Yuu Yuu Jinsei (Victory Life)

~ YUU YUU JINSEI ~

Hudson Soft / Takara

HuCard

1988

The Life board game seemed pretty neat to me back when I was really young. I couldn't have cared less how the game is played or what it's all about, but I did know that it involves moving neat little cars down a road, and that was cool enough for me. I was an easily amused little goofball.

Now I'm a much bigger goofball, and as the whole "little cars" thing doesn't carry quite as much weight as it once did, I had to acquaint myself with the "technicalities" of the Life experience to get into this PC Engine take on it. The automobile element is still present, of course, and you get to choose a driver from a set of ten rather doofy-looking folks.

Then you have to set off and make a (mostly randomly determined) living for yourself. As you make your way around the board, you'll experience myriad normal-life events, the particulars of which are determined by the paths you take and the spots you land on. Find work, get married, have a kid, crash your car, watch your house burn down, meet an alien... you know, all the usual stuff.

Of course, the whole point is to make as much money as you can...

...so that you end up living a more luxurious life than your opponents.

I dug the core game a lot more when all I knew about it was the car element. There's very little thought or effort involved; so much of it boils down to pure luck. And the animated bits just aren't amusing enough to inject the goings-on with the charisma they need to remain entertaining.

Space Invaders: Fukkatsu no Hi

~ SPACE INVADERS: FUKKATSU NO HI ~

Taito

HuCard

1990

I didn't like Space Invaders even back when it was "all the rage." There just wasn't enough speed, strategy, or spontaneity to the SI experience. I guess I never quite got the alleged "quaint" appeal of the slow, dull manner in which the stick-with-their-partners aliens proceed with their "invasion"; and I reaped nothing but boredom from the required repetitive utilization of basic tactics. Also, it wasn't long before I discovered "shoot-from-the-bottom" shooters that have so much more to offer. Demon Attack is much more dynamic and colorful and features a wider variety of aliens to blast, and most of its creatures are tougher to annihilate and far less predictable than the average antennae-topped Space Invaders punk. Action-packed Spider Fighter gives players something to look forward to in that it grants them super-fast gunfire once they make sufficient progress, while SI changes things up merely by allowing its aliens offsides starts in later rounds. Even the not-exactly-thrilling-itself Centipede comes off as veritably manic in style when compared with SI thanks to its more-crowded playfield.

The bottom line is that Space Invaders bored me. I would lose patience with it so early during any given session that I'd often go right ahead and blast up my own damn defense barriers so I could get at the dopey aliens that much more quickly.

Needless to say, I really didn't ponder the possibilities of what HuCard Space Invaders would have in store for me. Hell, sitting through just a few seconds of this horrid antiquity...

...made me want to ditch the chip entirely. But I decided to stick with it for a bit and started firing away (at my own shields, of course). After a couple of rounds, I'd had enough.

I couldn't wash my hands of the whole abysmal affair yet, though, as there was still the special "Plus" mode to experience. So with the goal in mind of getting the obligatory give-it-a-try session out of the way as quickly as possible, I started up a game of Plus and watched a pointless "polygonal" spacecraft-tossing exhibition.

I just wanted the game to stop embarrassing itself at that point. It was one of those "You're not cool, so stop acting like you are" moments. But Plus ran through its "3D" shenanigans quickly enough, and once I began playing the game proper, I discovered that it actually is kinda cool in some ways.

First things first: it's fast. Everything happens so much more quickly here than in the terribly methodical original. There are many more alien types to deal with, and the creatures here have three-way shots at their disposal in addition to the usual straight-line bomb attacks. They occasionally align themselves in formations more complex than the facile rectangle-of-rows that their ancestors assembled in. You're provided with numerous neat auxiliary items with which you can fend off your wily new adversaries. Decent-looking backdrops spell the old black nothings that classic battles played out atop. And accompanying the upgraded action is actual music (as opposed to the "tense" lines of blops that had previously passed for a "score").

SI Plus is an enormous improvement over the original Space Invaders, though it isn't quite the renaissance success story that Galaga '90 is; its gameplay just isn't at a high-enough level. It's too random for you to ever get in a zone with it like you can with '90, as luck comes into play a little too often: sometimes, you just have to hope that you're granted a useful secondary weapon or that the aliens don't unleash an untimely spread attack. And ultimately, the action is still monotonous. Nonetheless, even an old SI belittler like me can appreciate the fast-paced play of Plus, and those who actually adore the "classic" will likely consider this modernized take a must-own.

Maison Ikkoku

~ MAISON IKKOKU ~

Micro Cabin

HuCard

1989

You'd expect a HuCard digital comic to seem a bit lacking presentation-wise when compared with its CD-ROM peers, and indeed, Maison Ikkoku is as primitive a member of the genre as you'll find on the PCE, at least where audio and visuals are concerned. There's nothing rudimentary about what it requires players to do, though; this is no "click away 'til the end" sort of affair. While the item-finding and puzzle-solving requisites shouldn't prove too taxing for most, interaction with other characters is where matters get dicey and demand delicacy, and prudent management of the protagonist's limited finances is essential.

Ironically, while Maison certainly gives you enough things to worry about at any given moment, and its seemingly wide-open "take a look around and see what you can make of things" realm presents little in the way of guidance, there really isn't all that much that you can do in it. You spend most of your time loitering in the hallways of a simply structured house, where ill-tempered, odd-looking hooligans hound you like Furies until you shoo them away via ramen- or liquor-based bribery. The peace you attain is always only momentary, and though you can periodically escape from the madhouse and set off on brief excursions, shopping at the mini-mart or tutoring a dimwit doesn't make for exciting times.

Consequences for poor decisions can be severe; there are plenty of ways for your efforts to go disastrously awry and land you in unenviable predicaments.

There's no way you'll avoid an unfortunate fate if you can't read Japanese; there's just too much to the menu and gameplay systems to cheese your way to achieving the end goal (which is merely to glimpse at a hidden photo that, believe me, you can do without seeing anyway). An English patch for the game is available, but regardless of how much you'll be able to understand of what's going on, it's unlikely that you'll find Maison Ikkoku particularly interesting or entertaining. If, for some reason, you don't have access to the CD library but yearn to try a digital comic, I recommend the very-cool Chikudenya Toubee over this.

Cyber Cross

~ CYBER CROSS ~

Face

HuCard

1989

Cyber Cross has no business being a PC Engine game. In fact, no halfway-decent NES title would ever want to be associated with it. It's primitive, goofy, repetitive, and uninteresting.

The mission it has you undertake comes off as a pointless endeavor right from the start. You play a doofus who meanders along and drops the same few boring enemies over and over to the beat of a single not-very-appealing melody. You can utilize an energy blade, a gun, or a boomerang and perform "special" charge attacks to bring down your foes. That may seem like a lot of options to have on offense, but there isn't really any strategy involved--the sword and the gun work well in just about every situation you can find yourself in. The controls are quite stiff, but this isn't much of an issue, as health restorers and power-ups are plentiful, and the nitwitted villains are clumsy combatants. Even the bosses are simpletons.

The stages aren't particularly nice looking, and as you stutter-step your way through them (enduring irritating sound effects all the while), you'll discover that they're straightforward, dull, and far too large for the little that they offer. Things get "interesting" later on when leaps/falls into pits either put you in prime position to reach your destination or land you right back at the beginning of the board.

Despite its inadequacy in so many areas, Cyber Cross actually is playable. But if I were to force myself to endure something repetitive, straightforward, and boring, I'd go with Vigilante instead. Yes, I prefer Vigilante. Chew on that for a while.

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.