Aldynes

~ ALDYNES ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard (SuperGrafx)

1991

Here's a shooter that excels in lots of different ways. It taps into the mega-power and virility of the SuperGrafx to achieve extraordinary visuals: its bosses are phenomenal giants, and its backgrounds are incredible multilayer scenes flush with detail and alive with all sorts of mechanized activity. Yet, it makes an even greater impression with its audio: while the Aldynes soundtrack doesn't do anything technically abnormal with HuCard instrumentation, it demonstrates that remarkable compositions (such as Stage 2's relentless hard-rock number) can be performed effectively with vintage chip sound quality. And the gameplay follows the lead of the aesthetic elements, thriving on a unique options system that allows you to send your pods out to do their own thing, keep them in close to provide additional standard fire, or have them revolve around your vessel in a defensive posture. Careful, intelligent playing, along with a good bit of trial and error, is the way to survive Aldynes' no-nonsense challenges.

The game seems like a master of all trades, but... well, there are a few caveats that can be tacked on here (actually, the following items don't bother me, but I know there are folks out there who'll complain about them). While the graphics are very detailed and simply amazing in a technical sense, they're also quite dark, with cold steel environs the norm. If you're looking for beautiful sunsets and merry blue skies, find your fun elsewhere. And while you can power up your guns to incredible extremes, they don't scare many of your enemies in their initial forms, which means you'll be in a heck of a lot of trouble if you take a hit late in the game and have to rough out a tough stage from a strength-slashing checkpoint. Nonetheless, even those who demand cheery colors and have no stomach for the game's late-stage perils will likely concede that this is a package awesome in enough areas to warrant a try, if not an immediate purchase.

Most of the bosses are gigantic, but even the smaller ones are more than willing to face you head-on.

The Aldynes weapon set is quite varied and interesting, and each cannon type can be strengthened to a tremendous extreme. A typical spread gun evolves until it's unleashing giant green globes of destruction.

The option craft are even more useful than the mighty weapons. Here, I'm able to ignore an assault from behind and concentrate on clearing a path because my option pod has my back.

Not every piece of your arsenal is quite as essential to survival. You can charge up a frontal shield at the expense of rapid fire, but the barrier doesn't really help much except during a rather pointless sequence where missiles are launched from the background.

Most of the challenges Aldynes presents are anything but pointless, though, with the coolest strip of all being a hazard-laden stretch of magnetic cavern. Before you reach that harrowing area, you'll have to blast through webs of golden rings woven by small spider-like machines.

It's too bad that there aren't many mini-bosses. This particular fellow doesn't do a very good job of concealing himself, though you may be the one looking for cover when he starts chasing after you. The littler guys do their work well and keep the pressure on by firing lots of projectiles and leaping and dashing about like madmen.

One weapon in particular will really come in handy during the final fight.

It Came from the Desert

~ IT CAME FROM THE DESERT ~

Cinemaware / NEC

CD-ROM

1991

This is one of those "special meaning" games for me, as it was the one I bought along with my Turbo CD unit way back in the day. The motorcycle headlights of Desert's title screen flashing on as the song "Sea of Love" kicked in constituted my introduction to CD-based gaming, and I was pretty blown away by it all. Since that time, I've seen Desert get about as much love as its ill-fated FMV sibling Sherlock Holmes--which is to say, not much. In fact, I think the only praise it's ever gotten has come from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment magazine and famous Turbo expert and Duomazov comrade, Keranu McKenna. Well... I agree with VG&CE and Keranu.

Aside from "Sea of Love," the best thing about the game is its extremely (and intentionally) cheesy storyline, which concerns the efforts of giant ants to annihilate the protagonist's hometown and conquer the world. It's great for laughs, especially early on. As the plot advances and more and more characters get turned into bug-manipulated "antdroids," the whole affair becomes surprisingly eerie. And it plays out pretty well through the grainy FMV, though the style can certainly be deemed archaic.

So the story rules, but the action scenes are usually cited as the title's downfall. However, the save-the-antdroid "shooting gallery" mini-game is really rather cool. What's not to like about a veritable bonus round that has you kill insects eating the flesh off helpless screaming victims, all to the tune of appropriately spooky music?

Overhead-view sequences that call for you to seal the ants' lairs aren't unenjoyable, though they play out slowly and don't feel very polished.

The sidescrolling segments are where the game truly falters, as jumping control is nonexistent and it seems at times that the game can have the hard-charging ants kill you at will.

So sluggish controls and lack of polish detract from two of the three action-based parts, and if you don't finish the ants off quickly, those combat scenes will seem mighty repetitive by the time you reach the end of the game. Thankfully, you can kill the ant queen long before the eight-day time limit has elapsed.

Of course, you'll miss some of the coolest plot points if you move that quickly, but chances are you'll experience them anyway while you're getting the hang of how the game works. It's probably not something you'll be able to conquer right off the bat.

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.