@“tanuki”#p55205 heck yeah! glad to hear you had a fine time. I didn‘t know about that hidden golfer. I’ll be checking that out next time.
I played Alien Crush for the first time yesterday, what a bizarre pinball game. I had no idea what I was doing, and even saw a dreaded “sorry you have lost your bonus point” message.
I _think_ I got to a mini boss sub table? It had some multi segment flying alien worm type thing on it, and I immediately bounced off something and lost the ball.
What is considered a good score around these parts? I’ll give it another go soon.
I‘d been waiting to talk about this and my brain just hasn’t been in The Zone. but some action button folks asked me to write up some “routes” of PC Engine enjoyment for a thing they‘re doing. I don’t think all of them will get in there, or maybe they already did it. Either way, here are some of the routes I wrote down.
**Top-down action route** - top down action is an under appreciated but pretty well represented genre on the pc engine that people don't talk about much.
_Last Alert_ - shoot dudes, diffuse bombs, listen to cool music.
_Final Zone II_ - shoot dudes and mechs, from within a mech, listen to vocal tracks.
_Dungeon Explorer_ - gauntlet-like with a lot of fun stuff going on.
**PCE action route** - by which I mean action games that are more pc engine than they are anything else.
_Makai prince dorabo chan_ - kind of empty famicom-ish graphics but ultimately has a very cute vibe. vampire that collects tomatoes.
_The Legendary Axe_ - music from June Chikuma, and a unique vibe (part of the Astayanax design family)
_Bonk's Revenge_ - explore please! this game informed my love of secrets.
**Running on rooftops route** - running on rooftops is an extremely pc engine thing to be doing.
_valis III_ - valis is the owner of this genre.
_cross wiber_ - game for a sentai series that never existed. wait til you run on the cyber train. the pits later on suck though.
_shubibinman 3_ - short, unfinished-feeling game in a great megaman-like series, but I love it anyway.
**games that inspire mystery route**
_Youkai Douchuuki_ - what does this do? what does that do? you'll figure it out.
_Bouken Danshaken Don The Lost Sunheart_ - feels like a shooter adventure from a completely different direction. Like part of something bigger, even though it isn't.
_devil's crush_ - unlock stuff, to unlock more stuff, it's onion layers of stuff.
**Is this the PS1? route** - the PCE lasted so long that it went from famicom-like mentality and graphics into the absolute stratosphere for what an 8-bit console could do. There truly are ps1 games that look like these, or often worse.
_Legend of Xanadu II_ - gorgeous high color action RPG which switches between top down ys-style bump battles and side-view action boss battles.
_Gulliver Boy_ - one of the few games to use huvideo technology for fmv.
_Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire_ - they made up for the system's shortcomings by just throwing every animation possible at it.
**horizontal shooters route** - the vertical shooters are obvious and plentiful, so here's some side scrolley ones.
_magical chase_ - some of the best chip music on the platform, beautiful to look at, fun to play.
_metamor jupiter_ - great graphical effects with a couple tracks by masaya matsuura. the game isn't amazing but wait til you see that big rotating space station.
_gate of thunder_ - my favorite horizontal shooter - a clear thunderforce AC-like.
**Japanese mythology route** - PCE was such a japanese game system, you've got to put some of this in there. they were 100% ready to just be like yeah, you know everything about japanese mythology already, here's some twists on it.
_hanatakadaka_ - side scrolling cute em up about being a tengu.
_momotarou katsugeki_ - like if bonk and wonderboy had a baby, set in feudal japan.
_hani in the sky_ - play as a religious statue who can shoot in all directions. good luck getting good at it!
**Pure PCE route** - stuff that's never been anywhere else
_Exile wicked phenomenon_ - middle eastern mythos-based side scrolling action RPG with a unique vibe.
_Download 2_ - weird shooter about defeating cyber hitler. male nudity for once.
_Spriggan Mk. 2_ - sidescrolling underdiscussed compile shooter where player 2 can control friendly "cutscene" ships with a code!
**the pce versions you probably never played**
_shin megami tensei_
_Fatal Fury Special_ (and the other snk fighters)
_Makaimura_ (Supergrafx)
_Strider_ (with vo and cutscenes)
_Fighting Street_ (that music!!)
Well - enjoy!
Already mentioned by @chakan elsewhere but probably good for this specific thread’s record to post GTV’s big Cosmic Fantasy recap here.
https://youtu.be/BiD0jwfFEYE
@“chazumaru”#p68331 I couldn't figure out what the main PCE thread was!
@“chakan”#p68333 Yeah there are (at least) two PCE recommendation threads + a more casual Show me anything NEC thread so it’s not always easy to choose… For that matter, your Annet rival has created a thread specifically to ponder this sort of dilemma.
@“chazumaru”#p68334 Yeah, I'm loving the forum system here (what software is it?) but with how people might randomly reference something off-topic for comparison, searching is definitely a little harder.
I actually came across the **Am I making this thread up?** thread while trying to look, but didn't want to add more noise.
@“chakan”#p68335 I don’t want to speak for him, but I believe our mod @“Syzygy”#279 has said in the past not to worry too much about “adding noise.” (atting him in case he wants to give his take.) It’s not a super large community, so the post frequency isn’t unmanageably high or anything. And I get the impression that asking where to post is in some sense a feature rather than bug, since it leads to more discussion. (Though if we end up talking about the same frequently asked questions over and over that’s probably a bad thing.)
(side question for syzygy and others: Is there anywhere that lists who the forum “management” are (i.e. brandon, syzygy, and shane)? This seems like useful info a newcomer might want to know, that isn’t completely obvious to figure out? Though on the other hand, I think brandon and syzygy have both expressed a desire that everyone feels they have an equal voice in discussions, so maybe loudly saying who the mods are goes against that? Not sure what the best approach is)
@“chazumaru”#p68331 Cosmic Fantasy is coming back on Switch. Sadly, we will experience the same shenanigans as with the Valis collection : only the first two games will be included in this (undoubtedly first of two) release(s). No words about NFT or unnecessary jewelry just yet but it is planned for the end of the year so there is still time.
>
@“chazumaru”#p55236 Tengai Makyō II
> A serious contender for debates about the greatest RPG ever made
https://twitter.com/bowloflentils/status/1618604574176350208
https://pcefan.com/pcengine/unmei.html
https://youtu.be/L0bdLa5jYvU
https://youtu.be/vzhwmtgHR7M
@“KennyL”#p101914 I didn‘t know about this! I’m gonna have to watch this tomorrowwwww
@“exodus”#p101915 Boy, you’re gonna be disappointed when you find out Michael Douglas is not in the movie.
FYI, Gulliver Boy has this amazing boss attack (it kicks the party out of her mansion.)
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/29TzvcF.gif]
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Here are a bunch of PCE gifs and pix I posted on my tumblr page. Some I've posted here before. PC Engine is so cooooooollll
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/t317UNX.gif]
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>!
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Yeahhhhh hot stuff!! I love it. Is the one with the two people running from a sky boat… Blood gear?? Having a slightly difficult time placing it
@“exodus”#p131540 It's Linda³!
GALAXY FRAULEN YUNA, BAYBEE (Ginga Fukei Densetsu). The PC Engine is all about Galaxy Fraulen Yuna, the best adventure game starring the best Fraulen, Yuna. They‘re all translated, they’re all fun and dumb and feature some silly light turn based combat. If you want something to cozy up with and read with some silly gags, Yuna is the game.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/dYG5Vy4.png]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/dYG5Vy4.png[/IMG][/URL]
For another fun adventure game, J.B. Harold Murder Club somehow got an official release in english here. You can play it in both with English and Japanese voices and is a nice cozy mystery in the same vein as Famicom Tante Club. The writer/designer of the J.B. Harold series, Rika Suzuki, would much later make some fan favorite DS ADV games like Hotel Dusk and Last Window.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/jrDVb9A.jpg]
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A game that's somewhat flawed but I'm deeply fascinated by recently is Götzendiener by Ginax. The game feels like something that would appear on the Compile Disc Station series for the PC-9801. An action rpg puzzle game where you play a princess captured by a demon king. The person who attempts to save you is killed, so now you must utilize your abilities, and newly acquired sword from your now dead would be hero, to do the escape yourself. The game is flawed in that it has awkward isometric controls, and sluggish actions that feel kind of Prince of Persia-like. If you can get over that, it's a very fascinating and cool game to mess around with! I'd highly recommend it for a unique experience.
https://twitter.com/jjsignal/status/1321923875345588225?s=20
Oddly, I don't believe the PC Engine ever got Disc Station stuff like the PC-9801 or MSX, but it did get Ultra Box, which kinda had the same idea. Ultra Box, much like Disc Station, was a multimedia disc that contained games, news, and other neat things. Both Götzendiener and all the Ultra Box games require some amount of Japanese to navigate, but are pretty easy to still fool around with. It also has some adventure games with ongoing stories in the same way Disc Station did with stuff like the Madou Monogatari or Lady Bono series.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/V3fIDw4.png]
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Private Eye Dol I only just recently started but also has an English patch now and it's pretty neat so far. Another adventure game like Yuna, but it has segments where you're actively controlling the player in a top down RPG format. Fun presentation so far, very anime.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/KY7FN8i.png]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/KY7FN8i.png[/IMG][/URL]
Fray in Magical Adventure is on a lot of things, but they all play and feel a little different on each platform. An action RPG where you play a young sorceress who was saved by I think the main character from the game Xak? In any case, you're chasing him down and using your powers to plow through various enemies in a way that's similar to action games like Pocky & Rocky, but with some RPG-like flavors in there, like villages and such. It's cute and fun!
None of these are anything (except for maybe JB Harold) that I would hold up and say this is what you need a PC Engine for, but they are certainly unique experiences that feel very PC-88/9801 like, just on an NEC game console rather than an NEC PC now.
@“JJSignal”#p131553 Götzendiener is one of those ones I need a walk through to get through, but I still dug it. I wrote in my little micro review “there is something here, a sense that you are in a place that has existed long before you came to it, that you will only see the edges of. ” And even looking at screen shots that comes back to me.
@“KennyL”#p131543 whoops!! Embarrassing
Love gotzendeiner too, it is indeed deeply flawed especially toward the end - you get the sense it was released before it was fully baked for financial reasons (by gainax!), but it has a lot of cool ideas and is generally really neat. If you like interesting-but-flawed, you can't go wrong.