Chew Man Fu

~ CHEW MAN FU ~

Hudson Soft

HuCard

1990

Hudson Soft had a plan in mind for this one. When it comes right down to it, Chew Man Fu doesn't amount to much more than a game of Sokoban with kick-the-ball and color-matching elements incorporated and without much thinking involved. Of course, crafty developers have ways of masking shallow, derivative gameplay, and if the embellishments they come up with are effective enough, their efforts can win players over in spite of whatever unmeritorious material lies beneath the surface. And so wily Hudson wastes no time before introducing us to CMF's cute little pig-tailed heroines and the crew of oafish, silly-looking beasts who oppose them. The gregarious gang is placed in levels done up with bright, pretty colors to carry out its simple duties while being serenaded by extremely pleasant musical tracks.

When it comes to CMF's endeavors to endear itself to players in every conceivable outside-of-actual-gameplay way, there's simply no letup. Even intermissions are treated as times for merrymaking, as a friendly old man offers whimsical words of advice and the evil wizard Chew makes chuckle-evoking "threats."

Well, I sure as hell was charmed by it all. "What a nice game!" I thought to myself a few seconds into my ball-rolling chores. "How enjoyable this is!" I cried, even though I was doing nothing but placing orbs atop similarly shaded panels and knocking off a few slow-footed animals.

A few rounds in, it all came crashing down. I realized that the simple tasks I was performing were never going to evolve into missions grander or more intriguing, that this is an "action-puzzler" with very little action and no true puzzle solving. What it does offer is redundancy. Oh, lord, is it repetitive. With your sole aim in each level being to deliver four big balls to their color-sharing homes, potential for variety lies only in the designs of the boards themselves and the antics of the enemy cast. Unfortunately, since everything in CMF is drawn in such oversized fashion, there really isn't room within the edge-of-the-screen borders for any sort of intricacy to be integrated into the level design. Pretenses of strategic elements abound: some balls serve as better means to achieving certain ends than others. But the simple stratagem relied on when any "thought" at all is necessary involves reaching the black ball at once for its usefulness in wall demolishing and space clearing. As for the monsters, while you face different sets of three in each realm, there isn't much variation in the stooges' tactics from one world to the next. From "barbarian baboons" to "abominable snowfreaks," the large ape-like villains typically find ways to take your precious orbs hostage, while frogs, turtles, and other such tiny riffraff merely make roadblock-type nuisances of themselves.

Chew Man Fu wears out its welcome very quickly, but through the wonders of palette swapping, Hudson found a way to advertise the game as featuring a whopping 500+ levels. Considering I had my fill upon reaching Round 5, I see little to celebrate in this purported asset of length.

Zipang

~ ZIPANG ~

Tecmo / Pack-in Video / Arc

HuCard

1990

My noble brother Alexei is the big Solomon's Key fan in the family; I'm just the doofus who always confuses the title with Spelunker for some reason. Foggy-at-best recollections did little to pump me up for Pack-in Video's PC Engine revamp of SK ("That cave game?"). I did have good reason to believe I would enjoy it, however. An upgraded rendition of a game Alexei loves seemed like a safe bet, as my stout sibling is nearly infallible. And the presence of the Pack-in moniker on a cover is typically a harbinger of enjoyment (perhaps only for me, but whatever...). Speaking of covers, what a wacky sight this game's is. It's tough not to go into the Zipang experience with a general feeling of positivity.

The experience itself was an enjoyable and surprisingly addictive one for me. There isn't really a whole lot to it, conceptually: you can make and bust blocks, and in each level you must utilize these cube-centric talents to reach an out-of-the-way key and an even-more-out-of-the-way exit. The variety in enemies, obstacles, and challenges that the game throws your way from stage to stage (and even within each stage) is remarkable, especially considering that lengthy sequences of distinct conundrums are built into small, single-screen boards. Sometimes, you have to construct serpentine stairways to make it to your goal; sometimes, you need to find your way through intricate preset labyrinths. Build blockwork barriers to keep aerial foes at bay; take out the ground beneath a beast-warrior's feet to send him plummeting to his death; and lure a mindless pursuer into a niche and seal him away, Cask of Amontillado style.

Zipang keeps things interesting, and it keeps them challenging as well. Know this: you'll find yourself very frustrated at times, if not with the puzzles themselves, then with the hero's extremely inconvenient lack of dexterity. But also know that you'll feel incredibly proud after overcoming a particularly difficult series of trials. And once it's all over, once all sixty boards have been conquered, you'll likely look back on the trying times and, with a sense of accomplishment in tow, realize you wouldn't change a single thing about how the experience unfolded.

Xevious: Fardraut Densetsu

~ XEVIOUS ~

Namco / Compile

HuCard

1990

Xevious and I didn't happen to cross paths during the game's heyday; in fact, it wasn't until I picked up this PC Engine rendition that I got to experience the "classic shooter" for myself. I really wish I had kept my distance, as this is as bad as vertical blasting gets on the PCE. Five seconds into my first session, I was actually grimacing, such was my displeasure. That the visuals are terribly antiquated wasn't the primary problem; I mean, I expected them to be hideous coming in. Splotchy forests, motionless waters, and silly dirt sketches didn't do nearly as much to repel me as did the "music," which consists of an incredibly brief string of high-pitched notes played over and over again. The sound effects are just as irritating, particularly the obnoxious blare that accompanies bomb drops. You'll make those drops and fire away with a boring two-stream pea shooter in an effort to annihilate small, dull "circle-with-a-dot-inside" adversaries. I've waged war against cooler enemies in Atari 2600 games, so let's establish this right now regarding where Xevious' designers went wrong: technological limitations were not the issue; lack of creativity was. And primitive certainly needn't mean repulsive or annoying.

It would've taken some great action to offset all those shortcomings, but Xevious doesn't toss a lot of bullets at you for quite some time, and only in brief bursts even then. There really isn't any reason to endure the monotony for long, as the game eventually enters a stretch of eternal looping. If you decide to continue on for the sake of achieving a high score... well, chances are you won't do that, as you're unlikely to find anything here that'll hold your interest.

But hey, I've been focusing thus far on the "Arcade" mode, the faithful-down-to-every-last-dull-moment replication of the original. There's also a "Fardraut" mode, a purportedly advanced rendition of the should've-stayed-retired oldie. With Fardraut came hope; after all, other over-the-hillers like Galaga and Space Invaders emerged from the upgrade operating room in acceptable-for-16-bit forms. And this Fardraut not only has a set number of stages rather than looping interminably but also tells a story as you play through it--a story conveyed via text and, well, some lame cinematic stills.

I couldn't help but smirk upon first witnessing those plot-detailing wastes. The smirk was wiped right off my face by the stages themselves, which pissed me off outright...

...as what they serve up is pretty much the same crap that's delivered by the horrible original version of the game. The music resembles normal game music a little more, but it's still repetitive racket. You can grab icons that do not-so-thrilling things like granting you additional bullet streams and vaporizing enemy-fired projectiles. And there are what I suppose we can consider bosses and mini-bosses that appear at certain points during the dragged-out four-board journey.

So, what's there to say for Xevious? Fans anxious to paint it as a pioneer quickly point to its "innovative" dual-weapon scheme: you use cannons to take out aerial threats and bombs to eliminate terrain-based foes. Well, that's wonderful. Bravo, Xevious. Thanks to your groundbreaking efforts, other games have been able to employ such systems in contexts that actually don't repel players at once. I think I'll go play Cyber Core now.

Lady Sword

~ LADY SWORD ~

Games Express

HuCard

1992

Tits are Lady Sword's hook. Tits are your incentive to plod haplessly through dungeons that are overly large yet strangely devoid of interesting puzzles and obstacles, to endure too-frequent random battles and unspectacular musical tracks, and to fumble around with a cumbersome setup that requires players to press the Run button in order to access essential maze maps (a pointless requirement considering all the main-screen space that's wasted on nothingness, and an annoying one when step-by-step map consulting becomes necessary in dark or trap-littered areas). Were Lady Sword tits-less and bold enough to stand solely on its merits as a first-person dungeon crawler, there's no doubt it would be deemed a title that stumbles in more ways than it excels.

All that stumbling doesn't mean that Games Express got nothing right in their endeavor, however. In fact, whoever was responsible for Lady Sword's monster designs did a hell of a job. The variety in the cast is laudable; I met what seemed to be over a dozen different breeds of beast just during my inaugural reckless dash to first-floor slaughter. The designs are a bit too cartoony for my liking, but I do get a kick out of how certain enormous bosses and mini-bosses are sketched as stooped to account for being crammed into lairs too restrictive for their hulking frames.

Even beings who don't immediately assail you have their own, er, "unique charms."

Confrontations can be handled in quick, painless fashion. Also convenient are the options to save and rest whenever you so desire (though dream invaders will occasionally interrupt your convalescence) and set warp points so that important locations can be revisited in a flash. Actually, it's all a little too simple; expect nothing in the way of commerce, spell books, strategic battling, or puzzle solving. Items you need are almost always laid out for you along the correct route to a floor's exit, so there is seldom any reason to poke around in side-corridors and fill out your map, seldom any worthwhile extra exploration to partake in. You'll have to be content with lots of monsters, fast fights, and tits.

Really, though, Lady Sword makes for decent dungeon romping, and it could've been a good game had it offered some confounding conundrums to solve and tucked-away items to locate. As it is, it's too damn boring for stretches, as it doesn't give players much to do aside from wandering around, fighting, and trying to make heads or tails of the gargantuan floor layouts. It's worth playing... if you've already experienced other, much-better PCE dungeon crawlers (like Dragon Knight II and Madou Monogatari) and you're scouring the market for more.

Volfied

~ VOLFIED ~

Taito

HuCard

1989

Well, the first part of this review is going to be difficult for me. I feel like I should explain how this strange little game works, but that's no simple task, so bear with me. You control a tiny spacecraft that leaves red lines in its wake as it flies about the playfield. Create a box with said lines to mark off territory as your own; the enclosed area takes on a new appearance as you continue with your veritable conquest-by-doodling. Claim 75% of the round's land and you'll get to move on to a new rectangular realm. Three kinds of enemies take issue with your "three-fourths of this country are mine" declarations: yard bosses who possess missile-attack capabilities, smaller creatures who can be obliterated if you obtain and make good use of a laser cannon, and odd electrically charged orbs that blaze mindlessly along until they ram into your ship. While the electrocution corps settle for nothing but head-on assaults, their prancing cohorts merely need to come in contact with a box-in-progress to deplete your life stock by one.

I'm sure that made very little sense. But the second part of this review is going to be even more difficult for me, as this is where I try to explain why all of that nonsense actually constitutes a pretty enjoyable experience. Most of the fun to be had in Volfied comes from taking chances, from extending a line as far as you can, from attempting to create as large a box as possible when you know a collision can take place at any moment. Stumbling upon time-stop or speed-up icons adds to the fun, as you suddenly gain a significant advantage over the adversaries who'd been making such meddling nuisances of themselves. And extra incentive to push yourself comes in the form of bonus points for going beyond the 75% requirement.

Now it's time for the last part of the review, which will be enjoyable for me, as here's where I get to bash the poor little game for a bit. It consists of forty levels but features far too few enemy types to remain interesting for such a long stretch. Later board layouts seem all too familiar (with the less-enjoyable, icon-devoid ones making for annoying speed bumps), and the gameplay itself feels overly repetitive before even half the quest has been completed. And with droning sound effects proving poor substitutes for quality musical tracks, late-round Volfied only agitates when it isn't wallowing in dullness. Still, the game is enjoyable and intriguing off the bat and comes cheaply enough for its few-rounds-of-fun degree of success to be deemed acceptable.

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.