Märchen Adventure Cotton 100% (Super Famicom)

Rejoice, tender lumplings! Beautiful, blustery October is here, bringing with it another cycle of five Halloween-appropriate game reviews for five classic consoles. Leading the charge is everyone’s favorite sugar-crazed witch, Cotton, in her sophomore shoot-’em-up outing. This time, she and her fairy sidekick Silk are out to clear her name after hearing tell of an Cotton evil imposter wreaking havoc across the land. That, and indulge her endless gluttony for delicious willow candies, of course.

At first blush, 1994’s Märchen Adventure Cotton 100% (“Fairytale Adventure Cotton 100%”) for Super Famicom isn’t a radical departure from its predecessor, Fantastic Night Dreams. Quite the opposite, actually, since several enemies and stage concepts reappear with only slight alterations, lending a remake feel to those aspects of the game. The cloaked skeleton boss of the graveyard in FND has been reimagined as a possessed doll in 100%, but the battle itself plays out similarly. Though I would have preferred less of this blatant idea recycling, there is still enough original material to keep veterans engaged.

The basic structure and mechanics of Fantastic Night Dreams have also been carried forward. Cotton must again pilot her broomstick through seven auto-scrolling side-view stages, each with its own mid and end boss. Her primary attack is a rapid-fire magic blast that powers-up automatically as she accumulates score to advance the experience meter at the bottom of the screen. Any contact with an enemy or hazard will result in a death that depletes a hefty chunk of experience (and therefore shot power), although Cotton is at least able to respawn in-place immediately and maintain her forward momentum. Her main shot is supported by a small bomb for use against ground targets and her fairy friends, who trail behind her and contribute some extra firepower of their own. Cotton’s final and most potent weapon is her limited number of spell charges. Available spells include various elemental attacks that deal heavy damage over a wide area, as well as a bubble barrier that encircles Cotton and allows her to withstand a single hit without dying. You can’t access them all, however. Instead, you must choose between four pre-set spell assortments at the start of your playthrough.

Where you will notice a huge divergence is in 100%’s visual and audio stylings. Developer Success really leaned into the pastels this time out, resulting in a softer palette befitting the fairy tales of the title. It looks great for what it is, even if I personally prefer the spookier aesthetic of Fantastic Night Dreams. The tone of the soundtrack was likewise softened, and here my response was somewhat less charitable. I obviously can’t claim that the whimsical, often downright dainty tone of these numbers is somehow inappropriate accompaniment to a silly cartoon witch collecting candies. Regardless, they will inevitably be compared to the legendary PC Engine CD-ROM arrangement of the FND score, and 100% is, ironically, among the 99% of games that fall short of that vaunted standard. Being housed on a cartridge as opposed to a CD, 100% also lacks voice acting for its between-level cutscenes. Not that I could understand a word of the PCE Japanese voice work, mind you.

Being a pseudo-retread of its much flashier predecessor, you may be wondering if there’s anything I can recommend Cotton 100% for specifically. There is, in fact: Its difficulty. Or rather, its lack thereof. Fantastic Night Dreams doesn’t merely look and sound more intense than its sequel. It plays that way, too, reflecting its arcade origins. While hardly impossible, it isn’t an ideal beginner’s shooter. 100%, on the other hand, is precisely that. The action proceeds at a relatively relaxed pace, enemy patterns are easy to decipher, and the generous respawn system ensures you’ll never be knocked back to a checkpoint, let alone forced to restart a stage from the beginning. The first Cotton is a cute game that won’t hesitate to kick your teeth in. The second is fully as sweet as it looks, content with only subjecting those teeth to the risk of candy-induced cavities. Both are treats to be savored in accordance with your mood.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s tea time!

Edo no Kiba (Super Famicom)

Edo no Kiba (“Fang of Edo”) is a 1993 sci-fi action game by Riot, the same internal development team that produced Psycho Dream for publisher Telenet Japan the year previous. The title’s callback to Japanese capital Tokyo’s pre-modern moniker Edo is significant, as it reflects the game’s samurai cyberpunk art direction. Despite playing as a cop in high-tech powered armor battling robot terrorists in the year 2050, you still fight with a sword and many of your opponents resemble the Terminator by way of Akira Kurosawa. This style was seemingly all the rage at the time, as also evidenced by Compile’s Musha and CAProduction’s Hagane. Unlike those two, however, Edo no Kiba never scored a release outside Japan.

If you caught my review of Psycho Dream a few months back, much of what I said there applies to Edo no Kiba as well. That is, it’s another bare bones, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it effort that barely qualifies as mediocre. Heck, the most interesting thing about it is probably how difficult it is to cleanly slot into a genre. It’s an auto-scroller, but not a shooter. It handles somewhat like a beat-’em-up in the ground movement department, yet it doesn’t have any of the combos, throws, or other signature moves this naturally primes you to expect. It’s not an action-platformer, as there’s no platforming. In the end, I suppose it’s a game where the screen scrolls on its own and you hit stuff. Call that what you will.

Your character’s abilities are nothing to write home about. Jumping and the basic sword slash are self-explanatory. Holding down the attack button raises the sword in a guard position and allows it to block some shot types, although there seems to be no way of telling which other than trial and error. The real trick is to master throwing the sword by pressing forward while in guard stance. It will then travel the full length of the screen before boomeranging back, dealing heavy damage to bosses and potentially taking out multiple regular enemies in a row. If you find yourself in trouble, you have a super bomb attack that can be triggered once per life. Not that I never found myself needing it. The action simply isn’t that hectic. Opponents are few and far-between across the six extremely brief stages.

Empty as it can feel at times, Edo no Kiba somehow manages to run quite poorly. Slowdown and flicker are as prominent here as they are in legitimately fast-paced and chaotic SNES contemporaries such as Contra III and U.N. Squadron. Coupled with the stiff controls, the result would be downright frustrating if it wasn’t for the instant in-place respawns and extremely generous continue system. You start with five lives and nine continues on the default difficulty setting. I bumped the difficulty up a level on my first playthrough, granting me just five continues instead, and still had no trouble clearing it.

Edo no Kiba isn’t all bad by any means. It’s easy to pick up and play, a few of the giant mecha bosses are well drawn and fun to square off against, and the driving, hard-edged soundtrack showcases some beefy percussion. For me, though, there’s no escaping the fact that the game as a whole feels half-baked, as if it was rushed or even unfinished. The conspicuous lack of enemies in the back half could well indicate the latter. Psycho Dream, unexceptional as it was, at least delivered more than this via its inclusion of two playable characters. Why would you want to play this when Hagane handles the same concept and aesthetic exponentially better? Beats me. Oh, wait! I got it! Edo no Kiba is the only game I know of that shouts its title at you whenever you pause. Really. A cheesy voice sample blurts out “Edo no Kiba!” each and every time. It’s hilarious. That’s gotta count for something…right?

Kishin Douji Zenki: Rettou Raiden (Super Famicom)

Kishin Douji Zenki: Rettou Raiden (“Demon God Child Zenki: Battle Thunder”) is the very model of a subgenre that was endemic to the Japanese Super Famicom: The quickie contract action-platformer capitalizing on a then popular manga license. Developed by CAProduction and published by Hudson Soft in 1995, Rettou Raiden was the first of five games based on the series. Kishin Douji Zenki was but one of the seemingly countless adolescent action sagas birthed in the pages of Weekly Shōnen Jump that burned white hot for a handful of years only to sink into pop culture oblivion forever after.

The narrative follows Chiaki Enno, plucky schoolgirl and descendant of an ancient Buddhist master who was able to command mighty demon gods in order to defend Japan from the Demon Goddess Karuma. When it falls on her to do the same centuries later, she revives the demon god Zenki. Initially, Zenki takes the form of a bratty child, though Chiaki can temporarily power him up into his ultimate adult form with the aid of a magic bracelet. Fairly standard good versus evil stuff, as far as I can tell, somewhat akin to Inuyasha in its character designs and dynamics.

As a game, Rettou Raiden is about as straightforward as they come. You get a total of ten side-scrolling stages with a boss fight at the end of each. You’re stuck playing as kid Zenki for three of them, which unfortunately just isn’t much fun. All you have to work with in pipsqueak mode is a stubby punch and a rather awkward jump kick. Meanwhile, the full-size Zenki gains a number of flashy special moves, including a charge punch, a Hadouken style fireball, a vertical whirlwind attack, and more. It can’t be an accident that you spend 70% of the run time as this more capable version of the character. I doubt the designers would have included a weaker one at all if Zenki’s transformations weren’t featured so prominently in the source material.

Levels look great, thanks to some exceptional background art. CAProduction had already proven their ability to deliver lush 16-bit visuals with Hagane: The Final Conflict the year before, and they’re in equally fine form here. That said, the stage design proper is serviceable at best. The closest we get to complexity is the need to backtrack on occasion to locate all of the stone monoliths that need to be destroyed to dispel the force field barring the way to the boss’ lair. Platforming sections are basic as a rule, though that’s likely a blessing in light of Zenki’s slow movement and slightly stiff handling. If only the lightning fast speed of Hagane’s titular hero could have influenced Rettou Raiden as well.

Although nothing about Rettou Raiden’s gameplay is exceptional, I at least can’t point to anything that outright offends me about it. It’s clearly the product of a skilled development team with sufficient pride in their work to maintain a degree of baseline competence throughout, even if they weren’t motivated to go out of their way to exceed the limits of their commission. It represents the Zenki brand faithfully and looks, sounds, and plays okay. It also doesn’t make any excessive demands of its audience. A sizable health bar, frequent extra life pickups, and unlimited continues result in a relatively painless playthrough for gamers of most skill levels. Is it the sort of game I’d add to my regular rotation and actively evangelize about? Nah. It does what it says on the tin, however, serving up a passable interactive rendition of a Japanese fantasy cartoon that’s been dead and buried for a quarter century now. Check it out if that’s your jam.

Psycho Dream (Super Famicom)

Riot’s Psycho Dream is an example of a Super Nintendo game that almost was. Judging by magazine coverage and the existence of preliminary box art, it was apparently just on the verge of being released here in North America under the name Dream Probe in late 1993, but publisher Telenet Japan never went through with it. Why, I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps it came down to Psycho Dream’s extremely short length or its bizarre subject matter. Or, and this is the theory I happen to favor, they took a hard look at its tepid critical reception in Japan and realized that it simply wasn’t up to snuff.

Psycho Dream posits a near future where fully immersive virtual reality movies have emerged as a new form of entertainment. Some viewers have become addicted, opting to retreat ever deeper into a technologically-induced dream state as their physical bodies waste away. One such poor soul, a girl named Yūki Sayaka, has become lost in a digital work entitled “Story of the Ruined Capital.” A pair of expert troubleshooters, Ryō Shijima and Maria Tobari, are brought in to infiltrate the program and retrieve Yūki from the perilous depths of the simulation before it’s too late. If nothing else, I’ll give Riot kudos for taking on this “dream diving” concept years before such films as Paprika and Inception. I do wish they could have included proper in-game cut scenes to bring their backstory to life, though. This was the one thing Telenet projects were most known for, as evidenced by their popular Valis series.

Your first order of business is to choose whether you want to play as Ryō or Maria. There is, unfortunately, no two-player mode. The duo have practically identical melee attacks and movement capabilities with one major exception: If you can survive long enough to fully upgrade your character’s main weapon by collecting the hilariously yonic power-ups dropped by defeated foes, you’ll eventually come across a red one that will transform him or her into a superpowered ultimate form. Ryō’s is a cyborg that fires a spread of ricocheting lasers in six directions, while Maria’s is a scantily-clad fairy that shoots homing orbs and can glide through the air. The overwhelming utility of the orbs alone makes Maria the stronger hero. This transformation lasts until three hits are sustained, whereupon the character reverts all the way back to the very first weapon power level and the cycle begins anew. You also have have a limited stock of full-screen super attacks if things get too hectic. These would be a lot more useful if enemy placement wasn’t fairly sparse as a rule.

Believe it or not, that’s really all Psycho Dream offers in terms of game mechanics. Apart from that, it’s the most basic action-platformer imaginable. Button mash your way to the stage boss and whack it until it explodes. Do that six times and you’ve won. A complete playthrough clocks it at around a half hour and the relatively slight variation between Ryō and Maria may not be sufficient to make upping your total time investment to a full hour feel worthwhile.

It would certainly help Psycho Dream’s case if these particular six stages were exceptional in any way. Well, no dice. This level design is uninspired at its best and utterly insipid the remainder of the time. Take the second area, which consists entirely of a small room with a few holes in the ceiling that periodically disgorge minor baddies. Kill enough of them and the holes begin to disappear one by one. Once you finally clear them all . . . the room resets and you get do it over again. Then you fight the boss and that’s level two done and dusted. Ugh.

Adding insult to injury, the visual design largely fails to do the game’s promising sci-fi setup justice. The scenery and inhabitants of Yūki’s computerized nightmare really aren’t all that memorable. It’s tough to get excited about traversing a subway, a forest, or a blue cave, only to then do battle with bosses like a big bug, another big bug, and a big jellyfish. You know the ball was dropped when Kabuki Quantum Fighter on the humble 8-bit NES presented a more compelling virtual reality hellscape. So much creative potential squandered. The lone bright spot is the deliciously off-kilter musical score by Michiko Naruke of Wild Arms fame. Jittery, creepy, and borderline discordant at times, it’s experimental in the best of ways; the ghost of a truly trippy game that should have been.

As much as I’d prefer to be extolling the virtues of yet another gem of a Japanese exclusive this week, Psycho Dream is barely passable, even by the middle-of-the-road standard set by other contemporary Telenet/Riot releases. It is at least a quick and easy playthrough, so you might still consider devoting an hour or so to soaking in its fascinating soundtrack. Beyond that, however, I guarantee nobody’s going to need to risk their life tearing you away from this one.

Dark Half (Super Famicom)

The well of late period Super Famicom RPGs that never left Japan is deep, formidably so. It encompasses everything from slick high production value epics by the likes of Square and Enix to incredibly niche underdog titles like Neverland Soft’s action RPG/fung shui simulator Chaos Seed. Compounding the potential choice paralysis are the hefty time commitments the genre is known for. I myself need to be choosier still if I’m going to keep up with my goal of completing and reviewing a different game each and every week.

All that is to say: Why Dark Half? This 1996 release by developer Westone is far from the most polished or celebrated example of the form, despite the involvement of the mighty Enix as publisher. What it does have going for it, though, is a high concept too intriguing for me to pass up.

Dark Half starts off the exact same place countless fantasy yarns do. Rukyu the Fallen One, a vengeful god bent on humanity’s destruction, has awoke from his thousand year slumber. Unless a brave warrior named Falco (sadly not the late Austrian pop star) and his stalwart companions find a way to stop him, Rukyu’s genocidal ambitions will surely come to fruition. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: Yawn. Is that all this one’s got? Yes . . . and no. See, the twist is that both Rukyu and Falco serve as protagonists in this story, and, conversely, antagonists as well. Over the game’s first twelve chapters, you’ll alternate between controlling the hero and villain as they pursue their individual goals. Only in the thirteenth and final one will you be called upon to pick a side, with the character you don’t select then becoming the final boss in the battle of Judgement Day.

These regular shifts in viewpoint and tone are hardly a purely narrative gimmick, as they also inform numerous facets of the gameplay. Falco and his comrades approach challenges like your average group of RPG adventurers. They battle foes to raise their stats and are always looking to find or buy better gear. Rukyu, on the other hand, is a god. He has no need of grinding, mundane equipment, or puny human allies. Instead, he uses his already potent magic to enlist monsters as disposable CPU-controlled minions to do his fighting for him. His only significant upgrades are new spells learned via capturing specific monsters. The two leads don’t relate to NPCs in the same way, either. For Falco, people are a precious source of aid and information. For Rukyu, they’re food. Any interaction with townsfolk will invariably result in the Fallen One consuming their souls, reducing them to mounds of bones in the process. No one is spared, not even children, a creative choice that would have been sufficient on its own to keep Dark Half off American store shelves.

On the storytelling side, it’s tough to overemphasize how well Dark Half delivers on its unorthodox premise. What seems at first to be a uncomplicated good versus evil plot bends and twists in ways that may leave you questioning everything you thought you knew by the end. The script wrestles with religion, human nature, and other complex themes in ways that remind me of Quintet’s best work (ActRaiser, Terranigma, etc). This is all aided tremendously by the tense, brooding score furnished by Takeshi Sato and Takashi Tsumaki of T’s Music. Not to mention the English fan translation by Aeon Genesis and Eien Ni Hen, which while obviously not part of the original package still does a great job of further emphasizing the apocalyptic mood through Rukyu’s grandiose Old Testament diction.

On the flip side, it’s the deeply flawed core gameplay that constitutes Dark Half’s, well, dark half. Combat works fine for the most part, with the sole exception of the profoundly dimwitted A.I. afflicting many of Rukyu’s monster troops. What really strains the moment-to-moment experience to the breaking point, however, is the draconian soul power mechanic.

Soul power is, in effect, a way of limiting the number of steps you can take when traversing the game world. Think of it as your party’s fuel tank. You’ll typically begin a chapter with an allotment of a few thousand soul power points. Each time you move, the counter ticks down. If it hits zero, thats’s an instant game over. Rukyu is especially vulnerable here, since all of his magical abilities also draw on that very same pool of soul power. Defeating enemies or reaching one of the surprisingly rare single-use save points will both restore a bit of soul power, as will devouring helpless humans as Rukyu, but you’ll inevitable bleed away this precious resource faster than you can feasibly replenish it. In other words, you’re perpetually racing against time, driven to find ways to survive to the end of the current chapter by taking as few unnecessary detours as possible. Finally grasping the solution to a vexing puzzle dungeon only to then realize that you don’t have enough gas left in the tank to execute it is a special kind of obnoxious. Dark Half actively discourages exploration and experimentation at every turn, an approach so player hostile, so contrary to the usual RPG design paradigm as to be downright surreal. I mean, Westone presumably wanted people to enjoy this, right? Yet whenever I did, it was seemingly in spite of the design team’s best efforts.

A playthrough of Dark Half is every bit as starkly divided as the outlooks of its two main characters. I’d be tempted to believe this was intentional if the divide in question wasn’t between some truly stellar interactive storytelling and a frustratingly restrictive game flow. These warring halves unite to form one fascinating piece of work that’s quite unlike anything else I’ve played, for better and for worse.

Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima (Super Famicom)

Nintendo’s Marvelous: Mōhitotsu no Takarajima (“Marvelous: Another Treasure Island”) is a game that doesn’t hesitate to wear its heart on its sleeve. Its subtitle makes no bones about it being an homage to none other than R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island, the quintessential adventure yarn about a plucky child protagonist who leaves ordinary life behind when he’s swept up in the intrigues of cutthroat sea dogs on the hunt for buried riches. That’s far from the full extent of the influences on display in this quirky 1996 Japanese exclusive, however, as the gameplay itself is a fascinating cross between Nintendo’s own The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Blizzard’s puzzle-platformer The Lost Vikings.

Marvelous ups the ante on its literary namesake by giving you not one, but three kid heroes, each with his own suite of unique abilities. The trio are partaking in a class field trip to a remote island, chaperoned by their teacher, Gina. I’d love to see the disclaimers tacked onto that permission slip! It’s not long before routine camp life is interrupted by a band of rather silly pirates, who kidnap Gina during their search for the fabled treasure known as Marvelous. Not the type to take that sort of thing lying down, the three brave lads (who are soon joined by a talking bird and monkey duo) set out to rescue Gina and give the dastardly Blue and his crew what for.

Our stars are diminutive speed demon Deon, heavyweight heavy-hitter Max, and lanky gadgeteer Jack. Although you’ll generally want to keep the three of them together when traveling in “follow the leader” fashion, it’s often necessary to assume control of one member at a time while the others hold their positions. Perhaps there’s a gap one only boy can cross initially, multiple distant switches that all need to be pressed at once, or an object too huge for even Max to manage by himself. This core mechanic of needing to direct the three boys independently in order to solve the game’s myriad puzzles is where the Lost Vikings comparison really comes to the fore.

As for the Link to the Past, uh, link, it mainly manifests in the control, art style, and whimsical tone. Marvelous was the directorial debut of future Zelda series stalwart Eiji Aonuma and he hasn’t shied away from emphasizing the connection in interviews. That said, don’t come into this one expecting simply a Zelda outing in pirate drag. Puzzle solving is far and away the main event in Marvelous. Battle sequences are so scattered and perfunctory that you can easily pass an hour or more of play time forgetting they exist at all. The fact that the entire sprawling last dungeon doesn’t include a single enemy is a testament to what a low design priority combat was relative to any given Zelda title. It’s your brain that’ll be put to the test here, not your virtual sword arm.

It’s fortunate, then, that Marvelous’ puzzles are a superb bunch by and large. They’re quite varied, owing to the fact that your team’s capabilities grow throughout as they acquire new items, and do an admirable job of straddling the thin line between dead obvious and punishingly cryptic. If all else fails, there’s a handy hint system accessed by forking over one of your luck rocks (in-game currency) to your bird pal, though I rarely felt the need to rely on it.

Since Marvelous clocks in at a hefty twelve hours or so, I’m glad they put the work in to keep it engaging throughout. Mostly, anyway. I can’t say I was nearly as impressed with the fifth and final chapter as I was with the preceding four. This is down to it being set almost entirely within the ancient complex where Marvelous itself is sealed away, meaning puzzles galore with practically no NPC interactions to break them up. It’s a problem because one common element that elevates Nintendo-developed adventure games of the period for me is their winning sense of humor. The lion’s share of Marvelous excels in this regard. You get to play penguin matchmaker, tickle a recalcitrant cow into submission, play soccer with a giant spider, and so much more. An ugly brown maze of invisible walkways and lazy slide puzzles is no way to cap off a journey like that.

Leaving aside its mediocre (rushed?) finale, this is a well-crafted action-adventure with wit and charm to spare, very much in the same vein as another “lost” Nintendo classic, Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls) for Game Boy. I suppose it’s easy to understand why a late Super Famicom release with massive amounts of text wasn’t seen as a localization priority when a successor system, the Nintendo 64, was already on shelves. Still, Marvelous doubling as the name of the game itself and the fabulous treasure featured therein is entirely appropriate and I recommend you channel your own inner buccaneer and check it out via out Tashi and DackR’s unofficial English translation patch. Yar!

Ihatovo Monogatari (Super Famicom)

Truly singular video games are rare beasts indeed. Most fall neatly into one or more popular genres, making it easy, perhaps too easy, to fall back on such tried-and-true shorthand as “It’s a lot like Super Mario Bros., except…” or “Think Metroid with Star Wars lightsabers.” Then, every once in a blue moon, you encounter an Ihatovo Monogatari and that routine approach goes straight out the window.

Ihatovo Monogatari (“The Stories of Ihatovo”) is less a traditional game and more a digital love letter to the late Kenji Miyazawa. Miyazawa (1896 – 1933) wore many hats during his short life: Agricultural scientist, teacher, musician, devout Buddhist, peace activist, and more. He’s best known by far, however, as one of Japan’s most cherished literary figures. Though all but forgotten in the wake of his untimely death, his body of poetry and children’s stories was rediscovered by the Japanese public at large in the 1980s, and has since inspired numerous comic and movie adaptations. Arguably the strangest product of the Miyazawa centennial renaissance was this 1993 game for the Super Famicom.

Now, I say “game,” but I wouldn’t argue too strenuously if you insisted on calling it a visual novel or similar instead. Ihatovo Monogatari follows the journey of a nameless train traveler who makes an unplanned extended stop in the sleepy town of Ihatovo. Anyone familiar with Miyazawa’s oeuvre will recognize this as the fictionalized version of his home province of Iwate that served as the setting for many of his tales. Based on the look of the place and the Charlie Chaplin features screening at the local cinema, we can assume this is the 1920s or thereabouts, the period said tales were written. Moreover, Kenji Miyazawa himself exists in this Ihatovo! The overarching goal is to track down eight of his lost journals before you’ll finally be granted an audience with him. In a way, Ihatovo Monogatari reminds me of one of my favorite animated films, The Adventures of Mark Twain, in that it’s a grand celebration of a beloved author in which the writer in question interacts with his own creations.

Each missing journal is associated with a famous Miyazawa work. You must essentially play through an abridged take on that same story to acquire it. These expeditions are referred to as chapters in-game, and are generally quick and painless to complete. Ihatovo Monogatari demands nothing resembling player skill, be it by way of quick reflexes or puzzle-solving acumen. Expect no stats here, no combat, no death or other fail states, and no real choices to give you pause. All that’s required of you is to sit back and watch these stories unfold from the inside. If I had to break down the “gameplay” here, I’d say that you stroll around a handful of rather small locations trying to discover the correct order to speak with various NPCs in until the current chapter ends. Do this nine times and you win.

Although technically accurate, the above summary would be a pretty disingenuous way to gloss over Ihatovo Monogatari’s ample charm. Even as an American completely unfamiliar with all things Miyazawa, the whimsical, yet bracingly somber tone of this material immediately struck me as something special. Yes, this is a town where adorable talking cats staff an office building. It’s also one where the sad lot of one of these kitties in particular, the darling Stove Cat, had me so concerned that I tracked down and read the story he appeared in (“The Cat Office”) just to learn the little guy’s fate. Despite being meant for children, Miyazawa’s world is no saccharine Disneyesque one. His Buddhist beliefs are evident in the way these narratives don’t shy away from depicting the grim consequences of greed, jealousy, and wrath, or the bittersweet aftermath of self-sacrifice. Complimenting the thoughtful mood is Tsukasa Tawada’s serene, classical-inspired musical score. As far as I’m concerned, the main Ihatovo Town theme has a rightful place among the very best “peaceful village” tracks of the era.

As an aside, it strikes me as downright odd that something so arty was developed by Hector (aka Hect), a largely unremarkable peddler of sports and horse racing titles. If it wasn’t for their underrated Famicom action-platformer Moon Crystal, Ihatovo Monogatari would probably be the only legitimately interesting Hect project. My instincts tell me there’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes history here, and if a developer interview ever surfaces, I’ll be first in line to read it.

Anyway, is Ihatovo Monogatari a game? A visual novel? One of those dreaded “walking simulators?” Frankly, I don’t care. All I need to know is that I discovered it on a blustery fall day, tucked in with a mug of strong tea and listening to the rain beat against my window pane as I lost myself in a captivating vision of a fairy tale 1920s Japan that never was. And when it was all over, I was still sat there, pondering what I’d witnessed. Whatever else you want to call this, it’s beautiful, powerful, and wholly unique. Heartfelt thanks go out to DDSTranslation, Tom, and FlashPV for the superb English language patch that made my experience possible.

Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard (Super Famicom)

Well, I screwed up. Today is April Fools’ Day and I had every intention of seizing the opportunity to showcase something bizarre or terrible for comedic effect. The decidedly non-wacky action-RPG Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard ended up being the most recent thing I’ve played through, though, and I’m not about to give up on covering these games in the order I finish them just for a cheap laugh. Oh, well. Better luck next year.

Not that I really regret the time I spent with Gun Hazard. Quite the opposite, as this obscure 1996 Japanese exclusive ranks among the best Square-published efforts for the Super Famicom. If you know anything at all about the 16-bit era, you know what a remarkable claim that is. As its full title indicates, Gun Hazard is the second entry in Square’s ongoing Front Mission franchise. Unlike most of its fellows, however, it’s not a slow-paced tactical RPG, but a frantic sci-fi run-and-gun with RPG elements humming away under the hood. Much more my speed, in other words.

Most of the development work on Gun Hazard was handled by a minor studio called Omiya Soft. Why? Because Omiya employed several former staff members from Masaya, the company that had developed the popular mecha action game Assault Suits Valken (aka Cybernator) back in 1992. Mash up the giant robot chaos of Cybernator with the lush storytelling of Final Fantasy and you get this. Credit is also due to translation group Aeon Genesis for their unofficial 2004 English language patch, without which I wouldn’t have been able to make heads or tails of this one.

Set on a war-torn Earth in the year 2064, Gun Hazard centers on a wanzer pilot (default name Albert) who’s forced to flee his native Scandinavia when a military coup led by a power-mad colonel unseats the sitting president. Wanzers, by the way, are what mecha are known as in the Front Mission universe, the term being based on the German wanderpanzer (“walking tank”). Anyway, Albert soon joins up with a mercenary outfit and travels to hot spots all over the globe, trying to piece together the ultimate truth behind the conspiracy that’s destabilized his homeland. Along the way, he’ll accumulate no shortage of friends, foes, and rivals of uncertain allegiance.

The world of Gun Hazard is divided up into nearly 100 side-view missions, all accessed via an interconnected series of overhead maps representing different geographic regions. Not all of these missions are available from the start, of course, since you generally need to complete all the main story missions in a given region in order to unlock the next one. Some missions are technically optional, although you aren’t told in advance which ones these are and you should probably go ahead and tackle them all anyway in the interest of accumulating as much money and experience as possible.

Money in particular is vital. The mercenary lifestyle means you’re expected to pay out the nose for everything. Repairing damaged wanzers between missions eats up cash, as do the weapons and accessories you mount on them and the ammunition for many of said weapons. Entirely new wanzers and upgraded versions of old equipment become available as you level up, ensuring that you’ll always be saving your pennies for something. In addition, every piece of gear has its own skill rating. You’ll notice your weapons dishing out more damage and reloading faster the longer they’re used, for example. It seems like a lot to keep tabs on at first.

Fortunately, your number one means of paying the bills couldn’t be simpler: Get out there and blow stuff up! Once you do embark on a mission, all the number crunching takes a back seat to pure adrenaline as you square off against the enemy. Wanzers are impressively mobile, able to fire in eight directions, jump, dash, block incoming attacks with their shields, and take to the air for a limited time using built-in jets. They can equip your choice of four primary weapons with unlimited ammo (I favor the shotgun for its Contra-esque spread pattern) and a set number of limited-use secondary weapons. The larger and more expensive the wanzer, the more secondary weapons it can hold. Just don’t expect your wanzers to to be as quick and responsive as a typical platforming hero. They have a simulated weight and momentum intended to make them feel like the towering hunks of metal they are. I gave up trying to dodge everything coming at me pretty early on, relying on armor plating and repair kits to take up the slack.

From time to time, Albert will need to exit his wanzer and get around on foot. This could be for mandatory story purposes or to negotiate a narrow passage in search of optional loot. You’re extremely fragile in this state, naturally. What’s worse, your unattended wanzer remains subject to damage or destruction. Tread carefully.

That’s the Gun Hazard gameplay loop in a nutshell: Bouts of furious arcade style shooting punctuated by lengthy dives into nested equipment menus. All the while, the plot keeps chugging along, serving up a steady stream of new characters and locations. It works remarkably well. My marathon sessions saw me powerless to resist the siren’s call of just one more mission. It looks and sounds as good as it plays, too, owing to the efforts of such Square all-stars as character artist Yoshitaka Amano and composers Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda.

My sole complaint is admittedly a strange one. In a roundabout way, I think Gun Hazard would have benefited from a higher degree of difficulty. See, you recruit a number of NPC allies to your cause over the course of the campaign and each one is capable of piloting his or her own custom wanzer to join you on missions. They can gain levels and improve their machines, as well. It’s a very cool idea, especially since there’s a secret code (press Down, L, R, and Start simultaneously on controller two) that allows a second player to control the ally character. Problem is, you’ll almost never need to do this. Albert is more than capable of brute forcing his way through any and all opposition. Except for the two missions that require specific companions, I never bothered and did fine. It was tough to justify the added cost of bringing along a second wanzer (not to mention the frustration of dealing with its pilot’s spotty A.I.) when all I needed to do was equip my trusty shotgun and blast away. I would have preferred a stronger incentive to actually use this feature.

Still, one underutilized mechanic hardly detracts from what Square and Omiya Soft accomplished here. The story is compelling, the presentation top-notch, the action addictive, and the RPG bits deep and meaningful. Front Mission Series: Gun Hazard delivers on all fronts. April 1st or not, you’d be a fool to skip it.

Gokujō Parodius – Kako no Eikō o Motomete (Super Famicom)

Konami’s Parodius saga was nothing if not consistent. No matter which installment you pick up, you’re in for wacky horizontal shooting based on mechanics lifted straight from the company’s own Gradius and TwinBee franchises. There are a lot more sexy ladies and berserk octopuses to go around in Parodius, sure, but the fundamentals never really change. So it goes for Gokujō Parodius – Kako no Eikō o Motomete (“Fantastic Parodius – Pursue the Glory of the Past”), the 1994 Super Famicom port of the arcade game that debuted earlier that same year. As the middle child on the system, it features a larger roster of playable characters than its predecessor, Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy, and a smaller one then its successor, Jikkyō Oshaberi Parodius. Apart from that, the three look, sound, and play so alike that you could swap stages around between them without a casual fan even noticing.

Whereas the arcade Gokujō Parodius offered eight “ships” to choose between, the Super Famicom cranks that up to eleven. And, no, that’s not a Spinal Tap reference. New to this release are fighting infant Upa (from Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa), Goemon (from Ganbare Goemon), and Kid Dracula (from Akumajō Special: Boku Dracula-kun). They join Parodius stalwarts like the Vic Viper, TwinBee, Pentarou the penguin, and Tako the octopus. With every character having his, her, or its own unique suite of weapons, the replay value is immense. Each hero also has an alternate version usable in the game’s two-player mode, such as Goemon’s chubby sidekick, Ebisumaru. Hell, yes. This world can always use more Ebisumaru.

There are a total of nine levels to overcome this time, although two of them are cleverly hidden and it wouldn’t surprise me if many players never managed to find them back in the day. One of these is an extended battle against a moai head-studded space battleship that can only be accessed by if you have the correct digit occupying the hundreds place in your score when you defeat specific bosses. The other, a super difficult “special stage,” is a sort of post-credits Easter egg, so make sure not to switch the power off prematurely or you’ll miss out on the the true final boss.

With that, I’m actually running out of things to say already! How’s that for a change? Lest I be accused of phoning it in this week, however, allow me to emphasize that this is the third Parodius I’ve reviewed now. It has all the strengths of its brethren: Excellent graphics, a lively soundtrack based around various classical and public domain standards, the brilliant gameplay of Gradius, and an irrepressible sense of whimsy. Similarly, it shares their Achilles’ heel in the form of significant slowdown when the action gets intense, which is often. Simply put, Gokujō Parodius is another worthy entry in the series. No more, no less. If you’ve ever wanted to fly through a colossal claw machine blowing up penguins to the tune of Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” (and who hasn’t?), it’s got what you need. Nuff said.

Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Dōchū: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake (Super Famicom)

Wow. Am I already on the last 16-bit Ganbare Goemon game? It feels like yesterday that my Goemon experience was limited to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, one of the few entries in the series to see the light of day outside Japan. Now here I am digging into its third Super Famicom follow-up, Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Dōchū: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake. That translates to “Go For It, Goemon: The Twinkling Journey – The Reason I Became a Dancer.” The twinkling part refers to stars, since the twist this time around is our titular wacky medieval bandit and pals visiting outer space. As for the dancing, well, I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you, would I?

As a late 1995 release from powerhouse developer Konami, Kirakira Dōchū looks and sounds spectacular. The version I played benefits from an equally spectacular English fan translation by Tom, FlashPV, and DDSTranslation. These folks went above and beyond, translating shop signs and other graphical text in addition to the standard dialogue boxes. I only wish all their hard work could have gone into a better game, as this one is sadly the weakest of the four Goemon outings on the platform in my estimate. Although its flashy presentation and winning sense of humor are commendable, Kirakira Dōchū is dogged by half-baked platforming and some truly terrible boss encounters.

If you’re wondering how the gang ends up exploring alien worlds, it’s as weird as you’d expect. Goemon, Ebisumaru, Yae, and Sasuke have gathered to celebrate the Wise Old Man’s 98th birthday. All of the sudden, their giant mecha Impact starts talking, revealing that he’s no mere machine. He’s alive; a sentient robot from the planet Impact. Further, said planet is currently under threat from a deranged super sportsman named Harakiri Seppukumaru. Naturally, our four heroes resolve to travel to Planet Impact and set things right. So our theme is Edo era Japan in space plus sports? Okay.

Upon arrival, the crew discovers that Planet Impact is closed off by an energy shield projected by bases on four of the surrounding planets. Since there’s four of them, they opt to split up and tackle one world apiece. This defines the structure of the first 75% or so of the game, with each character having his or her own set of stages and towns to play through before the team eventually reunites for the grand finale on Planet Impact. You can play through the opening four planets in any order you please. Whether you want to focus on one at a time or zip back and forth completing them piecemeal is up to you. Once you reach the final area, you gain the ability to cycle between characters at any time with a press of the Select button.

The bulk of Kirakira Dōchū’s gameplay is straightforward side-view platforming that will be familiar to Mystical Ninja fans. It doesn’t entirely abandon Ganbare Goemon 3’s adventure game approach, however. In fact, it aims for a synthesis of sorts, albeit one weighted heavily in favor of the action bits. The playable characters gain special movement abilities over the course of their journey, such as Ebisumaru’s rock smashing ballet spin or Yae’s mermaid transformation. These allow you to revisit previous levels and access alternate paths à la Metroid. Your reward for these excursions is typically a beckoning cat (maneki-neko) statue. Collecting all three cats on a given planet will lengthen your health bar by one unit.

Towns are where you’ll shop for items, heal up, save your progress, and get the occasional clue. They also sport some of Kirakira Dōchū’s most appealing visuals. Turns out that extraterrestrial civilizations in these parts are remarkably similar to 16th century Japan. Who knew? Seeing bug-eyed tentacle geisha and other cheesy sci-fi takes on iconic Ganbare Goemon NPCs wandering the streets is definitely worth a chuckle. You’ll encounter the occasional puzzle or timed challenge in town, too. These include delivering a certain number of newspapers to subscribers within a time limit and comparison shopping in order to be able to afford all the items on an eccentric restaurateur’s grocery list. They aren’t very deep or difficult errands, serving primarily as a vehicle for more of the franchise’s trademark absurd humor.

It’s not a bad setup on paper. It’s only when you settle in to actually play Kirakira Dōchū that the cracks in its façade become apparent. The platforming here simply isn’t as tight and satisfying as it is in Mystical Ninja or Ganbare Goemon 2. Stages are plagued by leaps of faith, questionable enemy placement (especially for the vile green birds), and poorly telegraphed trial-and-error gimmicks that will kill most players off on a first attempt. The result, while not unplayable, is still noticeably sub-par when compared to earlier installments. Unlimited continues can only alleviate these frustrations somewhat. They can’t excuse them.

Bosses are an order of magnitude worse. Kirakira Dōchū doesn’t have boss fights in the conventional sense. Rather, these clashes take the form of standalone button-mashing exercises that seem to have been inspired by the likes of Konami’s own Track & Field sports games. Yes, you essentially beat these guys by hammering the A and B buttons alternately as quick as you can for extended periods. It’s obnoxious and can easily grow physically painful if you fail and are forced to redo the whole sequence multiple times. That outcome is highly likely, by the way. The one high point is a boss who challenges you to beat her at a Puyo Puyo-esque color matching puzzle game instead. I’m no Puyo Puyo fanatic or anything, but this at least comes across as a video game and not senseless hand and wrist torture. How anyone though this dreck was a suitable replacement for one of the standout elements of past Ganbare Goemon titles is utterly beyond me. It overshoots quirky and lands squarely in plain stupid territory.

Ganbare Goemon Kirakira Dōchū: Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake has all the audiovisual pizzazz and comedic charm I’ve come to expect from one of my favorite classic Konami franchises. Despite all that, I have a hard time picturing myself revisiting it. The platforming is mediocre at best and the boss mini-games are far too annoying for a second go-around. An unfortunate note to end Goemon’s otherwise superb Super Famicom run on, to be sure. How ironic that the one where you go to the stars is the least stellar of the lot.