WEBVTT 00:00:10.421 --> 00:00:36.052 [ Techno music ] 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:44.964 Alright folks, it's Dr.Sparkle again 00:00:45.155 --> 00:00:48.141 Geez, It seems like forever since the last episode. 00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:51.287 Well anyways, sorry it's so late but here we are again. 00:00:51.904 --> 00:00:54.524 The PC engine schedule seems to get a bit more hectic 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:57.280 as we get closer to the 1989 holiday season. 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:01.602 Today, we're gonna finish up July and blast through all of August and September. 00:01:02.191 --> 00:01:04.669 We're gonna' see a number of arcade ports today, 00:01:04.686 --> 00:01:08.540 as well as some obscure (and rather shitty) original titles. 00:01:11.246 --> 00:01:33.837 [ Techno music ] 00:01:34.447 --> 00:01:38.247 We ended last episode with a classic shooter, Blazing Lasers, 00:01:38.317 --> 00:01:42.005 and we begin this episode with a not-so-classic shooter, Side Arms 00:01:42.063 --> 00:01:45.617 (or Side Arms: Hyper Dyne, as it's officially called in Japan) 00:01:47.012 --> 00:01:50.541 This is the second port of a Capcom arcade game for the system 00:01:50.569 --> 00:01:52.333 (the first being SunSun 2) 00:01:52.629 --> 00:01:56.792 and, once again, this is published by N.E.C., not Capcom themselves. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:57.065 --> 00:02:03.261 In the U.S., this was one of the very few TurboGrafx games not published by N.E.C. 00:02:03.681 --> 00:02:06.758 Rather, it was by a small company called Radiance Software, 00:02:07.172 --> 00:02:09.440 which seemed to have very close ties to Capcom. 00:02:09.602 --> 00:02:13.161 They were also well known for their involvement in the canceled, ah, 00:02:13.161 --> 00:02:15.511 Nintendo Entertainment System California Raisins game. 00:02:15.876 --> 00:02:18.161 The guy who ran Radiance, Christopher Riggs, 00:02:18.194 --> 00:02:22.515 actually lists himself as being a Product Developer at Capcom in the early 1990s. 00:02:23.111 --> 00:02:24.823 Prior to Radiance, he apparently 00:02:24.823 --> 00:02:28.294 co-founded a company called Pacific DataWorks, with, uh, Troy Lyndon, 00:02:28.458 --> 00:02:34.747 who was an interesting guy who much later was behind the infamous Left Behind game. 00:02:35.198 --> 00:02:39.693 Pacific DataWorks mostly did DOS and Commodore 64 ports 00:02:39.693 --> 00:02:41.341 for Capcom (including Side Arms!). 00:02:41.387 --> 00:02:46.172 Riggs also had a company that did computer ports for Capcom. 00:02:46.172 --> 00:02:50.274 It's no surprise that the first Radiance game is, of course, a Capcom port. 00:02:50.706 --> 00:02:53.567 Anyhoo, Earth got blown up or something, and 00:02:53.567 --> 00:02:57.244 your little robot mecha dude is out there to kill lots of aliens. 00:02:57.724 --> 00:03:02.906 Mechanics are moreorless like similar shooters of the era (such as Gradius). 00:03:03.015 --> 00:03:06.135 Enemies drop power-ups, speed-ups, and other types of, uh, special weapons. 00:03:06.591 --> 00:03:10.578 Nothing too new or exciting, here, but there are a couple interesting ideas. 00:03:10.961 --> 00:03:13.995 The main one is: you can turn around and fire in the opposite direction 00:03:14.005 --> 00:03:15.330 by hitting the second button 00:03:15.335 --> 00:03:18.874 (making Side Arms kind of a predecessor to Forgotten Worlds). 00:03:19.567 --> 00:03:22.996 Now, Side Arms was originally an arcade game from 1986. 00:03:23.406 --> 00:03:28.614 Aside from the ability to fire front and back, a big feature of Side Arms was 00:03:28.614 --> 00:03:31.784 that two players could occasionally combine into a single more powerful form, 00:03:31.784 --> 00:03:35.634 with one player controlling the mech and the other controlling his weapons. 00:03:35.755 --> 00:03:37.764 The home version dropped this 2-Player mode, 00:03:37.764 --> 00:03:40.823 (meaning that your combined form is basically just a temporary upgrade). 00:03:41.211 --> 00:03:42.712 It lasts until you get hit. 00:03:43.047 --> 00:03:46.992 Another cool feature is that you choose the weapon you wanna lose from the menu, 00:03:47.002 --> 00:03:51.199 instead of losing your current one when you pick up a new one, like in most shooters. 00:03:51.199 --> 00:03:53.070 You can actually carry a whole bunch of weapons at once. 00:03:53.415 --> 00:03:58.276 Now, this is actually very helpful, since certain types of weapons are more useful than others in some spots. 00:03:58.537 --> 00:04:01.911 In fact, certain weapons are pretty much vital for some areas. 00:04:02.628 --> 00:04:08.579 And this leads me to one issue that so many Shoot-em-Ups have. If you die once, you are pretty much screwed. 00:04:09.486 --> 00:04:12.552 Side Arms is even much worse than many other similar games. 00:04:12.552 --> 00:04:15.429 When the action gets hectic and you screw up and get killed, 00:04:15.429 --> 00:04:18.809 you'll be brought back to life with, like, a single random underpowered weapon, 00:04:18.950 --> 00:04:21.685 generally with enemies, like, closing in on you from all sides. 00:04:22.323 --> 00:04:25.671 So, get killed and odds are good that you'll get killed again within a second or two. 00:04:26.724 --> 00:04:30.153 And there are so many damn enemies (like missiles, et cetera) that home in on you 00:04:30.306 --> 00:04:32.345 and follow you around, as you try to avoid them. 00:04:32.775 --> 00:04:38.015 And when you have, like, a very basic weapon that only shoots in one direction, it's pretty difficult to pick these guys off. 00:04:39.171 --> 00:04:45.035 Also, like Gradius, picking up too many speed power-ups will make you move, uh, too fast and be hard to control precisely. 00:04:45.952 --> 00:04:50.369 Overall, it's actually a pretty hard game (harder than Gradius or R-Type, in my opinion) 00:04:50.655 --> 00:04:55.982 but it actually, uh, looks great and I liked it better than the Genesis port of Forgotten Worlds. 00:05:00.952 --> 00:05:11.820 [ Techno music ] 00:05:19.119 --> 00:05:23.717 We exit July with a real stinker. From AICOM, it' s Takeda Shingen. 00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:27.435 "Aha!", you say, "We've already seen this game on Chrontendo. 00:05:27.435 --> 00:05:30.556 It was, like, a strategy game, published by HOT-B." 00:05:31.242 --> 00:05:36.627 Well, no. This is actually a completely different and unrelated game called Takeda Shingen. 00:05:37.522 --> 00:05:42.364 Now, Takeda Shingen (the real person) was a 16th century warlord, known for 00:05:42.364 --> 00:05:44.948 (among other things) having a badass set of armor 00:05:45.398 --> 00:05:48.713 (which is, uh, sort of semi-accurately depicted here). 00:05:49.236 --> 00:05:52.854 Rather than being a Strategy game, this is a rather dull Beat-'em-Up 00:05:53.295 --> 00:05:55.322 And it's a painfully slow affair. 00:05:56.462 --> 00:05:58.750 You have exactly two moves (at least at first). 00:05:58.750 --> 00:06:01.034 There's Attack with a sword slash and Jump. 00:06:01.675 --> 00:06:05.956 You'll be, uh, taking enemies head-on, uh, just sort of hacking at them until they die. 00:06:06.494 --> 00:06:09.353 They block a lot, so normally you'll just, sort of, walk up to them 00:06:09.353 --> 00:06:11.126 and start repeatedly slashing at them. 00:06:11.457 --> 00:06:13.878 They'll block a few times and then you'll get a hit in. 00:06:14.232 --> 00:06:18.940 This was a port of a Jaleco arcade game (which looks a lot nicer). 00:06:28.379 --> 00:06:30.389 The game isn't exactly hot shit, 00:06:30.389 --> 00:06:34.194 but your character moves much faster and there's a bit of action. 00:06:34.194 --> 00:06:39.664 This is hardly top tier stuff, as of 1988, but it seems reasonably bearable. 00:06:39.797 --> 00:06:43.157 There's even, like, bonus rounds where you can get on a horse and do some target practice. 00:06:43.993 --> 00:06:47.355 The horse stuff got completely stripped out from the PC Engine version 00:06:47.376 --> 00:06:50.297 and the result is just so damn monotonous. 00:06:50.297 --> 00:06:54.400 You know, I got a good way through this game and there were a pretty limited number of enemy types. 00:06:54.965 --> 00:06:58.052 There's basically dudes with swords (who are just like you), 00:06:58.052 --> 00:07:02.100 dudes with a long flail on a chain (and these guys are annoying), 00:07:02.102 --> 00:07:04.037 and dudes with a long spear. 00:07:05.096 --> 00:07:09.058 Boss battles are at the end of each level, though each level looks about the same, 00:07:09.058 --> 00:07:11.974 so there's really not much to distinguish one level from the other. 00:07:12.445 --> 00:07:16.687 Bosses are really nothing exciting. This guy is just a big version of the swordsman. 00:07:21.736 --> 00:07:24.901 Post-boss fight, you visit a shop where you can refill your health 00:07:24.901 --> 00:07:29.020 and buy some critical of... offense and defenseive upgrades, 00:07:29.020 --> 00:07:30.837 such as the war fan. 00:07:31.147 --> 00:07:33.797 Now, in real life, uh, Takeda's often depicted with his war fan. 00:07:33.797 --> 00:07:37.590 There's a famous story about how he deflected an enemy blade with his fan, once. 00:07:38.047 --> 00:07:40.563 So this game, naturally, has him, you know, carrying it around. 00:07:41.415 --> 00:07:46.049 Takeda Shingen isn't really a fun game to play, especially in comparison to contemporary 00:07:46.049 --> 00:07:48.235 Beat-'em-Ups like Golden Axe or Final Fight. 00:07:48.654 --> 00:07:52.518 Later, you get some better attacks, but the lack of variety really kills any excitement. 00:07:53.071 --> 00:07:56.257 It just feels like you're fighting the same fight over and over and over again. 00:07:56.698 --> 00:08:00.148 Your health bar is pretty long and health refills are pretty frequent 00:08:00.148 --> 00:08:03.871 so there's not much challenge at all for the entire first half of the game 00:08:03.871 --> 00:08:06.944 (until you get to this boss, who's, like, ten times harder than the last one). 00:08:07.582 --> 00:08:11.187 So, overall, Takeda Shingen is a bummer of a game. 00:08:16.629 --> 00:08:27.837 [ Techno music ] 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:42.482 So, we enter August with Maison Ikkoku and a new publisher, Micro Cabin. 00:08:42.975 --> 00:08:45.917 We've heard their name come up a few times before in Chrontendo. 00:08:46.095 --> 00:08:49.595 They were actually a pretty prominent publisher of, uh, games for Japanese computers, 00:08:49.595 --> 00:08:50.804 back in the '80s. 00:08:51.003 --> 00:08:56.489 Like a lot of other sort of dodgy PC Engine games, this one has some pretty decent music. 00:08:57.337 --> 00:09:03.178 Right. So, Maison Ikkoku is one of these inescapable menu-based adventure games. 00:09:03.178 --> 00:09:08.370 Luckly, for us, we have an English translation by Dave Shadoff and Matt LaFrance. 00:09:09.337 --> 00:09:11.507 You play as one Yusaku Godai: 00:09:11.507 --> 00:09:15.348 a down on his luck student, living in sort of a rundown boarding house. 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:18.960 The manager of the boarding house turns out to be (of course) 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:22.524 a beautiful young woman who was recently widowed, named Kuyoku. 00:09:23.094 --> 00:09:26.920 This was based on a popular manga, by the famous manga artist, Rumiko Takahashi, 00:09:26.920 --> 00:09:32.464 who you might know from such comics as Uruse Yatsure and Renma One Half. 00:09:32.766 --> 00:09:40.703 It basically chronicles, uh, Godai's desire to express his love for Kuyoku, as well as the wacky residents of the boarding house. 00:09:41.046 --> 00:09:44.774 Eventually, of course, at the end of the series, the protagonists get married. 00:09:46.062 --> 00:09:48.699 This first appeared on the M.S.X., back in 1987. 00:09:49.055 --> 00:09:51.675 It looks pretty similar to this port, actually! 00:09:52.401 --> 00:09:54.977 It also wound up on the F.M. 7 and few other computers. 00:09:55.407 --> 00:10:01.295 Now, the first console appearance of this game was on the Famicom, which we saw very briefly in Episode 33. 00:10:01.807 --> 00:10:03.508 At the time, I'd pretty much said, 00:10:03.508 --> 00:10:07.987 "Well, we'll check this out in more detail when we reach it in ChronTurbo." 00:10:07.987 --> 00:10:10.407 and now, my dear friends, that day has arrived. 00:10:10.407 --> 00:10:14.407 It turns out to be a reasonably normal adventure game. 00:10:14.407 --> 00:10:20.997 Uh, this character, here, is some kind of weird pervert dude who builds tunnels and peepholes in the walls between the rooms. 00:10:20.997 --> 00:10:26.189 Uh... You find a porno mag, which contains "pretty radical stuff". 00:10:26.189 --> 00:10:30.473 Later, you can actually, uh, give it back to him... sort of, uh, win his favor. 00:10:30.473 --> 00:10:35.395 Much of the game takes place inside the titular Maison Ikkoku. 00:10:35.395 --> 00:10:39.965 Uh... Maison is simply the French word for "house", which (I think) is being used ironically 00:10:39.965 --> 00:10:44.490 (in the sense that calling this place "Maison" you know, sort of, tried to, like, give it a touch of class. 00:10:44.490 --> 00:10:48.490 Um... Ikkoku, I believe, means hotheaded or tempermental 00:10:48.490 --> 00:10:52.490 (perhaps referring to the various nutty residents here. 00:10:52.490 --> 00:10:56.490 In this game, you actually save by going to the bathroom. 00:10:56.490 --> 00:11:00.490 There's naturally all sorts of goofy sexual innuendo going on between the characters. 00:11:00.490 --> 00:11:04.490 And this, so far, seems to be the first PC Engine game that actually shows 00:11:04.490 --> 00:11:08.490 nipples in one of its human characters in an obviously sexualized way 00:11:08.490 --> 00:11:12.490 (as opposed to nipples on a statue or a monster or something). 00:11:12.490 --> 00:11:15.370 Um... For the most part, you go around talking to people, collecting items, 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:18.270 and using them in sort of unintuitive ways. 00:11:18.270 --> 00:11:23.200 Here's your love interest, though you actually call her by the rather formal name, um, Kanrinin-san, 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:25.295 rather than her real name. 00:11:25.295 --> 00:11:29.715 You can't interact with her too much yet. Um... You actually have to get on her good side first. 00:11:29.715 --> 00:11:34.455 A lot of the game involves, uh, talking to people and getting on their good side by giving them things. 00:11:39.495 --> 00:11:44.635 Among the other things, uh, you find, uh, her bra is up on the roof and you have a daydream about her, 00:11:44.635 --> 00:11:48.635 um, once, uh, you found the ladder that allows you to climb up on the roof. 00:11:49.866 --> 00:11:53.866 Aside from the house, you can travel to a couple locations nearby, such as this store. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The cashier is meant to look like Lum from Urusei Yatsura. Ya' buy things here to bribe the residents with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Um... A great deal of time is spent, you know, sorta' dealing with these annoying housemates. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just like in the comic, Godai tends to fantasize about putting the mack on his landlord, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but he's too scared to do anything. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The main goal of the game revolves actually around trying to look at that picture you see 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on the left hand side of the screen, believe it or not. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, you know, like a lot of these sorts of things, your goal is kind of vague 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you make progress in seemingly random ways 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but the art is good, the music is decent, so it's still a lot better than some of the awful, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 uh, the other awful Adventure games we've seen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [ Techno music ] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hudson was, of course, the co-creator of the PC Engine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they published all the console's games in Japan for about the first year. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But by this point, they are outnumbered by third party publishers (at least in Japan). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is the first of three Hudson-published games today, Power League II 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a baseball game, of course, and the sequel to the first Power League game, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which was released about 14 months before this one. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are a plethora of modes here - typical stuff: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Single Game mode, a Penant Mode, All Star (nothing we haven't seen before). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, the first Power League game got a U.S. release, under the name 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "World Class Baseball". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Power League II was never released outside of Japan, though. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, there are six Power League games on the PC Engine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the first one was the only one to get a non-Japanese release. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Naturally, this looks and feels a lot like the first Power League game. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If we look at the two back to back, we see the sprites have been changed a bit, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but both games look very similar (with one exception). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the first game, after the batter got a hit, it showed the outfield straight down, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with the uh, camera's line of sight being perpendicular to the ground, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 much like the, uh, Sega Genesis', uh, sports games, like Tommy Lasorda Baseball. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Power League II uses a much more traditional 45 degree angle 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (looking sort of down and out over the field). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As always, playing against the CPU is tricky. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's certainly a way to strike out the CPU, but I didn't find it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Generally the CPU would get a good powerful hit against anything I would throw at it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When I was at the bat, I'd get lots of fly balls 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (and, uh, the computer would actually catch these with absolute 100% accuracy) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as well as tons of foul balls 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (like, about 4 out of 5 hits would be a foul ...or just really weak hits). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of course you have to play these things for a little while to sorta' get, you know, the feel to them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I didn't play it long enough to actually, you know, get very good at this thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, Power League II is (just like its predecessor) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a sharp-looking baseball game that doesn't really stand out in any way, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 other than its, you know, nice looking graphics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we will get to see four more of these during the life of the console. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [ Techno music ] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Our third PC Engine game, from Naxat (a.k.a. Taxan) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who had previously released the, uh, great pinball game, "Alien Crush" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as well as a golf game. Now, we have a pool game from them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Break In, featuring Simulation, Action, Technique 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Geez! is this an instructional sex game? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Simulation is sort of a tournament mode, Action is just like one-off, uh, playing a game, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Technique is like a tutorial practice mode deal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Break In is pretty generous with the types of games you can play. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, you have, uh, Yotsudama 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (a four ball game that's played on a table with no pockets 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and doesn't really resemble normal pool that much) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and "Bowliards", which appears to be a, uh, (actually is misspelled here) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is sort of a hybrid between bowling and billiards. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hmm! Yes, I would like some nice shiny oranges and a glass of... orange soda? ...or maybe a big glass of [???]? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Man, we're gonna' get f---ed up on that [???] there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Lots of options, here. Choose singles versus doubles, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who is controlled by computer and who is controlled by... "Man" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Sorry, ladies! This is a man's game.) Pick a character, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (choose from either seven men characters or "Woman") 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Dragon"!? Come on! This guy's hobby is golf? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm surprised it's not... you know... Billiards. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Actually, I'm kidding. There are seven female characters as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hmm! I like Emmy's dumb '80s fashion and, uh, Sophia's, sort of, adorable geek chic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but really, uh, Sigrid, the boozy actress seems like the coolest to me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So picking a card determines who breaks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, when you actually get ready to shoot a va... shoot the ball, here, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you have a great deal of control, much like the typical golf games of this era. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You have this image ball concept 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (not something I've seen in pool games prior to this) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 CPU players are generally decent but not 100% perfect, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is a nice switch from the various baseball games we've seen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Franky's pretty cool, but I think that mustache is fake. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like a lot of other PC Engine games, Break In has some pretty chill music. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, this is the Technique part. (I'm trying to learn trick shots.) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Good luck. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We've only seen a few pool games throughout the Chron series. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I still kinda like Compile's nutty "Lunar Pool" game the best (which was on the N.E.S.) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but among sort of like regular serious pool games, "Break In" is definitely one of the slickest. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [ Techno music ] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whoa-hoa! Did I load up a Famicom game by mistake? What is this? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, it's yet another Capcom arcade port (and we're not really getting top tier Capcom 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 stuff here). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The MegaDrive gets "Ghouls and Ghosts" and the PC Engine gets "F-1 Dream". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's a bit of a story here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 F-1 Dream is one of those career type racing games. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Alright, so let's fire up some F-1 racing action. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Wait. What's going on, here? These are not F-1 cars. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is apparently kind of a prologue to the main F-1 racing game. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Your car is super lame (and I'm sure there's no way to win). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Anyway, the original F-1 Dream was a 1988 arcade game, which used the likenesses of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 real Formula 1 drivers in the intro. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a pretty basic top-down racer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I guess there was still, like, some sort of demand for this kinda thing in the late '80s 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (I don't know why.) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One funny touch was, if you smack into the guardrails near spectators, they all go running 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hysterically. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right, so I'll fill you in on the basics of F-1 Dream. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is one of those racing games where you collect money for racing and then 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 use it to buy upgrades for your car (which starts out super shitty). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 First, you actually need to hire guys to work on your car. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Here, I'm, uh, hiring a tire guy and an engine guy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 After paying these dudes, I have enough money left to put some better tires on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my car and then it's off to the F-1 race! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Well, this is technically the tr... time trial but the actual race is up next.) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, you just sorta cruise around the track and, uh, (in order to qualify for the race) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 however there's a couple things about this type of game that drives me crazy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (namely the controls). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've seen this in other Japanese top-down racing games on the Famicom 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it drives me nuts here as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The controls are not from the perspective of the driver, but from the viewpoint of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 game's camera (meaning that if you're pointed up and wanna turn right, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 press Right on the directional pad - which makes sense so far - but if 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're facing down (towards the bottom of the screen) and you wanna turn the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 vehicle right, you press Left, because the vehicle's right is towards the left-hand side of the screen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This tends to confuse me, since we usually think of, you know, driving from the driver's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 point of view, especially when I'm heading towards the bottom of the screen and drift 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 towards the side of the road, trying to correct myself will usually result in me driving off the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 road, since it feels to me like the controls are reversed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You start bringing in money pretty quickly (even for doing poorly) and you will slowly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be able to improve your vehicle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Among other things, if the car gets damaged too much, it'll explode in a rather cool fashion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you'll get a Game Over. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Beyond that, there's really not that much to say about F-1 Dream. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We've already seen a lot of games like this already. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We saw a much more creative take on a career racing game last time, with Namco's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Final Lap Twin. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Quite frankly, the most distinguishing thing about F-1 Dream is just how appallingly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 last-generation the graphics look. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [ Techno music ] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, after taking in that weird looking box cover, you really should pause this and take a moment 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to read this batshit insane intro, here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's about, uh, finding mysterious fortunes and "Busters" (uh, "the name..." for "...people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we call... fortune hunters". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Their "historic journey" is to get "FISA" ("called legend by the people"). Hmm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The "one person..." who "...can make it real ... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has got to be billionet and radical, physically and mentally" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and "Yes, you are the one!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One of the great things about doing a series like this is you find shit that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doesn't seem like it has any reason to exist (for example, "Rock On"). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is the second game from publisher, Big Club and developer Manjyudo. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They had released a game in June called "Jinmu Denshō Yaksa" (covered in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Chronturbo 4) which took a character from a PC-88 game and stuffed him into 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a Space Harrier clone. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As far as I can tell, "Rock On" is a completely original game. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a Shoot-'em-Up (and not a great one at that). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, uh, VG Den (a review site for the PC Engine and Super Famicom games 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 calls it the worst Shoot-'em-Up for the console. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know if that's true, but damn, it sure ain't good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If nothing else, you get a lot of power-ups! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, this looks pretty boring, huh? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, I guess there's a couple things we can say about this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 First of all, the power-up system is a little different. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You can carry three different special weapons at once, though none of them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 display even the slightest amount of creativity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's the three way shot, the laser (you know, the one where you shoot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 both directions vertically, one where you shoot both directions horizontally). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Use the Start button to move between them but there's no Pause feature in the game, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 meaning you have to switch weapons on the fly (unlike in Side Arms) which is, you know, kind of a pain. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rock On uses kind of like a cute pudgy design style; your ship looks a little bit like Opa-Opa. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One annoying factor here are these warps. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They actually send you back to the beginning of a level if you... if you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't know what they are and accidentally go into one. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know much about the developer Manjyodo, except they made a handful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of PC Engine games and were mostly involved in importing/distributing arcade games. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As of 1998, their website was still up, but all it had was listings of arcade 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cabinets for sale, along with commercial boats (like, big boats). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, they were selling an 11 million cargo boat. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's really nothing interesting or exciting or creative here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, uh, this boss is ripped right out R-Type. (the nerve!) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Instead of points, you get money, though I never did see a shop or 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 anything to spend the money in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I love the way the interface at the bottom actually gets covered up by background objects. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I haven't seen this happen in other games on the console, so I assume it's a problem 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with the game, itself, not the emulation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we're definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel, here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a real puzzler, this one is, and I still have no idea why it's called, "Rock On". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh, hey! One important thing happened in August 1989. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The TurboGraphx 16 was released in the United States (purportedly debuting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on August 29th) though as was often the case, it was apparently a limited launch 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (just in New York and California). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, while Hudson was the most prolific publisher for the system in Japan, almost 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 all the games, here in the U.S. were released by NEC, themselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With NEC's U.S. headquarters apparently being the (I'm sure very lovely) town of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Woodale, Illinois. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The console itself was redesigned quite a bit and turned out quite a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 bit larger than the PC Engine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Uh... It had a pretty decent selection of launch titles, actually. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Aside from, of course, "Keith Courage in Alpha Zones" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which was the pack-in game, there was "R-Type", "Legendary Axe", 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 uh, "Alien Crush", and "Dungeon Explorer". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 along with the ubiquitous golf and racing games, "Power Golf" and "Victory Run" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rounding it out was two Beat-'em-Ups, "Vigilante" and "China Warrior" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (a.k.a. "The Kung Fu", which was the first game released for the system in Japan. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, eight games, which was actually a pretty hardy, uh, launch lineup, for back then. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Some sources say "Blazing Lasers" was a launch title, but upon further inspection, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this appears to be false. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Here's an ad from GamePro in late 1989 (not as cool looking as the Genesis ads). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The TurboBooster, by the way, was an add-on that allowed for a composite video 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 output and stereo sound, instead of the standard R.F. connection. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The TurboCD is featured in the ad, even though that would actually 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not come out until later in 1990. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As you'll recall, the TurboGraphx came out, um, in the U.S. about, uh, two 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 weeks after the Genesis, so this was sort of like the first battle in the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 16-bit wars, with the still-somewhat mysterious Super Famicom lurking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 somewhere in the wings in... in the... the future. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 E.G.M. did quite a bit of coverage on the new PC Engine, along with lots of Sega 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 coverage as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Genesis was ten dollars cheaper than the TurboGraphx 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (a hundred and ninety instead of two hundred) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and, uh, both were noticeably cheaper than either the N.E.S. or the Master System 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with inflation factored in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 While Sega obviously overtook NEC eventually in late 1989 the 16-bit playing field appeared 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to be, uh, completely up for grabs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [ Techno music ]