Parasol Stars

~ PARASOL STARS ~

Working Designs / Taito

HuCard

1991

I was late to the party on this one. PS received mediocre grades in Electronic Gaming Monthly upon its release (one guy even gave it a 4), so I didn't immediately dash out to buy it. But I heard nothing but praise for it after seeing those scores, and as I had enjoyed Bubble Bobble back in the day, I believed that I would have a good time with this similar-in-style followup.

And I did have fun with it, especially during the stages in which I had to put some thought into how exactly I'd reach/attack my enemies. The premise of bopping, heaving, and blasting on-the-scene adversaries is simple enough, but said adversaries can prove rather elusive and sequester themselves in tough-to-get-to spots. As the game goes along, it seems to focus more on stocking its levels with huge, hard-to-stun creatures than on presenting increasingly intricate board designs, which was somewhat disappointing. But the Bubble Bobble-style proceedings--which feature cartoony bosses to fight, tasty-looking treats to collect, elemental weaponry to wield, and score-boosting secrets to stumble upon--kept me entertained until I reached the adventure's conclusion.

Speaking of the conclusion, I was exasperated when I discovered that this devious game has a GNG-esque "bad ending." Thankfully, I was able to achieve the superior finish with little grief during my very next try.

I'm less forgiving of the limited soundtrack; additional good tunes certainly would've been welcome. But the biggest concern with Parasol Stars isn't the soundtrack or the bad ending or the simplistic level design; it's the price tag. The game is an enjoyable time-waster, for sure, but it won't make for a landmark experience for most people, and a price of $10-15 seems more appropriate than what I often see it go for, unless the buyer plans on logging lots of hours in two-player mode.

But to conclude with a positive, I was delighted to encounter the big boss from the original Bubble Bobble in the ninth world here. It'd been many years since I'd last seen the old goober, and the reunion was a fun one!

Legend of Hero Tonma

~ LEGEND OF HERO TONMA ~

Irem

HuCard

1993

This game joined my collection as something of an afterthought. I was expecting it to be goofy and cartoony--not the sort of platformer that's usually up my alley.

Well, it is pretty light in theme, and it is unabashedly goofy at times (like when Tommy, the main character, flails his arms as he fires), but it earned my respect immediately with its fast, initially difficult gameplay. Most of Tommy's foes are extremely quick and constantly on the move, and you'll have to deal with many more projectiles than you're probably used to seeing in a game of this sort.

Be prepared to experience some frustration at first, as Tommy is a one-hit wonder, and upon taking that hit, he'll be flung back to a checkpoint. But this is one of those games that you develop a feel for, and the feel might come quickly. The first time I played it, I struggled mightily in parts, used many continues (which come in limitless supply), and ran into a wall at the fifth-stage boss.

The next time I played it, I roared right through the whole thing and had a pretty darn good time. Tommy is a fun character to control, as he can pull off some stunningly high leaps and build up his firepower to the point where he's blasting away at his adversaries with plenty of bouncing comets and homing fireballs.

Ironically, once you've got "the feel," the adventure suddenly reveals itself to be an extremely short experience (six relatively quick stages followed by the final boss battle). The fast-paced action might lure you back for more, but the superficials probably won't--not that they're poor or anything. The music doesn't play much of a role one way or the other, although I do really like the fifth-stage tune. The graphics are hardly noteworthy in a technical sense, but the color choices are effective, and the bosses are well designed.

Tonma is a fun little game, but there's a possibility that it'll drive casual/low-skill gamers away with its difficulty while proving too brief a journey for good players. In any event, unless you're intent on collecting US releases, you might want to nab the JPN version, as it's cheaper and features the same intermediary text messages, which are delivered in English (poor English, but English nonetheless).

Jimmu Denshou

~ JIMMU DENSHOU ~

Wolf Team / Big Club

HuCard

1989

I don't think I've ever seen anything even remotely positive written about this into-the-screen dash-and-shoot game. After just a few minutes of playing it, I was ready to join the crowd and rip it for its many apparent flaws. The animation and Space Harrier-type field scrolling were choppy as hell, and huge doses of slowdown and flicker didn't help matters at all. The weaponry seemed inadequate, as I started off with nothing but a sword-swipe attack, and minor upgrades that allowed my blade to emit little projectiles didn't seem particularly helpful or impressive. Worst of all, the controls felt extremely shoddy.

But things turned around once I made adjustments to those unwieldy controls. Changing the "RUN" setting from "AUTO" to "KEY" on the title-screen menu (thus ensuring that the sprinting swordsman would hold still unless I was impelling him via the d-pad) made the game feel entirely different (and much better). On AUTO, my clumsy samurai fell from platforms, got stuck on poles, and bumped into bosses. KEY allowed me so much more control over the unfortunate hero. And following my discovery of manageable controls, other bright spots became evident.

The music holds up well throughout the game. I'm sure people have ripped on it and will continue to rip on it, but I'm convinced that if it were part of a different overall package, no one would have any issues with it. One effective boss tune actually reminds me of a fantastic Zelda II palace track. And the aesthetic pleasantness doesn't end there: while the graphics are indeed choppy, some of the distant backdrops are actually quite nice to look at, and the huge bosses are often impressive and compellingly bizarre in design.

Those bosses can put up quite a fight, and battles with the first few can seem like long, drawn-out matters of attrition. But make some progress and you'll encounter giants that require strategy and prudent weapon selection to defeat. It feels really, really good to solve the attack patterns of the toughest ones. And by the time you reach those tough guys, you'll probably be wielding much more effective weaponry than you were early in the game. Your blade can shoot spreading lightning bolts, homing spheres, and other such cool and effective missiles.

You'll need those upgrades to contend with even the standard stage villains, whom you'll find yourself baiting into position before destroying or evading completely. The stages themselves are more than just flat pseudo-3D affairs. You'll have to make tricky speed runs and avoid numerous danger spots. Underworlds and warp zones provide alternative routes through some sections. Power-up locations are not always immediately evident. You'll need to get dialed in and learn the levels inside and out.

And once you're in that zone, you'll likely find that the game evokes all the right feelings. Bosses can disgust and amaze you at once. Speed runs are exhilarating. Dark underworlds are appropriately terrifying. Everything just feels right.

All of these things are elements that, I imagine, we all love to discover in our action-adventure games, and Jimmu certainly delivered them to me. But not everyone will have the same sort of experience with the game as I had. Some folks won't be able to get past the shoddiness and lack of overall appeal that inevitably plague early sessions. And the game is flat-out hard--even grueling at times. Passwords keep track of your health and weaponry, so it's not enough just to stumble your way through a stage; you've got to beat it in decent condition or you'll be crushed as soon as the next one begins. And I'm not even going to try to excuse Stage 3, a nightmare of hellish platforming that the game's controls simply aren't cut out for: contact with the surface means instant damage, and you might find yourself repeatedly plummeting into a long and horribly difficult stretch of underworld.

But if you accept those initial bitter experiences and manage to get past Stage 3... well, there's a darn good chance you still won't like the game. You'll need to have a pretty high level of tolerance for unpolished titles in order to make it through this one, and being a fan of Space Harrier lookalikes to begin with won't hurt. Even then, you might find Jimmu unacceptable. But playing through it was a very rewarding experience for me, and it actually ranks quite highly among HuCards in my book.

Rayxanber III

~ RAYXANBER III ~

Data West

Super CD-ROM

1992

I waited, like, an eternity to get this game. I'd wanted to get my hands on Ray III ever since I saw some awesome-looking screenshots of it in EGM many years ago, but it just didn't happen for an extremely long time. During that lengthy period of Ray III-lessness, I played through Rayxanber II, which I found to be one of the coolest and most rewarding PC Engine shooters. So suffice it to say that I was amped up for the Ray III experience. Unfortunately, it didn't go the way I'd hoped it would.

The weapons here suck, and the high-pitched noises they produce rank amongst the most irritating sounds to be heard in a PC Engine game. You needn't worry much about which of the noisemakers to use, as there's very little strategy involved in proceeding. I beat Ray III the first time I sat down with it, and I rarely had to make use of the speed burst that's essential for success in Ray II. The music doesn't help audible matters much: Rayxanber fans will recognize some returning melodies, but the tunes are all kind of "loungy" here and come nowhere near the greatness of II's tracks (though the last boss's mellow theme is quite appealing). The graphics are very impressive as far as details and effects go, but while Ray II's visuals are extremely colorful in some areas, the levels here are all boring blends of gray, brown, and red, as though Data West took the color scheme utilized for II's Stage 5 mutant lair and stretched it out over an entire game.

Not that I had a completely awful time with this title. It does boast some fairly interesting level concepts: water slows down your ship and produces a neat "swirly" effect in Stage 2, and a large metallic creature hounds you for most of Stage 3 (granted, those who have fended off II's massive spider will find this particular "beast" to be a complete chump). And while they aren't exactly original in concept, the trip through the tight caverns of Stage 4 and the backwards ride through Stage 5 make for some decent fun.

You get spreading heat-seeking missiles that are quite neat in that they charge up as you shoot (as opposed to the usual charge-based weapons that make you sacrifice standard fire as they power up). And the bosses are huge, interesting creatures that place you in tight spots and make you work hard to discover their weak points.

But while I appreciate the neat missiles and the water effects and all that, Ray III just doesn't cut it as the followup to one of the PCE's most satisfying horizontal blasters. There will still be an audience for it: folks who got smoked early on in Ray II will no doubt prefer the leniency of this episode. But for the stalwarts who braved Ray II's dangers and know the feeling of accomplishment that comes with beating that monster, Ray III will probably feel a bit lacking and empty.

Renny Blaster

~ RENNY BLASTER ~

NEC Avenue

Super CD-ROM

1995

Following years of negotiations with my shrewd cousin Zigfriedenov, I was finally able to acquire Renny Blaster at the mere cost of six billion truckloads of moneybags. And do you know what other title this elusive, super-expensive collector's "grail" ended up reminding me most of? That would be Fist of the North Star, the forty-cent black-and-white Gameboy fighting game. Renny is an action game and not a fighter; but like Fist, it features stick-figure characters, charge-up techniques masquerading as "special moves," and weak-feeling attacks.

Actually, executing a quick sequence of moves while using the martial arts specialist (one of the two playable characters) can feel pretty good, but there's hardly any need to exert the required ounce of effort. Simple dash attacks get the job done against most of the scrawny, twigs-for-limbs villains, and even if said villains manage to strike you once or twice in retaliation, the damage they deal will be minuscule (and you can count on a health restorer lying in wait for you at a spot just beyond any confrontation where you might actually take a few shots). The game is laughably easy and becomes a complete joke if you use the magician character, who has a variety of long-range attack "spells" at his disposal. Platforming feels terrible, but there isn't much of it to do, and what's present is routine.

A good number of the bosses look cool but have no fight in them at all (a large chainsaw wielder, for instance, impresses at once only to drop his deadly weapon after taking a single hit). Disarm these bums if need be and then cheese 'em to death with dash attacks or trap them in a corner for an old-fashioned walloping.

Some of the stages are thematically compelling (Copenhagen sports cool gothic backdrops and is patrolled by tough-by-Renny-standards swordsmen), but others (like the dark, ugly clock tower) are both lame and derivative.

While there's something relatively positive to report about most of the elements that make up the game (even though many of those elements manage to self-destruct in some way or another), the one thing that's most distinctive and interesting about RB is its cinematic style, which represents quite a departure from the bright, colorful anime work that Duo intermissions usually employ. Unfortunately, while there are well-drawn images to admire here and there, the characters often end up looking goofy or unintentionally ugly.

So everything got mucked up, except for maybe the music, which is consistently listenable at worst. But Gameboy Fist of the North Star has better music as well as cooler characters... not that there's any shame in being outclassed by an ancient, colorless dud. In all seriousness, my conclusion that Renny Blaster is a way-too-easy but (barely) okay game, a severely flawed title that has its intriguing moments, is the same verdict I'd deliver if the disc could be acquired as cheaply and as easily as a Fist cartridge. We're all aware that people who plan to purchase RB don't expect it to be fantastic or worth its weight in cash. The only way such acquisitions can end up being downers is if the buyers in question absolutely hate the game instead of letting it off with a "mediocre" tag as I do. Sadly, there's a pretty good chance they will indeed loathe it.