F1 Circus

~ F1 CIRCUS ~

Nichibutsu

HuCard

1990

How these F1 Circus racing games managed to do so well in Japan is quite beyond me. It's true that F1C action is incredibly fast--but far too fast for the games' own good, as they provide views extremely limited in scope. This first episode doesn't boast the variety in visuals that later ones offer (and bear in mind that even said later ones are dreadfully bland), leaving a driver to traverse graphical doldrums as his nigh-uncontrollable vehicle hurtles up the road.

Don't expect even intermittent aesthetic highlights. Option, celebration, and setup screens are presented in utilitarian fashion--to put it nicely.

The course designs are also very basic, as even the "toughest" segments of track are nowhere near as horribly difficult to navigate as the insane twists and turns prominent in later F1C episodes '92 and Special. And as you're zipping along on the surprisingly straightforward speedways, you'll notice that opposing drivers typically take it easy on you, content to mind their own business or blunder off the road as you breeze on by.

Of the PCE F1C games, this is definitely the ugly one (perhaps I should say "ugliest," as its sequels are visually grotesque in their own right), and it's definitely the "easy" one (though it's still challenging and frequently irritating). It's an unalluring but sensible place to start if, for some reason, you're interested in the series; if you can't make headway in this one, you'll have no shot in the other episodes. I recommend saving yourself the trouble and avoiding the lot of them at all costs, but rabid Circus fans would gainsay me with claims that hours of practice ultimately prove worthwhile. It should cost you only about three bucks or so to find out for yourself.

F1 Circus Special

~ F1 CIRCUS SPECIAL ~

Nichibutsu

Super CD-ROM

1992

The requisite Super CD episode in a series that somehow survived multiple horrific chip efforts, F1 Circus Special carries on Nichibutsu’s racing-game philosophy of “full speed ahead, quality be damned.” Don’t get me wrong; I certainly don’t mean to understate the “full speed ahead” element. If anything, Circus Special is fast--so fast that the screen often ends up scrolling backwards to accommodate the blazing speed, which, of course, looks absolutely ridiculous. Navigating the speedways is an arduous affair, as you can see but small snippets of track at once, and the little arrows that pop up and flash incessantly do very little to prepare you for the tortuous twists to come. You can take practice tours of each course (and have no choice but to do so thanks to compulsory time trials), but it might not matter much come race time. Your computer-controlled opponents delight in crashing into you and one another, often creating spin-outs right off the bat and relegating you to a bottom-feeder ranking for the duration of the race.

So daunting is the task facing aspiring Schumachers here that seemingly minor feats like placing among the top six during a given race elicit "Rocky at the top of the steps"-type celebrations from the bums in your pit crew. Should you manage to do the unthinkable and actually win the whole damn event, the entire world will gather and rejoice.

In fact, one of the few readily apparent ways that this CD "smash" takes advantage of the medium to separate itself from its awful chip counterparts is by delivering numerous celebration/meeting screens.

To be fair, the track layouts and adorning landscape designs are more interesting here than in any other member of the PCE Circus series. This doesn't mean they're worthy incentive to actually try the game, but hey, better is better.

And indeed, thanks to the course designs and those goofy intermission stills (there are plenty of them, and I "enjoyed" seeing what kind of silly scene would pop up with each new achievement), Special is my favorite Circus episode. Keep in mind, however, that being the best of an extraordinarily bad lot doesn't merit true praise, and the "compliments" I've showered this CD "revamp" with should not be taken as indications that it's anything but a terrible racing game.

Impossamole

~ IMPOSSAMOLE ~

Gremlin Graphics / NEC

HuCard

1991

I wouldn't call it the best part, as best parts of video games should never leave you with a splitting headache, but the most interesting part of Impossamole is its "cinematic" opening. A succession of slides details the dilemma of Monty Mole, lazy lounger turned superhero.

The images are somewhat amusing, I suppose, but the tune that accompanies them is what makes the sequence so memorable. Never before had I heard a HuCard number so incredibly long and so remarkably strange. You'll be shocked at the bizarre, eardrum-annihilating sounds your console is capable of cranking out. And as the seemingly never-ending racket proceeds, you'll hear brief stretches of rhythmic and melodic genius. It's an up-and-down epic of a track, an utter disaster that's utterly compelling until it finally sputters out as pure noise towards the end of the image run.

The in-game audio also features its fair share of strange bleeps and bloops but ultimately fails to make much of an impression. In fact, once you look past its opening festivities, Impossamole reveals itself to be a complete dud. It does give you large levels to explore (as you attempt to locate stolen scrolls), but its collision detection is horribly off, and with your main kick-attack very limited in range, you're sure to take one cheap hit after another. Making the affair even more frustrating is the fact that you must proceed very slowly and carefully. Crap constantly rains down upon you, so if you rush forward recklessly (or even just move along at a pace typically suitable for a platformer), you'll have your head thumped repeatedly. The visuals don't help matters: you'd expect the graphics in an effort of this sort to be bright and colorful, but Impossamole's are rather drab and austere--quite awful overall.

Appearance-wise, the stages do offer some variety as you advance from one to the next; but the creatures inhabiting the different realms all basically act the same--you'll encounter old bums in new costumes over and over again. The only true variety on offer gameplay-wise comes in the forms of occasional uninteresting swimming sequences...

...and end-of-level boss battles. The bosses are a fairly lame lot; the last one is so laughably oversized and under-equipped for battle that you can't help but pummel him before he does any significant damage.

If, for some reason, you wake up one day and decide you absolutely must have a cartoony TurboGrafx platformer with awful collision detection, go for Tiger Road, as that one somehow manages to overcome its flaws and end up enjoyable. Impossamole, on the other hand, is not at all fun to play and ranks with the likes of J.J. & Jeff, Bravoman, and Talespin as a despicable disgrace within the Turbo platformer subset.

Tengai Makyou: Ziria

RED/Hudson Soft - 1989/1992 - Japan
CD-ROM/Super CD-ROM

This game is old, old, old. That’ll probably be your first thought upon playing Ziria.

When I told my brother and RPG veteran IvaNEC that I was going to get into the Tengai Makyou series he recommended I start with Kabuki Den and work my way backwards through the episodes. Being the stubborn fool that I am, I ignored his recommendation and started off with Ziria, intending to play through the series in the “proper” order.

Despite its “slow” start, I managed to have fun with Ziria right from the beginning. It wasn’t until late in the journey that mixed feelings began to tread on my fun. First, though, the good stuff.

Battle backgrounds and cinematic “moments” are great hand-painted fare (ala Beyond Shadowgate). The manual for the game has a piece at the end (in Japanese) that shows the process the artists used to digitize these paintings, which I found really cool. It seems like a totally different team must have been responsible for enemy design and background art vs. the “overhead” graphics. Enemy design is also great, with all sorts of cool looking and detailed creatures to fend off during your quest. Music is pretty good too, excellent in some places. Also, during the first two thirds of the adventure your party is accompanied by a friendly frog who will randomly assist during battles. You’ll free all sorts of animal spirits that give you helpful items and spells as you venture towards your final goal.

Now for the not-so-good stuff.... Well, the overhead landscape visuals are awful. Poor color choices combined with grainy graphics makes for an extremely “blah” visual experience as you traverse the lands. What’s worse, however, is that the landscape doesn’t change at all from the beginning right through the end of the game save for a dungeon here and a pyramid there, which in truth are few and far between. The last town in the game looks exactly the same (size aside) as the first town in the game, and everything in between. More variety in this area would’ve gone a long way. The user interface is also extremely antiquated, however this didn’t bother me much. I’m pretty easy going when it comes to this sort of thing as long as the controls aren’t atrocious, and they aren’t.

By the time I reached the final quarter of the journey, my interest was waning. It got to a point during the final dungeon where I just wanted to get the whole thing over with so I could move on to something else. As it turns out, IvaNEC was right on in his recommendation I not make Ziria my introduction to the series. Ziria is a dated game that shows its age, despite some strengths. Its worth a look for the hardcore RPG crowd, but don’t make it your first Japanese RPG.

Valis Visual Collection

~ VALIS VISUAL COLLECTION ~

Laser Soft / Telenet

CD-ROM

1993

This is basically just a collection of cinemas from the second, third, and fourth PC Engine Valis chapters, but it makes for a pretty nice collectible, as it's fairly hard to find and it features a hot-looking Rena on its cover. People make a big stink about the absence of scenes from the PCE rendition of the first Valis, but at least we get more here (relatively speaking) than we do with the Cosmic Fantasy Visual Collection, which offers cinematics from only the first two CFs.

The few who are thinking about bothering with this non-game are probably Valis fans who've already hacked their way through all four adventures, and those folks won't find much new material here. Watching the cinemas from II and III with Japanese voice work might prove interesting for those who have experienced only the English versions of those chapters. But while it's nice to be able to view said cinemas sans goofy English voices, it seems like the Japanese actors "underacted" a bit, ironically enough.

One neat thing about the collection is that it grants you a look at how PCE CD intermission artistry evolved (while sticking with a core group of characters throughout the string of images). Watch as the series progresses from tiny-window-enclosed blockiness to polished, full-screen glory.

This is a legitimately rare disc, but demand for it is very low, so once you do find it, you probably won't have to pay an outlandish sum to acquire it ($50-60 was once the going rate, but $30 seems a common enough asking price these days). It really has no practical purpose, but Valis fans will reap enjoyment enough just from welcoming it into their collections.

Valis IV

~ VALIS IV ~

Laser Soft / Telenet

CD-ROM

1991

Valis IV is the final PC Engine chapter (though the first was released subsequently) in a series that prides itself on tough Castlevania-style action and cute-girl cinematics. It doesn't feature the same caliber of level design as III's most ingeniously constructed stages, nor does it star characters as cool as III's, and its music is disappointing. But it definitely sports the finest graphics of the PCE Valis bunch, and it's long and consistently challenging, whereas its brethren are either short and easy (the first and second episodes) or wildly erratic (III). It should be no surprise to Valis veterans that the controls aren't quite perfect, but with practice and careful observation of enemy patterns, you can indeed devise plans to complete each stage in perfect fashion, making the whole experience very rewarding--if frustrating at times. In this regard, the game and its immediate predecessor are kind of like the action-platformer equivalents of R-Type.

The stages look good and feature cool, robust enemies; and for the most part, they challenge you consistently rather than alternating between easy and incredibly difficult segments like III's do.

Some of IV's toughest challenges, like the fourth-stage cathedral ascent, can be tedious and irritating without feeling as rewarding or as cleverly conceived as III's most demanding trials. The level-draining fetuses that appear towards the end make real nuisances of themselves.

Rough it all out and you'll be treated to lots of nice cinemas.

There are lots of bosses, too. Battles with them can be long and exhausting. You'll face a few unexpected opponents before all is said and done.

Having to bid farewell to a good series is always saddening, but Valis goes out with its head held high.