Akira: Genesis Prototype

[GaijinPunch]

io9

[Xyga]

Never thought we would ever see that one in motion.

Games combining many different types of gameplay are mostly failures, but maybe they had something here in regards to style and ambiance.

Dat theme.

Anyway the stage select screen going KANEDA! TETSUO! noice

[GaijinPunch]

It surprisingly doesn't look like garbage. The first person stuff a bit hokey but the other parts I dig.

[it290]

I totally thought this was going to be a port of the (godawful) Amiga version, cool that it's its own thing and seems to have some ok animations to boot, even though it looks boring as sin. Seems like the Famicom version still reigns supreme...

[CIT]

The only good Akira game ever released is the PS2 pinball game.

(Can’t speak for the MD game, obviously, but I have to say, I’m not impressed. )

[MintyTheCat]

The only good Akira game ever released is the PS2 pinball game.

(Can’t speak for the MD game, obviously, but I have to say, I’m not impressed. )

I agree: I realise that it is a game based on a license and they could only do so much with it given the type source material, and also that it remains unfinished, but it looks rather boring to me.

As film licensed games go I feel that the best that I ever saw done was Alien 3 on the SFC and the MD. Dune was not bad too.

[Jonny2x4]

I always wanted to try out the AVG that Taito put out on the Famicom. Seems like it mixed stuff from the manga and movie.

[GaijinPunch]

As film licensed games go I feel that the best that I ever saw done was Alien 3 on the SFC and the MD. Dune was not bad too.

Super Star Wars on the SFC (and of course the vector based arcade games).

[it290]

Oof, can't abide Super Star Wars. It looks good, but just not fun to play IMO. Kind of in the same boat with Genesis Aladdin for me. Do love that vector game though.

I like, ummm... Scott Pilgrim on PS3?

[Mortificator]

It's fun to think of the Super Star Wars games as a slaughtercut of the original trilogy, where Han murders hundreds just walking from his cantina booth to the Falcon, and every life form on Dagobah tries to dismember Luke whenever Yoda's back is turned.

[BPzeBanshee]

I thought I was having a Mandela effect moment reading about this until I did a bit of searching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfHOynqolOQ

Clearly the dev board that's been dumped is of a build even earlier than the 1994 demo shown in the video. I hope later builds get found, but that's probably wishful thinking given the state this one was in concerning the chips.

[kitten]

It surprisingly doesn't look like garbage.

eh? definitely looks like it, to me. i hate western games from that time period, in general, but have a special contempt for ones on the MD because the majority are extra hideous and awful-sounding. something about the system's palette and sound that makes incompetency all the more obvious and hard to swallow. the side-scrolling areas are like peak western design of that generation - not scrolling the screen til you're like 90% up to its edge, sprawling, multi-directional scrolling mazes with no obvious landmarks, totally thoughtless combat with a bunch of enemies that will eventually attrition out your massive healthbar as you discover the myriad of dead-ends.

nothing here looks like any amount of time would have made this what i'd even consider "playable," tbh.

checking out the dev's history, and fucking oof. while it's easy for me to determine on sight, these days (there's clear differences in western & japanese pixel art at least 90% of the time), i feel like there should be some sort of mandatory awareness that the vast majority of western home console games from that time period are dogshit awful and not worth so much as acknowledging. casually dismiss or ignore and erase their footprint, imho! if you can't tell if a game is western before grabbing it, mobygames is your best friend. that people wind up checking them out or paying attention to them over good shit is depressing. that may sound cruel & sweeping, but as someone with really substantial time and effort put into checking these libraries, it's extremely reliable and only misses you a couple of things.

As film licensed games go I feel that the best that I ever saw done was Alien 3 on the SFC and the MD. Dune was not bad too.

ones i'd consider good or at least worth playing (licensed games specifically based on films from before ps1 era)

- batman (nes, sunsoft)
- batman returns (nes, konami)
- the little mermaid (nes, capcom)
- little nemo: dream master (nes, capcom): technically came before the movie, but seems based on it, not the comic
- gremlins 2 (nes, sunsoft)
- hi no tori: gaou no bouken (fc, konami): actually only "decent" but compact enough. putting this here to stealth recommend this movie, it's fantastic. fun gccx on this one.

- aladdin (snes, capcom)
- batman returns (snes, konami): best game out of the bunch, imho. really solid final fight-adjacent brawler. lots of cool touches from the movie, too. this cartridge is like $10 and it blows my mind because it's good, made by konami, and based on a super popular property. single-player only but absolutely worth playing.
- mighty morphin power rangers: the movie (snes, natsume): worth noting this was obviously another MMPR game that just had an ivan ooze level tacked on, but it's great natsume action game.

- batman (gb, sunsoft)

- download, download 2 (pce, alfasystem) - technically based off the novel, not the ova (the ova is shit and extraordinarily different), but i'm putting it here.

could really, really substantially add onto this if we count tv shows, comics, general property licensing, etc. there are a lot of great "licensed games." i'm always curious what exactly the allure is, though, so much so that "licensed games" often get their own separate talking point and weird gravity to them in discussion. it feels like the focus obfuscates 'quality games,' which is the better thing to look for. sometimes they're licensed and sometimes that can be cool, but it rarely ever adds much of a cinematic feel or narrative to the games and usually feels like a pointless nostalgia thing. "hey, remember [important merchandising property]?" - nasty pitfall in retro enthusiasm, all around. there are plenty of games from the era that hit the cinematic feel, though! assault suits valken is like playing a mobile suit ova, something like ninja gaiden intersperses its action with interesting cutscenes (check the pce library for tons more like this, often with voice acting), and a game like hagane has a wonderful pacing and presentation to it that i certainly believe is utterly cinematic.

[6t8k]

Didn't know about this before, while the idea of an Akira game on the MD/Genesis sounds spectacular - besides, news about resurfacing prototypes always radiate a sense of fascination - it looks like a potpourri of different genres that could individually be had in a more accomplished form elsewhere. Sometimes, the whole can be more than the sum of its parts, but I don't see that being the case here. This looks more interesting and has no comments yet

ones i'd consider good or at least worth playing (licensed games specifically based on films from before ps1 era)

Two more that casually come to mind

- Gunhed, PCE HuCard (film of same name)
- Jigoku Gokuraku Maru, Famicom (Zipang)

Though for both western releases (Blazing Lazers and Kabuki Quantum Fighter, respectively), their film references were removed.

Completely agree to your last paragraph - the two games are an example. As far as I'm concerned, the movies add nothing of relevance, they're just good games!

[kitten]

^ i totally forgot about ye olde quantum fighter, though i did know it was originally based on a movie. probably forgot while skimming what to list because i'd never seen the movie. it's a solid game.

i left gunhed out, deliberately. have heard anything tying it to a movie is extremely tangential, though it's very common trivia knowledge to say it was "based on" the movie. iirc it's dubious the game is actually based on the movie at all and rather an instance of them just jamming the title on another game they were making to boost the sales (possibly a shatterhand case where there seems to be reasonable evidence the non-licensed-property US version was actually the intended game). the only regional differences i can remember are the title screen and the ending music.

[BrianC]

Konami's Goonies games were good, though they had a weird way of releasing the NES games in the US. The first one only made it to US arcades and only the second one made it to US NES cart (with the II in the title completely intact).

[MintyTheCat]

^ i totally forgot about ye olde quantum fighter, though i did know it was originally based on a movie. probably forgot while skimming what to list because i'd never seen the movie. it's a solid game.

i left gunhed out, deliberately. have heard anything tying it to a movie is extremely tangential, though it's very common trivia knowledge to say it was "based on" the movie. iirc it's dubious the game is actually based on the movie at all and rather an instance of them just jamming the title on another game they were making to boost the sales (possibly a shatterhand case where there seems to be reasonable evidence the non-licensed-property US version was actually the intended game). the only regional differences i can remember are the title screen and the ending music.

Batman & Robin on the MD was well done too. There are some decent Batman games on the NES.

I cannot regard the Shmup for GunHed to be related to the film but there is that game based on GunHed the film for the FC but I haven't paid attention to it.

I agree: for the most part western games had poorer art from that era and we only saw the standard step up a bit some time later.

[kitten]

^ that batman & robin game has a ton of work put into it and i won't deny that - the sprite artists are probably the best western ones to grace the mega drive - but i fucking loathe that game. looks pretty (i ain't gonna say sounds pretty, though! i don't like jesper kyd, and, man, did anyone stop to bother to tell him the game he was submitting these tracks to? lol), even feels good most of the time, but horribly, horribly designed. stages stretch on & on & on and are morbidly repetitive, everything has too much health, etc. while the game has a lot of odd spots of spontaneous cruelty, the single shmup stage goes on for more than 15 unbroken moments (an entire play of the first loop of contra!) and you can get through the majority of it barely even needing to move or just standing entirely still. i think there's an at least 6-minute stretch where you can literally set the controller down and enough health-ups will fly into you that you won't be killed by the enemies. that's fucking loony :[

more importantly, though, i specified i was limiting to "movie-based" games. there are several other batman games i love.

[6t8k]

kitten: Ah yes, that tie-in is nothing more than a suggestion Even more demonstrates the point, then!

Batman & Robin is indeed great (especially the technical side of it). But too hard for the wrong reasons. And there's Sunsoft's Gremlins 2.

Also thread = captured.

[rapoon]

just about lost my shit when "Kaneda's Theme" kicked in

[Sumez]

I'd love to be excited for this, but I'm kind of in the "this looks like every other awkward western developed license based console action platformer from the 16 bit generation" boat. If this game had actually come out, most people would have probably forgotten about it at this point.

I have plans to play the Famicom game with a friend pretty soon. Anyone know anything about how well google translate works with Famicom games? >_> We tried using the phone app, and everything was completely unintelligible.

[lemans123]

I was surprised when i heard about this game, i enjoy watching the akira anime movie

[Obiwanshinobi]

As film licensed games go I feel that the best that I ever saw done was Alien 3 on the SFC and the MD. Dune was not bad too.

Super Star Wars on the SFC (and of course the vector based arcade games).

Republic Commando, at least on PC when you DON'T quick-save, quick-load through it but rely on its own check-pointing.
Alien 3 for the Game Boy has got pretty good graphics, at least. Not that I've really played it.
Catwoman for the GBA is surprisingly playable, "isometric Prince of Persia" kind of way. Had 16-bit platforms had such a "cinematic" game on them, I feel, the history of gaming would have taken a turn it eventually hadn't, for better or worse.
With no existent film licence to back it up, Bruce Lee: Return of the Legend (GBA) does the "playable seventies' martial arts film" thing competently.
Anyone knows if the XIII TV shows are any good? The game predates both, though. Still one the very few FPPs I cared to finish (wouldn't recommend playing it on a console, mind, since I read one of my favourite stages can be some pain to play with a gamepad). Come to think of it, could be that the music makes or breaks this genre games for me. It was the most awful thing about Call of Duty, like, two times when I tried playing demo, whereas XIII excelled at the thing Cowboy Bebop anime series failed at, according to my senses.

[null1024]

^ that batman & robin game has a ton of work put into it and i won't deny that - the sprite artists are probably the best western ones to grace the mega drive - but i fucking loathe that game. looks pretty (i ain't gonna say sounds pretty, though! i don't like jesper kyd, and, man, did anyone stop to bother to tell him the game he was submitting these tracks to? lol), even feels good most of the time, but horribly, horribly designed.

I love the soundtrack and I love the look, but AB&R on the Genesis is absolutely just a demoscene production released as a game.
It'd be wonderful if there was some kind of directors cut release that tightened up... well, everything, really.
god, the sheer length of the shmup section is a bad joke

but the game is so pretty
every stage is some wicked-sick demoscene effect, all kind of crazy raster effects EVERYWHERE, the spritework is lovely and detailed, the Genesis system palette is well utilized

[WelshMegalodon]

I have plans to play the Famicom game with a friend pretty soon. Anyone know anything about how well google translate works with Famicom games? >_> We tried using the phone app, and everything was completely unintelligible.

The Taito game? It got fan-translated years ago. The patch is on RHDN.

eh? definitely looks like it, to me. i hate western games from that time period, in general, but have a special contempt for ones on the MD because the majority are extra hideous and awful-sounding. something about the system's palette and sound that makes incompetency all the more obvious and hard to swallow. the side-scrolling areas are like peak western design of that generation - not scrolling the screen til you're like 90% up to its edge, sprawling, multi-directional scrolling mazes with no obvious landmarks, totally thoughtless combat with a bunch of enemies that will eventually attrition out your massive healthbar as you discover the myriad of dead-ends.

There were a lot of awful Euro-developed games and crappy Amiga ports on the MD for sure.

Are we counting Star Wars: TIE Fighter as a movie game? What about Capcom's Alien vs. Predator? And wasn't Spartan X technically a movie tie-in?

[BIL]

Are we counting Star Wars: TIE Fighter as a movie game? What about Capcom's Alien vs. Predator? And wasn't Spartan X technically a movie tie-in?

Spartan X is absolutely movie-licensed, from the Japanese theatrical release of Wheels on Meals. Here's the arcade flyer complete with Jackie Chan and Benny "The Jet" Urquidez:

Spoiler

EDIT: OBLIGATORY

I don't consider Capcom, Konami, IREM and other JP stalwarts' licensed games part of the same universe as the usual "shitty licensed game" suspects. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at a Capcom game blowing away an LJN-published attempt in the same genre. To me, it's long since become about "shitty licensed publishers."

[bottino]

^ that batman & robin game has a ton of work put into it and i won't deny that - the sprite artists are probably the best western ones to grace the mega drive - but i fucking loathe that game. looks pretty (i ain't gonna say sounds pretty, though! i don't like jesper kyd, and, man, did anyone stop to bother to tell him the game he was submitting these tracks to? lol), even feels good most of the time, but horribly, horribly designed.

I love the soundtrack and I love the look, but AB&R on the Genesis is absolutely just a demoscene production released as a game.
It'd be wonderful if there was some kind of directors cut release that tightened up... well, everything, really.
god, the sheer length of the shmup section is a bad joke

but the game is so pretty
every stage is some wicked-sick demoscene effect, all kind of crazy raster effects EVERYWHERE, the spritework is lovely and detailed, the Genesis system palette is well utilized

Yeah, it's one of those games that hooks you for it's audiovisual predicates alone. And as the game progress it gets more and more impressive on those fronts, while also becoming more of a chore to play. Playing co-op somewhat alleviates that - if both players know what they're doing, that is. The game indeed needed a better direction, like so many western games of that era.

Speaking of movie-licensed games, I remember Demolition Man (MD, SNES) being a rather decent side-scroller/isometric action game.

[Sumez]

And as the game progress it gets more and more impressive on those fronts

At the risk of sounding like a scrub....

It's possible to beat the first boss??

[bottino]

And as the game progress it gets more and more impressive on those fronts

At the risk of sounding like a scrub....

It's possible to beat the first boss??

Nah, it's okay. You probably aren't powered-up enough, so it takes him forever to die.

The secret to this game is to stick with the orange weapon - by far the best one - and always collect that same power-up (you need to collect seven of then in sequence in order to reach max firepower). Changing weapons in this game can really screw you, not only because blue and green are not nearly as useful, but also because doing so will not power up your weapon. Since the game has no ranking, it seems to me that it's difficulty was balanced around a fully powered-up player.

[Steamflogger Boss]

This isn't exactly related, but it's Akira and thought it is interesting. Collectors appear to be frothing off at the mouth to get it...

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k444830261

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/k444830261?

Why is there LD branding? The world may never know.

[GaijinPunch]

Why is there LD branding? The world may never know.

Present with purchase of the LaserDisc. So, not too much of a mystery.
Defo want it but not for that.