Basted

~ BASTED ~

AIC / NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1994

There's an old Twilight Zone episode that tells the haunting tale of a man who stopped for gas in a small town and later realized he would never be allowed to leave. Scarred for life by this story, I'd kept my distance from small towns until I unwittingly fell into the trap set by AIC's Basted. While it's considered an "RPG" by most (if only in the loosest sense), Basted is truly the realization of my deepest, darkest fears.

All was okay at first. Your typical RPG field was where I became acquainted with Ryeza and Anita, my two-troop party. A band of kobolds (who looked like walking teddy bears) assaulted the heroines, at which point I was introduced to a rather neat real-time combat system. After selecting a member of the dirty pair to do my damage with, I slaughtered my assailants with sword swipes and charge attacks.

A short time after crushing the kobold militia, I arrived at a small town. This is when alarms should've gone off inside my head--but no, I foolishly believed that this town would be like, well, every other darn town in every other RPG: you know, a place where you can talk to the locals, stock up on equipment, down a few at the tavern--the usual good stuff that you do in a "first town" before the quest proper commences. I was just... "stopping for gas," if you will.

Hours passed.

Days passed.

My hair turned white. My face became wrinkled. My source of protoculture had been fully depleted.

And I was still in the same freakin' town.

At this point, I was scared out of my wits. But I eventually realized that I wasn't really "stuck" at all. This one town is simply all there really is to Basted. Not that there aren't plenty of recreational activities to participate in, such as...

1) ...talking to the townspeople! Of course, every townsman here speaks Japanese. Have no fear: the game plays a little jingle each time an "important" discussion takes place--just to let you know you're making progress! During your "journey," you will partake in HUNDREDS of conversations... and hear the jingle exactly three times.

2) ...going to church, where you can head upstairs and challenge THE AMAZING KARATE EXPERT to a fight! Lose to him and you'll fall through a trapdoor and end up back in the chapel. But beat him and he'll give you... a rather disgusting pornographic photograph!

3) ...having one of the townspeople play her violin for you. She knows only a single tune, and it sure ain't "The Bard's Song" from Ultima, but it will be a welcome change from the banjo strumming that otherwise accompanies your "adventures."

4) ...looking inside the dozens of barrels scattered about town. I bet there's something valuable inside one of 'em!

5) ...beating up the bouncer outside the bar, walking into said bar, and having your girls dance and expose their breasts for everyone. (This is not a particularly unpleasant prospect.)

Of course, "STOP PLAYING THE GAME" will probably be a more attractive option than any of these. Basted is a very short and mostly dopey one-town nightmare that rarely lets you make use of its interesting battle system, as those kobolds at the beginning, some knights at the end, and sporadic "bosses" comprise the entire enemy "legion." Heck, you won't even be allowed to leave the town save for two brief excursions. One of these trips has you climb a mountain, dash through a cave, and rummage through an entire castle--and during all of this, you have to win only TWO fights. I never thought I'd be wishing for random battles, but man...

There are no additional techniques to learn or weapons to acquire. No experience points to earn. No money to save. No mazes to traverse (unless we count the "final dungeon," which is essentially a forkless road to victory). No real puzzles to solve. Nothing...

...except for CINEMAS! Yes, Basted serves up cinema after cinema after cinema... and we're talking beautifully drawn, full-screen masterpieces here. Blood, destruction, nudity, melodrama, crazy Thunder Force III swirling effects, swords being plunged into women's chests--you name it, Basted's intermissions have it!

The cinematics are so well executed, in fact, that it's easy to comprehend and become involved in the tale the game is telling even if you don't know Japanese. It's an initially simple story of an exiled prince hiding out in an old, abandoned shack, a prince whom our two female rogues agree to aid in his fight against evil. But it becomes much more than that.

I can't help but chuckle when Ryeza reveals her plan to hustle the young nobleman.

I can't help but feel pity for a beautiful adversary who ends up bloodied and beaten and utters her final few words as a majestic track reminiscent of Ys' best temporarily replaces the banjo racket.

And I can't help but be moved when tough-girl Ryeza finally lets her guard down and begins falling for the prince. (My desire to find out if they'd end up together saw me through to the game's conclusion.)

Basted is an ingenious creation in a certain twisted way. With one town, one "maze," and COUNTLESS cinemas, it can be viewed as a parody of today's story-heavy, gameplay-light RPGs, even though it was produced long before the modern fluff-fests! You'll want to pick it up if only to see some fine Turbo animation; the cinematics alone make taking a trip through the valley of the shadow a worthwhile endeavor.

(A Basted strategy guide by yours truly can be found here. )

Takeda Shingen

~ TAKEDA SHINGEN ~

AiCOM

HuCard

1989

I'll be frank here. This is one of those, uh, "rough around the edges" games that I seem to have an affinity for--I'm talking stuff like Legion, Energy, Deep Blue, and Jimmu Denshou. If you happen to be sane, unlike me, and aren't into the aforementioned "classics," then forget about Takeda Shingen. It's not for you.

The maniacal who are still interested in the title might think it's a brawler along the lines of Golden Axe. It sure does look like one in screenshots, but it doesn't play like one at all. If you so much as graze an enemy (or come close to grazing an enemy, as the collision detection is somewhat "off"), you will take damage, so there's none of that "moving in close for throws and grabs" stuff. In fact, pretty much all you can do initially is take a simple hack with your sword--a hack that your foes will block more often than not.

The early going is rough.

But then you level up a bit and learn a couple of new techniques and earn some cash and upgrade your blade, and all of a sudden, the action feels a lot smoother; and amazingly, the game becomes pretty darn enjoyable.

You've gotta work hard for those advancements and purchases, though there might seem to be an easy way out: Unlike most old-school brawlers, TS doesn't force you to clear the screen of enemies before allowing you to move on, so you can simply jaunt along past all the adversarial foot soldiers, eschewing the idea of gaining money and experience while enjoying a pain-free trip to the boss.

But then, of course, the boss will ANNIHILATE you.

Really though, by the time you reach Stage 2, things should be going considerably better than they were initially. It's a good thing that TS makes an early turnaround, as it provides players with only four stages to play through.

Perhaps you'll find the 8-bit-quality graphics and tunes off-putting, but I like them. The sprites are quite large, especially the boss ones, and there are certain visual elements such as pretty blue streams, snow-covered steps, and scarlet skies that make the foregrounds and backdrops quaintly appealing.

Also appealing is the mellow music, which contains some really nice hooks and has a heavy nostalgia-inducing effect on me.

That's just me, though. I know a lot of people won't like the game. But if you're willing to persevere through the troublesome early going, who knows...

Turrican

~ TURRICAN ~

Accolade

HuCard

1991

Turrican seems so promising on paper. Its levels are huge, allowing for Metroid-fashion exploration; it features Contra-esque run-and-gun action; and it provides you with a decent assortment of weapons and attack-types, including a spread gun, a laser whip, and an alternative spinning-razor form. Unfortunately, the gameplay bypasses "challenging" and heads straight for "cheap," mucking up the chip's potential for greatness (and even goodness).

Fast, agile enemies zip about the screen; spreading bullets come from every which way; blind-leap spots make frequent unfair nuisances of themselves; and trash, boulders, lightning, and lava-drops strike you from above.

Perhaps most irritating is the fact that the game doesn't make it obvious when you're taking damage; you must peek at your rapidly dwindling vitality gauge to measure the extent of the beating you're receiving (and during the split second it takes your eyes to make that trip, you'll probably be obliterated). On top of all that, the areas themselves are ugly. And the designers stupidly decided to implement time limits, as they obviously wouldn't want you to spend much time on the one part of the whole mess that's truly fun--exploring the levels to locate secret stuff. Indeed, there's a hell of a lot of secret stuff to find, especially early in the game, with copious "hidden goodie boxes" to uncover and 1-up icons strewn everywhere.

Heck, there are places where extra lives literally rain down upon you. On the one hand, it's cool that there are so many "sweet spots" to locate. On the other, it becomes glaringly obvious that the designers knew they were serving up a monster of a game that would demolish players over and over again.

I could deliver the usual spiel about how you need to memorize the levels, come up with strategies for the boss battles, figure out how to best use your weapons, and have a decent amount of skill to begin with in order to do well in this game. And yeah, that stuff does apply if you hope to make it out of even the first set of stages alive. But the affair degenerates into a nasty battle of attrition regardless. Collect dozens of extra men early on, and hope against hope when the challenges turn downright brutal.

The switch to brutality takes place when you hit Stage 3-2, where emphasis is no longer placed on exploration for the fun and benefit of powering up but on mere survival (and on finding some devilishly out-of-the-way exit spots). And whatever low level of enjoyability the game offered prior to the change in focus predictably plummets towards darker depths during the final stretch. The developers couldn't even be bothered to include music for the third world, while the fourth and final board forces you to endure a nightmarish strip of vertical platforming and some ridiculously boring ice-block busting.

Combine this crappy "climax" with a lame ending that's all too anxious to take you right back to the title screen, and you're left with criminally little reward for all the effort the mission demands.

Tatsujin

~ TATSUJIN ~

Toaplan / Taito

HuCard

1992

It's funny. Look at Tatsujin reviews on the web and you'll find that every bit of text boils down to "It's motherfuckin' HARD" and is accompanied by a screen cap showing the game's famous skull-bomb attack. Of course, there is good reason for the ubiquity of these whiny complaints and skeletal blasts: Tatsujin, especially in its PCE incarnation, is indeed a very difficult shooter; and the only recourse for unskilled babies who hope to survive it is bombing away.

But there will always be goofballs who like to puff themselves up and spit out the oft-heard, seldom true "I like a good challenge" line. Well, look, if you're thinking about obtaining Tatsujin for the sake of playing it and not just to add a somewhat rare and expensive HuCard to your collection, then be honest with yourself. If you're driven to hollering by Super Star Soldier's "intensity" or if you're pained by Nexzr's "rigorous" memorization requirements, then Tatsujin is out of your league. In fact, unless you're as tough and as good as the Duomazov brothers (which is highly unlikely, as the Duomazovs are stout, crazy bearded men who honed their Turbo skills while serving long sentences in the Siberian stockades), then chances are you aren't hard enough to make it anywhere in this game, and you should keep to the safe confines of the Soldier/Gunhed quadrants.

It's not that Tatsujin will constantly wallop you. Segment-by-segment examination of the game reveals many stretches that non-Duomazovs can get through, provided that they remember to watch out for enemies who attack from behind (cheap bastards whom Tatsujin employs many of).

The main sources of trouble are the mini-boss bands. They send plenty of projectiles your way, and said projectiles hurtle across space at speeds that make them almost unavoidable. And since there are typically four or five mid-stage demons to deal with at once, there isn't a whole lot of room for doing much evading anyway. The end-of-level bosses don't even need to bring friends along to present similar problems (nevertheless, the assholes are often aided by small henchmen and cannons). Hope is not allowed here.

Still, live long enough to power up your weapons and you may actually begin to feel a little confident. The blue lightning gun produces a cool-looking pyramid of obliteration when strengthened, allowing for easy progress through strips populated by standard enemies. It proves inadequate during encounters with the dreaded mini-bosses, as it's rather weak and tends to lock in on fools you have no desire to target, but such battles are what the full-fire green energy weapon is for.

Of course, even if you're skilled and fortunate enough to build a weapon up to its optimal capabilities, odds are still slim that you'll be able to maintain that level of firepower for long. Sure, after a while, you'll develop a feel for the stages, and you'll be able to remember which weapons to use at which points, and you'll know exactly when to expect cheap ass-rammers to sneak up on your tail. You'll realize that defeating the mini-lords and end-bosses comes down to doing as much damage as you can before they launch their assaults and then baiting them into sending their entire bullet load at a spot you'll quickly vacate. But you're going to have to maintain that level of unwavering concentration and that perfect timing as the game continually comes at you with cheap enemies and fast-moving bullet storms. And if you stumble for just a single instant, say farewell to your built-up speed and mighty armament.

The safe, economical thing to do if you're considering a high-cost purchase of Tatsujin is to acquire and play the much cheaper Genesis rendition, Truxton, before making a decision. Sure, the PCE version is better, with nicer-sounding music and a larger playfield to work with. But Truxton presents a package similar enough to give you a good idea of whether or not you'll enjoy its HuCard counterpart. It's significantly easier, too, so if it happens to kick your ass, do yourself a favor: stay away from the rough side of town. Save your money and avoid a great deal of pain. Don't buy Tatsujin.

You'll be cruising along and thinking to yourself, "What's that guy talking about? This isn't hard!"

Seconds later, a flock of mini-bosses will annihilate you.

Sure, you can try the ol' skull-bomb baby method of damaging the fiends... and watch in horror as they sidestep the attack. These guys don't mess around.

Neither do their large end-of-level allies.

If you're going to destroy the "bulbs" in this screen, you'd better be ready to dodge the super-fast spread bullets they'll release.

You can breeze through boss-free segments with full-power lightning...

...but the emerald energy weapon represents your best shot at rockin' the tough guys.

Lightning works quite well against the last boss, however, as it allows you to home in on his weak spot while maintaining your distance.

Champion Wrestler

Taito - 1990 - Japan

HuCard

Whenever possible I try to avoid reviewing games I haven't fully completed, but I'll make exceptions in certain cases. Today's exception is Champion Wrestler from Taito.

CW is a port of an arcade game of the same name, one that I had never heard of prior to acquiring the game for my Duo. To be honest, the details surrounding how I actually got this game are foggy. It's certainly not something I sought out on purpose; I'm pretty sure this was one of those "good buddy freebies" your chums like to throw in when you're buying a bunch of other shit off them. You know the type. More often than not, these freebies are worthless, awful games that you'll never play (hence the reason they were given away for free in the first place). Unfortunately, Champion Wrestler is no exception.

Wrestler plays out like any WWE match would-- hit your opponent over the head with chairs, perform ridiculous acrobatics in hopes a stray limb might incur damage on your enemy, etc. The problem with Wrestler is that the control scheme fucking BLOWS. I mean, it's horrible. Atrocious. I cannot really convey in writing how terrible the "concept" behind CW's controls is. It would probably be more accurate to say that Wrestler just doesn't have a control scheme. CW takes button mashing to a new extreme. Because that's all you can do, and hope that you are fruitful in whittling away your enemy's health before yours diminishes. You have a "power" graph at the top of the screen that increases as you rapidly waggle your joystick from left to right, all the while attempting to position yourself (still waggling) so that you can inflict damage on the opposition. If somehow you manage to maneuver into a spot where damage might be an option, it then is your job to start mashing the I and II buttons and hope you pull something off. So you can see the problem here-- there are no cool button combo "moves" to memorize, no strategy in defeating your nemesis, essentially no amount of "skill" is going to benefit you in this game. I don't know about you, but I find this simply unacceptable.

From the title screen, you can select a game mode-- 1P vs CPU, 1P vs 2P, and a couple other modes. Having been outsmarted in my attempts to sucker a friend to play this still-moist-and-steaming pile with me, I resigned to go it solo in the 1P vs CPU mode. You have a choice of 8 different characters to play with, including Taito's own "M. Rastan" from the Rastan Saga series. I suppose it doesn't really matter WHO you pick, but I seemed to have the most luck with "B. Machine".

When a game fails so utterly and completely in the gameplay department, it doesn't really matter how good the aesthetics or any other aspect of the game are. That's a sad truth, because visually the game actually doesn't look half bad. In true Taito form, graphics utilize lots of colors and it's clear not much had to be sacrificed in the arcade to console porting process. I didn't encounter a whole lot of variety in the arena in my handful of runs with CW, but that's not completely unexpected. Music is adequate, if not somewhat good. Again-- what a shame.

At the end of the day, I have to wonder how much Champion Wrestler retailed for when it was new. And I also have to wonder how many kids went out and paid full sticker price for it, and what their reactions were upon getting home and powering it up for the first time. Shit, I got it for FREE and I feel like I got ripped off.

CAL III

~ CAL III ~

Birdy Soft / NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1994

What you experience here is more of an "adventure" than the straightforward sequence of confrontations in CAL II. Rather than simply walking a path and meeting up with girls in ridiculous situations, you tour a variety of places and, well, just keep on picking from the available options. Unlike its predecessor, CAL III isn't littered with choices that lead to undesirable conclusions. In fact, it wasn't until very late in the adventure that, upon answering a sphinx's questions incorrectly, I finally suffered a Game Over. There may be others (a battle with a goofy Hydra being one potential spot of doom), but I've never encountered them.

There's seldom any reason for caution when making your selections, as the chances of blundering into a Game Over are so low. It's nice not having to endure the frustration of replaying segments just to reach a decisive question again, but now there's even less reason to pay attention to what's actually going on. But then, there just isn't much going on in this game anyway.

You'll run into a wide variety of characters, from scheming deities to Alice (in Wonderland), but very little happens aside from lengthy discourse, most of which takes place as you look at boring, redundant desert backdrops.

Occasionally, something genuinely funny happens, but for most of the adventure, I have to struggle just to stay awake. CAL III is incredibly short and quite uneventful, and contrary to what many players likely would expect, it doesn't present much "erotic" material at all.