Welcome everyone to the Underground Railroad of Turbografx-16 retro-gaming. I'm your host Harriet Turbomento and this... is a horribly offensive way to introduce a feature. Let's just all pretend this intro never happened. Nope, stop reading.
NEC's Genji Tsuushin Agedama - our game for July - is a bizarre take on a run-and-gun in that you are actually constantly running throughout much of the game. It combines something like the fast precision platforming of Sonic with a horizontal shoot 'em up like Gradius, complete with all sorts of curious power-ups and waves of enemies homing straight towards you. Apparently it's based on an anime or something. I have no idea, the whole thing's in Japanese and I'm not going to make any sense of it. What do I look like, a polyglot? I'm not even the slightest bit amphibious.
Anyway the game is pretty interesting, if a tad too obscure for our own database even. But don't take my word for it? (This game also features rainbows.)
Run and Gun Fun in a Bun, With Mento-kun
Time for a super exciting intro movie. What could that dastardly Dr. Wily be up to? In his flying castle? From the far-flung future of over 13 years ago? Whatever it is, knock-off Mega Man and Roll aren't too pleased to see it. You can tell by the number of action lines. "I saved up for months to buy this bluescreen, and he just tore straight through it with his Guts Tank! How will I pretend to be in a car chase now, or flying through the sky?" (translated from the original Japanese kanji, via EUDict)Both breath- and pantslessly, he dives across the room to activate this rabbit robot. Named the iHop. It's probably not called that. It's probably "rabbot-chan". This is probably an anime. This is probably my life that is slowly and irrevocably ebbing away.Welcome to Genji Tsuushin Agedama! Those are all words that mean something in a different language. Except Genji and Agedama - those are names. That guy up there is Agedama. The Not Mega Man guy. Him.And this is the game itself. Agedama will constantly run forward and the screen auto-scrolls as a result. It's all you can do to not just run into everything. Fortunately for such a little guy he's packing a lot of firepower with which to clear a path.As you can see here with this Wingull and a sentient orange, the idea is that enemies fly in and are then promptly blown to shit. This is where the shoot 'em up comparison comes in. (Telephone pole guy is apparently just background dressing. My guess is that he's hiding from all the evil oranges.)This is the other part of the shoot 'em up equation - power-ups. They basically seem to come in three flavors: The red magatama (the yin/yang half moon things) are health - you can see seven of a possible eight at the top right. The blue magatama are, well, shoot 'em up options. In that it summons one of the friends you saw on the title screen and they help out by circling the hero (like one of those shields), adding to his firepower (like a regular option) and occasionally turning the hero indestructible. Seems largely randomized which one you get. Or there's an order I'm not spotting because WHOOO CA-Here's invincible mode. He just has this goofy expression and plows through everything. Just as well, as those bouncing logs (from Blammo!) are hard to shoot down in time before you run into them. They're more for dodgin' really.Some axes someone just decided to throw at me. Here I'm demonstrating the only defensive move: the roll. The roll only seems to work some of the time, and the animation is short so you need to use it with precise timing, but it's handy when you're in a jam. Things have to be flying towards your head for it to actually work, though - which means those tiny satsuma beasts are still a threat. As much of one as they were previously, anyway.The game does have platforming in it. Failure to land on a series of these classic waterfall rocks results in a loss of a single hit point, which isn't too bad. It's an extra challenge but it's not something that will just insta-kill you for the heck of it, which I certainly appreciate in a game like this when you're constantly sprinting at full tilt.This is the first mid-boss, most of which are lion-themed for some odd reason. It's during mid-boss/boss fights that you finally stop running and can move left like a regular person for once.Flamemane (not his real name) constantly hops around, so you need to make use of both sides of the screen to keep tabs on him.He also has a laser cannon on his back, because being on fire and also being an apex predator apparently wasn't sufficient.Anyhoo, to complete a half-explained thought: The third type of power-up drop unlocks special attacks. You can see a bunch of symbols under the score that go from red to blue to green (and eventually purple and yellow) and each correspond to a stronger attack like the powerful green waves you see here. However, to use them you have to charge them up. It's sort of like Cyan's (from Final Fantasy VI) Bushido attacks - the longer you charge up, the more powerful the eventual attack. It does mean not shooting at anything for a while though, and that can be pretty dangerous.A bunch of apple treants (what is it with this game and fruit? It's nature's candy!) and that green rabbit robot from the intro. Touching it brings you to......this weird little intermission where Strawberry Shortcake here dispenses some manner of moonspeak wisdom and sends you on your way.No idea what all this is in aid of, but I think it refills your health and lets you restart from this point if you croak later on. The rabbits aren't often this easy to reach, though.This is the first boss. I have no idea what it is or what it's dressed as. Pretty intimidating bow-tie on his banana suit though.The way to beat Mr Bananagrabber is to shoot the crap out of him, just like everything else. Hey, if you want strategy try Shin Megami Tensei IV. You do have to be careful with the dodging whenever he charges with his spear like this though. In true 16-bit era style, once he turns red the battle is all but won.Remaining life is added to the score at the end of each round and that just about covers the first stage. Yay! We're ganji shoeshine aggy-something or other. The present tense verb of that. That's what we're doing.
As usual, the continuing adventures of whatever the heck this kid is can be found in the comments below. It's only going to get stranger, folks. Just... don't expect this one to go on as long as some of the others. It's pretty straightforward. Fun, though! Sort of like an endless runner but with an end point, and thus a reason to want to play it.
Onto part 2 of this Brief Jog through Genji Tsuushin Agedama. I can't imagine there'll be a whole lot else to talk about after this update - it's more a game that I was interesting in playing and bringing to y'alls attention than one that's full of stupid weird stuff to screencap like the last few have been. Without further ado, here's world two and three for your consideration:
There's Sand in My Agedama
Stage 2 is set on or over an ocean or something. There's a lot more platforming in this stage, and most of the enemies are aquatic-based. I was attempting to show off the first level (red) power here - it's a short-range fireball of limited use.In contrast, this is what happens if you power-up all the way to the purple symbol. These genies just cut a bloody swathe across the screen and then vanish. Most of the stronger powers are screen-clearers.First sub-boss are these blue tigers. The goal is to smash the pots (there were two, but uh...) before any more are spawned.I see this a lot in Japanese games: Octopuses with those fisherman head rope/bead things. I think it's a reference to takoyaki signs? I should go to Japan some time. And end up horribly lost.Just in case you didn't believe me about the trickier jumping puzzles in this game. These little hermit crabs duck under the water at intervals. It wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for that whole "screen is constantly scrolling" thing.This is the second boss. I believe he's a reference to the obscure cryptid the Bishop-fish. They were in Final Fantasy Tactics too. Or maybe it's just some dorky fish wizard character from the anime this is based on. From his robe I can only imagine he worships Drinky Crow.Anyway, I'm a little chagrined to say it took me a while to figure this boss out. If you stand on the shipwreck, it becomes very hard to dodge his waves of projectiles. Over here on this little island, though, it's way easier to chip away at him.Stage 3 and we're in the desert. Oh hey, there's Grounder. Are we in Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine all of a sudden?This stage is just less exciting in general. Enemies unexpectedly pop out of dunes, which can get you hit a lot, but there's nothing really unusual to the geometry out here. What is here is a scorpion boss, who attacks with an early instance of one of those limbs comprised of multiple sprites that stretch and move around. I've always wondered how difficult those things are to animate.Koffing balloons. As you might surmise from their expressions, they love to troll you by getting close and exploding into hard-to-dodge shrapnel. Turns out there's more than one type of invincibility - this one happens when you collect yellow magatama. I guess they're fairly rare because I didn't notice it until now. Also, check out that adorable sphinx kitty.Well, they're cute until they turn horrifying after being hit. Are its eyes melting or is that just me? The mini-genies there are what happens when you try to charge up the purple power and don't quite hold the button down long enough - you get smaller, crappier versions of the power you were aiming for (you can see it above - those two smaller pips before each big one). It's best to get the timing down pat to get the most use out of those specials.Boss number 3 is this goofy yellow lizard minotaur guy with a hammer.He's actually quite challenging, and tends to spend a lot of time floating out of your reach and firing lightning bolts down with his mallet. He's probably called Moollnir or Heifthor or something. Just watch how quickly I go look it up.I was a few images short today, so here's what happens when you die: First, you pathetically limp away from the screen in bandages. Then you get the option to restart from the beginning of the stage (or from the rabbit, if you found it) and lose all your power-ups in the process. It's not generally a welcome happenstance.Look at him, pleading with you to continue the game. Have some self-respect fake Mega Man. Good lord. What if Bow-tie Banana guy saw you like this?
All right, since I don't expect to get any more comments here since no-one knows what the hell this game is and it doesn't have a page that I can attach this blog to, I think I'll see if I can show off the rest of the game in a single post. They've relaxed that 20 images per post rule, right?
Tsuushin For a Bruisin'
Cave World isn't so interesting (though it's pretty damn tough), so here's a few more powers. Here's the blue one. It's windy.The yellow power drops lightning bolts everywhere. These hit everything on the screen. Hard.The Geodude things you saw in the above screenshot are everywhere in this cave and seem to be completely indestructible. You can temporarily stun them, though, allowing you to walk through them unharmed. Most of this level is comprised of obstacle courses full of those things. These little ghost guys are kind of a reprieve, frankly.I have no idea what this mini-boss is. When he ducks down, he shoots way too many bullets that are impossible to avoid completely, so it's best to just hammer away at the guy and get this fight over with.Golden G Man. What an asshole.So if you hold down the charge button after filling all the way up to yellow and then hold for a bit longer, the entire bar starts flashing and you unleash this impressive looking skull cloud. Looks like the All Out Attack cloud from Persona, doesn't it?Bug dude is the actual boss of this level. He hops from that plinth and starts splitting into clones that float on either side of you and trap you in pincer attacks.This is the boss fight where you really need to use your high jumps - hitting up while jumping allows you to dodge most of the pincer attacks. You just have to charge up an attack and wait for the brief moments when he turns back into one dude: the only time when he's vulnerable.This sky stage is an odd departure. About halfway through the stage the auto-scrolling running stops. I can only assume it's because the platforming gets a whole lot more fiddly here and it's difficult enough without you sprinting across all the tiny platforms.Damn is that one cool rooster. Check out those avianator sunglasses.So these assholes randomly turn up and start throwing banana skins at your feet. You can't hurt them, so you just have to suffer their sub-Lakitu pranks for a spell.You then get this little panel cutscene with them. I can only surmise they have some significance to the manga. Maybe they're this universe's version of Team Rocket?The actual boss is this swirly wind guy. Both he and his little tornados spin around in circles that grow larger and smaller, so it's easy enough to dodge. Harder to actually hit the guy, of course, but spamming thunderbolts constantly means I don't have to aim too much.The final stage completely does away with the running, which is just as well because there are dozens of these little knights and ninjas flying around the place. As a complete change of pace the best way to get through this stage is slowly and carefully.Even though we're not auto-scrolling any more, the game doesn't forget its shoot 'em up aspirations and presents this massive gunship mid-boss. You'd think that red thing is the weak point, but actually the whole structure is inert except for a bunch of gun turrets across its side. Blowing up all the turrets destroys the thing and lets you pass.So the final boss is a four (!) part battle against this creepy wizard. The first part has him summon all the old bosses again in a boss rush. The next is this rather easy fight with him teleporting and summoning these Phanto wannabes.The next part is another fight against a whole mess of turrets.Just look at this ridiculous bullet hell nonsense. The game is kind enough to give you three extra hit points between this and the last fight, but they vanish quickly unless you blow a few of these turrets up for some space.The green guy is a little taste of what this boss is all about so you don't get caught aware when it decides to get serious (and purple). He'll throw a few easy-to-avoid shockwaves at you until you've hit it enough times.The idea is that this guy uses all your powers against you. The stronger the power the harder it is to avoid them. Take the genie turncoat here: He requires a very precisely-timed roll-dodge/jump to avoid him.The boss's lightning attack will hit you from anywhere on the screen unless you roll dodge at the last second. It's not easy.The dude takes an inordinate amount of punishment before he finally takes the hint and slumps away.Nature abhors a flying castle, as a scientist probably wouldn't say. Once the boss is toast, the flying fortress drops below the clouds.And here's the credits! You get to see all your favorites again: Not Mega Man and Not Roll......Lobsterhat, Cordphonenecklace and Scarabhead......Team Rocket and Rabbit Haro. Hare-o?Thanks for stopping by folks! This game is impossible without save states! Just warning you all! This might make for a good GameCenter CX episode, actually.
That wraps up Genji Tsuushin Agedama. For a random anime license game that never left Japan, it's surprisingly accessible. You don't have to know who any of these people are to appreciate its fast-paced shooter/platformer hybrid gameplay, and it looks pretty good for a game made in 1991. I mean, this was shortly after the SNES came out so perhaps it was a little outclassed, but it's still commendable.
I think I'll head back to an actual US TurboGrafx-16 game next week so people can actually follow what's happening and join in on the conversation. It's fun to delve into the PC Engine library, but there's such a thing as being too obscure for one's own good. Unless you're VGK of course. Thanks for reading! Seriously, congrats for actually finding this thing. I didn't mean to hide it so well.
From what I've read of that intermission, "refilling your health" is about as good a translation as any, at least in a utilitarian sense. Oh, along with the Adventure Time, of course. (I can't find the actual quote I want, so enjoy this instead:)
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