Tengai Makyou: Ziria

~ TENGAI MAKYOU ZIRIA ~

Hudson Soft / Red

CD-ROM (Rerelease: Super CD-ROM)

1989 (Rerelease: 1992)

My completion of this game marked the end of my Tengai Makyou journeys on the Duo. Being the backwards sort of fellow I am, I didn't play through it until I had already beaten its famous successors, so it had a couple of very tough acts to follow. But good old Ziria took up the challenge and proved itself to be a superb RPG. It isn't quite as impressive as the other two PCE TMs, as it doesn't feature the same caliber of awesome cinematic moments and its battle system is inferior to their respective systems, but it still manages to rule.

It wasn't agreeable to me at first. The battles were taking way too long, the field graphics seemed appallingly primitive, and the cinematics were too, uh, "laid back" in style.

The excellent combat-scene art gave me reason to remain optimistic. Cloudy skies and foreboding forests make for fantastically gloomy battle backdrops. The graphics on the whole are pretty dark, which I didn't expect after witnessing the bright, colorful visuals sported by Manji Maru and Kabuki Den.

Things really start to pick up once Ziria joins forces with a funny little nutcase named Tsunade. You've gotta love a girl who wields huge axes and shuns magic. There are lots of other wonderfully crazy characters to meet, which is par for the TM course.

There are also plenty of very cool bosses, including a woman with a viper-tongue and a burly kraken.

For some reason, I really enjoy the strange little "tag" game you can play in certain towns. You have to grab a chest and dart out of the room before one of the resident runners lays a hand on you. (I know, I pick odd things to highlight.) The music that plays during these scenes and in standard shops is extremely cool!

For those interested in the series, I suggest starting not with this first chapter but with Kabuki Den. KD is the easiest one to get into since it's pretty crazy right from the start while the other two (particularly Ziria) take some time to really get going. Go for Manji Maru next, since its menu system works in pretty much the same manner as Kabuki's. Yeah, you'll be going backwards, but I'd say it doesn't really matter; and if you begin playing Ziria with confidence based on the success of its descendants, you might be more willing to endure its slow start. Whenever you do get around to it, check out Justin Cheer's walkthrough and strategy guide.

Terra Cresta II

~ TERRA CRESTA II ~

Nichibutsu

HuCard

1992

When Armed F turned out to be a pleasant surprise, I began to think it was possible I'd misjudged Nichibutsu. But then I played this.

Terra Cresta II is not particularly terrible, but it's old, and it looks and feels old. Despite some well-implemented multilayer scrolling, most of the backdrops come off as horribly bland, particularly when contrasted with the vibrant, colorful ones in many other PC Engine shooters. The sprites are small and boring, and enemy repetition becomes a serious issue, as the NES-type small-fry that assail you during the opening strip keep coming back for more, even near the conclusion of the trip. Your mission will take you over and through a wide variety of environments, including a volcanic region, a desert, outer space, and an icy expanse (which actually doesn't look too bad), but you'll have to fight off the same few small, unimpressive fools all the while.

You might expect the weapons system to follow suit and hand you 8-bit-era pea shooters, but thankfully, it's one of the few interesting elements of the game. Once you find different ships to team up with, you can merge with them to become a single powerful unit (which actually isn't much fun to use due to its limited-width vertical fire) or position your squadron in formations of your own design. You can also have your craft transform into a mighty phoenix for a short time--though I kinda prefer the Psychic Storm bug-forms, myself.

While the weapons system is the most "innovative" aspect of the game, the boss cast will probably make more of an impression, and not necessarily for good reasons. TC2's end-level giants are not much stouter than their lame henchmen and go down quite easily in most cases, though they can take a while to beat, which becomes all the more annoying when you have to defeat them a second time during a pointless gauntlet.

And that stupid gauntlet doesn't even comprise TC2's final stretch, which really pissed me off. I thought I was finally done with the game, only for the words "TIME SLIP" to appear on the screen as my ship was unceremoniously dumped into an ugly "prehistoric" level, where I had to face an incredibly cheap bastard of a boss.

Believe it or not, you'll be given more work to do if you defeat that guy. The final battle is actually epic and enjoyable, though the multiform bum you face continues with the cheap stuff (you really need to have lots of lives saved up for the terribly unfair last few rounds).

Sadly, the fun final tussle is just too little after everything that comes before it feels so drawn out and mediocre. And bear in mind if you're thinking about purchasing the chip that you'll have to pay good money to experience that drawn-out mediocrity. If you absolutely must have the game, do yourself a favor: find it loose for a price in the neighborhood of fifty bucks. That's about as good as the deals get for it, and it ain't worth a whole hell of a lot in play value.

Formation Armed F

~ ARMED F ~

Pack-in Video / Nichibutsu / Big Don

HuCard

1990

As my brothers can tell you, my face just lights up whenever the brilliant company Pack-in Video is mentioned. But the anticipation I feel with every new Pack-in pick-up is matched in intensity by the unease I experience when forcing myself to try something by Nichibutsu (they of F1 Circus "fame"). I dreaded what the outcome would be when the two groups formed an unholy alliance, and my fears doubled upon learning that some backalley team called "Big Don" would be making this curious fellowship a full three-ring circus.

Armed F is a vertical shooter that commences with an ugly opening stage and places you in a slow clunker of a ship that seems reluctant to budge. Reluctance to budge is not good when there are numerous enemy craft and projectiles to deal with, and poor graphics are never good, so after just a few seconds of playing, I was ready to curse Nichibutsu for tainting Pack-in's record. But once I managed to make my ship sputter over a few speed-ups, things became tolerable, and tolerable turned into enjoyable while I was messing around with the game's cool weapons (flank-guarding side-shots and spreading circle beams among them). I also got a kick out of deploying my option pods to nail enemies just around the bend.

Even when you're blazing along and all powered up, Armed F isn't easy. The screen is often very crowded--not merely with enemies and projectiles but with enormous, indestructible structures and rock chunks. The game just loves to put you in tense tight spots. Death means a trip back to a checkpoint, but most of the time, it isn't incredibly difficult to get going again. With quality weaponry and a flexible option-positioning system in tow, you shouldn't find many of the game's challenges to be unfair (with one of the possible exceptions being the final boss, a cheap disappearing-then-reappearing twerp).

Despite my misgivings coming in and an inauspicious start, Armed F proved itself to be very playable and pretty darn enjoyable. It features some really catchy tunes, too. Tally another quality effort for Pack-in Video (and one apiece for Nichibutsu and "Huge Don," I suppose).

Send your option pods out to launch preemptive strikes on enemies positioned just around the corner. Be smart about this, as you sacrifice ship-side protection when sending the pods on the offensive.

You'll run into some tough, tricky enemies, including these tanks that you can destroy only by nailing their crimson weak spots. Make sure to equip a weapon handy for such a job.

The game is no marvel visually, as some stages are rather austere, but the only truly ugly one is the first (which I've spared you from viewing the worst of).

Some of the later levels do boast brighter, more interesting backdrops, but it's easy to lose sight of enemies and projectiles in the color clashes that take place.

It's strange that this fairly tough game features bosses that, for the most part, are easily obliterated. Some of them do look kinda cool, though.

Spin Pair

~ SPIN PAIR ~

Media Rings

HuCard

1990

Media Rings developed two incredibly interesting PC Engine sleeper titles in Spiral Wave and Zero4 Champ II, so I'm always eager to give their products a try, even when it comes to a dull-looking well-puzzler like Spin Pair. For the first few minutes of play, I was completely baffled as to what I was supposed to be doing; but once I got things figured out, I found SP to be a pretty enjoyable game, even though it lacks the personality and excitement of the genre's premier representatives.

The way to keep your well clean is to drop a particular "block" onto another of the same variety. The catch is that the two icons in question have to be shaded in contrasting fashions. The purple spades about to connect in the screen above meet the criteria.

The objects actually represent captives of the evil "Black Wizerd." Once a successful connection is made, the prisoners involved regain their freedom. In this case, a bunch of grapes found themselves liberated.

Travel from stage to stage restoring color to the Wizerd-besieged kingdom.

After you rescue the fruit folk, you'll aid the birds and animals and robots and aquatic creatures of the land...

...and then knock broomsticks with the diabolical Wizerd.

Once the Wizerd has been thumped, take off and enjoy your victory.

Bouken Danshaken Don (The Lost Sunheart)

~ THE LOST SUNHEART ~

I'MAX / Manjyu-do

HuCard

1992

The Lost Sunheart has garnered the reputation of being a "diamond in the rough" among the not-so-many who have experienced it. Personally, I have no qualms with it being left off lists of unappreciated PC Engine gems. To credit it as a neat little shooter that few have heard of is acceptable, but it does very little in my view to merit sleeper status.

Coming in, I expected unimpressive visuals and weak weaponry. I was sure there were reasons the game receives so little attention, after all. The fact that it met my pessimistic expectations in those respects was not a big deal. But I also anticipated that it would display some intriguing concepts at work to make it worthy of the "cult following" its few fans profess to be a part of. I didn't see much along those lines, but I did encounter lots of small enemies with an affinity for moving in from behind and firing tiny projectiles that would tirelessly trail my ship about the screen. Those enemies were not cool and not fun to deal with. But deal with them I did, enduring horrible sound effects all the while and "enjoying" cinematic break scenes barely up to the level of Energy's awful bookend story bits.

I searched high and low for the promised "cool stuff." I discovered that I could earn new auxiliary items for my craft; but when I actually bothered to pause the game (which one must in order to switch between said items), I found nothing particularly interesting in the heap--just typical charge lasers and option orbs and the like. I stuck with heat-seeking whatever-they-ares for the most part, anyway. I fired them from a variety of ship types throughout the adventure, but there really weren't any non-cosmetic differences between the ships themselves.

The music could've been a "redeeming factor." I fell in love with the rich, passion-imbued third-stage tune after a mere four seconds... and then realized that those four seconds of notes would loop throughout the entire lengthy level. But while the soundtrack isn't perfect and doesn't work any miracles, it does feature some sweet melodic moments. Also, the bosses and mini-bosses are actually pretty cool. Face-offs with them aren't all that cerebral, really, but there's enough thought involved to make the battles enjoyable and fairly difficult to emerge victorious from.

Is Lost Sunheart bad? Nah. But it's a PCE shooter, for crying out loud, and PCE shooters are supposed to show some guts and pride. This is a staunch lot we're talking about. If I'm gonna play a chip shooter that offers poor presentation elements and relies heavily on ideas, I'd rather go with Rock On (call me a madman, but that game is ace concept-wise). Lost Sunheart is pleasant to listen to at times and offers some neat bosses to spar with, but overall, it disappoints.

3x3 Eyes

~ 3X3 EYES ~

NEC Home Electronics / Nihon Create

Arcade-Card-Enhanced Super CD-ROM

1994

If you have an Arcade Card, you should own this game. Even if you don't like digital comics and aren't familiar with the 3x3 Eyes manga or anime, plunk down ten bucks for this CD because it features some of the most amazing cinemas ever to hit the Duo, incredible examples of the sort of theatrics this technology is actually capable of. You won't see animation of this caliber in many other PCE titles.

The game itself is an interesting beast. It has you sit through long, boring stretches of conversation, and then, for brief spurts, utter chaos occurs. Large bugs burrow into people's heads, limbs are severed, bodies are chopped in half, sphinxes and giant lizards and three-eyed girls appear, bathroom walls turn monstrous, beautiful women hurl your character down and have their way with him... it's bloody, crazy, and shocking. You just need to be willing to sit through the slow stuff to experience the interesting material.

It's possible to get Game Overs, but they're not such a big deal. In fact, even though I've played through the adventure multiple times, taking different paths and reaching different endings in the process, I can recall an experience ending prematurely only once; it happened during an unforgettably brutal sequence that sees the protagonist's mother stab him and his dad beat him down with a golf club.

Still, you'll probably want to keep multiple save files going to avoid finding yourself in a bad position. More annoying than the inclusion of Game Overs is a first-person maze sequence late in the affair; I hate when good comic-style adventures deviate from storytelling for the sake of pointless stretches of labyrinth. (There's a path you can take to avoid the maze, but you probably won't discover it the first time you play through the game.) But to note another positive, there's a handy in-game option under the System command that allows you to see the files currently stored in your backup RAM, how much room they're taking up, and how much free space is available. And, again, you'll probably want to have multiple 3x3 Eyes files going concurrently--not only to sidestep Game Overs but also to view all of the included scenes.