Bomberman Series - Part 15

Super Bomberman 2 (1994)
By: Hudson Soft  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-4  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES  First Day Score: 38,500
Also Available For: Nothing

I was a big fan of Bomberman right from the first game of his that I played, namely Super Bomberman for the SNES, so it was a significant surprise when I found out years later that there ended up being four more games in the series! The fourth and fifth games were only released in Japan so I kind of have an excuse there, but the second and third ones? How did I not hear about them? I blame the pesky magazines of the day which must have failed to cover them. Yes, that must be it. Hmm, anyway, this of course means I've never played this particular Bomberman game before, nor any later games in the SNES/SFC series, which makes them among the few games in the traditional style I've not played. Happily, things looked very familiar from the moment I started it. There is of course a silly backstory to facilitate the action, this time involving the 'Five Dastardly Bombers' who apparently want to take over the universe - an ambition that has prompted them to take over five worlds.

Puzzle Games #21

Binary Land (1985)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Puzzle / Maze Players: 1Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 153,400
Also Available For: MSX, Fujitsu FM-7, NEC PC-6001, NEC PC-8801

I don't get game-related gifts for Christmas that often but this year my wife bought me a cool little clone handheld thingy. It looks like a PSP but is actually filled with NES games along with an emulator, and the first one I've spent much time with is Binary Land, an early Hudson Soft puzzle/action game which tasks you with reuniting two penguin lovers. This is done over a series of single-screen stages, each formed from a grid of 15x10 blocks and viewed from overhead, in which both penguins - Gurin (male) and Malon (female) - are dropped in separate locations. Your job is to bring them together at their special meeting point - a heart at the top of each stage which grows cold and diseased in a harsh metal cage until their combined splendour liberates it. The twist is, in an unusual and initially-confusing move, you control both of the stumbling flappers simultaneously, with the movements of one mirroring those of the other!

PC Engine Platform Games #5

Chan & Chan a.k.a. J.J. & Jeff (1987)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 54,100
Also Available For: Nothing

Or Kato-chan & Ken-chan to give the game its full name, but us oldie gamers here in the UK have always known it by its abbreviated name. Whatever name you know it by though, it was one of the Engine's very first releases, and for that reason it garnered a great deal of attention in its day. Was it worthy of it? I've always thought not but I hadn't spent a great deal of time playing it until this review to be honest, despite owning it for many years. Time to find out for sure, I guess! My first stop is finding out just what in the hell it's about. The answer to that, it seems, can be found in the TV show on which the game is apparently based, which was a Japanese variety show starring the two oafs of the title. Here, it seems they are on some sort of quest, but quite what it entails I couldn't say. The US version of the game (known as JJ & Jeff) casts the two characters as detectives investigating a kidnapping, so I suppose we should assume a similar kind of objective here.

Bomberman Series - Part 13

Bomberman '94 a.k.a. Mega Bomberman (1993)
By: Hudson Soft  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-5  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16  First Day Score: 71,100
Also Available For: MegaDrive
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

This amazingly awesome series had taken a detour to SNES-ville since its last PCE instalment but it was probably still its last entry on NEC's wonderful box of tricks that was considered the best. It retained the same basic gameplay as the rest of the series but the visuals, audio, and stage design were all better than ever. So much so, in fact, that it was hard to see how the format could be improved any further. That didn't stop Hudson from making a swift return to their favourite system to try though. Expectations would be higher than ever but initial impressions were very positive. Having said that, the link-up mode present in '93 seems to be missing from the title screen here but the more important 'Normal' and 'Battle' games are present and correct, and it's also hard not to notice a green kangaroo-like creature present here as well, being ridden by an excited-looking White Bomberman. What in the blue blazes could that be? I shall henceforth find out.

Bomberman Series - Part 12

Super Bomberman (1993)
By: Hudson Soft  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-4  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES  First Day Score: 138,700
Also Available For: Nothing

Growing up as a gamer here in the UK came with a few benefits but it also had its drawbacks. The MSX and NES weren't popular here and we didn't even get the PC Engine at all, so the first time many of us were able to sample the delights offered by Bomberman and his fine games was with this release on the SNES. It was initially launched just a few months after Bomberman '93 which was quite comfortably the best game of the series up to that point, but could the introduction of a new format continue its gradual evolution? I guess we'll see about that later but one thing it did do was introduce a new bad guy in 'the evil Carat Diamond and his cohort, scientist Dr. Mook' who want to steal Bomberman's advanced combat capabilities for use in their special Robot Tournament. Black Bomberman has apparently reformed his character and attempts to stop the diabolical plan but is captured while doing so. Somehow he escapes and warns White Bomberman just as wave upon wave of enemy robots begin their advance toward Peace Town, the home of both antenna-wagglers.

Puzzle Games #18

Be Ball a.k.a. Chew-Man-Fu (1990)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Puzzle / Maze Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 232,810
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

Puzzle games can often be among the stranger titles hosted by their respective systems and this PCE release by Hudson is definitely no exception. A brief perusal of the American instructions (Be Ball is the Japanese version) reveals that 'the people have been deprived of their favourite foods - fried rice and egg rolls - by the evil Chew Man Fu'. To what end? Your guess is as good as mine, but luckily 'two feisty twin sisters' named LaLa and LingLing have bravely stepped up to 'turn the tables on the wrong-doers'. Jolly good then! Of course, as you probably already guessed, this is done by... moving four coloured balls around. Obviously. Each stage, you see, features four different coloured balls and four plates of matching colours. Your job is simply to move each ball to the corresponding plate before moving to the next. This may not be as easy as it sounds, however, especially when you learn that there are supposedly a somewhat bewildering 550 stages to battle through.

Bomberman Series - Part 11

Bomberman '93 (1992)
By: Hudson Soft  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-5  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16  First Day Score: 76,500
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

It may have only been a couple of years but after numerous sequels and spin-offs the Bomberman series has finally returned to the place many gamers feel it belongs. That's right, the mighty PC Engine! This triumphant return brings with it the renewal of the epic battle between White Bomberman and the despicable Black Bomberman who this time, as relayed in the amusing intro sequence, has now attacked a city and stolen the seven circuit boards that power it, scattering them across several nearby planets. That fiend! Thanks to this heinous plot, Bomberman unsurprisingly has to battle across the seven unique worlds - Planet Quarry, Blossom Planet, Planet Inferno, Planet Wither, Planet Surf, Icicle Planet, and Planet Techo. Each hosts eight stages - seven normal ones followed by a boss stage, and to begin with they're mostly a single screen in size but quickly get bigger, scrolling either horizontally or vertically up to about three screen lengths (or widths).

Bomberman Series - Part 10

Bomberman a.k.a. Atomic Punk, a.k.a. Dynablaster (1991)
By: Irem Corp Genre: Maze Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 29,000
Also Available For: Nothing

Many gamers mainly associate the Bomberman series with certain consoles, generally the PC Engine or SNES I suppose, but there have been a handful of arcade-based instalments in the long-running series. This simply-named example is the first of them and was handled by Irem. Its quality should therefore be assured and, being an arcade game, its content should be too. Sure enough, 'inserting' some coins presents the choice of a one/two player Battle Game, or one/two player Normal Game. The latter has always been my preference though, and was therefore the first mode I tried here. It starts with a short intro explaining how Bomberman and King Bomber became the 'best robot team in the world'; that is, of course, until King Bomber 'suddenly attacks mankind', leaving Bomberman (and his brother, Bomberman 2, who's red, incidentally) to 'defend the people'. Which apparently involves clearing a number of enemy-ridden mazes.

Bomberman Series - Part 9

Bomber Boy a.k.a. Atomic Punk, a.k.a. Dynablaster (1990)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo Game Boy
Also Available For: Nothing

Usually with any long-running videogame series, the first few sequels stick to the same format as the original game while trying to add to it and improve it, but with the Bomberman series the opposite seems to be true. It was among the first few years of the franchise that Hudson experimented with it, trying new styles, features, even main characters, before settling into the routine that would comprise the later and more successful years of their hero's games. I've already looked at a few of these spin-offs earlier in this series of features, the last of which was exclusive to the Game Boy. Nintendo's handheld was blessed by another visit from our explosive friend though, and this game would be a bit more familiar to fans of his better known outings. Indeed, despite again being released outside its native Japan in a Bomberman-less guise, Bomber Boy was unmistakably a Bomberman game, but was it a good one? As always, I was eager to find out...

PC Engine Shmups #9

Super Star Soldier (1991)
By: Kaneko / Hudson Soft Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 734,600
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

For once the 'super' really is!

I originally started playing this game with a view to reviewing it quite a few weeks ago now - it is after all arguably the Engine's most famous shmup (along with Gunhed) and I hadn't played it before so this was a major issue to rectify! Not too long after starting, however, I discovered it had a prequel on the NES and MSX which, after playing and subsequently reviewing, found rather disappointing, and that got me thinking. The NES and PC Engine - both 8-bit consoles, both home to dozens of arcade conversions and arcade-style games, and yet the Engine is significantly superior with regard to games of this type (sorry NES fans!). I guess it's a little unfair to compare them but does the extra power of the Engine really make that much difference? I suppose it must do as after playing the frankly rather boring Star Soldier, this Engine sequel immediately looked ten times better...

NES Shmups #3

Star Soldier (1986)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 56,800
Also Available For: MSX, Game Boy Advance
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

There I was, all set to finally begin my long-awaited review of Super Star Soldier for the PC Engine only to discover at the last second that it actually has a prequel out there somewhere. Completist that I am, it was therefore obviously necessary to take a look at that game first! It was released initially just for the NES and MSX but as far as I can tell neither version has a back-story, so I'll assume it's just another 'evil aliens invade, must be kicked out' type affair. The aliens in question (if indeed they are aliens) are mostly small and swoop through the vertically-scrolling stages in formations of various types and speeds and it's your job to take out as many as possible with your not-especially-imposing fighter craft. There are a mighty impressive sixteen stages altogether, all of which are located in space and scroll over seemingly endless structures of some sort. Perhaps they are enemy bases, who knows? All I do know is, they are festooned with various shootable bits which are represented by different icons such as stars and skulls, each of which offers bonus points galore!

NES Platform Games #4

Milon's Secret Castle (1987)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES
Also Available For: Game Boy
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

Poor old Hudson Soft. They've long been one of my favourite developers, particularly on the PC Engine (a console they helped to develop, no less) but earlier this year they were 'absorbed' into Konami and effectively no longer exist. Boo hoo! Fortunately, there are still a few of their games that have escaped my attention and one of them is Milon's Secret Castle, a scrolling platform game set in and around the structure of the title, known as Castle Garland. This vast fortress is located in the land of Hudson (chortle) where residents use music to communicate with each other, except Milon who apparently lacks this ability. Whilst trudging through the countryside in search of others like him, he decides to visit Queen Eliza, but instead finds the castle being attacked by 'Evil Warlord Maharito' who has imprisoned the queen, stolen everyone's musical instruments, and captured the seven Magic Crystal Balls. Milon quickly volunteers to stand against Maharito and restore the happy world of Hudson to its former glory, but it won't be easy...

SNES Platform Games #3

Hagane: The Final Conflict (1994)
By: Red Entertainment / Hudson Soft Genre: Platform/Fighting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES First Day Score: 23,970
Also Available For: Nothing

Like many systems, the poor old SNES saw a lot of decent games released near the end of its lifespan which were missed by many gamers with the eyes on the next generation of consoles. I took a look at one of these in the last post for this feature and, like that game, Hagane is another one I knew almost nothing of until many years later. If I told you it's a game featuring lots of ninjas and rival warrior clans you'd be forgiven for thinking it was set many hundreds of years ago, but this ninja game is a little different. There are two main clans - the Fuma and the Koma, both of whom have mastered various mysterious and magical arts, but one of whom is of course evil. The object of their desire is the Holy Grail which has "a power that can destroy the world". I'm not sure how it made it to Japan, nor why the Koma clan should seek to use it to destroy the world - surely if they did that, it would take them with it? Oh well, nit-picking aside, it's time to cower in fear as they've managed to half-inch it from its guardians, the Fuma clan!

Action RPG's #1

Neutopia (1990)
By: Hudson Soft / NEC Genre: Action RPG Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

Ahh, RPG's! Contrary to the firm belief of several friends, this isn't a genre I dislike or have some sort of issue with. My biggest problem, and the main reason for my limited time with games of this type is... time, or a lack thereof. Well, that, and a short attention span I suppose! I have played a few over the years though and it’s a genre I really need to see more of, so with this in mind it’s high time I started covering a few here at Red Parsley. For my first, I thought I’d go for one that I’ve heard of but know very little about - Neutopia, released exclusively for the mighty PC Engine by one of my favourite companies, Hudson. It's a game renowned as a Zelda clone but it's hardly alone there! Original or not though, something vital for the enjoyment of RPG's is an engaging story and characters. This is something else that's not very original here so let's hope it makes up for it...

Early Driving Games #6

Victory Run (1987)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Driving Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

The PC Engine was a mighty fine console in its day, ground-breaking for an 8-bit machine really, and it was blessed with some fantastic games during its lifetime including dozens of quality shoot' em ups and arcade conversions, but one genre that was rather lacking on it was racing games, or more specifically, into-the-screen racing games. This could be for the same reason that inspired me to start this series of posts to start with - because they weren't usually very good! There is one that I always remember seeing in the early Mean Machines columns of C&VG and similar magazines though, and that was Victory Run. I don't believe it was a terribly successful game but the gaming press seemed to like it and that was enough for me. Or it should've been but, as with so many other games, I never got around to playing it!

Bomberman Series - Part 7

Bomber King a.k.a. RoboWarrior (1987)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: Without cheating? No idea, grrrr!
Also Available For: MSX

Well, the splendid Bomberman series is coming along nicely so far but I'll take a short diversion here and look at one of the spin-offs, and like many such obscure Japanese spin-offs, it's one that was released in the West under an entirely different guise. This is understandable, however, since the series was only just becoming established in the US and Europe and this game is indeed a markedly different affair, in both looks and gameplay. The first change you'll notice in the game that became RoboWarrior for the NES is that it doesn't actually feature Bomberman at all, or at least, not as we've seen him before. It actually features a... robo warrior, funnily enough, whose job it is to blast his way through each stage in a familiar fashion. These stages, however, are much larger than those found in the usual Bomberman games and there's a few more unfamiliar features here too.

Overhead Racers #11

Motoroader (1989)
By: Hudson Soft / NCS Genre: Overhead Racing Players: 1-5 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

I think it's safe to assume that overhead racing games, as one of the very earliest videogame genres, were fairly well-established by the time this offering was made at the tail-end of the 80's, so in order to be noticed it would have to have something special in store for gamers, wouldn't it? Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt either way and Hudson had just such a trick up their sleeve with Motoroader - a simultaneous five player mode! That's right, up to five whole players can take part in the racing action at one time here and it's for this reason that the game swiftly gained an enthusiastic following. This is another of those games I distinctly remember reading about in magazines of the time, and most of the reviews in question were full of glowing superlatives too so I'm sure I have nothing to worry about here. I can instead relax and enjoy the discovery of another Engine classic! Can't I?

Crap Games #5

China Warrior a.k.a. Drunken Master, a.k.a. The Kung Fu (1987)
By: Hudson Soft Genre: Fighting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 22,400
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

The 'Crap Games' feature here at Red Parsley has thrown up few surprises so far. It seems increasingly likely that most games that get crap reviews and crap reputations actually are indeed crap and thoroughly deserving of the scorn that they receive, but this particular example was a craply-reviewed game that surprised me a lot at the time. The PC Engine was a new and exciting console so its games must've all been equally amazing, surely? This was certainly the case for most of the early titles which wowed many of us jealous C&VG readers here in the UK, so how could Hudson of all companies release a stinker? To find out if Drunken Master, as I knew it at the time, really is as wiffy as I've been led to believe, I've bravely decided to give it a try.

PC Engine Platform Games #3

PC Kid a.k.a. xC Genjin, a.k.a. Bonk's Adventure, a.k.a. BC Kid (1989)
By: Atlus / Red Company / Hudson Soft Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 64,470
Also Available For: Arcade, NES, Game Boy, Amiga
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

I suppose I can only cover PC Engine platform games here for so long before I get to this famous rock-head who rose to prominence as the mascot for NEC's mighty console, but he actually started life as a comic character in a Japanese games magazine. His popularity swiftly enabled his promotion though, and the result has come to be known by a good few names including PC Genjin (this Engine version), Bonk (American TurboGrafx versions), BC Kid (Amiga), FC Genjin (Famicom), GC Genjin (Japanese Game Boy release) and so on. However, the name I was always most fond of was perhaps the only combination of letters known to man that wasn't an official name - PC Kid! This is the nickname the Japanese games received, at least here in the UK, and it's the only name I've really known the slap-head by, but his series of games is one that I'm ashamed to have never properly played. Until now.

Bomberman Series - Part 6

Bomberman II a.k.a. Dyna Blaster (1991)
By: Hudson Soft  Genre: Maze  Players: 1-3  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES  First Day Score: 36,400
Also Available For: GameBoy Advance

The original Bomberman was a big success and, once Hudson had finished porting it to most systems of the time, the next release in the series was this one. It's the first numbered sequel in the series and was surprisingly only released on the NES this time, although it did make an appearance on the GBA much later. It's of the same style as many of the previous (and indeed, subsequent) games in the series and again sees Black Bomberman up to his tricks. This time he's robbed a bank and framed White Bomberman for the crime! Poor old White Bomberman is swiftly arrested and thrown in jail and it's from here that he must use his bombing skills so he can escape and bring Black Bomberman to justice. To do this he must make his way through 48 stages which are divided equally over six different areas.