Faceball

~ FACEBALL ~
Riverhill Soft / BPS / Xanth Software
Super CD-ROM
1993

The first order of business when preparing for battle in Faceball is to select a head. I usually go with the gruff, thuggish cube-carven fellow, but a globular guy, a star-shaped guy, and a mushroom-like guy are also available.

Then it's death-match time. You zip about a small mazelike environment while pelting your cranial adversaries with little red balls. The contest can be a one-on-one affair to be resolved between you and the computer or a battle royal should you be able to assemble a drove of Faceball-loving friends. As damage is dealt and received, cracks appear in the participants' viewing windows, and the characters themselves begin to show damage and shatter.

Should you tire of the cat-and-mouse games of combat mode, you can opt to partake in timed trials that call for the heroic heads to scour mazes for eggs and escort strange little hatchlings to flashing exits.

Whether you're racing or scuffling, you won't find much substance to the scuttle-and-blast events, but plenty of options are available as far as labyrinth layout and difficulty level are concerned.

You can even allow ugly pink bubblegum ghosts access to the fray to make matters more chaotic.

Faceball is a simple sort of thing, but it's also an entertaining sort of thing, as its snazzy soundtrack and amusing voices lend liveliness and charm to the cut-and-dried proceedings. The game is unlikely to hold your attention for days on end, but it's enjoyable in bursts and worth picking up for the player who'll be satisfied to reap once-in-a-while rewards from it.

Flash Hiders

~ FLASH HIDERS ~
Right Stuff
Super CD-ROM
1993

Flash Hiders employs sprites that are relatively small by 16-bit-fighter standards, but its zany, charismatic characters make huge impressions by executing attacks that hit extremely hard. Actually, their punches and kicks of the conventional varieties come off as little more than feeble pokes, but their flashy screen-shaking special moves are what you'll mainly rely on, and some of these techniques constitute devastating multi-hit combos in and of themselves.

The smooth controls make these awesome maneuvers incredibly easy to pull off, and if you can live with pangs of conscience, you'll frequently be able to follow up on fighter-flooring strings of blows with additional roundhouses and haymakers as your unfortunate opponents rise from the turf. Get your foes cornered and they're often as good as done for. Thankfully, you'll likely find pulling off the hard-hitting moves and administering successions of brutal thrashings enjoyable enough that single-player action will remain entertaining for a good long while.

The folks at Right Stuff had a bit of "mad scientist" in their blood, so of course they couldn't leave well enough alone when they were done crafting a solid play system for FH. Fighters can earn experience points for boosting attributes and cash for purchasing items by achieving victory in battle. Veterans of the genre will likely find these elements hardly worth taking notice of, as the game should be quite easy for them on all of its many selectable difficulty levels, but novices will probably appreciate the stat boosts.

While Flash Hiders plays wonderfully, it's hardly an aesthetic delight. Its soundtrack features satisfactory rock numbers that tend to fade into insignificance as one concentrates on the action (but don't truly falter except for the rare occasions where they inadvisedly incorporate odd vocal elements). The characters sometimes look somewhat awkward as they leap, dash, and pummel, while the backdrops range from bright, colorful spectacles to veritable voids.

When the game actually bothers to present full-fledged cinemas, it delivers some commendable character art and effective comedy sketches...

...but all too often it instead offers text-based event screens and terribly uninteresting "talking heads" sequences.

But unimpressive tale-telling scenes and hit-or-miss aesthetics don't nullify the title's excellent gameplay. Indeed, when we boil matters down to aspects of fisticuffs, Flash Hiders comes through as well as just about any other PCE fighter.

Awesome Stuff... in Not-So-Awesome Games

I couldn't understand the allure of the Genesis back in the system's heyday. I seemed to have a propensity to acquire cartridges for it that were anything but console defining. While my Genesis-endorsing friends were getting their vertical-shooting fix via Compile's frenetic M.U.S.H.A., I was chugging along through Namco's slow-paced Phelios.

"What do people see in this machine?" I howled in bewilderment.

Phelios, of course, was hardly the sort of game that would make one realize the virtues of the system that hosts it. Its creators would have us believe they were effectively utilizing the mythological premise they selected for the title by employing the likes of a chubby fire phantom and an insect-like Cerberus. Players must eliminate such hardy creatures of legend via a play system that relies far too heavily on charge-shots; more time is spent filling a meter than doing away with demons. The hero's adversaries typically come traipsing along in neat rows and columns (seldom have I seen such a tidily arranged legion of fiends), seemingly setting themselves up for charge-shot-induced demises. The realms they so stringently patrol are largely drab and desolate.

There's little to inspire one to play the game once its enumerated-above faults become evident. But for an all-too-brief stretch, Phelios actually rises to the ranks of the incredible.

Via onscreen text that materializes during the opening phase of its third level, the game alerts those who are understandably unprepared for a transition into quality play that danger is on the way in the form of approaching griffin knights. A moment later, the warned-of blade-bearing evildoers soar into view and attempt to spear the suddenly under-siege protagonist.

The field scrolls along breezily while boasting bright visual work and impressive multilayer scrolling, but the action itself is the most commendable element of the sequence. The cutthroat chasers are relentless and erratic in their aerial pursuit of the hero, who must wend his way through claustrophobically narrow airways as he desperately tries to evade and outwit his assailants. Through fancy flying he can bait the surging attackers into slamming headfirst into the tubular walls of the speed course.

It's an extremely atypical, exciting, nice-looking segment of a shooter that at few other points can appropriately be described with such modifiers. And it made me wonder what other games are out there that shine in particular ways while coming nowhere close to inspiring awe with any other components of their makeups. Specifically, I sought instances of wondrousness in Turbo titles that travel unremarkable paths in almost every respect, concealed exemplifications of sheen and utter competency amid proceedings defined by dullness and inadequacy.

Indeed, the Turbo annals house a fair few idiot savants, rain men that boast on-their-own elements of excellence while bumbling along through otherwise non-notable existences. To be sure, not all of the titles to be discussed here are horrid; some are delightfully mediocre. But none excel generally or consistently. Each does, however, achieve a startling level of success in some manner--be it via an aesthetic merit, an inspired stretch of action, or some other remarkable aspect of its composition.

Note that this is not intended to be a mere exercise in identification. There is a tributary aspect to this piece, as part of what makes these instances of ingeniousness so interesting to me is the human element. Whether these are cases where a group of designers got their act together for a fleeting moment of glory or where a particularly talented individual contributed high-caliber work to a project crippled by the ineptitude of his cohorts, someone or some people deserve recognition for long-obscured brilliance. And as I am certain that every designer who ever had a hand in the making of a PC Engine game checks this site regularly and with great zeal, I am all too happy to give the heroes in question the credit they so richly deserve, to acknowledge their commendation-worthy contributions sans context along the lines of "What a shame that everything else in this game is so putrid." At least for a time, let's admire these displays of proficiency rather than lamenting their fates as aspects of generally abhorrent or lusterless products.

If you're game, we'll now commence our look at outstanding fare housed in unexceptional shells.

~ BASTED'S CINEMAS ~

While Basted can be viewed as an action-RPG, it really doesn't strive to be much of one. Rarely does it require players to partake in combat, navigate mazes, or step beyond the walls of a town they find themselves exploring a mere five minutes in. What it does do is present one incredible full-screen-occupying intermediary scene after another.

Stellar artwork is augmented by well-implemented and uncommonly utilized effects, making these sequences extremely impressive in a technical sense. But the true sign of their quality is their effectiveness in relaying the tale the game wishes to tell, one that involves significant shares of comedy, action, tragedy, and drama.

~ VALIS II'S MUSIC ~

There is only a single screen you need to visit in order to make optimal use of your Valis II disc:

V2 is a short, unspectacular hack-and-shoot game that is quite easy to tear through despite the clunkiness of its controls. Its soundtrack, however, is something special. The inspirational fanfare of the title-screen theme gives way to the beautiful piano-dominated phrases of the bittersweet first-stage tune. Later, an ominous number grants intensity to an obstacle course devoid of the sorts of challenges that could create extreme excitement on their own. Most memorable of all is the third-level tune, which commences with a burst of brightness and proceeds to induce nostalgia with its unabashedly treacly melodies.

~ DRAGON SPIRIT'S ICE LEVEL ~

Ploddingly slow and horribly ugly, Dragon Spirit wouldn't be worth a second of anyone's time were it not for a single level during which it somehow rises up and becomes worthwhile. The frosty sixth stage is actually rather pretty and boasts action a step above the simplistic slowness to be experienced throughout the rest of the unremarkable adventure.

The highly overrated soundtrack, which contains a host of forgettable numbers, bestows upon the board a tune actually worthy of adoration. Long, winding, and immediately catchy, the gorgeous track effectively injects emotion into what's a rather austere affair in general.

~ TV SPORTS FOOTBALL'S FIELD-GOAL KICKING ~

TV Sports Football comes off as a waste on both sides of the ball. It burdens players with a mess of an offensive system that renders running useless and passing an exercise in arm-directing absurdity, while its computer-controlled clubs are so lacking in sense that the choices one makes on defense wind up being inconsequential. As a youngster who had just expended a sizable pile of long-saved-up cash on the chip, I was highly distraught upon discovering its inadequacies. But I managed to find refuge in its field-goal-kicking system.

The close-up visuals are quite nice, but what truly makes TVSF kicking so cool is the manner in which it's handled. Taking the angle and distance of the attempt into account, you must decide exactly where you want your kicker to strike the ball and have the skill pull your plan off via a crosshairs-based system. Some of the kicks you can try are quite hard to make, and seeing the ball sail through the uprights as your kicker raises his arms in triumph brings about no small sense of jubilation.

~ BATTLE ROYALE'S CAST ~

There isn't much to the actual battling in Battle Royale: some slaps and kicks and an over-the-ropes toss constitute the respective skill sets of the featured fighters. Still, players just can't help but pick a favorite from the crew of likable-if-limited brawlers. BR's misfit wrestlers showboat and guffaw and romp around the ring--and never fail to earn themselves fans with their antics.

Just as wacky as the frenzied fighters are their odd-looking managers, who emit fearless boasts and laugh-evoking threats--when they're not participating in behind-the-scenes rumbles of their own.

~ FANG OF ALNAM'S BATTLE SYSTEM ~

Alnam's scrums seem to be of the typical overhead-view, turn-based type at first glance.

But the simplistic superficial aspects of the scenes belie the depth of the system at work. The heroes and heroines can do their damage by casting devastating magic spells, transforming into beasts and launching suitably fierce attacks, or collaborating with allies to perform unique tag-team maneuvers. Whatever your preferred method of assault, actions are carried out quite quickly, yet none of the fights unfold in helter-skelter fashion; strategy plays a role as "move points" (which each technique costs varying amounts of) are limited. And while extra incentive for participating in the enjoyable skirmishes is hardly necessary, money is paid at in-town cash houses for the sheer amount of slaughter committed by your party members.

~ LADY SWORD'S ENEMY DESIGNS ~

Lady Sword is a straightforward-to-a-fault dungeon crawler that attempts to entice the easily titillated by exhibiting digitized tits. This is rather paltry incentive, as there are far-better settings for sneaking glimpses of breasts--real life, for instance. Games Express would've displayed prudence by focusing instead on the incredibly vast variety of adversaries LS places in the paths of its players.

I couldn't believe how many different types of creatures I'd run into during a mere initial run through the dungeon's foyer. And these are no nondescript nuisances we're speaking of; rock-hewn behemoths, amazonian warriors, and bloody severed heads are among the fierce folk who'll make your acquaintance.

~ BALLISTIX'S REF ~

Ballistix takes the grand old game of air hockey, places it in a futuristic setting, and completely bollixes it up. While the chaotic nature of the gameplay would likely nullify any conceivable bolstering of the affair's aesthetic components, one still wishes that the game weren't so utilitarian in approach. The marvelously gruesome master of ceremonies is employed merely to announce the commencement of each match.

With a distinctly alien air about him, he would seem a more suitable villain for a Contra episode than a knock-hockey-based debacle.

~ LAST ARMAGEDDON'S MONSTER-EVOLUTION SYSTEM ~

It's pretty neat that Last Armageddon gives players three alternating groups of monsters to play with as opposed to the usual RPG fighter-wizard-archer-tokenchick crew. The irritating battles, broken play system, and sprawling-yet-devoid-of-anything-interesting labyrinths initially offset the positives of the premise, but persistent players eventually get to strengthen their beasts in a fascinating way--by having them take on certain characteristics of other monster breeds, creating mighty new hybrid creatures in the process.

It's always fun to acquire awesome abilities via this innovative methodology, but most of the enjoyment to be derived from the process lies simply in seeing what the resulting abominations look like.

~ ASTRALIUS' SHARK LEVEL ~

This is the most incredible, most astounding, least likely example of the "isolated amazing stuff" phenomenon I have ever come across. Astralius, a terribly painful-to-play atrocity of an RPG, becomes absolutely awesome for a single stretch of island hopping. The concept at work is unique and somehow rather adorable: friendly sharks poke their heads above water to create bridges for the party to travel over.

While most of the enemies you encounter during your quest are unapologetically brutal, the foes you face while galloping from one great white to another are worthy but fair-fighting challengers. And while most triumphs in battle land you criminally little reward, reasonable shares of experience points and cash are divvied out here. And while the soundtrack for the most part is a horrid mass of audible awfulness, the shark theme is so ridiculously catchy as to be absolutely unforgettable. It all adds up to a wonderfully fun jaunt in the middle of a journey during which almost every single step is accompanied by unimaginable pain.

Of course, mere instances of ingenuity typically don't suffice to offset such pain. And I suppose the time to pay homage must now come to an end, as it would only be natural for people previously unacquainted with these games to wonder if the cited examples of far-beneath-the-surface brilliance make their respective titles worth purchasing. Certainly, there are caveats involved with each and every covered case. The brutality with which Last Armageddon and Astralius treat those who set foot in their realms ensures that very few players will ever come to realize their merits. Basted's cinemas should be witnessed by all, but the disc can seldom be acquired on the cheap. And it's hard to imagine anyone at this point holing themselves up to indulge in lengthy TV Sports Football Practice-mode sessions--regardless of how inexpensive the TurboChip may be.

Then again, Dragon Spirit certainly has its fans, folks who would argue passionately against my claims that it sports a sputtering soundtrack and delivers uninspired action. Battle Royale has been known to be the focal point of many a five-player get-together. And I must play spoilsport in my own article by pointing out that Valis II actually tells a rather interesting and moving tale.

Yes, more than one positive may be detected in these titles. And of course, some may perceive virtues in a given clunker where others see only the least desirable of traits. It can be interesting and worthwhile to discuss unearthed bits of gloriousness, to see where people find beauty in products largely considered meritless. There's something poignant in the notion of a back-alley programmer/composer/artist striking gold while working on a project ultimately treated by the masses with disgust or indifference, hitting upon something at some point that would wind up meaning a lot to someone out there. And it's impossible to say when and where the winning ingredient will find its way to the player who will appreciate it.

Some folks have actually emerged from the woodwork to claim that Phelios has more than one good thing going for it.

And they just might be right.

Seiya Monogatari (Anearth Fantasy Stories) Taikenban

~ ANEARTH TAIKENBAN ~
Hudson Soft / Media Works
Super CD-ROM
1995

Seiya Monogatari ranks among the finest RPGs ever produced for the PC Engine, but this promotional disc provides scant indication of the greatness of the complete game. There's little to do in the included demo mode: you can gallivant about a village for a while prior to taking a trip into a forest to intermingle with the "development staff" and get a quick look at how combat plays out.

Fans of the full game in search of neat Anearth-related bonus material will find little of the sort here. You may access character profiles, take a look at fan art consisting of rough sketches and splotched colors, and listen to a handful of tunes as small sprites stumble about a stage.

There isn't much substance to the Anearth-associated fodder, but many a PCE player has sought to obtain the disc, as it contains an incredibly interesting (if ill-concealed) Easter egg in the form of a vertical shooter called Cychorider.

Cycho is a speedy stunner. At once it litters its playfield with small sprites that dart all about; your job, of course, is to blast up as many of your extremely erratic adversaries and as much random debris as you possibly can within a two-minute stretch. Annihilate conveyance carts to free toted phantoms that can be chain-nabbed for significant sums of bonus points. Alternate between a spreadshot and a laser to obliterate the enemy's mini-machine forces and a bullet-spewing boss-beast.

I wouldn't want to overstate Cychorider's excellence or imply that it has the fundamental makings of an incredible full-length shooter. There's nothing particularly taxing about its challenges or clever about its design. Had its essence and mechanics been placed in a grander, more ambitious context, interesting obstacles and superior background art would have been necessary inclusions, and goodness only knows if the hypothetical design team would've come through with the goods. But the game is fast and fun and perfectly suited for the novelty-esque role it's asked to play here, and it stands as sufficient reason to acquire the hard-to-find (and somewhat pricey) promotional disc.

Heroes of the Midnight Sun: Manley & Associates

Night Creatures came and went about as quietly as a game possibly could have back in the 16-bit era. By the time it was released, the TurboGrafx-16's unfortunate fate had already been sealed, and the few stragglers who remained loyal to the console paid no mind to the horror-themed, hardly hyped title. It took its place alongside fellow also-rans Ballistix and Gunboat in silly, ineffectual ads and found itself deemed average in a couple of rote magazine reviews, the tones of which betrayed complete disinterest on the parts of the writers. With all kinds of circumstances already arrayed against the chip, its general profile wasn't helped by the fact that the team that produced it was a contingent of a tiny development group called Manley & Associates--a group that no Turbo fan had ever heard of before.

The true advent of emulation a number of years later meant that overlooked gems, anomalies, and atrocities in the gaming annals were granted second chances to make their marks with players. Indeed, many a ROM-downloader took note of Night Creatures--but the game's emulator-brought-about fate ended up an unenviable one. With wretched gameplay and a head-shakingly bizarre visual style, NC became the object of point-and-laugh-variety ridicule. Smirking players derided its extraordinarily goofy creatures and characters, shook their heads as the awkward-looking protagonist got juggled about by oddball critters and vermin, stared in disbelief as an overweight soothsayer granted them stilted lines of counsel, and shielded their ears from music lugubrious to such an extreme it ended up laughable. Yes, Night Creatures had finally garnered some attention--the kind that no developer would ever desire for its product. Rather than fading away honorably in anonymity, NC had become a complete laughingstock.

But there were a few intrepid players who overcame the poor coldet, who accepted the game's graphical missteps, who played deep into the affair and discovered something obscured and unexpected: promise. At some early point in its development, Night Creatures had the potential to be phenomenal. It's easy to imagine the wondrous possibilities that must have existed for a title that offered a Simon's Quest brand of sidescrolling questing and starred a protagonist capable of shifting forms and wielding a wide variety of weapons. One can't help but speculate as to the types of puzzles and battles that might have been wrought with the basic elements that were in place, the sorts of rewards that might have been reaped by exploring a fully realized realm of horror and astonishment. What some players felt they had on their hands, believe it or not, was a precursor of sorts to the renowned and historically significant Symphony of the Night.

Which all leads one to wonder just what the hell happened during the making of the game. How did a project of such incredible promise end up mired in a bog of ridiculousness? How could a title share myriad elements with one of the most beloved action-adventure games of all time yet be viewed by many as sub-Impossamole-caliber dreck? And what of the ever-elusive Manley & Associates, the folks who delivered this one very curious game before abruptly up and vanishing from the sphere of the TG-16? Being that these questions were weighing heavily on my mind, I decided to track down the man who ran the show for M&A, Ivan Manley himself, and get his own thoughts on the obscure little title that had suddenly found itself the focus of numerous discussions and debates in Turbo circles. Said Manley,

"We had great hopes for the product in the conceptual days, but budget made it what it is. NEC wanted product on the cheap. We were not happy with it, but the publisher rules and I needed to make payroll.

"M&A survived on a shoestring. Publishers beat up on independent developers and even drive them out of business. They would pay us peanuts to get a gem of a game. We took many projects just to get by.

"We designed and started to develop the sequel to Pitfall. During the early stages, Disney showed their next generation of animation at CES. Activision called us and said that our animation needed to be better than Disney's. We told them that Disney had over twenty artists on the project and a budget of $1,000,000 just for art. Activision canceled our contract!

"That's how brutal the industry was."

Brutal seems like an apropos term, not only for the state of the industry at the time as concerned independent development teams or the dilemmas faced by Manley & Associates in particular, but also for NEC's misguided, doomed-to-fail, bottom-line-prioritizing practices in attempting to dig themselves out of the deep hole they had plummeted into. Cheap, rushed labor was apparently the method by which they hoped to stock store shelves after tactless negotiations with successful developers had gotten them nowhere. But the company's many blunders seemed a topic for another time while I was in correspondence with the former head of Manley & Associates. I was more interested in discussing the elements that were compromised, the hopes that were dashed, as Night Creatures began to take form in the M&A shops. But when pressed for specifics, the otherwise helpful Mr. Manley was at a bit of a loss.

"Dave Albert was responsible for the game. Since it paid little, we paid little attention to it.

"See Dave Albert."

All right then.

Dave Albert, a game industry veteran and estimable designer who had somehow gotten himself involved in the debacle that was NC, was very amiable upon being approached about the title and very willing to reflect on his experience crafting it. So we posed a few questions to him...

The Brothers Duomazov: It seems that the Manley & Associates crew was working mainly on computer games prior to releasing Night Creatures. How did it come about that M&A produced this one title for NEC's system, and how did the team come up with such an unusual concept for the project?

Dave Albert: M&A developed a relationship with NEC and submitted the basic concept of Night Creatures, which was based on an idea from Carol Manley, their in-house designer. As a freelancer, I was asked to elaborate on and take over the concept, which I did, and we were awarded the project. While M&A had been developing computer games, they had in-house expertise on game console systems, so it wasn't a stretch to take on the project.

TBD: Night Creatures is often compared to Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, another sidescrolling quest game with horror undertones. Did Simon's Quest provide direct inspiration for NC? Were there other games that lent some ideas to certain elements of the title?

DA: Not really. The comparison is purely based on genre, not on any actual intent. At that stage in the game industry, horror was a genre that many wanted to pursue--in advance of actual system capability, I might add. Thus, most attempts in this arena were more humorous than shocking or frightening.

TBD: People frequently remark that Night Creatures seems "unfinished." It's very short for an adventure game, and it features only three tunes and hardly any spots that require usage of the animal forms. Was M&A pressed for time, or was constructing a quest that could be quickly completed the plan all along?

DA: M&A were pressed for money, not time. While schedules are often the bane of the developer, funding is really the critical issue for most independents. If you stop to consider the typical dynamics of a publisher-developer deal, it becomes obvious pretty quickly why most are doomed to fall short of the original vision. Proposals are considered and objectives agreed upon. Then the deal dance begins and usually takes months to close. At that point both the scope and schedule of a project are compromised, but the publisher usually insists on adhering to goals that were set when there was more time and better funding on the table. It's a recipe for disaster, but it is also the standard modus operandi for young publisher producers who think they are doing their company a favor by saving time and money. In that era publishers also back-loaded their contracts, feeling that money after Alpha and Beta was an incentive to ensure developer performance. Instead it just meant that the actual dollars put into production were greatly reduced. You would often see as much as 50% of the funding coming in after the product was essentially complete... and in the end, the dollars spent on actual production are what make the difference in the quality of a game.

TBD: Many players dislike NC because of its floaty controls and poor collision detection. Indeed, even fans of the title concede that the gameplay could've been better. Was the development team truly happy with the feel of the game?

DA: No, there was disappointment in several different areas... Personally, I felt that the art direction was far below par and that a lot of time and effort were wasted trying to address that issue. The art side not only impacts the aesthetics of a game, but often the collision boundary boxes and overall feel. For me the issue of art direction is the single biggest reason I discontinued my association with M&A. From a hardware viewpoint, the severe storage limitations of the TurboGrafx memory card also hurt the game. The TG was an intriguing but ultimately flawed console.

Dave has a point about the art...

TBD: Night Creatures definitely amuses players with its funny-looking characters and stilted lines of dialogue, but fans sometimes wonder if they're laughing for the right reasons. The game seems to have a dark theme from afar; even its cover art projects an air of seriousness. Where did M&A plan to draw the line between horror and comedy? How much of the "comedic effect" was intentional?

DA: As I mentioned before, the limited graphics capability of consoles in that era ensured that horror was not achievable. Yet the themes of undead/dark creatures are universally appealing--you need look no further than TV and movies to see evidence of their appeal. When faced with the hard choice of attempting harder-edged entertainment and failing or going more for Addams Family/Munsters charm and humor, we chose the latter.

TBD: NC is frequently dubbed a "kitsch classic," famous among Turbo players (and loved by some of them) for being laughable. Is this a bitter pill to swallow considering the promise of the original concept, or is it gratifying in a sense that the game has at least managed to endear itself to a certain pocket of its audience?

DA: It is always gratifying to amuse and entertain people. To the extent that we did I am pleased. For the ones who were not happy, I am disappointed.

Believe me, Dave, we're amused...

TBD: When the time came for the game to ship, how did the team anticipate it would fare with critics and players? Aside from a few magazine reviews branding it average, it didn't get a lot of attention, and it wasn't a bestseller (even by TurboGrafx standards); but to this day, people still find themselves intrigued by it.

DA: By the time it shipped I had parted ways with M&A, so I wasn't there for the release and cannot really gauge the team's hopes and expectations. That being said, I am sure they were both disappointed and engaged in some degree of denial about what did actually ship. Sadly, most games are shipped before they are ready, due to a combination of forces that almost always ignore the consumers' interests and needs. I would suggest that the blame for that rests equally with developer and publisher for different reasons. Publishers tend to forget that they ship products and instead focus on shipping schedules. Developers try to maintain some form of profit margin on their developments in order to keep the doors open and thus rush things out the door.

TBD: With an extremely interesting premise and a few impressive visual feats, Night Creatures seems to show that the development team had talent and the potential to do some good things with the TG-16 hardware. Unfortunately, M&A never worked on another Turbo game--why not?

DA: We were actually engaged with NEC on a potential next project with them--I helped out by creating market research for them on a set of licenses they held. However, that sort of dissolved when I disassociated myself with M&A. I also think that NEC was coming to grips with the limitations and issues with the TG. We were looking at doing a CD-ROM game next, and looking at what had been done with Ys as a basis for the system capability.

Ys: A small step above Night Creatures as far as production values go.

But, much as was the case with the Sega CD system, a slow, tacked-on mass storage device didn't really add much to the system's capability. Pushing camels through the eye of a needle is not a good path to artistic fulfillment.

TBD: What kind of impression did the TurboGrafx-16 make on you, both with its technical capabilities and its library of available software?

DA: It had a lot of potential but did not ever realize it. While the memory card was a cool form factor, it was also a severe restriction. I did very much like the Ys games, and felt that there were a number of good, well-realized titles on the system (Bonk, while derivative as all get out, was still a lot of fun). The problem with consoles throughout their history (and I will credit Nintendo as being smarter than the rest) is that they were designed and marketed around discrete components instead of being conceived as integrated systems. As a result, learning to produce and refining production on each one were challenges that could only be mastered in serial production.

TBD: TurboGrafx fans tend to know of Manley & Associates only through Night Creatures. What were some of the other titles that you worked on over the years, both with M&A and with other companies, and which were you most content with?

DA: Not sure I can answer this in any sort of satisfactory way. My career spans thirty years of which M&A was less than a year. M&A was one of those B-houses that underbid other developers, and their output reflected their business approach. I did games with them that total design time was less than a week, reusing in-house "engines" to crank out games in less than a month. I learned a lot and it was good exercise, but nothing to be particularly proud of. As far as titles throughout my career, I worked primarily as a producer/designer in the early days and then later in more senior executive roles. I have touched well over a hundred titles in my time and found something to love in many of them. However, I feel some of my best design work never made it into final production and resides in dusty archives somewhere. I will mention the original EA Wasteland, Origin's Moebius, and Penguin's adventure game Transylvania as ones I had deep creative involvement with and felt came close to being properly realized.

Dave's revelations regarding the crafting of Night Creatures are interesting in a number of ways. His statements in regards to funding are pointed and significant--though, of course, not particularly surprising. The conscious attempt to go a comedic route with the basic concept and the reasons behind the decision are likely to be scrutinized. While I believe most would agree that survival-horror-type thrills were unlikely to be evoked via 16-bit superficials, the unsettling music, ghastly enemies, and well-implemented visual effects to be found in the likes of Splatterhouse and classic Castlevania episodes surely established eeriness and produced suspense to some respectable, unignorable degree. Still, it's safe to say that the Manley & Associates crew had nowhere near as much money to play with as the respective in-house development teams of Namco and Konami nor the caliber of artists that could have made their title nearly as graphically effective or as playable as the aforementioned gems. And so it would be easy to write off Night Creatures as a lamentable tragedy of budget-related circumstances.

I'm vehemently opposed to doing that, though.

Maybe it could've provided a deeper questing experience. Maybe it could've made better use of the alluring elements it comprised. Maybe it could've been a lot like Shape Shifter or Simon's Quest. But for those types of experiences, we're fortunate enough to have those particular titles. Goodness knows the world has seen more than enough "Metroidvanias" come down the chute. But there isn't a single game out there that's truly comparable to NC.

I'm tired of viewing and discussing Night Creatures as something regrettable, as an early promise that met an unfortunate end. Accidentally or not, NC has endeared itself to many players who have experienced it beyond its discomfiting opening moments. It bears a distinct brand of goofy charm; it's a title so lacking in grace that it ends up lovable for its awkwardness. It is absolutely and undeniably unique... and very, very memorable.