As a kid at the local Dairy Queen they had a playchoice-10 machine. At the time I didn’t know this, but being something of a gaming enthusist I’ve found out that nintendo released arcade units with nintendo games on them called Playchoice-10. These machines were around a few places I saw, but the one I recall was that dairy queen one. I recall playing Mario 3 on it, but more than that, I recall Ninja Gaiden. Specifically the opening cutscene. A lone field. A full moon. One ninja gets a close up. Then the other. Weeds blow in the air as they stare each other. Then it shows the legs. They run at each other. Look at each other. Run some more. Jump. Slashing noise. Both fall to the ground. As I type this, I have to play the game right now. I frantically got up and got it out of the box, put it in, picked up my controller anxiously and watched the whole scene again.
Another scene from the game.
I can’t tell you what happens storyline wise one game to the next. I’ve tried. I really paid attention and read wikipedia today. I still don’t know. I don’t understand at all. I could read a novel and still not know what or who is going on. Something with spies and ninjas and magic, and then theres a sword. And I don’t get it. Alls I know is, I like it. I like being a ninja and hitting people until they die. That’s always been enough for me. You’re after your fathers killer from the starting movie, that’s all I need. Until when I replayed it that is. I’ve grown quite fond of the cutscenes. The storyline itself isn’t terribly complicated. Something of a revenge plot, the CIA shoots your Ninja character at some point, bad guys steal statues, and this scene at the mountain.
That really strikes me because of the way it happens. I was just minding my own business walking along this level, after being killed by stupid birds constantly and consistency, and then this scene happens. You walk over to the peak of this mountain and you see off in the distance where you’re heading. I giggled at how inspiring and action movie like this scene was. I really wished I could pay attention better. It’s a shame I can barely recall plot details from RPGs I’ve played either. But this mountain scene will stick with me for years. I don’t know how I didn’t remember this thing. A sudden realization that, maybe in my youth, I never made it that far? This isn’t the type of thing that leaves your memory like that scene in Final Fantasy 9 with that extra party member who leaves, I dare anyone to remember that guys name ten years after playing through it once, this is different. This is the type of thing you mention in blog posts. It just happens out of nowhere and was so jaw dropping.
If you’ve played any action platformer you know how to play Ninja Gaiden. Its very simple. One button jumps. One button attacks. You can bounce jump off walls and things hanging are attackable for power ups. Anything else can kill you. And it pushes you back too, which can kill you. The main thing I’ll point out with this and Castlevania is the speed. Castlevania feels so much slower and almost methodical next to this. In this, within minutes you’ve killed twenty things. I say things, as I have no ideas who or what these guys are supposed to be. Of course, you’ll realize by the third level that this simplicity becomes more complex. Enemies are added that seem to exist soley to knock your ninja into the death pits. Your health becomes a precious commonity, much like Castlevania, in that one hit from a regular enemy spells doom for a boss. I’ve only made it to stage
My favorite thing I noticed today was the bosses explode after you beat them. No explanation necessary. It just seems to make sense. A full on series of explosions, for no reason. I assume they’re in the storyline somehow but I can’t follow it. The bosses never really had anything to do with anything, they’re always big lumbering things that end up hitting you, then you them, until someone dies. Guess who that usually is? One particularly nasty guy just jumps around the screen. Making hitting him near impossible. He jumps to the right in an arc, then back left. He shoots bullets at you that you can destroy, but I always seem to get hit anyway. The infiltration of this castle level itself wasn’t so easy, but then to fight this guy. Get sent back to the start. Over and over. Now that’s a video game! And this is only stage three!
One last and final note is about the creator of the storyline itself. In the credits, they’re listed as RUNMARU. It was typical for developers and people who worked on games to get silly credits like that, I don’t know why. But recently an interview on Hardcore Gaming 101 that talks about this person working on the game. Well, if you’re a follower of these types of names, you might recognize that person’s real name, Masato Kato, as having worked on several big game franchises. Not that Ninja Gaiden isn’t a big name, but Chrono Trigger and several other well known storyline based games are also there. Such as Princess Maker 2, a masterpiece of strange Japanese gaming. Oh you’ve never played THAT? or seen it? It’s a game about raising a daughter who can marry you, as well as several other suitors. And other wacky things! But this guy wrote Chrono Trigger and Ninja Ryukenden! How cool is that! In my opinion, it’s ice cold, it’s so cool.
Today I replayed this and woah nelly. I can’t stop myself. I’m on the third stage, and I feel special doing THAT, and made it ot the boss. I yelled something to the effect of: “I had him to two blocks. TWO BLOCKS!” I yelled, enthusiastically at the game. No one was around to hear it, but I don’t even have to explain what this means. You know it. I know it. But I guess I will say. First of all it means I take video games too seriously. Secondly I suppose this means I’ll have to replay the entire stage as that was my last life. Oh, no I got a game over. I have to replay the entire game. In the weeks that passed between this sentence and the last, I’ve slowly worked my way up to stage five. I doubt I’ll be able to finish this. The level I’m at is particularly full of the bird enemies. I know that this is barely a harbinger of the rocket ninjas to come, but my goodness do I hate the birds. Some day I’ll finish it up. Maybe.
American
European
Japanese
Did you ever play Ninja Ryukenden? Did you ever actually beat this game?
BONUS
Here’s as many screens of myself dying as I could manage to capture. I would pause and snap a quick picture.
I’m greeted upon starting the game with a cut scene. I forget the DS doesn’t suck in cut scenes. Most games tend to look like the Nintendo 64. Sorry, they all do have that same qaulity. But upon starting I was viewing a cut scene of the ships heading to Antarctica to investigate this black void. Everyone has silly space suits.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (DS)
Publisher: Atlus
To be released: March, 2010
I don’t actually speak Japanese, so I’ll describe for you the first moments of the game. I could fill in the blanks. I’ve played a lot of games after all. This is no big whoop. I often make up the dialog for characters anyway, so making up the usual “hi I’m captain Dave, this is our mission you read in the previews of this game already, here’s your suit that does this and that.” nonsense that every game does. It just drags on and on.
Some of the ships wreck, and then you’re tasked with talking to all the crew. Being in Japanese, this became difficult. I had to figure out which kanji was save, which one was talk, which one was leave. When I figured it out, I managed to talk to everyone. Go to the next area to be told about my suit, then come back. At which point I talked some more and another scene played. I quit after saving my game.
Then I went back and couldn’t figure out what to do. I somehow erased my game and looked at the gameboy in shock. I realized importing was a horrible idea for an RPG the exact first letter of Japanese that I saw. That’s how little about Japanese I know, I just called Kanji letters! I was so excited for this game. If I was going to get it, play half of it, and then play off and on for the next year until finishing it, I wanted it right now. Not in another couple weeks.
That’s my impressions of the Japanese import of Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey. We here at the Gamer Limit user blogs will continue to post previews and hands on news as we get it for this upcoming DS RPG.
I make the mistake and read letter columns. In comic books, in magazines, and even in internet media when they respond to e-mail, I always love seeing how people respond to letters. It’s fascinating to me. Here they are, these learned professionals interacting with the people. People who mispell things like myself or are fully retarded like most of the internet. You’re never supposed to go full retard if you want to win, only a little retarded like myself. Or so the dude playing the dude acting like another dude says in that one movie. I could easily refrence Phantasm 2’s chainsaw fight, but I feel like I need to hook you in with something everyone would have seen. Seriously though, I want to post that scene from Phantasm 2 where this guy walks into a basement and for no reason there is a huge chainsaw fight with a masked wierdo.
So anyway, the point of this. Game Informer’s letter column this month. We all know Game Informer is representative of GameStop, the video game store monopoly in America, and so the magazine isn’t written with the same qaulity of a Electronic Gaming Monthly or even the advertainment of a Nintendo Power. It’s mostly just pages of pictures, generic reviews, and generally lack luster content. But I like you was roped into subscribing to it year in and year out because you can save 10% on used games at their stores by subscribing and I often read on the toliet. I might as well read them, but I’ll bring your attention to a particular response in one the letters.
From page 10 of game informer 202 “HALO REACH”
“Bargain game informer.”
I recently went to my local game store, and I was browsing around in the pre-owned section, I stumbled upon a game with a price of $13. I’m not going to tell you what it is, because you’ll make fun of me, but when I got home and started playing, I realized it wasn’t all that bad. I do not think that the game warranted its $60 price tag when it first came out, but for a game on the cheap, it was kind of fun. Could you add a section for games that deserve a second look once they go down in price?
Chuck D.
Staten Island, NY
The picture of Earth Defense Force 2017 in the magazine was different. [A game I really enjoy, as well as its bargain bin cousin. I am buying a modded PS2 for the european only Earth Defense Force games. – RBE]
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Game Informer responds:
A below-average game is a below-average game; it isn’t worth talking about no matter how much it costs. With all of the great titles on the horizon for 2010, why spend time dwelling on garbage from the past? Value is important, but you don’t need to settle for bad games to get the most for your money. PS3 and Xbox 360 both have greatest hits programs, where you can get top-tier games for $30. Alternately, you can find plenty of awesome games in the $10 to $20 range on Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. There are too many good games out there at affordable prices – don’t throw your money away on the crummy ones.
Upon reading this, I did a spit take.
This was like a slap in the face. In fact, it was worse than slapping my face. It was laughing in it. Even this poor Public Enemy who wrote in mentioned they would laugh at him. I paid 17 dollars for my Earth Defense Force 2017. It’s incredible in my opinion. It’s certainly something I like playing. And by the time I got the Punisher, one of my all time favorite games ever it had been out for three years making it a bargain bin game. Even now it’s a bargain bin game nobody talks about. All the Shin Megmi Tensei and Disgaeas and Onimushas and tons of other games are all in these bins. I found the entirety of Silent Hill in those bargain bins. Silent Hill 2 is anything short of a game you should miss out on. Maybe Mister Mosquito you can live without, I can’t, but maybe you can. Silent Hill 2 and Punisher are really great games. The type of games people into games tell each other about and then tell that person to go buy.
We can’t all be Rockefellers. Within the last few years, I was broke. I had no money. Buying one sixty dollar game or three twenty dollar games was a no brainer. Sure I ended up with Kill.Switch, Destroy All Humans, and The Suffering, Kill.Switch is ok. I won’t write about it anytime soon. Destroy All Humans everybody knows, it has an anal probe you can use on enemies to kill them. By enemies, I mean people walking around. It’s hilarious and fun. The Suffering is one of those rare games you’ll hear about, think sounds cool, then find in bargain bin and say “I have to tell people about this.” It’s just such a well done third person shooter with a horror story and setting that were really great. Everyone emphasis storyline these days, well theres a game to go buy for storyline. Let alone its monsters and gameplay. But according to this article, I should never have bothered with that.
I shouldn’t spend my time searching for “BEST PS2 games.” “UNDERATED XBOX GAMES” “UNKNOWN BEST GAMES” and least of all, I probably shouldn’t be excited to have a new Turbo Grafx-16 or my Sega Saturn copy of Gaurdian Heroes. They’re new to me, but surely this Game Informer writer scoffs at the very idea. “OLD VIDEO GAMES? They aren’t new at all!” Boulder dash good sir, I want nothing to do with this Blackthorne or Demon’s Crest you speak of! Only the games released this week matter.” They would laugh at me. Much like the guys in my local gamestop laughed when I said I was playing a playstation one game when the subject of “what have you been playing” came up. I was honest, and they were shocked.
And that’s the problem with everyone. Only the games released THIS WEEK matter. Nobody goes back and plays a game from six months ago or a year ago. Let alone goes out and buys every PS2 game they missed out on, like I did last year.
But Earth Defense Force totally got dissed in this article, as well as just playing games older than two weeks, and I am upset about it. Please agree with me internet buddies.
[I will apologize to GamerLimit for posting less. I work nights and have barely two nights off a week, filled with sleeping. You can guess what all that other time is doing instead of posting about video games or writing about them. Hint: It's playing them. ]
River City Ransom is one of the games I wished I had got as a kid. A friend of mine had it, we would play for a bit, then get stuck. We didn’t know you could wander around the city or that you get stronger buying foods. We just liked beating the snot out of the little guys. If only I had traded him something for it, action figure, a poster, or maybe just throwed him some money I could have gotten it then. Instead I waited until last year to buy it (and Castlevania 3) for twelve dollars apiece. Honestly, that’s well worth it. Even having emulation available, I wanted a phisical real copy to play on. And play on it I did. For three days. The TV was mine, I tried to take down my passwords with a camera (to little success) and at one point the dog reset my game with her tail. But I beat it. I did what I couldn’t do twenty years ago. Now when I play I torture myself on the advanced difficulty, hoping that I can beat it there as well. Still, there is something to be said about how much fun River City Ransom is. Beat em up’s should all have RPG elements.
Gameplay is so simple but brilliant. Standard beat em up rules are in effect. Punches with one button, kicks with the second. Press both and you jump. Pause and select bring up your menu of statistics or items. The game itself is a little tricky to explain. Each street you go to lets you fight nine members of a gang. Depending on the gang that comes out, they could be easy losers or tough fighters. So picking where to fight and get cash can be tricky. Would you rather fight the lesser guys for low cash or try for the big prize against the really strong punks? On top of the streets having that going on, you also move in a less traditional manner. Which when I was a kid lost me. I had no idea that left to right wouldn’t work. But sure enough, you go left to right, up and down, the city isn’t gigantic but you could lose yourself in it easily. I do still yet on occasion. One point has you go through a building to get to the next half of town and I just get confused. Every so often instead of a street with gangs you’ll fight a gang then a boss, or you’ll be in a town where you can shop.
Yeah, beat em ups should all have RPG elements. Especially when presented like this. You’ve stats that all are exactly as they sound. Throw, weapon, punch, kick, and the rest are all pretty clear. The way you increase them is brilliant. You use the money from the gangs to purchase food upgrades. And you can buy books to learn karate, such as stone fist or dragon kick. Imagine kicking or punching three times in a row. You also can buy more advance flips and throws that are tricky to pull off, but put a hurting on your enemies. Whats really great is how humorous all these resteraunts are. For example, some places let you get a free smile.
Besides that is that you also can use weapons. Each of the gangs uses weapons on you, but you can steal them. So you can whack them with barrels, chains, bats, and even each other. You can pick one guy up and slap him at some other dork. You can throw weapons, you can throw the second player, you can do it all. Speaking of the second player I think that’s where this really shines. Usually I play one player, but when someone is over this lights up completely. When someone comes over to play video games and has no clue what they want to play, I know exactly what to whip out. Myself and a friend about four or three years ago ended up playing this for two days straight. He actually came back over and said “hey lets play that game some more.” So of course we did.
This game is so charming. As are all the games with this look. Technos had released many games with this “kunio” blocky big eyed guy characters, Super Dodgeball being the other most well known nes game. They also did a few other River City games.Renegade, an earliar release on nes and for coin op, was part one to Ransom. Its clear that there are similarities, but its not near as classic as this. Renegade I don’t much care for. As for sequels, I’ve yet to play one I really enjoy. I’m told the snes japanese only one is great, but it isn’t english. And isn’t named right, so I forgot its name. A few months passed with me hunting for the name, Shodai Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun. Forgive me for forgetting THAT. It came highly reccomended, but I couldn’t get it to work. A remake on gameboy advance is out, River City Ransom EX. While not horrible, I didn’t enjoy it as much. My main problem with it is the graphcs. It just went too far into the anime look instead of the big head block look. Ultimately though, it was a great game. So I can’t fault it that much. Other than that, the other kunio games will get written up soon.
River City Ransom is technically one of the best games ever. Mechanicly, presentation wise, and sheer fun factor. Easily one of the classics. Have you ever played it?
For those that don’t know, Yakuza is essentially River City Ransom 3D. That might be a bit silly and reviewerish of me, but that’s instantly what I got from playing it. It’s no where near as popular as it should be. Considering how amazing the first two games I are, I’m very angry at everyone who likes the genre and doesn’t buy them. I myself had no clue how good these two games are so now, without talking much about the plot, I want to talk about the two games. Sequels. And the series as a whole.
Yakuza
The basic plot is fairly simple. You’re the dragon of the Dojima clan, that is to say the most mean man they happen to have. At least that was what I got from it. Your guy, Kiryu Kuzuma has a tattoo that is so amazing on his back. See above. It’s the symbol for the covers and I feel is one of the cooler things stylistically in the game. Rarely do you fight with it shown, but its there. Now the reality of these types of tattoos is that they’re done prick by poke with needles and ink in the old ways. So imgine this guy sitting there like this. Looking around the internet I found photos of real ones, the game captures it perfectly. I also want to mention that in that same research I did about his tattoo, I found out about pearling. I won’t tell you what that is. It has nothing to do with this game other than some Yakuza according to an article I read, do that. And certain women of ill repute in africa don’t accept pearled men.
So anyway, you’re this really tough guy. You were and orphan, but you had two friends. A man, Nishiki, and Yuki, a lady. As luck would have it you walk into an office to see the boss of the clan murdered by Nishiki. Yuki was being attacked by the guy, and Nishiki kills him. So your guy decides to take the rap for it. So ten years are spent in Japanese lock up. I imagine this making the character who was already tough, tougher. Like Robert Duvall level grizzled and cold. When you get out of course everything is changed. You’re out of the yakuza, but somehow involved with them. Murder, betrayal, a kid, buddy cop stuff, guns, asskicking, a scene where people yell, all the good storyline elements are there. This is a fun storyline that goes all over the place quickly. Forgive me if I left out a few things or spelled names wrong, but thats the basic plot elements. You’re let loose on the world ten years later.
And you deal with a vegence. Your character has in his repitor of beat em up moves some amazing abilities. Stomps, kicks, throws, combos, a power up gauge, all the prerequisites are there. But what makes it great is how vicious this combat can feel. And how silly. For example, you can use weapons in battle. So you pick up a bike and beat someone with it. It was cool on the nintendo with cartoon graphics, but here in 3D with cartoon graphics its all the more cool. Maybe its the bloodshed. Maybe its the way you can dodge and gaurd moves. Your opponnents are usually just smaller guys and bigger guys, with lots of outfit swaps. I enjoy this. You level up your guy too, meaning even more faces busted.
Now for the part that makes this like River City. You can explore the town at your liesure instead of rushing off to the next story segment. Occasionally the storyline asks you to do something stupid like go buy dog food, but for the most part its point A to point B. So you can explore. Buy items to help you out. Fight bad guys in random fights. Side quests that let you fight weirdos. Hostess bars where you flirt with ladies and drink. Those machines that let you win stuffed aminals. Lots of things to do. I love this!
So that’s the first game. This one is dubbed in english. Its pretty silly, but I like that. Other than the fetch quest missions, I have nothing negative to say. I like this a lot and reccomend it to you.
More of the same, but improved. More combat moves. More stuff to do in the city. More more more, more more! And I will say its much improved. Not that it strays too far from the formula. At the start of the game you and a character from the first visit a grave. Here you’re asked if you want to review part one’s story. For three hours, maybe, I was there watching this fascinated. All in Japanese. I bought two before one, as I couldn’t find one. So I saw this storyline evolve and go all over the place. And then the storyline picks up in two. Its contintued from the first, so I won’t talk about it. [b]Just know that you do not, DO NOT, have to play one first.[/b] If you can only buy one of these, I prefer the second.
One storyline element that has improved is your new rival. He’s blonde. He’s big. And he also has a dragon tattoo! Uh oh! Things move at about the same plot twist crazy pace too. Locations seem to change as well, but I’m such a gaijin I walk up one street and down the other it all looks the same. I wouldn’t know what brands were fake game brands and which were real advertisers. I mean would anyone here know what boss coffee was? I read about it and don’t know anything more than that its a brand of coffee advertised in the games. My real life trip to Japan will hopefully not leave me as lost next year. I picture myself going to an arcade and never leaving it. Much like in Yakuza 2. I’ll be distracted by something and forget that I’m doing something else.
Your combat moves are even more crazy. Your power “heat” gauge lets you do all sorts of finishers now. In the first finishers were there, but it seemed like I do one every few battles. Here every fight can have multiple ones. Each move looks like deathblows. For example, one move has you grab a guy and push him into a wall skull first. It sounds and looks like this guy might have some brain damage, or worse. Another move, the part that made the game really stand out in my mind was a park bench. [b]You can drag enemies around to objects to use the heat move on them. So I saw the bench. I thought maybe he’ll make him kiss it or lay him on it, well my character does a backbreaking manuever onto this thing that made me say ouch. In my mind, I never would thing to break someones back on a park bench like this. I immediatly did the move again.[/b]
In the cities you now have mini games! They’re actually interesting to go too as well. Golf and batting are similar games that have you trying to hit targets. Of course winning helps you get items that hurt people. Bats, knives, that sort of thing. Oh how I love this game. I also have a bar that I manage here. I don’t know if thats in the first or not, but I’m having fun with it here. This is a great game to just wander about in.
While walking around I stumbled into a quest. I don’t know how. I just walked into a guy. Well I’m taken into a bar with women. And things, well, here.
If this made you laugh and you like kung fu beat em ups, please buy this. But it right now. It’s an excellent scene that I had no clue was there. It just happened. I’m curious what else is in there. Yakuza 2 is a major improvement over the first and I’m so anxious to play the next three games.
Japanese box
American
Europe
As for sequels to the first two games, there are THREE. One has yet to be released in Japan, but is coming out next year. We only have one and two. The next two games are both playstation 3 only.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan! aka Like A Dragon Arrives
Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan! is the first sequel. This one involves Samurais and hip hop music, but with Yakuza gameplay. I want this game so bad. I will import if I have to, and I never import. I’m sure I will be lost not speaking Japanese, but if thats what I have to do to play this. I will. Dear Sega, please localize this.
If you’ll notice he uses two swords. Your main hero is Miyamoto Mushashi. The same samurai whose famous two sword style inspired many games, like Brave Fencer Musashi and Kenzen here. I’m very anxious to play this. Even if I have to make a storyline up myself with the samurais yelling at each other. Please SEGA, don’t let me motivate these samurais with ballet and chocolate cream pie discussions.
Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 – aka Yakuza 3
This game seems to continue the story from where 1 & 2 leave off, but in glorious playstation 3 HD. So the load times aren’t as bad, I hope, and violence will be even worse. I sure hope its great! I watched this and every hyperbole for action I could come up with fails to fully explain how excited I am for this. Once again I hyped myself up for a game.
Ryu Ga Gotoku 4 -
All I know about this is that instead of just playing as one guy, you can play as four. I’m anxious to play this too, but I can wait another year. Or two. Or..
A final note is the name Yakuza, Japanese Mafia. A cool title often used in America for movie titles, American Yakuza, Yakuza Wives, Full MEtal Yakuza. Silly names like that. The japanese name of our Yakuza series, isn’t actually Yakuza at all. It’s Ryu Ga Gotoku. Which translates to “Like a Dragon.” Makes sense to me since you’re the Dragon of Dojima with that Tattoo. Anyway, here’s a trailer for you.
In 2010 not only with America recieve Yakuza 3, but we’ll also recieve Like A Dragon the movie. Seems to be a version of the first game, which I think will be a cool movie. Not that the movies in the game weren’t cool to watch already. Also worth noting about the film is the director. His influence on the games themselves I should mention, but his noteworthy here more for his horror/revenge movies than his yakuza ones. Yes, Takasi Miike, director of Ichi the Killer and Audition is making this. He’s also done movies like the three Dead or Alive movies, which are you guessed it, Yakuza movies. He’s done tons of movies and I’m excited to see his version of a game version of his movies.
During my inagural run of the internet on Starcraft, I met a guy who told me that he liked playing all certain game X on his computer. I explained I never played 2 or 3 and he said he could just send me the “rom.” What? A rom? Really? All I had to do was get an emulator, which he could also send. Bullshit. But sure enough, in this tiny little screen and with my keyboard I could play 16-bit console. Then he told me how to make it full screen, map controls how I wanted, and explained that every old game ever was available.
Furthermore, upon realization that not only could I play this, but I could play it for free with no hassle. I can get any game. Any game. All I have to do is find it. So every game I bought the re-release of on playstation, you know those RPGs, all were there. Free. And wihtout load times. Compilations and re-releses were entirely moot. So after the Super Nintendo, I quickly learned that the major consoles were also available. Even finding out that the 32-bit systems were playable on great computers blew my mind. My friend went on to start a rom site under another alias and I went on to do comics, eventually finding my way to every hotspot of the internet. But no matter where I went, I always loved emulation. It’s the greatest thing ever. So not only can you play any game you can think of, for free, it almost always works perfect. No blowing in a game slot. No hassle with cords. Just pick the game from a list and play. Holy shit. I need to post another head exploding.
Just in case you’re still in the dark. Emulation is a word that means to pretend. So these programs pretend to be these old consoles. The roms are the read only memory from these games, that people much more intellegent than myself managed to put on the internet. Furthermore, not only that but all the games are free. You can save anywhere in the game at any time with “save states.” You can actually speed up the game too. For example, walking around fighting battles in an RPG takes hours right? With emulation you can grind at an extreme pace. In an even crazier twist, online play is possible. Yeah, I know. You can play two players for free, or more than two players even, online. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that you can get Arcade games did I? It’s totally possible to play all the arcade classics for free, with as many quarters as you want. Just press a button and the computer inserts them. And you can keep playing. I know it’s a little cliche to post a third one, but the joke isn’t hammered in yet.
So how does this work? I want to explain very clearly that this is not piracy. I don’t advocate (speak on behalf, approve of) piracy. I’ve found many games that I really love from emulation and had to own. Even if I never play it hardly, I still just had to own it. To play it and hold it in my hand. A real copy. In talking with old school game store owners, I found that that’s actually quite common. He explained that that originally would have hurt buissness he thought, but really it just creates interest for an actual copy. I mean yeah, it’s great to play on the computer, but it’s something else to play on a TV. At least for me. Anymore when I play some old consoles it cramps my hands. The paddle is just too small for me. I’ve grown too big to play it comfortably. But if I play on the computer it’s not as much of a hassle. I can jump from game to game so quickly, I can spend an hour playing everything. Free!
Recently, one company began re-releasing older games on their console virtually. Now this wouldn’t be so bad if the prices were more reasonable, but some of them are quite pricy. Considering how much I love to share games, that’s bullshit. I can’t just hand over a copy of new digital download games either. But on the computer, I can tell anyone to go get a rom. And they have it. They play it. And we can talk about it. But playing legitimately bothers some people. I hate to be an asshole, but I think this needs to happen. The same way old comics should be online for free, old games should too. It makes sense to me. It’s something that only certain people will really cling to. Most people will just want the handful of games they used to play, but for a guy like me this is heaven. This is literally heaven. In my head I pictured heaven being full of naked women and a video game machine that could play everything. Now I have that. And it’s incredible.
Occasionally, companies make this feel like it’s wrong. That it’s a bad thing. I’m of the opinion that older material isn’t going to be the bread and butter of anyone. It’s just there. It’s over and done with, there isn’t any reason for them to try and milk more out of these without releasing new versions or sequels, so why bother. Why bother a poor guy who just wants to feel his own personal heaven. Who wants to play fighting games online or shoot bad guys all night. Play RPGs that would cost a fortune, and were never translated by official companies but by the fans who love these games, and enjoy them. Isn’t that the main reason companies make games? Or why movie companies make movies? Or is it all just a commercial product. That they see this as piracy and that’s the end of it. I can see where they would argue that, but I’m arguing the opposite. This isn’t theft, it’s preservation. I might be able to find a copy of a game and pay some person that these companies never met for a copy but they aren’t selling original new copies that give the company any money or incentive. These digital games are the greatest thing ever. And without them, I doubt the internet would be worth using. Except for porn of course.
Shin Megami Tensai, what the heck could that possibly mean? Translates to New (or True?) Reincarnation of the Goddess. I don’t know what that means really. Information I have gathered indicates that the story was originally based on a novel about demons coming from computers, or something. What does it entail? A bunch of role playing games, they’re so good too. Much different from the typical “your town has burned, your chosen one, here are your friends, go find a sword of power, you have spiky hair” all that nonsense. Spiky hair is a possibility, as are level ups and genre tropes like that. Otherwise, Megaten games aren’t what you expect from a game at all. What’s it all about? I’m going to try and tell everyone about the series, as best I can. I can only go by the experiences I’ve had with them, so games I’ve not played I’ll only briefly mention.
Shin Megami Tensai started off on the Famicom (Another name for Nintendo Entertainment System) as a first person RPG where you wander around gathering a team of demons and battling other demons. Not being released in english, who knows what that could be like. There were two games in that series. As far as I can find, this would be the start of monster collecting games, demon or otherwise. Before Dragon Warrior V and Pokemans. Then after that comes the Shin Megami Tensei series on Super Famicom, again, first person RPGs about demons. Now in that series two were on super nintendo, and the third got released in the rest of the world on PS2. This is where we start.
Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne
My price: 39.99
Known as Lucifer’s Call in Europe and simply Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne in the states, this humble game starts with the end of the world and your character becoming a demon. After that you’re thrown into a world that I can only describe as dreamlike. D The storyline has something to do with you wandering around trying to figure out what happened, who to partner up with, and Dante is chasing you. Dante from Devil May Cry shows up, which makes sense as the game is about demons and he’s a half demon. I’m a good twenty hours in and theres been a lot of vague storyline threads that go all over the place. I really hate to spoil it for anyone, but it has to do with hell on earth, I think. I can’t really wrap my head fully around it. I just know I really, really like it.
Gameplay in this is some of the most brilliant and brutal that I’ve seen in an RPG. It seems like all the enemies from Persona and Devil Summoner are here, plus more. All sorts of demons, ghouls, devils, uglies, ghoulies, and monsters are here. And they all seem to be recruitable to your team. Instead of just fighting them, you can use a talk command and recruit any enemy. Some are more responsive, others just want to kill you. The way you level up is wonderful too. Instead of just randomly assigning stats, you pick what you want. Digital Devil Saga and Devil Summoner let you do that too with all the same statistics too. I really appreciate that. I like being a brute fighter with as much strength as I can handle. My party right now consists of an angel, an elecricity squiggle worm monster, and some ghoulish floating thing, besides my own hero. I’m only a handful of hours in, but when I get the time to play this, I can see it consuming me. Update: I was right. It’s all I played for days, it’s all I can think about. Even now writing stuff I want to be playing it.
One thing I really don’t like is that you can’t keep your skills. Your character can switch between different parasites to get different sets of abilities: fire, ice, attack, support, and a ton of others I’ve yet to find. The problem is, you only can hold so many. It’s hard to judge which skill would be the one to keep over another. Just as a rule, my main guy doesn’t use boosting moves or healing moves, that’s for another character. That’s just me though, if you wanted to have your guy be a healer it’s probably in there. Magical attacks too.
I found this in the big city for 39.99. I was so excited to find it, I didn’t care how much it was. The girl behind the counter was very enthusiastic about the series and spoke a little with me about the games too. On my quest to find the others the same store was listed as having Devil Saga 2, the employees told me that a girl who works there probably snagged it. I’m going to assume it was the same one who sold me Nocturne. She wished me luck my quest to find them all, and then ironicly takes the last one I’m searching for.
About a month later, the internet claimed that gamestop had a copy of Digital Devil Saga 2. Rather than call, I just went there with fingers crossed hoping to stumble on it. Asking the other clerks they told me “Oh there’s a girl who works here who has that.” I felt bad that I didn’t get it, but good that she or whoever might have has it. Find a copy and play this one.
Box:
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
My price: 34.99
Digital Devil Saga uses the same engine and battle system from Nocturne, but simplifies things and changes them. Instead of having a party full of demons your characters are able to morph into demons. This one has the storyline more up front and feels a lot like a sci fi japanimation cartoon. Its the future. Everyone has funny colored hair. There are several “tribes” all fighting each other. Everyone doesn’t seem to have emotion and again the world is dreamlike. In the middle of a gun battle, a pod containing a black haired girl falls down. Several persons are hit with wormlike magic or something that turns them into demons and gives them these odd tattoos. Then it gets crazier from there. I’m only about fifteen hours into it, and I can already tell its my type of game. As the demons, you have to eat your enemies. If you eat them during a battle, you get more experience action points and can level up abilities quicker. At least that’s my understanding of the game.
A few more hours in and you’re given a skill tree to select from and move around. What this means is a guy who starts off as a healer, can become an attacker or magic user. Or some combination there in, whatever you want. Also cool is that you can select which skills you want at any time, you don’t just lose them like in Nocturne. The way you change your characters skill selections at save points is good as well. You pick a set of skills to learn, as you battle you gain points toward a skill set. Then you learn it, then move on to the next skill set. What’s great is making my ice guy have fire attacks and eventually not being weak to fire.
Box:
A sequel is out there, somewhere. I can’t find it. Its thirty dollars on ebay, but gamestop has it listed for twenty. I know you guys like hunting bargains as much as me, and soon as I find it I’ll play it to see if it works, then try and finish the first game. Then I’ll return to finish this section out. Then I’ll come back and write about it. UPDATE: I bought a copy new for 40 dollars. It’s yet to arrive.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Raido Kazouqku vs A Red Army
My price: 8.99
This time around its an action RPG set in the 1920s. An action RPG differs from a regular RPG in that the gameplay has a more action oriented feeling to it, get it? Instead of going to a turn based grid, you’re put in this area where you can run around attacking the demons with your sword and pistol. From my understanding, the period of time is an alternate history where the emperor of japan that in real life passed away is now in the game world still ruling. Yeah, I can’t figure it out either really. But you’re a devil summoner who is tasked with defending Japan. The feeling of the storyline this time is like a detective noir and things are divided into “episodes,” but there’s a storyline that passes through the others that I assume culminates at the end.
Instead of regular RPG battles, you fight in an active battle area. You’re magically transported to a room where you and a single teammate fight your enemies. You run around freely dodging and blocking their attacks, as well as hitting your own attacks. You’ve got a sword and a pistol, something I’m quite fond of in games, and both work pretty well. Your pistol has many ammo variety that can also have elements added to them to help you capture an enemy or destroy them quickly.
This was the first of these games that I’ve gotten a hold of and have merely sank over a dozen hours or so into. Every bit of it has been fun, even when I wandered around and had to use a guide to figure out what to do after I got exhausted of hunting for where to go and what to do. I usually don’t like action RPG battles, but the style and gameplay have me. It’s not the bright japanimation the genre usually throws at you.
As the title suggests, you’re a devil summoner. You have to physically capture a weakend monster in a battle. Then you an summon one from your little vials at any time. In standard Megaten style, you can combine and fuse your monsters to power them up. You can also set a default monster to travel around with you at all times. During the non-battle times you’ll have to summon certain types of monsters to use their abilities. For example, you’ll need a flying enemy to go up to a platform and get an item. That type of stuff breaks up the gameplay and really adds to the detective searching for information feeling the story has.
Box:
Sequel is coming out the 12 of May. Next week as of this writing. Assumingly what I’ll do is pick it up the day its released and play it for an hour or so, then not touch it. I just don’t have the time like I used to, sorry. Soon as I play it and get a good feeling for the changes in it or finish up the first game, I’ll update this section. June 24 I bought it when it came out, played it that day for about twenty minutes and noticed some major improvements. Soon as I’ve beat the first I’ll be ready to play the second and tell you everything.
Shin Megam Tensei: Persona
Revelations: Persona was an English release for the PS1. If you’ll check the prices for it, you’ll understand why I’m not playing it. One other reason for this is it’s use of the first person dungeons. I always disliked that, but I’m willing to try it out. A play station portable one is coming out this year and I’ll definitely pick that up. Discussions with fans have told me that Persona 2 was the place for a guy like me to start off, and finding out that part 2 was in two parts, I had to get the first part. The first part was never released in English, but was English translated last year by some very cool people on the internet. So I have played 2 Innocent Sin quite a bit.
However: Within a few months a PSP remake is coming out!
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 – Innocent Sin
My price: 0.00
This wasn’t released in English for a number of reasons, as I’ve found out. Minor spoilers I guess, the storyline has to do with neo nazis and Hitler, not to mention the usual demon summoning and high school stuff the Persona games are known for. At the point I got to none of that had shown up yet, but I knew it going in with no problem. This was originally the first half of Persona 2, the second half was actually released in english and takes place after this game. I was told to start with 2 and skip 1, as the first persona features first person dungeons.
Persona 2 features high school areas full of monsters. Gives you a large party right off the bat. Lots of demons to talk to and get cards from. More cards let you buy more persona. More persona mean you kick more butt. More butts kicked means more fun. Typical role playing stuff, except instead of going into fantasy steam punk whatever, you’re a high school student investigating things. Not that I hate fantasy space battles with machinegun swords, but the change the settings of this series are one of my favorite things about it. You travel to school to school clearing out demons. The first boss was the high school dean. It’s got a lot to do with this little town and school.
Characters are what really set this out for me. Your main guy is the typical “…” silent character in RPGs. Then there’s a spunky blonde white girl, a reporter and her camerawoman (I think?), and then there is Michelle. Michelle is a man, wearing his undies outside his pants. He’s the leader of the underpants gang and has a grim reaper persona he uses to attack enemies and other teenagers. It’s rather silly to see this character talk and act in this world, and then at a certain point to see some real character growth from this starting point of such a gruff and outrageous character really is great. It’s worth playing for the part I saw where something major happens with him, it happens early on so by all means track it down and play it.
One thing that seems to be recurring is the use of Detective’s in the games. In Persona 2, you go to an agency to investigate the different rumors. Asking the detectives about certain things brings them into being, such as a hidden weapon shop that I found that way. I need to play some more to for more details, but I believe that’s the basics of what goes on there.
The storyline is really awesome. I’ve never played something this surreal or crazy, at least, before I played others in the series. Rumors are becoming true. Wishes are being granted. Dogs and cats might be living together, I don’t know. There’s a great deal of mystery going on. I’m about fifteen hours into it, and I got stuck in a bomb shelter. I don’t know where to go or what to do. Strategy guides didn’t even help me figure it out. Maybe I’ll figure it out one day and make some progress and find out what happens. I really really want to get to the outrageous stuff that kept this from coming out in America. The translation is very functional, game ran alright for me. Hardly any problems, other than sound issues. Occasionally sound goes out for me during certain conversations. I really would like to hear all the music and sounds, but that doesn’t bother me.
Box:
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2 – Eternal Punishment
So this one actually was released in english and in America. Unfortunately, its the sequel to the first half of the game that wasn’t released. Everything that happens in the first game was an alternate world that characters can’t remember, but it totally happened or something. Your main character from the first game who never speaks, now speaks. The reporter who never shut up, is now the main character who never speaks. Other than that, the Joker character returns as the villain with a paper bag over his head. I’m not joking.
I really want to play this, but tracking down a copy is rather pricey right now. Go take a look on ebay and come back. Even a recent (2008, I think) reprint hasn’t made this game all that available to everyone. I will find a copy. I will play that copy. And I’ll return with more information. The problem I have really is that I feel the need to finish Innocent Sin first. When I asked someone who knew more about the series than myself at the time which to start with, his answer was Innocent Sin. Having done so really prepared me for Persona 3 and the rest of the series once I tracked them down. I’m suggesting the same for you reading this, start with Innocent Sin then move forward.
One thing I want to mention about the english releases of Persona and Persona 2, they had the name “REVELATIONS” before the title instead of the usual name. I’m guessing they wanted to establish another brand that would make more sense to an english speaking audience. Revelations of course being the apocalyptic parts of the bible.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
My price: 25.00
second copy with box: 15.00
This is the one to get. If you’re looking for an RPG and you like these types of games, get this. It’s part dating sim and part RPG. By day you’re a high school student who goes around talking to people making friends. By night, there’s a time of day between 12 and 1 called “the dark hour” and you and your friends fight up a giant tower in this time that just happens to be your school. I highly recommend it. Not as brutal as the others, Persona is actually really inviting. It’s easy to get into and pick up. Play for a few hours, put down. Many people put it down for a month or two, pick it back up and play it. It’s easy to get tired fighting random battles leveling up, but I managed to do it.
By day you go to school and things are much like a dating sim. Nobody seems to know what that is, so I’ll explain. In Japan, there are games where you role play as a character leveling up their social skills and relationships. You make friends with a kid who wants to date a teacher rather early on. That story alone is worth doing, but the others have such wild happenings I need to replay it to see it all. There’s so much going on. During the morning is your school work. Instructors show up and give a speech about something, then usually ask a question. These show up later on your mid terms and finals. Some of it can be really interesting like the nurse who talks about magic. One guy talks about samurai periods of history and I found it confusing. In the afternoon you’re able to roam around and talk to people. You’ve three things to max out: charisma, academics, and charm. And then there’s the evening.
When you return to your residence, you can go at night and fight monsters. The way battle works is great. Everything has a weakness and strengths, the elementals: Zio (lighting), Bufu(ice), Agi(fire), and Garu(wind) and the two instant ones hama (light) and mudo (evil). Each regular attack is different too, you have strikes, slashes, or pierce attacks. Each teammate has different weapons, one guy has gloves, one girl has a bow, and then there are others who use spears, axes, knives, and guns. Strategy is important here. If you manage to hit a weakness you get an extra turn in battle. It’s fun to experiment with this and try to get a Persona that can be immune to attacks and dish out damage of every type, if only to really mess up the enemy.
Sixty six hours and counting. A short discussion with someone on the internet has dishearted me from playing more of the game. I really, really want to play it and finish it, but another sixty hours is asking a lot. I just don’t have the time. One day I will. I know I will. I’ll be able to just sit there all day and all night grinding away my levels and talking to people. This next sentence might spoil stuff for someone, so if you’re sensitive look away. What stopped me from playing (besides having other games, which really stopped me cold for a few weeks) was that I found out about the last boss. It’s twelve parts. With the final part having no resistances. I asked “No resistances? He’s weak to everything?” To which I got a grim response. “No, he’s weak to nothing.” Then they told me they had no time to level up there characters and were essentially going to have to replay it to beat it. I don’t want to do that. I want to beat it on this playtrhough. I then told them where I was in the game. I’m still a good ways off from the end apparently. One day I’ll find the time for you Persona 3.
I’m sure you don’t notice, but months passed between paragraphs. Not game months, real ones. It’s now June. I’ve been writing this since April.
I found the time. I was only a few hours away. I got to level 80 and managed to finish the game relatively easy. Over a 100 hours on my save file. I think I got the better ending and upon reading about it online, I interpreted things a little differently than how they occurred. I’ve still a whole other chapter to play, because I have the FES version. I’m anxious to play it.
June 24 Played it this morning for about an hour and half, it’s a whole other storyline that picks up right after where the part ended.
Box:
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
My price: 39.99
Still in the plastic. I thought “Oh hey, I’ll buy Persona 4 new. Since I’m only a few weeks away from beating Persona 3.” No. Wrong. Read the last paragraph above to find out where I’m at and what’s going on. I really, really wnat to take it out of the plastic and try it out, but I’ll wait. I told myself to wait until I was done with Persona 3 and I’ll wait. I don’t care how long. An interesting thing about this is that this is the only time I’ve had a game in the plastic for this long. Unlike some collectors, I’d rather PLAY my games than look at them or just have them.
June 20, 2009 I opened Persona 4. I’ve yet to play it now. I noticed the price of the game has dropped a little, and I probably should have kept my copy in plastic for resale. But I’m not a resaler. I bought this to play it. And when I do, I’ll be sure and talk about it here. June 24, 2009 I’m now playing Persona 4. Today or tomorrow I’m going to buy the new game in the series on DS.
And that’s it for the PS2 games. Or one’s that are in English. Except the one that just got released on DS! And the few gameboy titles. Also the one title on Virtual Boy (seriously) that’s related to the series. And maybe a few more.
Being in a Megaten mood today, I also now have English versions of Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II. I’ve yet to play them, but I will. And as soon as the original Nintendo ones are translated, I’ll play those. The other spin off’s, the If… and whatever else there is (devil summoner on saturn for example), I’ll play it. One title for the xbox of all things is only in Japanese and I can’t find any information on. There’s an MMO I’m going to start playing soon, if you want to play with me e-mail me: rndmbull@aol.com I’d love to play with some people who are into this stuff. I know I missed quite a few, don’t yell at me. When and if I get time to find and play them, I’ll be sure and update this page.
In this series of articles I’ll spotlight an older or rare game. Sometimes it will be worth playing. Other times the game will be cringe inducing. Would you like to know more?
A snes/genesis era fighting game with dinosaurs. I’ve just described Primal Rage for anyone that’s never played it, and that explains it completely. A fighting game with dinosaurs and giant monkeys is this full explanation. They did the Mortal Kombat thing except instead of actors being digitized, it was models of dinosaurs. They even palette swapped a few characters. You get two T-Rex and two monkey variants. The cart is a nice afternoons worth of fun. I don’t know the combos or anything, but gamefaqs has you covered if you want to know that sort of stuff.
I won’t tell you the crazy story because I managed to find an intro movie from the playstation version of the game! Look how menacing that T-Rex is with that taxi cab. How can anyone not love this game?
Mash some buttons to make your guy slash and chomp the other character. I always thought the more bloody and over the top a fighter is, the better. And that is something Primal Rage has perfectly utilized. For one minor example: The game features bodily functions as special moves. Not much depth or a ton of playable characters though. The stages are varied and take you to places big cities and stone henge. Most have little people in the background you can interact with. Not a bad selection of music and sound effects either. Overall nothing seemed too out of place. Just an over the top, old school fighter.
Primal Rage was ported to the playstation, saturn, 32x, had an Arcade cabinet, and probably other systems I don’t know about. Chances are you can find a copy on something somewhere. I’ve played about four versions of the game and I mashed buttons on all of them. Its fun for about as long as dinosaurs fighting can be. In this writers opinion, Primal Rage earned its footnote in gaming history. Why don’t more games have dinosaurs?
Just as a goof, I typed into google: “A fighting game with dinosaurs.”
In this series of articles I’ll spotlight an older or rare game. Sometimes it will be worth playing. Other times the game will be cringe inducing. Would you like to know more?
For great justice, I thought I would write about a fun genesis shooter. Nothing really fancy here, just a basic horizontal shooter. You collect [color=violet]]colored [/color]power ups for lasers or homing shots. You get two options on the side of your space ship that fire out bullets with you. One cool feature other games don’t have is the grabber.
You reach out and grab an enemy, push the button again and they fly out killing other enemies. There really isn’t much more to say about the gameplay. It is pretty standard for shoot em ups. If you like flying around dodging things and shooting bad guys, then go ahead and play this one. The major thing that attracts people to Zero Wing is the awesome cinematic story. Its known internet wide as being better than Metal Gear. Better than Grand Theft Autos. Better than those Final Fantasy or Zelda games everyone loves. Zero Wing has the most epic storyline ever in a video game.
Nothing is as old school online as Zero Wing. If you don’t know why, watch the video below. One of the first classic internet jokes. You may have heard of it before, but here it is in all its glory. Zero Wing is the game All Your Base Are Belong To Us comes from. So many other great quotes in that opening cinematic, and yes, they really appear in the English version of the game.
Now for something you might have missed. A Fox News report on the horror of All Your Base and the evil internet. They seemed to think it was all real pictures instead of just from some goons. Serious journalism if ever there was any.
I can’t find the other original one that has a song set to a guy yelling “somebody set up us the bomb!” That one was also funny.
In this series of articles I’ll spotlight an older or rare game. Sometimes it will be worth playing. Other times the game will be cringe inducing. Would you like to know more?
This is one of those games that gamers play to say they’ve beaten it. Not that that means anything to anyone other than gamers themselves. Its on sega genesis and was one of the games I had back in the good old days. Chakan is one of the most unforgiving games I’ve ever played. The difficulty has no curve to it, its all over the place. Difficult jumps and enemies who do too much damage everywhere. I was drawn in by its inherent bad ass style. Everything in this game looks evil and dark. Even the hero looks evil. You play as Chaken an immortal skeleton guy with two swords who travels around killing monsters. You get four portals to pick from a hub area. After you die or beat a level, you return to the hub world. Each portal has four levels. After the first level of each portal, you get a new weapon, some of the second stages of one portal require a weapon from another. Weapons are: A grappling hook, a scythe, an axe, and a hammer. One other element that needs mentioned is the sound effects. You hear a hilarious growl when Chakan dies or when the game first boots up. The music itself is pretty wild too. Lots of drum beats and wild sounds. You should play it just to hear the sound effects.
The game is action/platforming. One cool features that separate it from other games is that have access to a large amount of colored potions which you can combine to do different things. Useful stuff like flaming swords or invisibility. One major problem with it is that it uses runes or moon language to tell you what each combination does. I’ve yet to decipher some of these. Take a look at what I’m talking about.
Another problem is, on the default (easy) and hard difficulty settings all the potions are scarce. Its hard to collect a decent amount of them for it to be helpful. On the practice difficulty setting you have unlimited potions, but that takes away the challenge. You can just run through with flaming swords, heal yourself when necessary. If I’m playing just for the heck of it, I’ll go on practice and have the flaming swords murder everything. Its fun, but the real fun is in challenging yourself to play on the hard setting. Everything kills you and the game becomes like gauntlet of frustration with no real pay off. Other than saying to other gamers “I beat Chakan.” Which, by the way readers, I’ve beat Chakan.
The story is the sort of stuff more games need: Chakan is the baddest dude ever. So cocky and powerful in fact, that he challenges and kills death (aka grim reaper) in a fight and is cursed to be immortal until all supernatural evil is destroyed. That paraphrases slow moving text message at the start of the game. I never had the box or manual for the game, but with some internet research I found out most of its history. Apparently Chakan was a comic book first, then a game was made by the same team that did Echo the Dolphin. A new game in the series was planned for the Dreamcast, but got canceled.
As far the art style goes, everything has this menacing evil look too it. Most levels have you spin jumping or hooking onto stuff flying around all over the place. Enemies generally push you off ledges or in fire pits, killing you instantly. For some masochistic reason, this is fun. At least some of the time its fun. Other times its eye gouged out with furious diarrhea painful. For example: the time limit can kill you. Why a game about an immortal has a time limit that kills you, I’ll never know.
I somehow beat the game when I was younger. I was wrong of course. I had only beaten practice mode or perhaps easy. In and of itself, that was no easy feat.
I warn you, this game is more brutal, but there’s this gritty charm to it. Its a genesis game that can’t be too hard to find. My copy was bought second hand years ago and couldn’t have cost more than five clams. Its hard to play and frustrating, but if you spend the time to get into it, the game can be a good afternoons worth of fun. Give it a chance.
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![]European box](http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/user/2/25509-157488-92956874018frontjpg-620x.jpg){kind=link}