Pop'n Magic

~ POP'N MAGIC ~

Riot / Telenet

Super CD-ROM

1992

While I don't have any particular bone to pick with Bubble Bobble or its many descendants, I don't have the same fondness for the line as a lot of other players do either. "Even" Parasol Stars is only fairly fun in my view. So I was quite surprised at just how much I ended up enjoying Pop'n Magic, which I'd pegged as "just another" BB aper.

Truthfully, PnM's gameplay isn't a mega-leap beyond what most of its peers offer up. You dash and hop around within the confines of box-shaped stages and use your magic wand to transform beasts into bubbles, which can be heaved about to obliterate other bubbles and create a fruit-strewn-everywhere brand of chaos. This is all fairly routine stuff in concept, but PnM is extremely impressive presentation-wise. Its colorful backgrounds contain so much more detail than the flat, simple canvases utilized by the likes of Parasol Stars and Rainbow Islands, and there's usually a heck of a lot going on in those backgrounds. These aren't still seas or static forests. From falling leaves to moving gears, there's always some sort of activity occurring in the distance as you take care of business in the foreground.

PnM's soundtrack is extremely lively, contributing to the hectically busy feel of the adventure, and it delivers a particularly nice-to-listen-to tune during the final set of stages. You won't get to hear that track unless you put in some practice, as this quest is no breezy jaunt. The bosses can be quite tough, as they frequently make use of hard-to-dodge missile attacks before moving in for physical assaults.

Beat those bums and you'll get to watch some nice cinemas, which are highlighted by cute voice work and amusing hijinks, with somber bits and touching moments occasionally finding their ways into the mix.

Riot was a maddeningly inconsistent development group, but they didn't slack on even a single aspect of this production. PnM is often available at fairly low prices these days; it typically costs less than Parasol Stars, which it's superior to in every way.

Magical Dinosaur Tour

~ MAGICAL DINOSAUR TOUR ~

Victor Musical Industries / Yazawa Science Office / Fun Project / NEC

CD-ROM

1990

Few things are quite as fascinating to four-year-old dudes as prehistoric animals, and it's pretty easy to understand why. We're talking about the inspiration for countless toys and pop-up-book tales: remarkable, gigantic beasts, many of which flaunted awesome natural weaponry and armor. We read of the interesting methods they used to survive, we observed their enormity firsthand via skeletal recreations, and we envisioned the thunderous battles that took place between prodigious rivals-to-the-death (long before Optimus Prime vs. Megatron, there was Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. Triceratops!). Of course, the fact that these great entities actually roamed the Earth at one time made them all the cooler. There's even an element of mystery involved in their history, as no one has ever been able to suss out the true reason for their demise.

Of course, there comes a point when we dudes move on to robots or whatever and then to girls... and yeah, we pretty much stick with girls from there on out. But something about dinosaurs always remains alluring to us. Heck, I still get psyched up whenever I encounter a good dino-boss in a video game.

But then, fighting with dinosaurs is different from sitting around and learning about them. Victor Musical Industries hoped to appeal to the four-year-old dude in all of us with Magical Dinosaur Tour, which isn't so much a game as it is a made-for-television encyclopedia.

And it's a deep one at that. We get much more than a mere handful of entries and images here; this Tour provides lots and lots of information on dozens of types of dinos. And rather than sticking with basic statistical talk, the writers went ahead and included unexpected bits that reveal errors scientists had made concerning certain discoveries or explore mysteries that remain unsolved regarding incomplete fossil structures. Many entries even include an illustration of a human alongside the dino drawing for the sake of size comparison.

And the Tour isn't all about encyclopedic entries. You can read up on dinosaur "record holders" (for size and speed and whatnot) and peruse topical passages loaded with interesting trivia.

There's even a brief cinematic sequence that explores the possible reasons that the creatures died off. You've likely come across these theories before (if you've done any reading on dinosaurs at all), but the animated slide show is an enjoyable little presentation nonetheless.

I'd known about most of these elements and options before I actually loaded up Dino Tour to experience it for myself, and while they all sounded nice, I was hoping for more: I wanted modes where the creatures were displayed in motion. Without some form of animation incorporated into the proceedings, we'd might as well read a book or visit a museum instead of messing around with this "game." Thankfully, animated sketches are indeed provided, often augmented by roars and howls emitted by the in-motion beasts, and some of the situations that are played out are extremely interesting. A few are comedic, focusing on, for instance, the misadventures of a blundering giant attempting in vain to snatch up a little meal, but many are gory affairs depicting the realities of the dinos' death-awaits-around-every-corner lives.

You can even watch a battle between a hefty Apatosaurus and a fierce Allosaurus play out in two ways: one shows how the plant eater could come out on top, while the other results in a bloody victory for the predator (...and his late-on-the-scene ally. Cheaters!).

Sadly, neither the art nor the animation during these sequences is exemplary. The narration that accompanies the skits is strangely lifeless, with the narrators babbling in monotone and frequently pausing for no apparent reason (but to move on to a new script card, perhaps?). Also, the loading times can become annoying, as can the less-than-stellar chip tunes.

Magical Dinosaur Tour is nice for what it is. While it does have a sense of humor, it doesn't dabble in mini-games and is fairly low on interaction in general. Buy it and you'll get a veritable encyclopedia--an informative but not perfectly crafted one.

Jigoku Meguri (Bonze Adventure)

~ JIGOKU MEGURI ~

Taito

HuCard

1990

Being that Jigoku Meguri is an old Taito platformer, the fact that its protagonist uses "bubbles" to demolish his foes should come as no surprise to anyone (though the game's designers would have us view these bubbles as "pearls"). And it's hardly shocking that most of Jigoku's stages present players with multiple paths to take, though choices are typically of the basic "high road or low road" variety. But as JM is a tour of the underworld, it's a lot darker than fellow Taito-produced action titles Mizubaku Daibouken and The New Zealand Story. It can't seem to detach itself from its cartoony kinsfolk entirely, however, delivering amusing character animations along with enemy designs that would've worked in the aforementioned "bright and colorful" games--if said games were to have featured "haunted house" stages. The soundtrack goes the lugubrious route, but some of its somber melodies remind me of Takeda Shingen's charming low-key numbers.

The juxtaposition of cartoony elements and a dark-in-theme premise actually doesn't lead to anything unusual as far as level concepts go. You have to deal with typical action-platformer hazards, such as crumbling bridges and slippery ice. You do get to board a little rowboat and paddle your way through a cavern, but the strip doesn't play out much differently from the run-and-jump-based others.

Jigoku is at its best when it forces players to use their heads in order to solve tricky leaping sequences, figure out how to reach item-stocked niches, and identify the correct routes to take through complex mazelike areas. It isn't always as ambitious as one would like it to be, and even its toughest obstacle-laden strips aren't very challenging; but the action it delivers is satisfactory even during straightforward stretches, and almost every aspect of the affair is executed in acceptable fashion, making the experience a consistently enjoyable one. Perhaps the only real downer is that it features few enemies who could even loosely be considered "bosses," and unlike Mizubaku Daibouken's heavyweights, these borderliners aren't particularly shrewd in battle.

However, the final fight does deviate from the style of combat featured to that point in an interesting way.

Babel

~ BABEL ~

Laser Soft / Telenet

Super CD-ROM

1992

Poor, ill-famed Babel is a traditional-style RPG best known for having stupidly enormous towns. They're certainly larger than those you'll find in most of the game's contemporaries, but there's only one of truly abominable size. It's a ridiculous continent-sized metropolis split up into five sections, each of which consists of about a billion buildings, and said buildings aren't arranged in neat little rows. Heck, even the interiors of many of the structures are labyrinthine. This is a village so massive that the disc comes packaged with a map of it. And you'll have to spend a lot of time wandering its streets early in the game, looking for just the right person to talk to before you can get on with things.

For a while, there seemed to be no end in sight to the roving, but that isn't the only reason I was unhappy with how the adventure was going in its early stages. Some of the music is fairly good, but a lot of it really isn't. Some of the character designs are very cool, but many of them are not. Some of the towns look pretty decent, but the environments are dull for the most part. And while the cinemas aren't terrible, a lot of them are of the pint-sized Valis II variety.

That's mostly superficial stuff, though; the battles are a more serious matter, and a number of problems plague them initially. Enemy designs are overutilized and mostly uninteresting. Your characters' attack animations have to be loaded up during each fight, which causes the music to stop playing. And the encounter rate is way too high. It's relatively easy to flee from foes in most areas of the game, but the parts that make you buckle down and fight can be really annoying, particularly early on.

But "early on" doesn't last forever, and Babel gets better the further you get in it. Once you've done what you have to do in that big, silly town, the quest becomes much more focused. And you never have to dilly-dally around earning experience points or money. In fact, the game shuns XP entirely and strengthens your characters by itself at certain points, and you acquire plenty of items that you can sell off for good cash. After getting off to a rough start, everything proceeds quickly and smoothly. And aside from some early extended periods of seemingly aimless wandering, there were no points at which I found myself stuck. There are no stupid puzzles or secret warp spots to worry about. It's just mission after mission.

Still, Babel isn't a good game for novices, who'll probably never overcome the early big-town trial. RPG heavyweights, on the other hand, should be able to get through it without much grief (as long as they have this excellent guide on hand, that is). If you plan to acquire the disc, I highly recommend that you obtain a copy that comes with the map sheet, which features not only a sketch of the infamous town but also one of the entire overworld.

I like Babel's main characters, and I like how the quest keeps moving along. I also like many of the significant story scenes. There's some good, violent, exciting material here: bad guys take beam shots to the head, giant robots massacre villages, and innocent innkeepers get their brains blown out.

There are some awkward stretches, though. The game is split up into six chapters, and the fourth features a shitload of text with no actual gameplay. I felt like I was experiencing the second disc of Xenogears all over again. Also, the ending is a goofy cop-out.

But in between the slow start and the wretched conclusion, there's some good fun to be had.

Spriggan mark2

~ SPRIGGAN MARK2 ~

Compile / Naxat Soft

Super CD-ROM

1992

It's a shame that mark2 has virtually nothing in common with the fantastic Seirei Senshi Spriggan aside from serving up the same Game Over number and having the player pilot a mecha. The first Spriggan, a gorgeous vert featuring Aleste-style action, was built around an interesting fantasy-meets-technology theme that allowed its designers to run wild with enemy concepts. They took advantage of the opportunity by delivering a multitude of incredible beasts, magic users, and war machines. mark2 ditches the viewpoint and jettisons the fantasy elements, placing in sidescrolling context a crew of small, boring mecha and presenting very few adversaries of note. I don't particularly like SideArms-style gameplay to begin with; implement such a system and give me nothing interesting to shoot at, and your odds of success are very grim indeed.

While mark2 is seldom praised even by its fans for its action elements, it does garner some love for its visual effects, as it doesn't go easy on the parallax and frequently positions enemies in the background just for the sake of having them zoom into the fray from afar. This sort of flashy stuff is nice and all, but technical merits aside, most of the stage and sprite work is pretty freakin' ugly. And in a rare aural lapse, Compile coughed up an annoying soundtrack to accompany the graphical slop.

While their attempt was futile in my mind, mark2's developers obviously hoped to impress audiences with visual razzle-dazzle. Their efforts apparently did not extend to the main mecha's weaponry, however, as the option pods, homing missiles, and beam sabers here seem rather pitiful when compared with the mighty armaments available in the first Spriggan. Even with such meek weapons, decent shooter players will complete the game the first time they sit down with it.

At least there are some surprises in store for those who possess the fortitude to rethrash the enemy with the difficulty cranked up.

I was willing to make such repeat runs because I enjoyed mark2 more as it went along. I had some fun experimenting with the different weapons and figuring out precisely how to make optimal use of them. The experience on the whole wasn't torturous by any means, though it was definitely disappointing and forgettable.

There are those who'll defy a mark2 disparager like me by crying foul when criticisms are accompanied by comparisons of m2 with the very-different first Spriggan--such comparisons as I've freely made throughout this piece. But let's be honest here. The bigwigs responsible for the game's title, for the approach taken with the cover art, for the utilization of the familiar Game Over melody, knew exactly what they were doing: they themselves wanted mark2 to be associated with the successful and well-beloved Seirei Senshi Spriggan. They brought these comparisons on with their own machinations for making mark2 a hit. Sadly, if anything about my mark2 verdict would have been different had there been no such connection, it would simply lie in me considering the game an even less notable entry in the PC Engine annals.

Bonk 3 CD

~ BONK III CD ~

Hudson Soft / Red / TTI

Super CD-ROM

1993

I wasn't particularly interested in Bonk III when it was originally released. I'd passed on Revenge because of the issues I have with its controls, and reports indicated that the third chapter had failed to bring back Adventure's smooth spin attacks. Also, from afar, B3 seemed to explore very little ground that hadn't already been covered by the debut episode and the first sequel. My tune eventually changed when I read that the CD rendition contains "Vs." mini-games involving wrestling and volleyball, side-stage activities the likes of which I never would've expected a Bonk title to offer. I was intrigued--and certain that I would eventually nab the disc without giving its card counterpart even a passing thought.

Well, I scratched that plan when it became clear that the TurboChip version would be the cheaper, easier buy. And upon tracking the chip down and giving it a play, I determined that the main game itself just wasn't for me. I had no love at all for its vast but largely empty and unrewarding levels, its gimmicky big and small Bonk forms, its goofy bosses, its not-much-fun bonus rounds, and its lounge-style pacing.

Of course, acquiring and playing the CD rendition meant I would have to deal with that crap all over again.

But hey, at least I finally got to try those mini-games I'd been interested in for years. This was a big deal for me, you understand. So, let's go to the mini-reviews and see how things turned out...

MINI-REVIEWS

This is wrestling, in case you couldn't tell. "Wrestling" in Bonk's time apparently meant "head-butting each other until someone falls off a cliff." I wasn't expecting WCW/NWO Revenge here, but this just isn't much fun.

And this, of course, is volleyball. The slow back-and-forth action is Pong-esque in its monotony and (lack of) intensity. Points tend to go on for ages. I wasn't expecting Kings of the Beach here, but this is even less enjoyable than the wrestling stuff.

CONCLUSION

Not the saving graces I was hoping for.

BUT... Bonk III CD ultimately redeemed itself (in my eyes, at least) with its red book soundtrack. The HuCard's tunes (which everyone else seems to prefer) are so dull that they typically leave me drowsy as I struggle to stay with the already slow-paced proceedings. The CD's tracks, on the other hand, are very lively and assertive--raw and dirty and rockin' at times. They actually get me a little more interested in exploring my surroundings and make the action seem a bit more exciting, whereas the old card numbers cause me to race to each goal post simply to avoid the embarrassing fate of dozing off mid-level. That being said, these are not great compositions, and they certainly wouldn't have been worthy of spots on earlier Bonk soundtracks. But at least they constitute an asset in their remixed forms rather than a detriment.

While neither version of Bonk III is particularly wonderful, I do get quite a bit more enjoyment out of the CD. Unfortunately, as alluded to earlier, the CD happens to be the much more expensive rendition (and the card is no bargain-binner to begin with, so we're talking lots of cash here). And I must reiterate the oh-so-minor caveat that I really do seem to be the only human being who prefers the red book tunes.