macross-like fighter mode that gives it extreme mobility at the cost of attack power. Unlike the Elthlead games, you actually can see enemy HP and how attacks play out.
A note on the title: The X is actually a Greek Χ (chi) which is more evident from the Japanese spelling of the title. Total speculation on my part, but Tsuchida's split with NCS must have been fairly acrimonious as he never mentions his work there in interviews. It was fairly extensive despite only being there until 1993 or so. His first game was on the original Shockman but he also did work on various other games included several of their shooters. He left Square in 2011 for mobile developer GREE although he seems to have only stayed briefly before bringing back G-Craft. He's been a little under the radar since leaving Square, but he most recently did design work on Mistwalker's Fantasian.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 19, 2024 8:34:07 GMT -5
The NewZealand StoryDeveloper Aisystem Tokyo Publisher Taito Format HuCard Release (JP) February 23, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Like most of their PCE releases, Taito’s The NewZealand Story is an arcade port originally from 1988 in this case. The game sees the oddly yellow kiwi Tiki rescuing his kidnapped friends across twenty very maze-like levels divided into five sets of four. None of this is especially remarkable except for the game’s emphasis on airborne vehicles with nearly every level requiring their use. This gives the game a unique character beyond that of a cute but sadistic platformer. On the other hand, the PCE port is an imperfect way to play the game. The graphics are fairly close to the original, and it has every level aside from some special ones from later in the game. What makes the PCE version lesser than others is a strange change to the vehicle mechanics. Rather than allowing free movement, the game instead uses odd grid based movement. Considering that the game’s many spike mazes where not designed with this in mind, the difficulty is inflated well above the baseline. This is somewhat of a moot point however as the original arcade game is part of the Arcade Archive series. Only the Mega Drive / Genesis version is still worth playing today as it is based on an unreleased prototype version with some larger than usual levels in the beginning. Seemingly every port is missing a small minimap noting the location of the exit. Considering the minimal utility of the map, this isn't a huge loss.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 24, 2024 5:59:46 GMT -5
Woman of the Hokutosei — A Kyōtarō Nishimura Mystery 北斗星の女 西村京太郎Developer TOSE Publisher Naxat Soft Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) February 23, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Kyōtarō Nishimura was an extremely prolific author. Towards the end of his life, he joked that he’d like to have written six hundred and thirty-five books to have one more than the Tokyo Skytree is tall in meters. Considering he was close to six hundred at the time, he not only achieved this facetious goal but also went beyond it having completed six hundred and forty-nine novels and short story collections before his death in 2022 at the age of 91. Nishimura wrote in multiple genres at the start of his career, but he largely focused on mysteries and popularized the “travel mystery” starting with 1978’s Sleeper Express Murder Case. Although he did personally enjoy trains, the prominent place of this mode of travel was driven largely by publisher demand rather than his own desires. In a 2015 interview, he had cited a return to historical drama as one of his never realized projects. Naxat’s Woman of the Hokutosei is based upon Nishimura’s popular Inspector Totsukawa series although not on any particular novel. The title Hokutosei is unsurprisingly a then new rail line connecting Tokyo to Sapporo in northern Hokkaido. It is emblematic of the split focus on the two cities, but it also makes appearances in the game. Developer TOSE was no stranger to the genre having developed two previous Nishimura games for the Famicom (and an eventual fourth for the 3DO) plus Nintendo’s Famicom Detective Club duology. As such, the game doesn’t break any new ground in the detective adventure format, but that’s not necessarily a negative for fans of the genre. Being a CD game, there are large screen cutscenes, but most of the graphics are not especially impressive.
For one of Japan's most successful authors, Nishimura doesn't have much English language representation. All I could find is one novel (The Mystery Train Disappears), a full short story collection (The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories) and two entries in short story compilations (Ellery Queen's Japanese Detective Stories and Old Crimes New Scenes.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 29, 2024 8:29:56 GMT -5
Tiger RoadDeveloper Advance Communications Publisher Victor Musical Industries Format HuCard Release (JP) February 23, 1990 Release (US) October 1990 Originally released to arcades in late 1987, Capcom’s Tiger Road is a reasonably good action-platformer, but one of their lesser games. In it, the monk Lee Wong battles across five multipart levels in service of rescuing a group of captured children. Although the game was designed by Ghosts ’n Goblin’s director Tokuro Fujiwara, the difficulty is much more humane with a health bar, frequent checkpoints due to the short level chunks and no penalty when dying. The game was ported to numerous western computer platforms, but Victor Musical Industries and developer Advance Communications were responsible for the sole console version. Their game is less of a port and more of a quasi-sequel taking inspiration from Capcom but with a cartoony art style and new levels. The PCE game is perhaps even better than the original in some ways, but the vaguely similar art style invites comparisons to SonSon II which do the game no favors. In arcades or on PCE, Tiger Road is an almost flawless game. The problem being that its sole flaw is a lack of ambition. It’s a perfectly fine way to spend an afternoon, but there’s little reason to return to it once the credits roll. Considering the nature of the PCE version, it was certainly a hugely missed opportunity to not build upon the game’s fundamentals. Every boss except the first was kept. The wall climbing first boss was replaced by an aquatic monster that is both easier and less interesting. This version has a bit more of a mythological slant, but the flying sections were in the original. Between each level is a bonus portion which grant health increases and eventually access to your long range Tiger Power. However, the two platforming challenging were replaced with duplicates of the other two.
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Post by excelsior on Mar 1, 2024 4:47:10 GMT -5
Generally, I like Taito's work on the PC Engine. They did some really nice ports. The NewZealand Story is not one of them.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 5, 2024 10:37:01 GMT -5
Blodia TimeballDeveloper Now Production Publisher Hudson Soft, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) February 23, 1990 Release (US) July 1990 The enigmatically titled Blodia began its life as Manuel Constantinidis’s Diablo originally for the TI-99/4A computer. Considered one of the best games for the platform, Diablo is a puzzle game in which a ball slowly moves across a dense network of tracks on sliding tiles racking up points for how long the player can keep the ball in play. The general structure bears resemblance to Konami’s train-themed Loco-Motion which was released in 1982 to arcades, but this is most likely a coincidence. That game saw its sole contemporaneous US release in late 1983 for Intellivision which may have been a result of Diablo’s success rather than the other way around. Over the course of the mid 80s, the game saw similarly structured ports for many western computer platforms. In the late 80s, Bruderbund Japan started starting releasing a new variation of the game for Japanese computers. Still titled Diablo, this version moved to a pure puzzle format. Each level must have all of its track covered by the ball with points being a byproduct rather than the goal. By the time of the PCE release, the game had its syllables swapped, but otherwise remained the same. Aside from pure puzzle aficionados, it's the Famicom's Blodia Land that may be the most playable today as it adds cute dinosaur theming, a world map and power ups to the game. The game isn't much to look at sadly. The title screen for all the Japanese versions feature a background in the style of the original game which is a nice touch.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 8, 2024 10:05:26 GMT -5
City HunterDeveloper Flight-Plan Publisher Sunsoft Format HuCard Release (JP) March 2, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Tsukasa Hojo’s City Hunter originated as a manga in the pages of Shōnen Jump. It ran for nearly a full seven years starting in early 1985 and ending in late 1991 and stars the lecherous urban mercenary Ryo Saeba. During this time it spawned nearly two hundred manga chapters, over two hundred television episodes spread over seven series, and numerous movies both animated and live action, theatrical and made-for-TV. It even found its way to the stage with a musical which ran for a few months in 2021. Given the series long term popularity, it may come at some surprise that it only received a single video game adaptation. However, Sunsoft’s plainly titled game does the property great disservice. A choice of three levels is initially provided with Ryo exploring mazes of corridors populated with mostly inoperable doors. Those that do open may lead to yet more corridors, an empty room or more rarely, a character that yields some kind of key or item unlocking an unmarked door. All the while, the player is attacked by simply dispatched enemies and the occasional uncomplicated boss. Once the first three levels have been completed, the excruciatingly labyrinthian final level becomes unlocked. Considering that developer Flight-Plan had only been established a scant five months prior to the game’s release, it is unsurprising that the game came out the way it did. Sunsoft simply wanted a quick and cheap project out the door before the series’s initial wave of success faded. Its long term legacy may been in seemingly dissuading Hojo from ever approving another game aside from Ryo’s inclusion in crossover fighting game Jump Force and its upcoming sequel. An example of the game's lack of care is this enemies's graphical corruption during its run animation. The game does include two types of traps, but only in this visual "theme" reused for part of the first level and all of the third.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 15, 2024 12:03:35 GMT -5
Mystery of the Masquerade 謎のマスカレードDeveloper Riverhill Soft Publisher NCS Format HuCard Release (JP) March 2, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Although not a household name, Rika Suzuki is a pioneer of the mystery adventure genre. She started her career in the games industry as cofounder of Riverhill Soft in 1982 along with some of her friends. Inspired by Roberta Williams’s Mystery House (or perhaps Micro Cabin’s clone), she chose adventure games as her genre of choice. A few years after Riverhill’s founding, they released Murder Club, the first game in the JB Harold series. The Japanese public was quite taken by the Tennessee detective giving the company their first hit. After a few entries in the JB Harold series, Suzuki had an urge to create a game set in Japan. The resulting game, The Amber Will, was inspired by a combination of her own interests and a bit of nudging towards the historical from her parents. Set in 1921, the game sees detective Tōdõ Ryūnosuke investigating the murderous poisoning of the wealthy Yamagami family's patriarch who died right as he was to name his heir in the midst of a costume party. The general gameplay is fairly similar to Suzuki’s later Hotel Dusk with Tōdõ investigating the family’s mansion and questioning its inhabitants over the course of five chapters. The resulting 1920 Series only saw two releases during Riverhill’s existence; offshoot company althi would later release two more. However, in anticipation of the sequel, Riverhill and NCS brought over the first game retitled as Mystery of the Masquerade which oddly also renamed Tōdō to Enjin. Sadly, the graphics take a large hit on PCE with a smaller room view, a lack of superimposed character graphics and substantially less detail in general. Although not generally a detriment to the genre, Riverhill took great care to include detailed depictions of period appropriate objects so the lower resolution robs the game of some of its original appeal. There's nothing inherently wrong with the graphics, but they are substantially better in the original computer versions.
While this game does not have any English translations official or otherwise, the X68k version of the sequel (which is set on a trans-Pacific ship) does include an English option. I didn't play through it, but that's something to check out for anyone interested in some 1920s sleuthing.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 20, 2024 7:16:41 GMT -5
Sōkoban World 倉庫番 World BoxyboyDeveloper Media Rings(?) Publisher Media Rings, NEC Format HuCard Release (JP) March 16, 1990 Release (US) October 1990 The idea of Sōkoban, puzzles based on pushing boxing into predetermined spots, is so simple (and so extensively copied) that it’s almost a surprise that it did not always exist. Designed by Thinking Rabbit’s Hiroyuki Imabayashi and released at the cusp of 1983, the game was originally made for the popular Japanese 8-bit computers of its day. For such a widely spread game, it made the slightest initial showing in the console space releasing only for the SG-1000 and as one of the five commercial games for Epoch’s failed Game Pocket Computer. From the late 80s, the game started to spread both onto western computer systems with its original name and onto consoles. Japanese releases kept some variation of the Sōkoban name, but localized versions all went with some kind of box theme such as Boxxle on Game Boy and Shove-It! The Warehouse Game on Genesis. Sōkoban World or Boxyboy does have one advantage beyond its more varied graphical themes. Unlike other versions that give no undo or for only one move, this version’s is effectively unlimited at 1023. The cute graphics and numerous themes break up some of the long term monotony across hundreds of puzzles.
Small note on the English title: it's sometimes spelled as two words, but it's clearly listed as Boxyboy in the manual. The undo limit is not documented anywhere, but I just had to know what it is. I guess it's not a full 1024 because it's storing your position not the moves which takes out one.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 26, 2024 8:21:57 GMT -5
The Genji and the Heike Clans Demon Attack Legend 源平討魔伝Developer Now Production with(?) Namco Publisher Namco Format HuCard Release (JP) March 16, 1990 Release (US) Unreleased Fought between the Taira (a.k.a. Genji) and Minamoto (Heike) clans from 1180 to 1185, the Genpei War was a pivotal conflict in Japanese history. Instigated by the Taira in an attempt to cement their power, it instead ended with their total defeat at the Battle of Dan-no-ura. The ascension of the victorious Minamoto no Yoritomo as the first ruling shõgun in 1192 brought nearly seven centuries of control by the samurai. In 1986, Namco released to arcades their action-platformer Genpei Tōma Den which was eventually given the partially translated name The Genji and the Heike Clans when released overseas as part of Namco Museum Vol. 4 for PSX. Taking place in 1192, the Taira samurai Kagekiyo is risen from the dead and must journey across Japan to defeat Yorimoto and the demons that have brought him to power. The gameplay is reasonably complex for the genre. It features dozens of stages with multiple paths through the game. The perspective is mostly zoomed out but occasionally switches close up for boss battles and even overhead. Slight RPG elements are also present with upgradeable health, weapon durability and a need to find and collect the three regalia of Imperial Japan for the upgrades they provide. The game proved to be a big hit for Namco and was well regarded in Japan; less so in the west where the historical elements were less recognizable. The game received few ports however, first to the X68000 computer and then the PCE for the game’s sole console port. Although the game had good graphics for 1986, by 1990 they were both still too much for a console and a bit dated which does not pair well with the poorer graphics. The gameplay does come through completely intact however with some minor gameplay adjustments. The standard graphics aren't the greatest. The zoomed in graphics are relatively nice though. Kagekiyo first starts out in the underworld and also fights historical figures like the warrior monk Benkei here. The historical Taira no Kagekiyo was captured but not killed at the Battle of Dan-no-ura and only died in 1196. On the flip side, Benkei died in 1189 while fighting the forces of Yorimoto. The overhead stages are vertically wrapped although this aspect isn't used in all parts of the stages. There's also some joke stages with messages from the staff.
I think this is a solid action game overall, but I personally think it's a little messy. I can see why it was so popular, but I recommend using a walkthrough since the progression is so elaborate. Namco actually produced a nine minute short film advertising the game! As always, a note on the title. I think Namco didn't end up fully translating since there's no way to really get it into English without being super long and a little clunky. The Tōma Den is roughly translated as Tale of the Demon's Demise in the description of the video above which is close enough although the full The Genji […] tacked on the front doesn't quite work. I think the military connotations of 討 (tō) is echoing back to the Genpei War so maybe this should be Genpei War of the Dead 🙃.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 28, 2024 11:59:03 GMT -5
Golden AxeDeveloper Telenet Japan Publisher Telenet Japan Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) March 16(?), 1990 Release (US) Unreleased As previously covered, Makoto Uchida has had a long career with Sega. Stunningly, it is his second game that rises to the level of classic of classics. Everything about Golden Axe is iconic from its visceral Conan inspired fantasy action down to the smallest level details. The game’s sole flaw is in the somewhat garish colors some palette swapped enemies possess which clashes with the overall muted look. It is even without having to be compared to such excellence that Telenet’s port of the game is an unmitigated disaster. Their trademark cutscene work is almost nowhere to be found being limited to unique intros for each character and two barely tweaked cutscenes at the end. The graphics are poor, the hit detection is off, the controls are buggy and the interstitial journal entries are occasionally completely corrupt. To top this all off, the two player mode was dropped taking away the game’s sole potential avenue for fun. It’s a bit of a mystery why this port turned out the way it did. The most likely cause is that much of the staff down to the voice cast was also tied up with the soon to be released port of Telenet’s RPG Death Bringer. Golden Axe was probably meant to be a quick project to cash-in on a popular arcade game only for them to produce was is certainly one of if not the most sacrilegious port on the system. The graphics are way below what the system can produce. You also come face to face with this between levels once in a while. It's possibly an emulation issue, but so much of the game is shoddy in general that it doesn't come off as one.
There was at one point an attempt at a homebrew port (by people capable of doing it), but that seems to have faded away.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 3, 2024 8:00:23 GMT -5
Final Zone IIDeveloper Telenet Japan Publisher Telenet Japan, NEC Format CD-ROM² Release (JP) March 23, 1990 Release (US) November 1990 Telenet’s Final Zone was originally released for a trio of Japanese computers in 1986: the PC-88, Sharp X1 and MSX. It is a fairly simple top down action game albeit one with greater than usual narrative ambitions. Each version has its own quirks and mild differences e.g. only the MSX has proper bosses. However, the common denominator is each of the system’s struggles with the game's vertical scrolling and difficulty quickly rendering main character Haward Bowie, his two selectable squadmates and the unceasing hordes of enemies. In 1990, Telenet produced a sequel which surprisingly kept the numeral in the US. Although it is not as much of a failure as its predecessor, it is instead an unambitious and generic which may be even worse. Rather than the squad mechanic of the original, the game uses a more traditional selection of characters per stage each with a different secondary weapon and generally a different primary one. Aside from this, there isn’t anything particularly remarkable aside from the exceptionally atrocious English. In all ways, the game compares very poorly to Last/Red Alert which was released very close to it in both Japan and the US. By 1990, a story heavy action game was no longer unique, and the game lacks the length, more advanced gameplay and visual variety of its sibling. Final Zone II is not awful, but it also has nothing truly recommendable either. The games does have a greater sci-fi element than the first game which is fairly grounded. The jetpack in one level is essentially cosmetic, but Velder's laser sword is a little quirky at least. There's also a vertical shooter stage as the genre had become firmly entrenched on the platform by this point.
If for some reason you want to try to original Final Zone, I recommend the MSX version over the PC-88 despite the significantly worse graphics; I could only find videos of the game on X1. The difficulty is significantly fairer, and squad mates can't permanently die.
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