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.

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.