Fray~Xak Gaiden

~ FRAY~XAK GAIDEN ~

Micro Cabin

Super CD-ROM

1994

When I played through this game for the first time years ago, I was completely charmed by it. This was mainly because of Fray herself, who was the most adorable game character I'd ever come across. I found her goofy facial expressions and funny antics extraordinarily entertaining. I've played through the brilliant Madou Monogatari since then, and the incomparable Arle annihilates poor Fray on the adorability meter. But make no mistake about it: I still think Fray is a cool little character, and getting the chance to make her acquaintance should be reason enough for players to give this Xak side story a try.

But if you're thinking about purchasing this disc, do NOT expect an action-RPG in the vein of Ys or Zelda. This game is nothing at all like those titles. In Fray, you walk forward and shoot things. Picture a wacky, cartoony Final Zone II with platforming and between-stage town scenes thrown in, and you've basically got this.

There are also parts where Fray gets wings and takes to the sky to battle airships and demons, not to mention a mining cart ride and a surfboard stage.

But the names of the game are action and shooting, so don't expect much in the way of role playing here.

The graphics are quite nice and colorful, as is evident from screenshots. And if you like the Neutopia boss bunch, you might like the bosses here as well, as some of them are similar to Neutopia's goons but bigger, more colorful, and more charismatic.

What you might not like are the rather sloppy controls. Fray is kind of chubby and limited, and she doesn't play like a superstar when the screen gets crowded or there are tricky leaps to make.

Still, the game is very easy and ridiculously short.

I'd feel better about recommending Fray if it were showing up more often in the $20-30 price range than it is in the $40-50 one. But if you're willing to live with the sloppiness and you're not expecting it to be a true adventure game, you'll likely find it endearing, colorful, and worthwhile.

Mizubaku Daibouken (Liquid Kids)

~ LIQUID KIDS ~

Taito

HuCard

1992

It's easy to make comparisons between Liquid Kids and Taito compatriot New Zealand Story. Both are cartoony platformers that have you collect goodies and defeat baddies that materialize from who-knows-where. Rather than slaying your foes via bow and beam a la Tiki Kiwi, you do your LK dirty work with "bubble bombs," which typically freeze a creature upon contact and render it a convenient koopa-shell-type weapon that can be utilized against its allies.

Levels proceed in every which direction, and as you explore them, you'll want to keep an eye out for concealed entrances to warp chambers, where you may discover a not-so-subtle NZS reference.

LK presents a more aesthetically appealing adventure than NZS. Its music is completely forgettable, which means it's superior to PCE NZS's memorable cacophony. Graphically, it rates better than adequate, nice and bright without any of PCE NZS's tonal missteps.

While well-done visuals and, uh, not completely terrible music are worthy of compliment in light of poor Zealand Story's superficial failings, LK deserves praise mostly for its bosses, who are tricky, cunning, surprisingly dangerous bastards...

...especially the fiery final guy, who doesn't stay down after just one fall, and who would most certainly laugh in the face of NZS's walrus chump.

But while our scorecard reads "Advantage: LK" in most categories in this 'toony Taito rumble, NZS is actually the better game. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I much prefer Zealand's cute kiwi and his neat arsenal to LK's whatever-the-hell-he-is and his freeze bubbles. More importantly, NZS features superior level designs. Sure, the stages in both games proceed in similar fashion and contain similar enemy and obstacle types. But there's nothing in LK that requires as much skill as the toughest and most cleverly planned balloon rides, swimming sections, and spike gauntlets in NZS, and it's NZS that ultimately emerges as the more challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable of the two titles.

The real problem for Liquid Kids isn't that it doesn't quite measure up to New Zealand Story. Both are nice games to own regardless of which one is better. LK's problem is that it can be kind of expensive, commonly appearing with a price tag that reads $40 (or higher... occasionally a lot higher). Any old game related to or derivative of Bubble Bobble, no matter how remote the connection may be, will be of skewed "value." I'm not one of those people who automatically adore such titles, and I don't believe LK is worth nearly what it frequently sells for.

Parodius Da

~ PARODIUS DA! ~

Konami

HuCard

1992

There was a time when the way to resolve an alien-initiated conflict was always evident. Need to exterminate a ring-spitting flock of Moai heads? Perhaps your planet is under attack by a large ship with a soft mid-section. Well then, you call in the Vic Viper, of course. It was a reliable formula that became cliché with the continued success of Konami’s Gradius games, so leave it to the old pros themselves to construct one of the wackiest worlds a spacecraft has ever been hurled into -- a world designed to mock and exaggerate all those concepts that made the company many a friend amongst shooter fans and many a penny in the gaming market. Welcome to the world of Parodius -- a world where even the venerable Vic receives a little bit of help.

Meet the penguin Pentarou, a waddling warrior who wields a devastating spread gun. (The projectiles don’t spread out -- the explosions caused upon impact rise and engulf surrounding enemies.) Twin Bee enters the fray and flings forth his little fists, which are packed cozily within tremendous boxing gloves. Should our allies find themselves outnumbered, their only hope will be to call in Octopus, who commands a legion of miniature multi-armed huntsmen.

Choose any of our four friends and set off on a journey that replaces standard metal-ship mini-bosses with an enormous flying boat that boasts a meowing countenance at its bow. Countless cool touches are applied: funny little bird guys run atop gears to set contraptions into motion, and sudden graveyard downpours occur.

Gradius staples are dressed up in new attire. Moai heads become angry clown marauders who maintain the phlegm-spewing traditions of yore. Huge steel spider things are now enormous, indestructible showgirls. Boss ships arrive with VIVA CORE messages adorning their hulls. And the final showdown is, well, a joke of course, but one that actually makes sense within its context.

Don’t let the oddball antics fool you, however; this is no tailored-for-toddlers blaster. While the cute imagery will undoubtedly endear the game to fans of any skill level, Parodius does contain the standard memorization requirements that can be found in any of its serious-minded ancestors. Taking things a step further, the chip has an unnatural knack for flooding the screen with missiles, enemies, and obstacles, which makes for particularly tricky navigation when one arrives at stretches where the playfield loops vertically or suddenly becomes cramped.

To cope with the chaos, players are granted the traditional Gradius “we give you the icons -- you decide what to do with them” method of strengthening. It’s a reliable system, augmented here by fancy bell icons that provide your hero with particularly powerful abilities. An “instant giant” formula, for instance, allows your newly grown behemoth to smash its way through the enemy armada at will.

Gorgeous backgrounds accompanied by limitless bevies of unique enemies and HUGE bosses make Parodius one of the best-looking HuCard games ever made. The aural section holds up its end of the bargain with quality frantic tracks that occasionally give way to nostalgia-evoking tunes from Gradius episodes gone by.

Parodius stands on its own in a rough-and-tumble genre with fantastically intense action and contains mass-market appeal thanks to endearing superficials. Still, with success already in tow, Konami put in enough effort to make the game ascend to yet another level through so many minor augmentations. From tiny penguins wiping their brows with handkerchiefs after maneuvering a particularly hefty piece of equipment to a gigantic goddess unleashing streams of tears when her army of pig toddlers has been torn to shreds, extra details abound that evoke smiles and force one to give the journey another go to see what else can be discovered in the many nooks and crannies.

Easily one of the greatest chip titles ever released.

Legend of Valkyrie

~ LEGEND OF VALKYRIE ~

Namco

HuCard

1990

As is the case in Fray~Xak Gaiden, here we have a chick who goes on an adventure that plays out sort of like an action-RPG, sort of like a free-roaming shooter, and sort of like a platformer. The biggest knock on Fray is that the cute-but-chunky main character doesn't control particularly well. Valkyrie plays better but still doesn't play all that wonderfully, as platform leaping can feel awkward, and you'll absorb a good share of "questionable" hits.

There isn't much of a "quest" here. Although there are quite a few forks in the road and some secrets to uncover in each area, there isn't any backtracking or town visiting or, really, any thinking at all to do, which may be good news for folks who don't want to contend with a language barrier. You plod around, killing enemies and perhaps picking up some spells and weapons as you go, and beat a boss before venturing to the next area. Very simple.

Occasionally, you'll encounter an NPC who'll ask you a question and provide you with three responses to choose from. These are the only parts where not knowing Japanese can be a bit of a problem, but since there are only three different possible answers, the amount of time spent on trial and error will be minimal. Get a question wrong and you might miss out on a spell or lose a heart or be sent back a ways, but it's never really a big deal.

Even the passwords aren't much of a problem: each is just twelve characters long, a combination of hiragana and letters from our own alphabet. In fact, since the game is so short (a mere seven areas), completing it in a single sitting and not bothering with the passwords at all is a very viable option.

But don't anticipate much eye candy during that single sitting. While the environments look decent enough, they can't compare with Fray's colorful, cartoony boards. And the enemies, while fairly large, are often somewhat fuzzy and ugly.

There are mini-bosses to deal with, but that cast sorely lacks variety: I fought the same dumb "mouth monster who sits in the middle of the screen and spits boulders" more times than I cared to count.

The end-of-stage bosses, on the other hand, are an interesting bunch. Fights with them are sloppy but enjoyable.

Some of the weapons are rather fun to wield, and there's one really cool magic spell that allows you to become BIG Valkyrie and damage everything by stomping on the ground.

But LoV, while an adequate hybrid effort, never really feels very exhilarating, and it gave me nothing that makes me want to revisit it. Fray doesn't play all that well, but it has a very charismatic and adorable main character and lots of funny moments. Valkyrie, on the other hand, contains not a single exceptional element. It's the kind of game that'll do for whittling away an afternoon, but don't expect greatness from it.

Urusei Yatsura: Stay with You and Hudson CD-ROM Ongaku Zenshuu

~ URUSEI YATSURA & HUDSON ONGAKU ZENSHUU ~

Hudson Soft

CD-ROM

1990

Urusei Yatsura is an unspectacular digital comic that fails to impress with either its story or its graphics early on but steps up just enough in both areas during its second half to end up mediocre rather than worthless.

And as we already have a full review posted for the game, that one lengthy sentence will do for UY talk. The package covered here includes an audio disc containing nineteen tracks culled from nine Hudson Soft PCE CD releases, so let's focus on that instead.

If you're interested in only the "good stuff," you might be tempted to skip right to the ten-minute medley of Ys I & II tracks. It goes without saying that the material here is brilliant, but I wouldn't be surprised if people were disappointed with the structure and makeup of the medley. I suppose it was inevitable, given the ridiculous number of incredible tunes the game features, but quite a few great tracks were completely left out, and I'm not just talking about personal favorites here. Count on it: you'll be shocked that certain pieces weren't included in this. Something else I found frustrating (and I imagine there are others who will have the same gripe) is that many tracks are cut off just as they're reaching their strides. And the "Last Moment of the Dark" track utilized here is the one with Dark Fact's monologue recorded over it, which isn't a bad idea, except that this of course is the Japanese Fact, who isn't nearly as awesome or unforgettable as Michael Bell's.

It's kind of strange that I came away from ten minutes of great music with a list of complaints in hand, but that's how it went with the I & II medley, so I expected little from the seven-and-a-half-minute Ys III string that follows it. But III's medley actually comes off quite well. Once again, some good tunes didn't make the cut, but the omissions aren't as egregious as the ones made for the I & II amalgamation. (Granted, III's soundtrack features far fewer "musts" than its predecessor, but I guess that just makes it a more suitable culling ground for quick, effective medleys.) The track progression works extremely well: I expected almost wall-to-wall rock tunes, but focus is instead placed on subtler moments of the soundtrack. (Fear not, headbangers: there are two excellent rockers placed back to back right in the middle of the procession.) The only negative is that the compilers broke my heart by cutting the Tigre Mines track short just as it was heading into its filthy, kickass breakdown.

If you get your Ys fill and you're wondering where to look next for highlights, a trio of J.B. Harold Murder Club jazz tracks might be your best bet. As much positive attention as it has received over the years, and as awesome as some of its basslines are, the opening number is fairly repetitive. The "Investigation Rest" piece, a beautiful tune with lovely piano and horn melodies, is the true star of the J.B. soundtrack. The loungy ending tune is a stylish closer.

The next place to seek out excellence is the triumvirate of Tengai Makyou tracks, which feature a Far-East flavor that so effectively establishes atmosphere for the great RPG. The opening, intermission, and ending numbers featured here all contain numerous segues, transitioning without warning from soothing melodies to more ominous fare to the fast and raucous. They're high-quality compositions, though they do seem better suited for playing the role of atmospheric accompaniments than standing on their own as musical tracks.

You may be at a loss as to where to go from there. A glance at the track list will reveal three tunes apiece from Fighting Street and Monster Lair, two titles perhaps best known for being the first CD releases over here in the US, when absolutely no one was buying NEC's four-hundred-dollar player.

Actually, a lot of people cite the music as Fighting Street's "redeeming feature." I, on the other hand, believe Fighting Street has no redeeming features, and the two tracks I actually like from the game were left out in the cold by this disc in favor of crap like the bonus-stage music. To be fair, listening to the Retsu and Joe tunes outside of the deplorable FS in-game environment allowed me to appreciate neat things that were done with the instrumentation and hear parts that the numbers never had time to reach during play. Not that these discoveries made the tunes great as standalone audio pieces.

As for Monster Lair, its soundtrack is one of those that insist on being weird. Its stage music is chaotic, often taking the form of deplorable racket, but occasionally flaunting odd appeal. The ending tune is kind of bizarre instrumentally but somehow pretty pleasant to listen to.

There are some surprise inclusions on the disc. While Cobra is a very cool digital comic, I don't think anyone would expect it to be a source of material for a musical feature; but its brief opening track is actually a great little composition that stands up quite well on its own. Its ending tune, though, is long and eclectic to an extreme, and while "eclectic" is quite fitting for the game, it doesn't make for good listening.

Mitsubachi Gakuen provides a cheery, upbeat pop vocal. Placed in the unenviable position of following the wonderful Ys III medley, the tune never had a chance to begin with of impressing anyone, but it really isn't bad. The singing won't go over well with all listeners, however.

The two most unlikely and least-worth-listening-to tracks on the disc were pulled from Gambler Jikochuushinha. The "snazzy" opening is pointless, and the number that follows is just plain silly.

If you're going to buy Urusei Yatsura, then you might as well pick up the package that contains the music disc. It used to be that the audio CD's inclusion meant a price three times that set for the bonus-less UY release, but nowadays, we're talking an extra five bucks or so. It's not a fantastic compilation, but if you're buying Urusei Yatsura to begin with, you're probably not in the market for fantastic stuff anyway.

Momotarou Densetsu Gaiden

~ MOMOTAROU DENSETSU GAIDEN ~

Hudson Soft / Summer Project

HuCard

1992

My Momotarou RPG adventures concluded with what's probably the strongest of the three for the PCE. You actually don't play as Momotarou in this one; instead, you control acquaintances of his in three separate mini-quests.

The premises of the three quests are pretty interesting. One is a fairly standard RPG mini-adventure, but another stars a princess of demons who needs to make her way up through the depths of the underworld to deal with beasts that have attacked her island, and the other features a fellow who swipes money off monsters and gives it to fallen mendicants. There's also a bonus quest, a second trip through the money dude's adventure during which you can use a different character (and experience super-fast leveling).

Like Momo Densetsu II and unlike the primitive Turbo, Gaiden gives you groups of enemies to beat up on and multiple playable party members (for two of the three journeys, at least). In fact, at the beginning of the princess's expedition, you can select her allies from a group of odd creatures and monsters. There's still plenty of leveling to do, but the fights are as fast as ever.

The graphics are much better in Gaiden than they are in its crusty predecessors. Battles here have some very nice-looking backdrops. The field visuals might seem only a bit better at first, but you'll notice significant improvements once you set foot in certain dungeons (which feature some fairly well-designed layouts and puzzles).

Most of the enemies are kind of small, but that's okay. The music is not okay, however; it's often annoying, in fact, especially a certain battle tune that has a buzzing bassline.

The gameplay doesn't deviate from the series's simple norms for the most part, but it does deviate a bit from Momo tradition in that your characters earn spells the usual old-RPG way (upon reaching certain experience levels) rather than by passing trials of the old hut-hermits. In fact, this game is more straightforward than the other two on the whole, meaning there are far fewer potential "stuck-spots" here than in II and (especially) Turbo. There are no particularly long or difficult boss battles, either.

I guess II is my personal favorite Momo Densetsu game, perhaps because I played it first and it was a pleasant surprise, and because I really like a lot of the enemy art and find the game funny at times. But people new to the series will almost certainly find Gaiden to be the best, as it's definitely the least primitive (and easiest to get into and complete) of the bunch. It's too bad that Hudson never went ahead with a CD episode, as I believe the designers were really on the right track with many of the ideas they had, and such a sequel might've been like the great Ziria but even better in a lot of ways.