Manga chicks wielding swords in 2D action games

[TrevHead (TVR)]

cant beat those famous shoulder guards Im a big fan of the late 90s anime style when cyberpunk was still in vogue, and before the loli and moe craze took off with vannila digital anime with no soul.

Exactly. This is what life is about.

Thanks for posting who that was, I really enjoy his work. I'd love to play those games as well someday...

Dont forget the music of Noriyuki Iwadare, ild say hes tunes were as important as Satoshi Urushihara's graphical style and character designs in making Langrisser so special

like i said before its a shame these games never really left Japan (or Korea) as the have a cult following with western gamers kinda like Ys does. Hopefully me might see someone patching Langrisser 3 PC since i hear PC games are allot easier to patch then the original saturn game (dunno if its a port of the original though)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noriyuki_Iwadare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMYnjWBpIM

[greg]

Any thread like this cant be complete without an mention of Satoshi Urushihara who is a god of character anime art imo. Although most of his manga is erotic his medievil fantasy characters is his best work imo.

Thanks for sharing the awesome artwork. I think his art style works better for fantasy than for sci fi... he did Plastic Little, right? Back then, we used to joke and call that show Silicone Big, even though anime boobs have unfortunately gotten even bigger since those days. I picked up Der Langrisser for the Super Famicom, and it came with this nifty little clear art card. Gosh, I love Masaya.



Falcom's Legend of Xanadu for the PC Engine also featured some incredibly cool '80s style anime characters with swords. Mine's all packed up at the moment and inaccessible, but IIRC, the instruction booklet folded out into a mini poster showing all the characters. Beautiful '80s anime style artwork. I miss that art style.

[SamIAm]

I've played most every game I've seen with a sword-wielding manga chick in it, and in the end, it's the Sega CD version of Popful Mail that I think has both the best gameplay and is the best game overall. Just watch out - while the Working Designs translated version has an enjoyable goofiness to it, they also messed with the difficulty in some really stupid and frustrating ways. The Japanese version is better balanced and more of a pleasure to play.

Faussette Amour on the PC Engine is awful.

[drauch]

I've played most every game I've seen with a sword-wielding manga chick in it, and in the end, it's the Sega CD version of Popful Mail that I think has both the best gameplay and is the best game overall. Just watch out - while the Working Designs translated version has an enjoyable goofiness to it, they also messed with the difficulty in some really stupid and frustrating ways. The Japanese version is better balanced and more of a pleasure to play.

Faussette Amour on the PC Engine is awful.

Yeah, I love Popful Mail for the Sega CD and have the English version...good god it's hard as nails some times!!

And yeah, I was terribly disappointed with how mediocre and stiff Fausette Amour was the first time I played it. I was expecting a wayyyyy better game.

[SamIAm]

Yeah, I love Popful Mail for the Sega CD and have the English version...good god it's hard as nails some times!!

And yeah, I was terribly disappointed with how mediocre and stiff Fausette Amour was the first time I played it. I was expecting a wayyyyy better game.

The biggest and most devastating change to the US version of Popful Mail is the amount of damage the enemies do to you. In the Japanese version, it takes an average of about 15 hits to kill your character when you start with full health, and maybe 10 during boss fights. In the US version, it's an average of 5 hits, and probably 3 during boss fights. So while the Japanese version lets you kick back and get into a groove playing the game, the US version has you constantly accessing the menu to save, use healing items, and worst of all, reload.

The original design of the game is such that you will almost unavoidably take some hits. That's why the post-hit recovery time is so low - you're supposed to be able to withstand repeated blows. In the US version, this gets maddening. The boss of the first world, the wood golem, is maybe the hardest boss in the US game because it hits you a lot and kills you on the 3rd blow. It takes 20 in the Japanese version.

Try it yourself sometime. You just might never look back. Some enemies die faster, and gold bullion is worth twice as much, too. Everything else is the same.

And yeah, I was hoping that Faussette Amour would be the PC Engine's equivalent of Sega CD Popful Mail - big sprites, fast action, rocking music and everything. Not even close...

[Obiwanshinobi]

This Popful Mail promotional vid falls into the same "what could have been" category as that Valis one. No wonder nobody wanted to do that show. The market must've been on the verge of sword & sorcery comedy oversaturation back then. Still, some fantastic shows appeared in that vein, Gokudo being my very favourite. I never thought all that much of Slayers, though. Bastard!! was pretty awesome.
Speaking of Mega Drive, there's one breathtakingly gorgeous platformer worth mentioning here - Monster World IV. Visually inspired by Prince of Persia rather than Valis et consortes, it's arguably the best animated Mega Drive sidescroller. Above Popful Mail and Rocket Kinght Adventures in this regard I would say. YouTube vids and still sprites don't really do justice. There is something peculiarly feminine about its presentation. It's one of those few Mega Drive/Genesis games where you can't really complain about the colour palette limitations, moreover, the soundtrack is excellent as well.
Found a sprite sheet.

[SamIAm]

I'll have to check out Monster World IV, then!

That Popful Mail promo-short was really interesting. I have to admit, though, that the Popful Mail characters really aren't very special. You can see in that short what they were going for with each of the 3 main cast members, and what they didn't quite reach with any of them. It's no wonder it didn't really get developed further. I'd even say that if it weren't for the Sega CD version, with it's exceptional gameplay and style, Popful Mail would have dropped off almost everyone's radar altogether.

[ZOM]

..Mine's all packed up at the moment and inaccessible, but IIRC, the instruction booklet folded out into a mini poster showing all the characters. Beautiful '80s anime style artwork. I miss that art style..

If you need a scan, I'm at your service (^_^)

Btw, fully agree with you guys; Ys, Xak, Sorcerian, Valis, Emerald Dragon, the list goes on... all games I especially like because of that '80-90s anime art-style. A shame what Japanese shows & games have become now with this whole moe trend.

[Ebbo]

I actually found Mail pretty refreshing just for the fact that she is actually a strong female lead character - no BS daddy issues or anything like that. Not sure if this was common at the time but I've heard some comparison to Slayers anime.

[greg]

Wow, that Monster World IV looks pretty cool. I'm watching other vids of it and you can call your familiar to hold onto to float and jump higher. That's unique.

Working Designs was a blessing and a curse. Without them, we would probably not have received some pretty awesome games domestically, like the Lunar games for Sega CD. On the other hand, they couldn't stop screwing around with the games and altering the difficulty and such, like Popful Mail or Silhouette Mirage.

I have Popful Mail for the Super Famicom. I've only played it a bit, but I like it a lot. I've watched the videos of the Mega CD version and I love the rendered animations in it. Apparently the SFC one is one of the few console ports that Falcom was directly involved with.

About Slayers... I didn't care for it much when it first came out, but then again that was during my anime slump and I was starting to get tired of it at the time (late '90s). I've watched it in more recent years and I like it.

[undamned]

Wow, that Monster World IV looks pretty cool. I'm watching other vids of it and you can call your familiar to hold onto to float and jump higher. That's unique.

Actually Ardy Lightfoot implemented this a year earlier ('93 vs '94).
-ud

[PC Engine Fan X!]

cant beat those famous shoulder guards Im a big fan of the late 90s anime style when cyberpunk was still in vogue, and before the loli and moe craze took off with vannila digital anime with no soul.

Exactly. This is what life is about.

Thanks for posting who that was, I really enjoy his work. I'd love to play those games as well someday...

Yep, OVA titles like Bubblegum Crisis and Cyber City Oedo 808 -- cyberpunk was cool when it came to anime. Sadly, it'll never return to it's former glory days. It'd be cool to see some more further OVA adventures of Odeo 808 indeed. The mixture of gritty sci-fi, raw language, a bit of T&A to spice things up, hard-core mecha action + excellent pacing of the on-going story arc & character developement = priceless.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Zeether]

Cyber City Oedo...I saw a bit of it where a guy swears and beats the shit out of some alien thing.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yeah, you gotta watch all three OVA Oedo episodes to see how they all connect/make sense. The pacing is super tight as the creators knew exactly what kind of story they were making here. I did record it on VHS tape once but then had to break down & get the DVD version when it finally was released. No regrets there.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Obiwanshinobi]

Monster World Complete Collection for the PS2 illustrates how the franchise has never been reluctant to borrow ideas and themes from other platformers: Mario, Castlevania, Prince of Persia... You name it.
Mail speaks with the original Lina Inverse's voice (pointy ears and bigger breasts of the former are the main difference between them). This archetype in flavours varying from tomboyish to Yamato Nadeshiko is overrepresented in their popculture: Gokudo, Bastard!!, Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki (two first OAVs), InuYasha... Rumiko Takahashi's works are particulary rich in strong females. Even if a self-aware crybaby is a star of the show, there's usually a strong type girlfriend sidekick of hers around. The igredients you can find in manga & anime character development tend to be heavily reused, as usually is the case with mass produced goods.
I too have a soft spot for the '80s-'90s' art style, but don't really think anime back then was overall superior to this century's endeavours. I don't want to unleash moe-moe derailment upon this thread, but if you compare the original Athena arcade flyer to its sequel's promotional picture, they both look like aimed at people of similar tastes, just in different decades. Also, as much as I adore those 1992-1995 Tenchi Muyo! OAVs, I steer away from the Pretty Sammy spin-offs as I found her early appearances in Tenchi Muyo! somewhat alarming (for the record - Pretty Sammy is a 1995-1997 show). If you ask me, anime could be fairly exploitative and vapid even back then.
Back to the topic, the likes of Monster World IV do make one wonder what has become of Sega and indeed the whole mainstream gaming since then. Most recent 2D Mario and Sonic games try to fill the gaping hole, but I'm not sure if being "retro" is the way to go. I'd say the "retro" side of doing things is covered prominently by indie/doujin developers, but coming from Sega it seems lazy. It's just another way of sticking to trusted formula, just like another first person shooter. Is it the best you can do to make today's gaming less rigid and depressing? Is nostalgia trip your answer?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

While older anime also had its own steriotypes including sexy girls to wow us hot blooded males (remember the dominon tank police puma twins and that stripshow they put on ) Atleast they looked older then 16 and the sex didnt get in the way of the the stories progression unlike all the needless panty shots or the obligatary beach or hot springs episode. While there is a hell of allot of shit nowadays with many studios going for the easy money from otakus (which is partly understanderble in todays economic climate) there are still gems to be found. ie Time of Eve and Code guies (and the evil Brittanica Empire )

Also its worth remembering the great localisations we had due to the company who brought nearlly all the anime to the UK, (sorry i cant remember the companies name) who did such a good job with many of the localisations. For example that cyber city odeo the UK version is the best as it all had new soundtracks that changed the synth pop of the JPN and US versions into progrock with some damn fine riffs.
Its just a shame that the company went bust with god knows who now owns the licences so that many of these UK localisations will never be rereleased in DVD.

[Obiwanshinobi]

While older anime also had its own steriotypes including sexy girls to wow us hot blooded males (remember the dominon tank police puma twins and that stripshow they put on ) Atleast they looked older then 16 and the sex didnt get in the way of the the stories progression unlike all the needless panty shots or the obligatary beach or hot springs episode.

Both points are debatable, but I'm sure one of THOSE threads will emerge sooner or later, therefore I'm leaving it at that for now.

[greg]

Also its worth remembering the great localisations we had due to the company who brought nearlly all the anime to the UK, (sorry i cant remember the companies name) who did such a good job with many of the localisations. For example that cyber city odeo the UK version is the best as it all had new soundtracks that changed the synth pop of the JPN and US versions into progrock with some damn fine riffs.
Its just a shame that the company went bust with god knows who now owns the licences so that many of these UK localisations will never be rereleased in DVD.

Are you talking about Manga Video? They were the #1 anime company in the UK, and they had the nickname of "Mangle Video" because they were notorious for dicking around with the soundtracks in their shows (putting a U2 song in the Ghost in the Shell movie, putting in Pearl Jam or something into the Street Fighter II movie and editing the scenes of Chun Li's glorious ass in the shower, etc). I think they're still around, AFAIK. It's not common to find someone who actually prefers it when a company screws around with anime when they localize it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Another J-only gem - Magical Pop'n - a platformer for the Super Famicom. Animated nearly as well as Monster World IV (again, YouTube don't do justice) and SNES-pretty, yet aesthetically more on the mascot/service side (a bit like Cotton, but not as haunting). Most importantly - very playable and addictive.
The more I think about Moster World IV, the more I appreciate how elegant it stands. There's just that "labour of love" thing to it.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

@ Greg Ah so theyre called Manga Video?, I remember the old logo but thought it was a trademark not the company name. Im sure that my memories are rose tinted since that was when I was first introduced to Anime which was totally different from what we normally had in the UK. Im sure if today I wnt and compared many of the old animes I might change my mind on a few vids, Ild still say the UK dominion tank police and cybercity odeo are my faves though.

odeo Uk and Jpn OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZakDfs ... B&index=83

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C8u6KKv ... re=related

dominion UK OP (halfway through vid) and JPN OP (the original is quite good though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcmNQ6r5 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-0T4Pt ... h_response

[Leader Bee]

I wish they'd release a dominion tank police boxset DVD. I've only got New dominion episodes 1-6 ( I'm assuming that's all that was ever released) but can't for the life of me find the original "Dominion Tank police"

[greg]

can't for the life of me find the original "Dominion Tank police"

NTSC, but at least it's region free. I dunno if that makes a difference to you. A lot of US Manga Corps/Central Park Media DVDs from earlier in the decade were region-free DVDs.

[Zeether]

Also its worth remembering the great localisations we had due to the company who brought nearlly all the anime to the UK, (sorry i cant remember the companies name) who did such a good job with many of the localisations. For example that cyber city odeo the UK version is the best as it all had new soundtracks that changed the synth pop of the JPN and US versions into progrock with some damn fine riffs.
Its just a shame that the company went bust with god knows who now owns the licences so that many of these UK localisations will never be rereleased in DVD.

Are you talking about Manga Video? They were the #1 anime company in the UK, and they had the nickname of "Mangle Video" because they were notorious for dicking around with the soundtracks in their shows (putting a U2 song in the Ghost in the Shell movie, putting in Pearl Jam or something into the Street Fighter II movie and editing the scenes of Chun Li's glorious ass in the shower, etc). I think they're still around, AFAIK. It's not common to find someone who actually prefers it when a company screws around with anime when they localize it.

Don't forget the End of Evangelion incident. They added what some would deem unnecessary profanity to the dub script and they put the movie in 4:3 with faux widescreen bars, also messing with the brightness.

Now that they have Redline people are assuming the worst.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

NO LIES LIES!, Manga Video is the greatest thing on earth! Let me keep my rose tinted childhood memories
(says repeatedly in my mind) manga video is great! Manga Video is Great!

[Lordstar]

Guardian heroes ? its got some chicks in that with swords. Classic hard drawn stuff too.

[Danza]

It isn't an action game really, but if you like 2D girls with swords and aren't opposed to "playing" a visual novel it is well worth checking out Fate/Stay Night. I really enjoyed it a lot. I even felt terrible when I finished it. Great story and characters! Its quite a long "game" but it is really good. I will say it is "adults only" just to make people aware of the obvious implications, and those scene don't really fit with the story.. but it is still a good read. If you want to have a break from novels or whatever, I'd recommend picking it up.

This is the Opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbS2_XOo76U

[Obiwanshinobi]

I've yet to finish Tsukihime, thus Fate/stay Night must wait.
This Genmu Senki Leda OAV (1985) appears to be quite influential.



Didn't find any Cutie Honey action games. Strange.

[Daigohji]

@ Greg Ah so theyre called Manga Video?, I remember the old logo but thought it was a trademark not the company name. Im sure that my memories are rose tinted since that was when I was first introduced to Anime which was totally different from what we normally had in the UK. Im sure if today I wnt and compared many of the old animes I might change my mind on a few vids, Ild still say the UK dominion tank police and cybercity odeo are my faves though.

odeo Uk and Jpn OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlZakDfs ... B&index=83

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C8u6KKv ... re=related

dominion UK OP (halfway through vid) and JPN OP (the original is quite good though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcmNQ6r5 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb-0T4Pt ... h_response

I much prefer the music in the UK release of Cyber City Oedo. The original synth track just didn't have the impact to match the visuals. The absence of the guitar-heavy music is why I've never bothered buying the DVD.

Manga Video did have some weird practices back in the mid 90s. Fifteening is a good example: that's where swearing it added to an otherwise innocuous show to push the BBFC rating up and make it seem edgier. It made sense at the time, as anime didn't have the mainstream penetration it has now, and was marketed more as a genre of violent SF and fantasy. It's the old trick of manufacturing controversy to make the media give you free publicity. There was a lot more violent anime being made back then though, as the OAV industry was still alive.

This has made me want to dig out some of my old anime VHS tapes. Project A-Ko and Battle Angel Alita sound good right about now.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Ive been watching some classic anime aswell. I watched the shadow skill OVAs yesterday and am about to watch Venus Wars for the first time. (I cant believe i let such a great anime slip though my net, Watching the manga video intro that was on all early manga videos, I always did wonder who that bike segment was taken from.
BTW can anyone name all the animes from the intro? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCfDxZxTBW4 The ones I know are Akira, domion tank police, venus wars, Project AKO. Who is that blue haired chick who throws her head back in slow mo at the end?

OVAs because they tend to be condensed to 2 or 3 eps tend to be a hell of alot better then the full length series which tend to be of lesser quality both in the animation and writting. Still Im always left with wanting more with many of the OVAs

[JoshF]

+ 1 Oedo and Just Burning Wold

Don't know what this thread is about so Kendo Rage?