Marchen Maze

~ MARCHEN MAZE ~

Namco

HuCard

1990

Marchen Maze likes to take people for suckers. It's a cute sort of thing, pitting Wonderland Alice against goofy little enemies atop bright game boards. Colorful backgrounds and sweet tunes help make it quite the charmer. Its play system is pretty interesting: Alice needn't worry about life meters and the like, as her foes attempt to knock her off by literally knocking her off the platforms. She utilizes her special charge-up baubles to blast them from the brink in turn.

As "cute" and "interesting" as this all seems, there just isn't anything exciting about a bunch of waddle-waddle sprites shoving each other around via marble shots. Well-timed leaps are often the best means of averting death anyway, as chaotic shootouts typically conclude with Alice taking a fall. The boards aren't very complex in design, and most of the power-ups you can find while exploring aren't all that cool anyway. Lazily thought-up level themes don't help matters: you've got the slippery ice stage, the conveyor-belt stage, the stage that calls for a little more platform jumping than the others, the stage with "danger spots" to be avoided at all costs, and a couple of stages where you don't do much of anything except stumble around.

Jumping from raft to raft in Level 6 could've been fun, but the sequence comes to an end so quickly and abruptly that it amounts to nothing more than a glimpse of wasted promise.

Things do improve but not until you reach the last two boards. Powerful doppelgangers pursue Alice through a legitimately large Level 8 that features a harrowing platform ride to the finish, and then comes the brilliant lava land of Level 9 with its incredible music. If only early-level foes were as aggressive as the beasts are here!

Bosses basically follow the best-is-at-the-end flow established by the stages themselves. Most of them are decent design-wise but succumb to just a few full-power shots and lack the aggressiveness to make death falls occur frequently. The very last fight is pretty exciting, however.

I really do like those last two levels. But I expected more from Marchen Maze, a game with a pretty good reputation that, while not expensive, isn't exactly a typical toss-in. Then again, maybe I'm the fool, blind to the appeal of two-thirds of the game's allegedly wonderful stages.

Cobra

~ COBRA ~

Hudson Soft

CD-ROM

1989

Even if you play its incredibly wacky sequel first (as I did), Cobra can still be counted on to provide a digital-comic ride you'll find both wild and entertaining. Space pirate Cobra, he of the PSYCHO GUN left arm, gets himself into all sorts of ridiculous situations, many of which involve strange alien beasts or fearsome female nutjobs.

The game's cast is made up of a vast variety of misfits and wackos, among whom are funny little robots and insane fire femmes.

As you might imagine, this is all very amusing in a ludicrous sort of way, but there's always a dark side to Cobra tales, and this opening episode is bleaker and grittier than its followup. Its graphics don't quite measure up to C2's, and I suppose that some of the alluded-to "grit" can be attributed to visual inferiority, but there's more to it than that. Cobra II has plenty of shocking, horrifying scenes, but moments of triumph and tragedy are arrived at quickly, with plenty of hilarious bits spread throughout the drama. Dread tends to linger in this chapter, particularly towards the end, when Cobra is forced to endure a brutal assault on his psyche.

I'm sure most stout Duomazov readers are up to the task of traversing the gloom, but I fear that the threat of a language barrier will repel some otherwise-willing warriors. Well, this isn't a very difficult comic to get through, save for one spot where you have to enter a code... but hey, I'll provide you with said code right here!

There's no reason to worry now, so don't feel you need to avoid this very good game if you can't read Japanese. On the other hand, if you're generally averse to digital comics, you might want to stay away; as cool as Cobra is, it isn't a must-have--which its sequel most certainly is. Again, Cobra II is superior visually, but it also feels more advanced and, perhaps most importantly, contains so many more memorable moments. Plain and simple, a lot more happens in the faster-paced C2. But if you're up for a good comic, or if you play through the second part and yearn for additional Cobra hijinks, don't hesitate to pick this disc up.

Cobra II

~ COBRA II ~

Hudson Soft

CD-ROM

1991

I hadn't yet played the first Cobra when I decided to give its sequel a try, but my inexperience with the series to that point really didn't matter, as C2's cheesy, entertaining, overly dramatic introductory text (presented in English) brought me right up to speed. Cobra is a goofy (but BADASS) space pirate who can detach his left arm to reveal a mighty secret weapon, the PSYCHO GUN.

Around the universe he travels, meeting up with bizarre alien beings and scantily clad women.

You never know what's coming next in this wacky digital comic, character- or plot-wise, and that's probably the most appealing thing about it. You'll be exploring a desolate world that seems to be all in ruin when you'll suddenly encounter a rock band jamming out with an armored knight on electric guitar.

You'll do battle with "round wolves"; "death balls"; android executioners; and a big, bald wrestling dude.

The proceedings feature a fair amount of violence and some shockingly bloody moments (characters taking laser blasts to the face and the like)...

...but there isn't much sexual stuff. In fact, the one bit of romance is rather innocent and plays out quite nicely!

You'll have a slightly easier time getting through the game if you can read at least a little Japanese, as many of the clues telling you where to go or whom to talk to next are presented in katakana. You'll have to spend some time treading back and forth between locations and playing with menu commands (the typical digital comic routines), but there are enough cool surprises to keep you moving through the dull stuff. One puzzle that'll require you to press six lenses of various colors in a certain order might prove extremely problematic. You can spend a lot of time buttoning through all the permutations...

...or, if that idea doesn't appeal to you for some reason, you can just immediately enter the correct order of red, green, blue, yellow, white, purple.

While Cobra II generally doesn't offer much more interactivity than your typical comic, it does feature some distinct sequences that serve to get players more involved in the action. For instance, when one particularly tough baddie is chasing after you, you'll have to blast open the door to a morgue, dash upstairs, hide in an empty coffin, and then judge the sound of the villain's footsteps (they get louder and softer as he plods about the room) to know exactly when it'll be all right for you to pop out, take him by surprise, and annihilate him.

It's possible to screw up and die in some places, but you can save your game whenever you want to, and if you get killed, you'll be sent back just a short way (ensuring that you won't end up saving yourself into a bad position).

Upbeat tunes really get me into certain action-packed scenes, but there are a few annoying sound effects that represent alarms and radar blips. The graphics are pretty good on the whole; the characters look extremely goofy at times, but that just adds to the awesome overall cheesiness.

Cobra II is a heck of a lot of fun--so much fun, in fact, that it ranks as my favorite digital comic.

Gunboat

~ GUNBOAT ~

Accolade / NEC

HuCard

1992

I'd been warned that Gunboat's gameplay can be pretty confusing when you first start playing it, and I was indeed tempted to shut the search-and-destroy-themed title off for good after just a few moments of bewilderment. But once I'd spent about fifteen minutes acclimating myself to the controls and sorting out the mission objectives, I actually started having fun with it. Piloting your boat feels good once you've got the unusual pad, button, and turbo-switch functions down, and upon achieving that level of competence, you can concentrate on completing tasks and blowing stuff up.

The one thing that can remain awkward about the first-person action is switching from pilot's view, which you generally use when navigating the rivers, to gunners' perspectives.

The gunners are stationed at spots a distance from one another on the boat, so while you may be staring right at an enemy as you're piloting the vessel, you'll probably find yourself looking at something completely different upon changing perspectives. This demands that you reorient yourself in the heat of battle and can be quite disconcerting. Fortunately, I've found that switches are seldom required. Your bow gunner can take care of most enemies while you continue steering.

Some folks may end up irritated that they essentially have to pause the game to look at their map (and they'll have to do plenty of this). I wish that the sector maps had been placed on the piloting screen; many of the gauges that are there seem relatively useless, while the maps are lifesavers. Still, stopping here and there to check my location didn't annoy me much.

The game is known (though not necessarily in a positive way) for its polygon-based visuals, and all in all, I think it looks pretty good, a hell of a lot better than fellow polygon-flaunter Falcon. I really can't complain about most of the craft, vessels, and structures (though infantrymen look awful).

It's cool that many of your foes don't just "vanish" upon being annihilated; take a look around in the midst of battle and you'll see downed choppers, burning rubble, and the like.

The designers tried to use superficial elements to establish atmosphere: the sky turns red when enemies are on the scene, and you can hear people screaming as structures and vehicles are being hit. In truth, the screams can be rather annoying (especially at first, before you're used to them), and the game is too easy to be truly scary; but hey, at least they made an effort with this stuff.

Actually, since the missions are easy to complete and don't really require much time, Gunboat ends up being a nice pick-up-and-play title. It lets you save your rank and kill numbers as a little extra incentive to return to it and continue to advance your illustrious "career."

Fray~Xak Gaiden

~ FRAY~XAK GAIDEN ~

Micro Cabin

Super CD-ROM

1994

I found Xak Gaiden utterly charming the first time I played through it. Much of its appeal was attributable to Fray, its spunky young protagonist, who was at that point the most adorable game character I'd ever come across. Her goofy facial expressions and funny antics helped make the entire affair extraordinarily entertaining. I've experienced the brilliant Madou Monogatari since then, and the incomparable Arle annihilates poor Fray on the adorability meter. But make no mistake about it: Fray is a cool little character, and getting the chance to make her acquaintance should be reason enough for players to give this Xak side story a try.

But if you're thinking about purchasing the disc, do NOT expect it to deliver an action-RPG in the vein of Zelda or Ys. Despite the visual similarities, this game is nothing at all like those titles. Here, you walk forward and shoot things. Picture a wacky, cartoony Final Zone II with platforming and occasional town scenes thrown in and you've basically got this Micro Cabin product.

There are parts where Fray gets wings and takes to the sky to battle airships and demons, not to mention a mining-cart ride and a surfboard stage.

The graphics are quite nice and colorful, as is evident from screenshots. And if you like the Neutopia boss bunch, you might like the giant-monster gang here as well, as similarities exist between the two groups (though Xak Gaiden's goons are larger and more charismatic).

What you might not like are the sloppy controls. Fray is kind of chubby and limited, and she doesn't play like a superstar when the screen gets crowded or there are tricky leaps to make.

Still, the game is very easy and ridiculously short. I'd feel better about recommending it if it were showing up more often in the $20-30 price range than in the $40-50 one. But if you're willing to live with its sloppiness and you aren't expecting it to be a true adventure title, you'll likely find it endearing, colorful, and worthwhile.