Greetings all Turbo lovers! It's time to rocka rolla another demolition of a beloved 16-bit video game by ramming down this month's screenshot LP for a PC Engine game (one of many that were sadly only unleashed in the east) that I British-stole from the internet. But I'd best stop talking about my committing sin after sin before my I stain my class any further and move onto this game's introduction before you all start screaming for vengeance. If you need a point of entry for this series, look no further than the table at the bottom of the page.
Tomcat System/Irem's Gekisha Boy is a photography action game that was unfortunately never localized for the US TurboGrafx-16 console for reasons that will become very evident once we begin. Luckily, there's not a whole lot of Japanese language in the game and the context behind it is very easy to pick up. Essentially, the game is a far weirder 2D version of Pokemon Snap's snap snapshot-shooting precision with some jumping/dodging thrown in for flavor. The only goal is to reach a target score for each stage and you earn more points for photographing unusual sights and... that's really all there is to it. (Well... mostly. You'll see.)
Sounds dumb, right? You have no idea.
Taking Pictures of Some Completely Normal Things That Are Happening
Welcome to Gekisha Boy! I believe this is the first PC Engine exclusive game I've covered. I want to do a lot more, since the US really only got the tip of the PC Engine iceberg.The set-up's all moonspeak to me, but that numerical is obvious enough: The goal for Stage 1 (or "Take 1") is a mere 10,000 points. Sounds simple. So here's how the game works: Gekisha Boy (his real name is an oddly generic "David Goldman") walks automatically to the right as the screen scrolls in the same direction. As he walks by, various items appear in the fore- and background which you can snap with a cursor you control with the D-pad. Hitting the snap button pauses the action, so you don't have to worry about "leading the target". This UFO snatching some luckless dude's car is the first big score of the stage.Snapping particularly worthy pictures will usually net you a power-up. Most power-ups, like that "5" there, will increase the number of shots you can take by that amount. It's important to keep that number up, because if you're out of film the level ends early and it'll be very difficult to reach your score target as a result.Most of the high-earner shots have a very small time window. This dude will quickly get back up, so the Pokemon Snap rule of trying a level a few times to familiarize yourself with when best to strike can often help.This guy has an alien head, but eventually his hologram technology kicks in and he's back to being an incognito human. Quick, sell your evidence to David Icke!Yep. This is how you earn the big bucks. No-one said this life was glamorous, kiddo.Though I guess a resurrected Marilyn Monroe makes it a little more glamorous.Wait until this rollerblading girl falls over and quickly snap an upskirt. Video games are art.The DeLorean might not need roads, but you do need to snap it before it vanishes because it's worth as much as a Grays Sports Almanac.Just taking a picture of this regular old plane in the background. Even non-special stuff like this will still earn you a small amount of points, especially if it's a moving target. (Incidentally, I love the wobbly art in this game. Very Toejam and Earl/Day of the Tentacle.)Whoops! Shit, forgot to turn the flash off.And there's a flying man. The Speed boost increases the speed your cursor moves around the screen. There's also a power-up that increases the size of the cursor's aperture. Both are darn useful.A woman tied to a rocket. No, you can't save her, but we can take pictures of her suffering. At least until she vertically lifts off the screen to an unknown (but probably highly explosive) fate.I tried to capture a collapsed hot air balloon in the distance, but I guess it's not too clear from this screencap. So instead I'll use this opportunity to discuss flashing objects: that skateboard there is one of them, and anything that flashes (well, except that sex criminal a while back) could potentially collide with you and cause you to lose a lot of film and any power-ups. It's important to balance dodging them as they appear with looking for weird shit to capture (snapping the obstacles will remove them too, but the amount of points you earn is usually not worth the wasted film. It will be in later levels, though, which is coincidentally when obstacles start becoming unavoidable).The stick firemen run off with their trampolining rescuee, leaving an apparently nude woman to burn to death in her high-rise. Make sure to take lots of pictures.Take some Statue of Liberty upskirts too, why not. It's not like anything's sacred in the world of tabloid photography. The game does prove wrong a certain Dr. Venkman quote, since she's clearly wearing olde-timey bloomers.Despite madly capping as much as I could while also madly photographing as much as I could, I squeaked by the level requirement of 10,000. Once a level ends it'll give you bonus points for any unused film - but it's a paltry 100 points for each shot you didn't take, which is less than you earn for a lot of the "regular" shots therefore it's worth snapping away liberally whenever possible. On the other hand, you don't want to run out of film prematurely. 'Tis a balancing act.So here's when Professor Oak scowls at your scandalous output and judges you for the many dubious photo opportunity decisions you made.Fortunately we hit our goal target and so it's off to the next stage. It's likely he's giving you a more detailed report of your score, perhaps with a few probing questions about the amount of unnecessary nudity, but I'll be darned if I can read a single kana of it. Pepsiman? VGK? ...Bueller?
So that's it for Part 1. As with Neutopia and Bonk, I'll continue capping the other stages in the comments below for those curious about how much weirder this game is about to get. Spoilers: It's going to get a lot weirder. Thanks for stopping by!
