We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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__SKYe
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by __SKYe »

Sumez wrote:I specifically avoided doing any (real) shooters knowing that Perikles would be on point with these :P
I was surprised at the conspicuous absense of most STGs until I remembered that Perikles still hadn't chimed in. It would take quite a while to review all the games on a list as long as his. :)
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kitten
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by kitten »

got around to updating the backlog of reviews yet to hit the index!

also finally won a copy of sylphia, which i'll probably review in a couple of months when i get it and then get around to replaying it. i imagine it's just going to be "3/4, very enjoyable compile game, though not in the range of something like spriggan or musha."
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Vanguard
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Vanguard »

World Court Tennis - プロテニスワールドコート [HUCARD] [US OR JP]

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Review by: Van

World Court Tennis, as you'd expect, is a tennis game. What's interesting about it is that it includes a bizarre JRPG mode where a devil has overthrown the ruler of the tennis kingdom and it's up to you to settle the score (by beating him at tennis). Aside from the battles being tennis matches, it looks and behaves exactly like a conventional JRPG. There's a good amount of appealing strangeness here. All the towns are named after real world cities despite the map bearing no resemblance to Earth. Random encounter NPC portraits seem to be randomized and some are pretty strange looking. You'll get challenged by tennis players in hockey masks and men wearing bald caps over full heads of hair as you walk the arduous journey from Tokyo to London. It's an entertaining novelty and it's short enough that you can finish it before the appeal wears off.

[RATING 2/4] [NO REPLAY]

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Final Lap Twin - ファイナルラップツイン [HUCARD] [US OR JP]

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Review by: Van

A spiritual sequel, of sorts, to World Court Tennis. It's a racing game that includes a strange JRPG mode. You play as a boy living in a wacky racing-based world on a quest to become the world champion. You explore a world map, buy equipment, talk to NPCs, search for secrets, and face random encounters just like you would in Dragon Quest, except that instead of fighting battles you race against your opponents. The RPG elements are more developed than they were in World Court Tennis. There's much more equipment variety, your car can get cursed and there's even an abandoned car parts factory you explore like a dungeon. With that said, it's still fairly bare bones. The races get a little repetitive, but it's short enough that you can finish the whole thing in an afternoon.

[RATING 2/4] [NO REPLAY]

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I'd give them 2.5 if we were doing half points. A four point scale is a bit too limiting.
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Vanguard
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Vanguard »

Dungeon Explorer - ダンジョンエクスプローラー [HUCARD] [US OR JP]

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Review by: Van

Mindless fun that doesn't wear out its welcome. Dungeon Explorer is a Gauntlet clone for up to 5 players. Kill bosses to get gems to level up your character. Each gem increases your max HP and adds 1 to a stat. Wait for the gem to change colors to choose which stat, and remember to dump INT. There are also temporary stat boosting items that wear off when you die, so if you one life a few dungeons in a row the balance snowballs in your favor. There are 8 initial and 2 unlockable characters, each with different starting stats and magic spells.

[RATING 3/4] [NO REPLAY]

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-- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * -- * --

Dungeon Explorer II - ダンジョンエクスプローラーII [CD] [US OR JP]

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Review by: Van

Dungeon Explorer's sequel is bigger, less-linear, and more of an RPG. Now there are optional dungeons you can do for a few more gems. You can switch characters and respec your gems at bars, two nice convenience features. The original's unlockable character using a password was pretty awkward. Speaking of, Dungeon Explorer II has six unlockable characters, each of whom has a weapon upgrade hidden somewhere in the world. To stay competitive, the initial characters get class upgrades complete with new sprites. I find it a little too long for what it is, but that's easily fixed by skipping a few side dungeons and not doing the uninteresting and unrewarding character-specific side quests.

[RATING 3/4] [NO REPLAY]

--
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Sumez
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Sumez »

Does "dump INT" mean dump a lot of points into it, or ignore it altogether?

Bonus question: Is Dungeon Explorer II playable in Japanese without understanding the text? I have the game, but it's the jap version since the US one is impossible to find.
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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Dump stat usually means you are ignoring it.

I'd agree with Final Lap Twin. 2.5 would be the perfect score for it.

Enjoyed my time with the first Dungeon Explorer some years back.
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Vanguard
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Vanguard »

Sumez wrote:Does "dump INT" mean dump a lot of points into it, or ignore it altogether?

Bonus question: Is Dungeon Explorer II playable in Japanese without understanding the text? I have the game, but it's the jap version since the US one is impossible to find.
You should ignore INT. Agility makes you move faster, which is important. Attack makes you do more damage, which is really important. Strength/Power gives you more HP, which is nice. Intelligence improves your magic, which depends on an unreliable resource and often isn't useful anyway. A lot of the best magic abilities, like healing spells and damage buffs are useful even with no investment in intelligence. It isn't viable at all to build a magic attacker who uses attack as their dump stat. I haven't played every character extensively so it's possible I've missed something, but I don't think it's worth raising INT unless everything else is maxed.

You could definitely finish DEII without understanding the text. NPC interactions are minimal and the item system is as simple as can be. Just keep exploring areas you haven't cleared and you'll get there. Probably the biggest obstacle will be a part where a soldier is blocking your path, and to get past him, you need to read a book in the next town and then return. The book in question is glowing, you won't miss it as long as you check every house.

You might have a hard time with side quests and finding weapon upgrades. For a lot of that stuff you need to bring a certain character to the right NPC. The character-specific areas are usually really short and come with laughably bad rewards so it's no real loss. The exception is the dwarf's area which is an entire side dungeon with a boss and a gem and everything. I wonder if the original intention was for every character to have a proper dungeon, but they just ran out of time. Anyway weapon upgrades and class upgrades aren't vital but you don't want to miss them. All of the initial characters' class upgrades become available at the same time. Around 2/3 of the way through the game you'll beat a boss who drops both a standard gem and a unique orb. There's a side dungeon near the beginning of the game that ends with a sort of ice palace with a big dude on a throne you can talk to. Take the orb back to the big dude and he'll give your current character their class upgrade. If you're playing as one of the unlockable characters and want their weapon I guess you'd just talk to everyone until you get it. Princess Miriam's item is in the castle you started at, everyone else's is either near to or after the point when they join.

If you can't tell what your stats are in the japanese version, it goes like this:
Yellow: Speed
Blue: Damage
Purple: HP
Green: Don't do it
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by it290 »

Vanguard, any thoughts on Dungeon Explorer PCE vs. Sega CD? I've played the former to a fair extent, trying to decide whether to sink my teeth into the latter. I have to say it does look quite a bit prettier than the PCE version, but the gameplay seems quite changed as well.
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by BrianC »

Vanguard wrote:World Court Tennis - プロテニスワールドコート [HUCARD] [US OR JP]

--

Review by: Van

World Court Tennis, as you'd expect, is a tennis game. What's interesting about it is that it includes a bizarre JRPG mode where a devil has overthrown the ruler of the tennis kingdom and it's up to you to settle the score (by beating him at tennis). Aside from the battles being tennis matches, it looks and behaves exactly like a conventional JRPG. There's a good amount of appealing strangeness here. All the towns are named after real world cities despite the map bearing no resemblance to Earth. Random encounter NPC portraits seem to be randomized and some are pretty strange looking. You'll get challenged by tennis players in hockey masks and men wearing bald caps over full heads of hair as you walk the arduous journey from Tokyo to London. It's an entertaining novelty and it's short enough that you can finish it before the appeal wears off.

[RATING 2/4] [NO REPLAY]

--

Final Lap Twin - ファイナルラップツイン [HUCARD] [US OR JP]

--

Review by: Van

A spiritual sequel, of sorts, to World Court Tennis. It's a racing game that includes a strange JRPG mode. You play as a boy living in a wacky racing-based world on a quest to become the world champion. You explore a world map, buy equipment, talk to NPCs, search for secrets, and face random encounters just like you would in Dragon Quest, except that instead of fighting battles you race against your opponents. The RPG elements are more developed than they were in World Court Tennis. There's much more equipment variety, your car can get cursed and there's even an abandoned car parts factory you explore like a dungeon. With that said, it's still fairly bare bones. The races get a little repetitive, but it's short enough that you can finish the whole thing in an afternoon.

[RATING 2/4] [NO REPLAY]

--


I'd give them 2.5 if we were doing half points. A four point scale is a bit too limiting.
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It's worth mentioning that both games have standard single and multiplayer modes as well as the RPG.
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by BIL »

Vanguard wrote:
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Avatar material for sure :lol:
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Vanguard
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by Vanguard »

it290 wrote:Vanguard, any thoughts on Dungeon Explorer PCE vs. Sega CD? I've played the former to a fair extent, trying to decide whether to sink my teeth into the latter. I have to say it does look quite a bit prettier than the PCE version, but the gameplay seems quite changed as well.
Don't know much about Sega CD Dungeon Explorer beyond that it's a totally different game, rather than a port. There's also Crystal Beans From Dungeon Explorer on SFC which is a scaled down version of Dungeon Explorer II with cartoonier graphics and a different plot.
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Has it already been eight months since this thread was updated? How time flies.

Fighting Street - ファイティング・ストリート [CD] [US OR JP]

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Review by: WelshMegalodon

Fighting Street is a decent port, possibly better than the game deserves. Everything feels a bit slower, but the visuals are quite close by 1988 standards and the sound effects might actually be arcade-perfect (it is, after all, a CD game). The arranged soundtrack is surprisingly good as well.

Gameplay is hampered by there only being two buttons available instead of six, though it honestly makes less of a difference than one might think. The special moves may also be harder to pull off here than they are in the arcade version, but they're still doable - not that it's an issue with Easy Specials on...

[RATING 3/4] [NO REPLAY]
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

Street Fighter arcade Factoid time:

Sunnyvale, CA based Capcom approached Atari Games (the famous arcade division of Atari based out of Milpitas, CA) to develop & manufacture the rare two button endowed Street Fighter cabinet (the two buttons were pressure sensitive and had a rubbery feel to 'em -- you could pound on 'em or smash 'em slowly along with the obligatory 8-way digital joystick). The Modesto, CA based Tilt! arcade had gotten in such a rare brand new two button endowed Street Fighter upright cab but was eventually replaced with a six button layout for both players later on. This was back in 1987.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by kitten »

i badly need to update the last few entries and add a few more of my own!! aaa, goodness! i miss working on this thread, thanks to those still contributing in any capacity (:
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kitten
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Re: We Love the PC Engine - A User-Made Review Compendium

Post by kitten »

added reviews for metal stoker, parodius da, mystic formula, takahashi meijin no shin bouken jima, and ane-san. added some stray reviews to the index. whew. sorry there, really delayed update @_@

i also cleaned the formatting just a smidge to make it slightly more easy to read
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