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.

Tengai Makyou II: Manji Maru

~ MANJI MARU ~

Hudson Soft / Red

Super CD-ROM

1992

If you're planning to give Manji Maru a try, be aware that it requires a serious time commitment. Fifty hours went into my first playthrough, and while I like to take my time and bumble about, there's no way around the fact that the Manji trek will be a long one even for the quickest of players. But unlike modern fifty-hour RPGs, Manji places emphasis on true adventuring, not movie watching and endless conversing. You'll visit exotic locations like mermaid villages and travel via sailboat, mecha, transformable submersible tank, huge flying fortress, and drowsy giant turtle. You'll meet hundreds of people and acquire countless items and spells.

But you won't watch all that many cinemas. After some killer opening bits, breathtaking cinematic interludes are few and far between. MM doesn't really need full-fledged cinemas for its story to be effective, however. Dramatic situations like the heroic mutt Shiro putting his life on the line against a billion giant bear mecha... funny sketches like the one during which Kabuki and his rival inexplicably turn themselves into various beasts, weapons, and structures in a hilarious game of one-up... tragic events like allies taking arrows in the back or crumbling buildings to the head in order to save your party... we don't need cinemas for such material to make a significant impact...

...though there are some memorable ones (particularly noteworthy is a sequence depicting a gory ice-cave showdown).

We do need a good battle system to keep the action moving along smoothly, however, and Manji Maru comes through in this regard: its fights are typically resolved in the blink of an eye. You can basically rev up turbo on your control pad and slash your way across the countryside. You won't get great backdrops like you do in Ziria, and you won't see your party members running around like you do in Kabuki Den, but Manji's system works in super-fast fashion, and speed in execution might be the most important thing of all to me when it comes to RPG combat.

And you do get gigantic, animated bosses.

Justin Cheer's great four-part MM FAQ will help you overcome the language barrier if you don't know Japanese. Basic knowledge of the language (and I'm not just talking katakana here) really comes in handy later in the game when you need to warp between towns and provinces and keep track of what all your spells do. But whatever you need to do to play through this awesome game, do it.

Out Run

~ OUT RUN ~

NEC Avenue / Sega

HuCard

1990

Out Run is by far the best looking of the PC Engine's driving games, and it plays better than most of its peers. It also allows players to select from three different tunes to drive to, none of which are objectionable. So it certainly has the basics down.

But... it doesn't do much for me.

I think one reason for this is that I didn't get around to playing it until I'd already experienced many of the other PCE drivers. This is not to suggest that all of those titles are superior to OR. But most of them keep me busy with things other than simply rolling down a road. Final Lap Twin features an incredibly innovative RPG mode, but even when partaking in its standard races, I have my hands full trying to complete each and every course in good standing so as to earn enough points to conquer the circuit. Chase H.Q., S.C.I., and Knight Rider Special have me engage in explosive auto combat. And of course there's Victory Run, in which parts management is a significant factor and changes in road type call for alterations in approach.

Out Run doesn't ask you to do anything, really, besides reach the next checkpoint before the time you're allotted runs out. There are the usual "other cars" and roadside objects to avoid, but with the game's smooth controls, you aren't likely to experience many exciting "close calls" or dream-crushing crashes. Not that smooth controls are ever a negative, but without any hazards other than the relatively unobtrusive aforementioned ones to be concerned with, the game feels easy and not very rewarding... and, for me, kind of plain and empty.

Of course, if all you want is a traditional, fundamentally sound "beat the clock" driving game, then Out Run should make for a great pickup. And I suppose the Darius-esque stage progression (the course splits at the end of each leg, allowing you to travel numerous roads and see different concluding scenes) is something distinctive and worth noting...

...though the various endings really aren't much incentive to explore every possible path.

Rastan Saga II

~ RASTAN SAGA II ~

Taito

HuCard

1990

It's always interesting (for me, at least) to see how games with really huge sprites turn out. I mean, I expect a game with oversized characters to control a little... unusually, so the risk of disaster is constantly present within the "genre"; but I often end up enjoying such titles, and in a variety of ways. Sometimes, I'm lucky enough to stumble upon a Veigues Tactical Gladiator, a title that actually plays pretty darn well and proves itself to be genuinely good. Other times, I encounter China Warrior types, games that are definitely flawed but built on solid enough systems to make for occasional pick-up-and-play enjoyment. And then there are the horror shows like Sword of Sodan that are broken in so many different ways that I can't help but have fun by deriding them.

Having fun is the common denominator in those cases, and I was hoping it'd be the end result when I picked up Rastan Saga II. I didn't expect RS2 to be a quality title, and it certainly didn't seem to be smooth or solid in any particular way, so I knew it wouldn't be making colleagues of Veigues and China Warrior. But the possibility of it being a kitschy favorite a la Sodan didn't seem remote.

Unfortunately, RS2 is not amusing at all. It's just slow, clunky, and, well... dumb. The designers seemed to be on the right track with the enemy designs and stage visuals, but the beasts are feeble and score hits only because your character is so slow to act, and the backgrounds often consist of a single mountain or tree trunk drawn over and over again. This is a disgusting example of awful, awful concept execution.

Taken on their own, the enemies are quite easy to deal with.

The sections where you're supposed to proceed carefully are absurd, as being careful is out of the question when you're dealing with RS2's poor controls.

The bosses might seem cheap at first, but once you figure out the proper "tactic" to utilize against each, you shouldn't have any problems at all... except that there's a stupid time limit for each stage, which actually encourages rushed, mindless hacking rather than shrewd planning.

The "mighty" barbarian reveals himself to be a blubbering baby in between stages.

Even something as simple as picking up a new weapon apparently causes him great pain.

My strategy for the final boss? Hack away as fast as I possibly can and kill him before he kills me. Not the most impressive of stratagems, but by the time I reach this fight, I just want to get the whole ordeal over with.