We Have Entered the Age of the 16 Bits!

...or maybe we're still in the age of the 8 bits. It depends on who you're asking. Either way, the first amazing episode of Chronturbo has arrived, and may be downloaded or streamed at Archive.org! This new project, announced so long ago, sees us add a third console to the series. The PC Engine, known in the US as the TurboGrafx 16, is the first "fourth generation" video console: released in October of 1987 by electronics/technology giant NEC, with most early titles published by Hudson.

The PC Engine was quite successful in Japan. Most sources say NEC's console outsold the Famicom for the first year after its release. Some sources go further and say it outsold the Famicom for the rest of the Famicom's lifespan. That's quite impressive, but it must be remembered that the Famicom had already reached an unthinkable level of market saturation by 1987. Nintendo's console was four years old when the PC Engine hit the shelves and so enormously successful that anyone interested in video games probably already had one by that point.














In the US, the system did not do as well, to put it in polite terms. With the release of the Sega Genesis, the TurboGrafx found itself in a distant third place in the console wars. Still, the console was highly regarded by hardcore gamers, and earned itself a loyal cult following. Today, the hardware is highly prized among collectors, and working TurboGrafx 16 and TurboDuo consoles are far more expensive than Nintendo or Sega machines.

The one sticky point about the PC Engine is whether or not it should be classified as a 16 bit console. NEC certainly thought so, as the name TurboGrafx 16 implies. On the other hand, while the system does utilize dual 16 bit GPUs, the CPU itself is a just a souped-up version of Western's 8 bit 65C02 chip (which is itself a souped-up version of the old MOS 6502, found in the Atari 2600. The Famicom was also based on a MOS 6502 variant.) Of course, regardless of the CPU, the PC Engine was clearly leagues ahead of the Famicom in terms what it could put on the screen. A total of 482 colors could be displayed at once and sprites could be substantially larger. The PC Engine had considerably more RAM than the Famicom, and once the CD-Rom add-on was released, the amount of RAM was dramatically increased (The Arcade System card provided 2048 KB.)














Gigantic bosses - a PC Engine staple.

But, while such technical facts and figures are interesting to the geeky sorts of folks who play video games, ultimately what matters are the demonstrable results of all that hardware. And in that department the PC Engine definitely delivered. Perhaps the system's main technical weakness was its lack of multiple background layers, yet it somehow managed to fake it with the best of them. The extra space provided by the CD-ROM drive allowed for high quality cut scenes, voice acting and pre-recorded music. When all the stars were aligned just right, the PC Engine was capable of producing better looking games than the Genesis/Mega Drive: Lords of Thunder being the classic example. So if the PC Engine was not a "real" 16 bit console, at times it sure acted like one.











Sega CD Lords of Thunder













TurboGrafx Lords of Thunder

Chronturbo Episode One is a little short by Chrontendo standards; in order to get the first two episodes to neatly enclose 1987-1988, I decided to go with 13 games per episode at first. But what a selection of games! Platformers, shoot-em-ups, baseball games, RPGs, racing games, beat-em-ups, puzzle games - there's a little something for everyone. Naturally, one game outshines the rest, so we'll begin there:

R-Type













The first must-have game for the PC Engine, and the first to really show off the hardware's power. I've mentioned my love of R-Type before on this blog. It's a beautifully done game in every aspect: fantastic graphics and sound, innovative game play, and a wonderful sense of design. Its influence on the shoot-em-up genre was huge, but so was its importance to the PC Engine. Namely, that such a recent, cutting edge game could be reproduced, virtually perfectly, on a home console, must have impressed the heck out of gamers back in 1988. R-Type is, perhaps, the most faithful and accurate arcade port we've seen so far.

Some other fine games this episode:

Kato-chan and Ken-chan/J.J. & Jeff

This odd little platformer from Hudson doesn't deserve the bad reputation is sometimes has today. Based on a TV show starring comedians Cha Kato and Ken Shimura, Kato-chan is a sort of a follow up to Adventure Island, with healthy serving of scatological humor added in. Goofy, silly and gross, the subject matter tends to disguise the fact that this is a creative and well constructed hop and bop style side scrolling platform game.

Victory Run














What a cool idea for a racing game! Victory Run has you driving the famous Paris-Dakar Rally (oddly, an unrelated Paris-Dakar Famicom game will be turning up soon.) While clearly an Out Run clone, Victory Run outshines Sega's Master System port of Out Run. A grittier, more realistic driving game than we're used to seeing, Victory Run throws in such novelties as auto parts that wear out and need to be replaced, and extremely rough desert roads. Along with Rad Racer, this is the best driving/racing game we've seen so far.

Bikkuriman World














Along with Shanghai, Bikkuriman World was one of the PC Engine's launch titles. A bizarre sounding name, but it turns out to simply be a port of Sega's Wonder Boy in Monster Land with altered character sprites. Wait a second, you say! That's the same thing Hudson did when they based Adventure Island on Wonder Boy. Well, they did it again, this time using characters from a series of stickers packaged with a Japanese snack food. While nowhere near as impressive as R-Type, Hudson pulls off a pretty decent port of Monster Land.

Galaga '88

Another arcade port and the best of the three Namco games this episode.

What about the bad games? Well, there's nothing too terrible on display here - the fact that all titles are from Hudson or Namco sees to that. But I'd say the worst of the bunch are these:

The Kung-Fu/China Warrior














Based on the "Vol 1" found in the upper right hand corner of The Kung-Fu's box art, I'd say Hudson intended this to be the first game released for the new console. It ended hitting the shelves three weeks after launch. It almost seems more like a tech demo than a complete game. The Kung Fu is a rather simple beat-em-up featuring a Bruce Lee lookalike and a single enemy type. However, the real point of the game is to demonstrate the PC Engine's ability to produce enormous, detailed sprites. It succeeds in that department; it's too bad Hudson didn't invest a bit more time in creating an interesting game.

Pro Yakyuu World Stadium

While not exactly a bad game, World Stadium does manage to piss me off. Why? This is third time Namco has released the exact same game! Yes, Pro Yakyuu World Stadium is merely Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium AKA Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium '87 with better graphics. Namco, I know the first one sold a lot of copies, but how long are you going to keep milking this?

And the rest:

Youkai Douchuuki














Another arcade port from Namco, this time of the game known in the West as Shadowland. A weird and unique supernatural themed platformer with some bits of exploration thrown in, Shadowland is given a less that stellar home version, courtesy of Tose.

Sengoku Mahjong

The first mahjong game for the system. Mahjong games are like golf and baseball games, no Japanese console is complete without having one out as early as possible.

Power League/World Class Baseball














Speaking of which, this is the second baseball game for the PC Engine, this time from Hudson. The first in the reasonably long lived Power League series, and the only one released outside of Japan.

Jaseiken Necromancer














And since this is 1988, there's also got to be an RPG. This Hudson title is most notable for its impressive H.R. Giger box art and spooky opening music. Sadly, the enemy design found inside the game itself fails to be as interesting.

Shanghai

The first console version of Activision's puzzle game, originally for the Macintosh. We saw a Famicom release of this from Data East a while ago, but the PC Engine game actually came out first. It's not every day another console gets a game before the Famicom.

Yuu Yuu Jinsei

An early entry in an inexplicably popular genre: video games based on the board game, The Game of Life.

There you have it. I must admit I was quite impressed with the lineup of games. Compared to the Master System, we are off to a pretty strong start. So, go ahead and check it out.

Dr. Sparkle's been out sick

Hey kids, Dr. S has been lying low for the last ten days or so due to some unplanned cold and flu action. This has put a bit of a kink in my schedule for Chronturbo, but things should start moving again before too long.

So, in the meantime, I've updated the links a tad, adding the new retrogaming podcast, Pixel Dreams, as well as the well loved Retronauts blog from 1UP.

One thing I mused about while playing Metal Gear, is why, whenever your video game hero gets captured, does all his weapons and gear get conveniently stashed in a nearby storage room? If I were a video game villain, after capturing any heroes I found sneaking around my top secret base, I'd have all their weapons, health refills and pilfered key cards tossed in the incinerator. I would definitely NOT place everything unharmed in an unlocked room 20 yards from where I imprisoned aforementioned hero. This immediately stuck me a rule that should be in the Video Game Evil Overlord Top 100. If bad guys followed even 1/10th of these rules, you would never beat any video game. I've added Socks Make People Sexy to the links, in case anyone's not familiar this this awesome site.

Lastly, a word about Sunsoft. Last episode, I speculated over the surprisingly high production values in Ripple Island and noted the name Tokai Engineering in the credits - a name that also appears in some later good quality Sunsoft games. Unfortunately, actual details about what exactly Tokai Engineering was are pretty scarce. CRV pointed out an out 2Chan post stating that Tokai was merely some sort of shell company.

However, a bit more information about the old days of Sunsoft can be found the Game Maker Vol. 2 DVD, recently covered in Retronauts. The DVD contains an interview with Atsushi Sakai, former programmer at Sunsoft. Sakai discusses such gems as Atlantis no Nazo and Mitokoumen... but it appears that the first game at Sunsoft which Sakai was completely responsible for was Ripple Island! He also mentions Super Spy Hunter, Ufouria and Gimmick, in the interview, so I assume he was involved in the programming on those as well. Was Sakai Sunsoft's secret weapon? A transcript may be found here.

DR SPARKLE HERE. I FORGET TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!

Thats right, I was going to talk about Metal Gear. But first, a few quick updates. Unless it's just me, the "recent comments" bar now seems to be working. Of course, as soon as that was fixed, archive.org starting having problems. Namely, the downloads were not being counted for around a week. Now that's running again, so we're at "all systems go" for the time being.

A brief update on Chronturbo: the first episode is currently taking shape. Due to the PC Engine's first couple years not exactly being jam-packed with games, this episode will be a bit shorter than average - about 12 titles will be covered.














Additionally, there are a couple other little projects I'm working on - though nothing too exciting. First up is a complete re-recording of Chrontendo Episode 1. That episode sounds horrible and awful for some reason, and I'd like to get it more in line with later episodes.

So about that Metal Gear - its an odd little game, isn't it? Certainly, among the "classic" NES titles, MG has very little critical consensus. It's clearly a groundbreaking game, and light years ahead of the majority of 1987 Famicom/NES releases. Yet a surprising number of folks really seem to hate it. Part of this has to do with the notoriously sketchy translation ("THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE!") But the widespread availability of the superior MSX2 game has also led to a drop in the console MG's stock.

















There's definitely something to this. The MSX MG is the better game. Regardless of the rather baffling changes made for the console release, it's still 90% the same game. The Famicom Metal Gear is still a highly original, well designed, and addictive video game, despite its not having the official Hideo Kojima seal of approval. Perhaps Kojima's distinctive, forceful and very public personality has led to modern day critics attempting to apply some sort of half-baked variation of auteur theory to his video games. Those who tend to align themselves with Kojima on such matters, might view the Famicom Metal Gear as the illegitimate offspring of Kojima's original creation: something that should be shunned in favor of the MSX game.















Not that I don't give Kojima credit for making a great game. But Metal Gear is clearly a game in the Konami style; it's foolish to think that it sprung, Athena-like, from Kojima's head fully formed. Its just as much the descendant of King Kong 2 or Ai Senshi Nicol as it is Kojima's brainchild. One often sees writers give Kojima a lot of credit for making Metal Gear a top-down non-scrolling game, since the MSX was not capable of smooth scrolling. Yet that was the very same thing Konami had been doing with other games for the last couple years!

















I hope no one is going to interpret this as Kojima bashing, or anything of that nature. I'm merely trying to place the Famicom Metal Gear in its historical context - as one in a series of high quality action adventure games Konami released for the system. Placing each game into its historical context, is, after all, what Chrontendo is all about.

Nintendo Slips into the Shadows

Boy, its been a while since the last episode of Chrontendo. But, Episode 27 is finally here, and can be found on Archive.org!

A couple notable things about this episode: for one, it includes the first 7 games of 1988, with frequent Famicom publishers Namco, Bandai and Konami charging out of the gate. But something a little unexpected also happens in January '88, with the release of Nintendo's Ice Hockey. Older NES fans will probably remember this game - one of the better Nintendo sports titles. In it you build your hockey team around players with three different physiques.

While preparing the video of Ice Hockey, I realized something. Up until this point the majority of Nintendo developed titles were released in both the US and Japan. These games made up the core of the US NES library - titles like Super Mario Bros, Zelda, Metroid, Punch-Out!! and so on. While many great third party games were also released, a steady stream of internally developed games from Nintendo was indispensable to the NES in the United States. Strangely, this tradition virtually comes to an end with Ice Hockey.

Over the next couple years, we'll only see two Nintendo developed titles released in the US. Granted, those games are major releases: Super Mario 3 and Tetris. But from here on out, most of Nintendo's own games will be Japan only titles. Nintendo will continue to publish games in the US, but these will be developed by outsiders, such as Rare. Maybe this is due to Nintendo's increasing interest in adventure games and RPGs. Perhaps NOA felt these sorts of games, with their reliance on lots of text, would not interest US gamers. Either way, Nintendo Japan and Nintendo of America embark on almost entirely separate paths for a while.

For the moment, however, let's turn our attention back to late 1987, and this episode's gold medal game.

Metal Gear

















"Metal Gear! At last I've found yo- Wh...what?"

Konami finishes up "the greatest week in gaming history" with a port of Hideo Kojima's MSX2 stealth game. In a weird twist, Chrontendo does sort of a dual-review of both the MSX2 and the Famicom game. While the console version was somewhat bungled, its still a pretty cool game . I suppose I'll collect my thoughts on Metal Gear for a post in the near future.

Other fine games this episode:

Ice Hockey

















The last, and perhaps best, entry in the FDS sports series from Nintendo and Pax Softnica. The genius in this particular entry lies in the use of three distinct player types. Lanky, Pee Wee and Fatso (a little unkind - he's more like "Sturdy") each have their own set of attributes, much like the four characters in Super Mario Bros 2.

Konami Wai Wai World

















Konami's first game of 1988 is an oddball mash up featuring characters from several of their more popular titles. Konami Man, Simon Belmont, King Kong, Ganbare Goemon, Vic Viper, Twinbee and others join forces to... defeat some aliens, I guess. Sadly, Wai Wai World was not as cool as I hoped it would be. Despite the interesting cast of characters, it's really just a standard platformer with middle-of-the-road level design. One nice touch that I do like a lot is the way the music changes whenever you switch characters.

Ripple Island

Finally! A decent game from Sunsoft! Oh sure, this is a normal Japanese adventure game, but compared to the horrible stuff Sunsoft's been releasing, it's a godsend. Ripple Island's charming graphics and catchy music can only mean one thing: it was developed with Tokai Engineering. Their name will turn up later on such Sunsoft titles as Master Blaster and Super Spy Hunter. Perhaps Sunsoft's darkest days are behind us now.

SD Gundam World - Gachapon Senshi Scramble Wars

















Completely out of the blue comes this game from Human and Bandai: the first strategy war game for the Famicom. If 1987 was the year console RPGs took off, then 1988 will do the same for strategy games. While SD Gundam World isn't exactly fantastic, its long reaching influence on such series as Advance Wars, Fire Emblem and Langrisser should be noted.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have these duds:

Superman

















Are you telling me this guy lives in Metropolis and has never heard of Superman?

I'm sure it's not easy to make a game about a character who is virtually invincible, super strong, and super fast. Imagine Super Mario Bros with Superman. You could simply fly to Bowser's Castle at the speed of sound, smash through the castle walls, and plow right through Bowser himself. The game would last 10 seconds. Kemco's solution to this dilemma is to turn Superman into a super wuss. Yep, Kemco's man of steel can he harmed by bullets, can't fly more than one block and needs to use the frickin' subway to get around Metropolis. Beyond that, the game is notable for such things are seriously nutty hit detection and off the wall commentary from NPCs.

Sukeban Deka III

We've already seen one Sukeban Deka game for the Sega Master System. But SD III, based on the third series of the long running Japanese live action TV show, is another beast entirely. In fact, SD III marks the triumphant return of Toei and Shoei System/Bear's, the same team behind Hokuto no Ken. This is kusoge at is most craptacular.

Attack Animal Gakuen

















You say you didn't like Tobidase Daisakusen/3D Worldrunner because you felt is was just a low budget Space Harrier rip off? Then you're not going to like this game either. Attack Animal Gakuen adds "wacky" enemies and panty shots into the mix, and manages to be much worse than Square's game.

And now the rest:

Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium '87

This is a little shameful, Namco. Family Stadium '87 is very slightly altered version of the first Family Stadium game. Even back then publishers were finding ways of making you buy the same game twice.

Family Circuit

A top down racing game from Namco, with lots of menu options. The first game released in 1988.

GeGeGe no Kitaro 2

















Bandai's sequel to the pretty dreadful 1986 game known in the US as Ninja Kid is actually quite decent. Naturally, Bandai modernizes the gameplay at bit: Kitaro 2 is about 1/2 Zelda and 1/2 Dragon Quest. It does benefit from better production values than you would expect from a Bandai game.

Magnum Kiki Ippatsu: Empire City - 1931

A decent port of this 1986 arcade game in which you shoot gangsters. It's like a light gun game, without the light gun!

Wizards and Warriors

















Rare, despite being British, were apparently not familiar with the correct usage of "hath."

The first original NES release from Acclaim, and the second NES game designed by Rare. As you might expect, the music is good; the game is not so good. At least this one doesn't feature Fabio on the box art.

Family Trainer: Totsugeki! Fuun Takeshijou

The release of this title from Bandai means there are now inexplicably two Famicom games featuring Takeshi Kitano. At least we can breathe a sigh of relief now. There won't be another Family Trainer game until around Episode 34 or so.

Satsui No Kaisou: Power Soft Satsujin Jiken

Someone at HAL Laboratory had the remarkabley fresh idea of making a text adventure game in which someone is murdered, and you have the solve the crime. Its undoubtedly that sort of innovative thinking that got Satoru Iwata to where he is now.

What's next for Chrontendo? A couple things are in the works. First and foremost is the first episode of Chronturbo, which will cover the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 in chronological order. Yes, this is really coming out; I've already started working on the first episode. The TurboGrafx is a great system with a lot of high quality titles that are not very well known, so I'm quite excited about the series. Episode One will feature games from October 1987 to September 1988.

Until then, head on over to Archive.org to download or stream Chrontendo 27.