Dead Moon

~ DEAD MOON ~

Natsume

HuCard

1991

Unlike, say, Gate of Thunder, Dead Moon isn't the sort of shooter that I can play and enjoy at any given time. Instead, it's a game that I'll power up only after spending a few years away from it. Once I do return to it, I inevitably find myself surprised at how enjoyable it is and proceed to soar through it three or four consecutive times. It's kind of sad, though, that once I wrap up those three or four trips, I always feel I've had my fill and can go three or four more years before giving the game another look.

DM has a lot going for it, including nice music (the intense melody that Scene 3 kicks off with is actually the sort of tune I'd expect to hear in a Castlevania game) and beautiful backdrops that feature stunning parallax. It also boasts a solid control scheme (aside from the requirement that the action be paused for ship-speed adjustments, but those aren't really necessary), post-stage play data, acceptable weapons that all come in handy, consistent pacing with hardly any dead space, and stage environments that connect up logically.

But there are two problems: the enemy armada is rather lame, largely consisting of nondescript "shapes," and there's nothing unique to speak of--no cool power-up system, no interesting theme, no memorable boss fights. The game's most distinct element is the automatic "about-face" that your ship performs when a boss decides to switch sides with it--not exactly the trump card you'd expect from an exceptional shooter.

Indeed, Dead Moon isn't exceptional. It's merely a good game that kinda lacks its own identity.

Here's a harsh contrast for you: the attractive multilayer backdrops and the all-too-basic enemy designs.

The skeletal bosses are a little more interesting than their "balls and blocks" henchmen, but fighting with fossils eventually gets a bit dull.

The midbosses are traditional pieces of machinery, the likes of which you can find in any ol' Gradius clone.

The weapons are serviceable. There's nothing at all original about green waves, red rings, and blue lasers, but at least here they look pretty cool and all have their useful moments.

Forget the "turning around during boss battles" stuff; the coolest thing about Dead Moon is that its levels connect up logically. For instance, your ship descends into a lake at the end of Scene 4, and then Scene 5, logically enough, takes place underwater. This might seem insignificant, but sensible level progression was often considered unnecessary in old-school-shooter game design.

At the end of each round, your kill stats are presented for a bit of extra fun (and a lot of bonus points).

Space Harrier

SEGA/Dempa/NEC Avenue - 1989 - USA
HuCard

The immortal, timeless Space Harrier. Space Harrier was 3D video gaming before polygons. It's also possibly the most inspired and ethereal game ever created. It blows my mind that Space Harrier is not cited more often than it is in discussions regarding revolutionary video games.

You are a nameless "Space Harrier," defender of a realm known as Dragonland, part of the aptly-named Fantasy Zone. Equipped with a jetpack and rocket launcher, it is your sole duty to extinguish evil and restore peace to Dragonland. Run, fly and blast your way through 18 of the craziest, most colorful and lush stages you'll ever experience. Space Harrier is an "into the screen" third person affair that has the "camera" following close behind our hero.

Straight away, I'll say I'm shocked Space Harrier isn't ever used as a demo piece for what the core TG-16 hardware was capable of in it's early days, on a mere 4 meg cart. Space Harrier was my first ever game for the system, pack-in aside, and I was mesmerized by the graphics growing up. The game suffers very little in it's conversion from the arcade original, despite having been released early in the system's cycle. The biggest casualty, hands down, is the checkerboard groundcover that is curiously missing. At least they substituted a colorcycling floor that matches up with the current level's theme. Another oft-cited flaw is sprite "shrinkage" the game suffered in the arcade transition. I actually don't mind this so much-- if anything, the shrinking is minimal, and it effectively makes the camera take a "step back" so you can see more of the landscape and enemies on screen. Last and certainly least is the scaling. Seeing as the arcade had dedicated scaling hardware, and the TurboGrafx does not, it's no small wonder the scaling suffers a bit. What's somewhat surprising however, is how good they actually made it, considering it's all done in software. To get the gist of what I'm talking about, play a stage or two of the Genesis port of Space Harrier II and then play a stage or two of Space Harrier on the Turbo.

One of four SEGA SuperScaler games ported to the Turbo (the others being Outrun, Afterburner II, and Power Drift), Harrier is no question far and away the best. There isn't a whole lot to the gameplay; dodge, shoot, repeat. But what Harrier lacks in strategy it makes up for in pure, unadulterated fun. The variety in flora and scenery from stage to stage is unmatched. You'll go from plains to cities to ruins to weird fungal formations and never see the same landscape twice. I'll be damned if Space Harrier doesn't utilize every single color in the Turbo's color palette and then some.

Enemy design is intricate, with some of the coolest dragons, creatures and bosses you'll ever lay eyes on. Here are four of my favorite bosses from the game:

Twice during the game you'll reach a bonus stage where you holster your rocket launcher and ride on one of the few remaining "good" dragons of Dragonland to collect bonus points.

Sound effects are reproduced faithfully, as is the music. Some of the boss tunes are just fantastic, particularly Ida's tune in stage 2 with the stereo effects. The regular in-stage tune is presented in four or five different variants throughout the game and is pleasant enough without really being spectacular either.

It's no secret that Space Harrier is my favorite game of all time. The Turbo port goes down in history as holding the crown as the best home port for many years until the SEGA 32X & Saturn arcade-perfect versions were released in the mid-late 90s. Every Turbo owner who doesn't have a copy of Space Harrier in his or her library is only doing themselves a great disservice.

Jack Nicklaus' Turbo Golf

~ JACK NICKLAUS' TURBO GOLF ~

Accolade

HuCard

1990

This isn't even close to being the complete piece of trash that everyone makes it out to be, but I can see why it receives so many beatings; it practically begs to be hated in a lot of ways. The most offensive element by far is the slow redrawing of the course that takes place in between shots, and at first I really thought I'd despise the game due to this one issue, as play seemed unforgivably slow and tedious. But even though I don't exactly have the patience of a saint, I actually grew accustomed to the methodical redraws after just a few holes. I use the seconds spent on them to survey the terrain as it pops into view, and the "wasting" of time here isn't as annoying as the multiple delays that afflict almost every shot in Power Golf 2 (which people never seem to come down hard on). Get over that aspect and you'll still need to accept the blocky, somewhat Atari-like course graphics and hideous color choices; and the lack of music during play certainly doesn't make matters any more exciting. But the gameplay actually isn't that bad at all: driving is standard-but-solid stuff, and the putting system is fairly challenging and rewarding. The game plays better and boasts far better course design than Power Golf, for sure. Of course, beating out one of the worst HuCards ever and its so-so CD sequel is nothing to brag about, and Fine Shot Golf on Human Sports Festival is still far and away the PCE's golf-game champ in my book; but JNTG, believe it or not, is actually a pretty respectable title.

With its blocky graphics and ill-advised color choices, JNTG looks more like an old computer game than it does a mighty TG-16 title.

Putting can be fun and rewarding. It feels great to sink a long one.

Take it easy while the "beautiful" scenery is drawn in.

You'll need to use the "overhead" view to get a good idea of where you should go with your shot, as it's often difficult to tell anything about the course from the ugly main playscreen. But as long as you're competent enough to hit the ball straight ahead, you'll usually be fine (unless you set the difficulty to "Expert," but screw that).

I mean, I paid very little attention to what I was doing, yet my scorecard still looked all right at the end of the day.

Cadash

~ CADASH ~

Taito / Working Designs

HuCard

1991

While I do consider this hack-and-slash adventure title a quality product, I've never quite been able to shake the feeling that it's a bit of an underachiever. Of course, to be an underachiever, a game has to have a lot going for it in the first place, and this one certainly does. As a kid, I was drawn to it by its many attractive visual elements (the large enemy sprites and vibrant waterfall scenes in particular), and I still think its graphics are superb. I also think its unusual music, which boasts a distinctive tone and undergoes many abrupt tempo changes, is very cool and memorable. It has fairly high replay value, as it allows two players to participate in the action simultaneously and provides four different warriors to choose from. And plenty of neat ideas went into the design of the adventure: you have to miniaturize your character to gain admittance to a village of gnomes, for instance.

But something about Cadash's gameplay has never felt quite right to me. The collision detection is slightly off, and while the game isn't hard, it seems cheap and unrefined at times. The lack of a save feature also hurts: while I can abide routine experience-point garnering, I don't find the idea of enduring multiple grind sessions in a single sitting to be particularly appealing. And I know the title originally resided in arcades, but I can't help but wish the journey were grander and lengthier than it actually is. Still, with all of that being said, the chip is worth buying and playing for its positive attributes.

Unlike the blasphemous Genesis version, Turbo Cadash allows you to select from all four of the original characters.

Find a comfortable spot and start leveling up.

Once you've had your fill of grinding, you can get around to doing cool stuff like visiting a trading outpost run by mini-men and escorting a merwoman back to the sea.

The bosses are quite imposing, but you'll have no trouble thrashing them if you level up enough.

If you shrink yourself down to their size, the gnomes will receive you with open arms...

...but you won't be treated to such a warm welcome in every place you visit.

Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu

~ JACKIE CHAN'S ACTION KUNG FU ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard

1992

A lot of Turbo owners are very fond of this game, but I've never viewed it as anything more than a slightly above average platformer. There are mellow tunes, appealing visual elements, and a wide variety of bonus rounds to enjoy as Jackie kicks and jabs his way through a strange, cartoony realm, but the stage strips are too hit or miss to add up to a good experience on the whole.

The second level's lava section features great action the likes of which the game should offer more of. You contend with fire birds, flame serpents, flying eyeballs, rocks that crumble beneath your feet, strongmen who shake the ground with their staves, and sorcerers who hurl fireballs your way, all while dealing with the actual platforming and avoiding the lava itself. But then comes Stage 3, in which you make a tedious ascent on slow-moving platforms while evading fat fish and other such riffraff before embarking on a mess of a rapids ride.

The feast-or-famine nature of the affair drops it to an action-gaming tier lower than the level on which its finest moments suggest it should reside. Playing through the game has its rewards, but the idea of making return trips is never very enticing, as the feeling of wasted potential lingers.

Lots of cool enemies reside in Stage 2's fiery caverns; but Stage 3, with its routine platforming and sloppy river ride, is a low point.

The final stage is the most erratic of the bunch, as it features lots of nice ideas at work (a playfield-shaking giant and a contingency of dragons populate stretches not to be forgotten) but also contains plenty of unnecessary platforming sequences that drag it out for what seems like an eternity.

The bonus rounds are fun, simple kick-and-leap-based ways to rack up continues and keep Jackie in good shape.

The silhouette effect looks really nice. I think an even cooler unexpected element is the bird swooping down and snatching fish from the lake.

The giant pink cyclops is the game's signature villain. The enchanted frog isn't quite as memorable.

Don't expect technique-driven martial-arts showdowns here.

Formation Soccer Human Cup '90

~ FORMATION SOCCER HUMAN CUP '90 ~

Human

HuCard

1990

I considered the '92 episode of FSHC to be the weak link of the otherwise enjoyable Human Sports Festival, so I wasn't expecting great things when I worked my way backwards and visited its predecessor. Well, said predecessor is pretty much the same game; and while it isn't a train wreck and doesn't look terrible, it doesn't offer the greatest playability either (as the cumbersome control scheme has you press Run to switch players and select teammates to pass to), and its music is incredibly annoying and repetitive.

This is one of those games that make me wonder how people felt after actually paying full price for them back in the day, as there's very little that goes on in it. Even the most rabid of soccer fans were probably hard pressed to find much to like about the effort. Thank goodness the 16-bit era eventually delivered superior alternatives (like FIFA).

Select your team and decide on your "strategy." Choose carefully, for the Human Cup is at stake!

Scoring a goal is neither a small feat nor a common occurrence. You'll be spending most of your time involved in scrums for the ball.

Flip through television channels and view an assortment of fascinating programs during halftime.

Typical penalty-kick battles decide games that end in ties.