Ordyne

~ ORDYNE ~

Namco / NEC

HuCard

1989

Meet Dr. Tomari, a brilliant scientist and an ace pilot in the guise of a four-foot-five fat kid. When he's not busy building "colossal nuclear reactors" (blame the back of the box), Dr. T likes to hop into his Jetsons-esque "space car" (with the top down, of course) and cruise around the world in search of abducted princesses. Rescued royalty has no appreciation for the efforts of our blue-collar hero: newly freed lasses are often caught looking back longingly at their former captors as Dr. T escorts them to safety. That's fine; the good doctor is so slick that he ditches these damsels when all is said and done, opting to spend his evenings with his best male buddy, one "Sunday Chin." The two chums stare at starry skies for hours on end, relishing life's simple pleasures.

All of this nonsense is covered during the "cinemas" of Ordyne, a TurboChip that's more entertaining as a biographical documentary than as a sidescrolling shooter. It tries to be "cute" by emulating the timeless Fantasy Zone, equipping Dr. T's craft with forward-firing cannons and bomb racks and offering additional weapons for sale in "shop ships" that occasionally waft by. Don't expect to find pretty pastels or oddball adversaries, however, as Ordyne tragically travels a more traditional (read: primitive) route than its outstanding forerunner. While Fantasy Zone's mechanics are mimicked to perfection here, its distinctive color and charisma have been forgotten.

The problem is that the amount of effort put into Ordyne's visuals was insufficient considering that the apparent aim was to craft a shooter with personality. It's extremely difficult to think of an enemy as "cute" when you're at a loss to describe exactly what the hell it is. Weak-kneed fiends appear in droves, firing the odd bullet here and there but never performing any funny or memorable antics. Even the bosses come up lame: strange hunks of machinery can't hold a candle to the crazy snowmen and leaf-spitting tree stumps of Fantasy Zone fame.

Making matters worse, these bums inhabit a world that's even blander than they are. While other 16-bit shooters made famous spectacles out of their "fire levels" with incredible canvases of swirling lava and raging infernos, Ordyne is content with big, slow, donut-shaped things for its rendition of a magma storm.

The game is a complete dud superficially, which is unacceptable considering what many of its "cute 'em up" peers hailing from the same era were able to pull off. The sole visual evidence of any "extra effort" being put forth by the designers comes not in the form of unique bosses or resplendent backdrops but in Dr. T's crimson coiffure being disheveled by the wind. If you have any desire at all to witness the effects of a breeze blowing through the hair of a fat man, Ordyne just might be the game for you. It is not the game for me.

The project wasn't a complete throwaway, however, as the mechanics for a decent round of shooting are indeed present. Shops are placed so precisely throughout the various levels that it's possible for supreme players to maintain a never-ending stream of high-level firepower. The upgrades themselves are not only extremely strong but also impressively wacky: one armament system places a Pac-Man-shaped, bullet-gobbling ornament on the front hood of your ship.

These fundamental factors lead me to believe that Ordyne's creators constructed the layout of the adventure carefully and indeed had good intentions--they just couldn't supplement the meticulously plotted action with aesthetic appeal.

Or maybe they were just freakin' insane. "Princess Mode" certainly seems to support this possibility.

Yes, there is a hidden mode that allows you to play as a chick rather than a chubby grunt. This notion appealed to me, so I decided to give the girl a shot. Imagine the horror I felt when I discovered that THE PRINCESS IS A PALETTE-SWAPPED VERSION OF THE FAT GUY.

I have nothing more to say.

Double Dungeons

~ DOUBLE DUNGEONS ~

NCS/Masaya / NEC

HuCard

1990

Yeah, the concept is simple: bumble around a maze, level up a bit, purchase some equipment, find the key to the boss's room, and beat the boss. And yeah, the game is very repetitive, as you do the same thing in each of its twenty-two labyrinths, all of which look the same. In spite of those facts, I actually like this first-person dungeon crawler a lot, for a number of reasons:

- The gameplay is incredibly fast paced. You practically fly down the hallways, traversing huge segments of dungeon in mere moments; and with turbo revved up, you can rapid-hack right through almost every fight.

- The title-screen music rocks. Granted, the track sounds somewhat, uh, warbly in the middle, but the drums just never let up, making the number awesomely sinister.

- The dungeons employ a pseudo-scrolling hallway effect that works extremely well. It's accomplished via a very simple trick, but it looks so much smoother and better than the chop-chop-along movement in a lot of other old first-person games.

- I like most of the monster sketches, though they aren't fine works of art. There are some surprisingly huge/grotesque creatures to deal with...

...and it's always fun to find out what sort of beast resides in the boss room of a given dungeon.

- The text messages that pop up as you explore the dungeons (e.g., "ZOUNDS! IT'S DANGEROUS HERE.") are pretty amusing. And the dungeon prologues/epilogues are even more entertaining, as they relay eloquent tales like...

Good stuff.

- The game is an absolute blast in two-player mode. Having another person around with whom to take on the bosses, solve the mazes, and laugh at the text bits makes DD so much more fun to play (even though I like it quite a bit when going solo) and inevitably leads to memorable late-night sessions. And for whatever reason, I always get a kick out of encountering the other player (the two warriors begin play at separate spots and are never actually obliged to cross paths).

- Most people probably don't, but I dig the US version's box art.

Double Dungeons is a neat game that all Turbo owners should grant a fair shot, ideally in two-player mode. Give it a try and you might end up surprised at how addictive and entertaining it can be.

Hana Taaka Daka

~ HANA TAAKA DAKA?! ~

Taito

HuCard

1991

Hana has a good reputation among those who have played it, but it didn't take long for me to realize that, mechanically, it isn't what I'd consider a superlative shooter. One thing I didn't like about it is that if you want to build up your firepower to a useful level, you've got to accept the fact that your hitbox will become ridiculously large. And depending on how successful you are in powering up, the bosses are either farcical characters who succumb to your attacks in seconds or stalwarts who withstand endless pummeling even after you've solved their patterns. Another thing I wasn't too keen on was the incorporation of charge attacks as an essential part of the player's repertoire, as my preference for auto-firing often fell by the wayside. Yet, even with all my biases stacked against it, Hana would stand for nothing less than me having a good time while playing it.

One of the primary reasons I enjoy it is the intricate (for a shooter) stage design. Each level contains two "puzzle pieces" for you to acquire; one falls right into your lap once you knock off the boss, but you won't find the other unless you do a bit of digging around. You've got to uncover the warp point to a special bonus round that contains the elusive piece, and locating the secret spot won't be all that easy since the levels offer you multiple paths to explore. And once you do gain access to the side-stage, you've got to fire away until the obscured object of your mission is revealed; you won't return to the level proper until you've succeeded.

Another reason Hana won me over is that its graphics are just so darn nice to look at. Light tones are implemented perfectly, calling to mind images of Super Mario World in some places and Castle of Illusion in others.

Pleasant music effectively complements the fine visuals. And while you're taking in the appealing sights and sounds of Hana's colorful world, you'll discover auxiliary weaponry that might seem unwieldy or strangely esoteric in function until you figure out the perfect way to use it, which brings no small sense of satisfaction. In fact, Hana turned out to be a satisfying product on the whole despite my initial misgivings.

Cosmic Fantasy

~ COSMIC FANTASY ~

Laser Soft / Telenet

CD-ROM

1990

This is always the first game I recommend when people would like to get into Japanese RPGs but don't know the language and aren't sure where to start. The menus are easy to figure out; the quest is very straightforward (you go from to town to maze to town in strict, linear order; the world doesn't open up to you until you acquire a ship near the end of the adventure, but even then, it isn't difficult to figure out where to go); and you have to manage only two characters, Yuu and Saya (known as Cobra and Sayo, respectively, in US CF2). Other characters join your party, but they, uh, don't do anything.

Of course, CF's simplicity could be off-putting for those who have already experienced the intricate likes of the Tengai Makyous. Yuu's quest boils down to exploring dungeons and leveling up; there isn't much mystery or depth involved. If you don't mind the linearity of the adventure and the rudimentary gameplay, the only potentially irritating factor is the fact that after every battle you have to sit through approximately seven seconds of empty screen before play resumes. I got used to the delay after a while, but some folks may not be as tolerant of it.

As simple as the game is, there are plenty of positive things to note in its favor. As you'd expect from a CF episode, the story is a great blend of crazy humor...

...and quiet poignancy.

As you might also expect from a CF game, the soundtrack consists of only a few tunes. Most of them are chip numbers, but quite a few are very good (particularly the main maze track) and have an appealing old-school sound about them that veterans should enjoy. The in-game graphics are conspicuously primitive, but they certainly aren't revolting.

The cinemas don't even come close to matching the quality and theater of those in many later PCE RPGs, but they're nice in their own right and compare favorably with those in most other early CD games.

Skirmishes can be resolved quickly, and the encounter rate shouldn't prove irritating. For the most part, if you make sure to explore the labyrinths thoroughly, you'll earn enough experience that you won't even have to partake in perfunctory leveling-up exercises.

CF might not come off as an outstanding game when you break it down into its elements, but it does a lot of things pretty well, and it doesn't screw many things up. Tackling it will be a nice way to get your feet wet if you're thinking about getting into Japanese RPGs, and even those who are already pros should find it to be a quality addition to their adventure-game libraries.