Ultra Review Roundtable: NEC Insanity!

Ed.: The Ultra Review Roundtable crew returns, with a tribute to NEC's popular PC Engine, a console near and dear to my heart.  We have a special contribution this round from sunteam_paul, curator of the PC Engine Software Bible and host of one of my favorite game music podcasts, Wibble.  Enjoy!

Welcome to the wonderful world of NEC! After numerous showings with strong titles on other systems, the Hudson Bee has graced us with one of the greatest systems of all time. All of NEC’s systems have become something of a collector’s dream as the gaming generations continue to expire. In this article we will list a majority of the different consoles that were released by NEC as well as the portable systems that played the same line of games.

TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1989 Media Format: HuCard The TurboGrafx-16 has an 8-bit CPU and a dual 16-bit GPU; and is capable of displaying 482 colors simultaneously, out of 512. With dimensions of 14 cm × 14 cm × 3.8 cm (5.5in × 5.5in × 1.5in).

PC Engine / CoreGrafx I & II Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1987,  1989, 1991 Media Format: HuCard The NEC PC Engine is the Japanese version of the TurboGrafx-16. It holds the record for the world's smallest game console ever made.

Turbo Express / PC Engine GT Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1990 Media Format: HuCard The TurboExpress/PC Engine GT is a portable version of the TurboGrafx/PC Engine. It was the most advanced handheld of its time and could play all the TG-16's HuCard games five years before the Sega Nomad could do the same for Sega Genesis games.

PC Engine LT Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1991 Media Format: HuCard Semi-portable system with no battery option that is similar in size to a normal PC Engine. It uses a very large attached screen, and folds up like a laptop, hence the LT moniker.

PC Engine CD, SuperCD / TurboGrafx CD Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1989, 1991 Media Format: CD The TurboGrafx-16 was the first major video game console to have a CD-ROM peripheral, following the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² add-on in Japan. This was the first time that CD-ROM discs were used as a storage medium for video games.

TurboDuo / PC Engine Duo, Duo R, Duo RX Manufacturer: NEC Corporation Generation: Fourth Released: 1991-1994 Media Format: HuCard & CD The Duo systems combined the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine and an enhanced version of the CD-ROM drive (the "Super CD-ROM²") into a single unit. The system could play audio CDs, CD+Gs, CD-ROM2 and Super CD games as well as standard HuCards.

Pioneer LaserActive NEC PAC Module Manufacturer: Pioneer & NEC Generation: Fourth Released: 1993 Media Format: HuCard, CD, LD Pioneer Electronics (USA) and NEC Home Electronics released a module for the LaserActive that allows users to play 8-inch and 12-inch LaserActive LD-ROM2 discs, as well as current TurboGrafx CD-ROM discs, game HuCards and CD+G discs.

Onto the Reviews!

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Sushi-Xpired from gamingafter40.blogspot.com

TurboGrafx16 Memory: Buying a TurboGrafx-16 and a copy of Legendary Axe at Toys R Us on a Saturday night in the fall of 1989, rushing home to hook it up, and finding out that my first console wasn’t quite assembled correctly. I still managed to play a little bit of Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, with garbled graphics, before taking it back to exchange the next morning. My second favorite NEC memory is finally buying a real PC Engine in 2010.

Developed by: Hudson Soft Published by: NEC Released: 1990 Genre: Action / Platformer Perspective: 2D Side View Quote: “This one’s a peach, boy!”

The legend of Momotarou, the Peach Boy, is as well known in Japan as the tale of Hansel and Gretel is in the US. It has all the traditional mythic fairy-tale elements -- an aging laborer is served a peach by his loving wife, and to the couple's great surprise a boy hatches out of it. The boy grows up, grows strong and sets out to liberate a demon's treasures, armed only with a sword and some dumplings made by his adoptive mother, assisted by some animals he meets along the way.

Demon Attack! Tough!

Several Momotarou-inspired RPG games were produced for the Japanese PC Engine, but Momotarou Katsugeki took a different tack -- it's an excellent little platformer made by the system's creators at Hudson Soft. It plays reasonably well without knowledge of Japanese, and is an inventive game, always coming up with something fresh, even an homage to Nichibutsu's arcade game Crazy Climber. It’s even more impressive that it’s all crammed into a HuCard cartridge, with chipper chip-tunes and decent animation.

There's also considerably more depth to Momotarou Katsugeki than is at first apparent. We can visit towns to restock our health-restoring supplies, play a variety of gambling mini-games to earn or lose coins, and purchase odd power-ups like gassy foods that give Momotarou a temporarily bidirectional mode of attack. And if we've earned sufficient funds by mugging demons along the way, we can upgrade our weapons courtesy of the cutest arms dealer ever.

While the cartridge format means that inevitably a lot of enemy sprites get reused later on, there’s still a lot variety. Pirouetting yellow demons are invulnerable until they spin themselves sick and collapse on the ground, fire-breathing demons have a much greater range than Momotarou's standard weapon, and irritable bunny rabbits hop across the land, sowing destruction wherever they bounce.

It’s not an easy game, either. The platforming challenges are tricky in places, and it’s not hard to take so much damage that Peach Boy shuffles up this mortal coil and wings his way heavenward:

Does Mario give you full frontal nudity? I think not!

It's too bad that Momotarou Katsugeki never came to the West. Peach Boy could have been another Bonk for NEC's TurboGrafx-16 in the US, but sadly it seems to have been deemed "too Japanese" by the American marketing department. Another missed opportunity for NEC.

4 Hudson Bees out of 5

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RetroJC from thiskidplaysgames.com
TurboGrafx16 Memory: Completion of Castlevania Rondo X Blood, took me 2 years!

Developed by: UPL Company Limited Published by: NEC Released: 1990 Genre: Action Perspective: Overhead Quote: “Some of the most fluent and crisp graphics on the PC Engine as well as an equally enjoyable soundtrack”

The PC Engine for me is the castle in which many hidden treasures lie, but above all others Gomola Speed sticks out as the consoles finest.

You’ll notice 2 things when you first start playing Gomola Speed, English text (very welcome) and a tutorial.  Practically unknown at the time, a in game tutorial will teach you the basics, which covers almost all of everything you’d need to know.

You play as a worm made up of many or few sphere segments, with the sole purpose of escaping. Here lies the problem; to escape you’re going to need to navigate the levels, which are littered with enemies. To destroy an enemy you have to encircle it, but with your worm like body breaking off segments at any instance of enemy contact this game isn’t easy; however, you’re able to recollect segments and pick up the extras scattered throughout the levels.

You’re able to drop bombs, and speed up which I advise doing in that order as no matter how advantageous dropping a bomb on an enemy is bombs don’t discriminate, and you’re likely to get hurt. Bombs only stun enemies, so hold on to them, encircling an enemy also gives points which is worth doing until you realise they regenerate a faster, more aimed enemy. Throughout you’re also going to face level bosses, these need to be defeated before you can go on, unlike almost all enemies you’ll encounter throughout.

Though in text Gomola Speed sounds like some weird take on a generic dungeon crawler, it’s more a cross over of a puzzler and dungeon crawler, but don’t worry you’re going to have difficulty categorising it too.

Gomola Speed excels in graphics and sound. With some of the most fluent and crisp graphics on the PC Engine as well as an equally enjoyable soundtrack, Gomola Speed to this day looks and sounds great almost 2 decades later. Levels are varied, and with 25 different levels to play through Gomola Speed isn’t a quick game either.

Though the game will frustrate at points (blame the developers arcade background) you won’t ever be as far pushed to throw down the controller. It’s a fantastic game that remains a hidden gem, sadly the developer separated shortly after Gomola’s release, however rumours are rife with Gomola Speed’s development team in that they were head hunted by Nintendo, a testament to how good this game is.

Not only is this Japanese game English text throughout but it’s also a truly brilliant game that truly deserves a genre to its self. To this day it’s still remarkably cheap to pick up, and for me the PC Engines greatest unknown.


4 Hudson Bees out of 5

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HagenDragmire from vgMastersClub.com
Favorite NEC Memory: I remember the classic asshole neighbor kids who always seemed to get every game when it came out. Of course they got the TurboGrafx-16 when it was released and a ton of the titles for it that came out at the time. Playing Bonk’s Adventure for the first time was such an amazing new experience, kind of like playing Mario or Sonic for the first time. There was just something about playing a brand new, solidly made, platformer back in that era with all those crisp graphics and cheery music that was always a great experience.

Developed by: Hudson Soft Published by: NEC Released: 1990 Genre: Action / Adventure Perspective: Overhead Quote: “The entire presentation makes this game an amazing alternative to the typical Hyrule Fantasy.”

Being a huge Legend of Zelda fan, I can’t believe that I never played Neutopia until recently. If you could have taken the hero Jazeta and replaced him with Link it would be difficult to tell it apart from the series.

Neutopia begins with the young warrior Jazeta arriving at the Sacred Shrine and is given the task to retrieve the eight spiritual medallions and defeat the evil Dirth and his invading demon horde to rescue the captured Princess Aurora. Throughout the land of Neutopia, there are four self contained areas and the Climatic Castle. This is all your standard fantasy plot fare and doesn’t stray story-wise whatsoever.

The gameplay in Neutopia is so similar to the Legend of Zelda it’s almost uninspired. You move along an overworld to find a dungeon to get the medallion. In each dungeon there is an item to power you up as well as a boss to fight. After defeating the boss you get your health increased by one and move back to the overworld to find the next dungeon to get the next medallion. One difference in Neutopia is that you basically have to go to each dungeon in order as there are only two dungeons in each area and the second generally needs an item found on the overworld in order to access it or navigate through it.

Straightforward Boss Fights

You spend much more time in the overworld than in each dungeon as most of the time you are just blindly searching for the next dungeon while deciphering the nonsense that the cave dwellers are spouting off or trying to randomly come across a key item. The dungeons are so easy and straightforward that they almost a joke. The bosses have patterns that are fairly easy to figure out and it really only takes a few minutes per dungeon max. How Neutopia counters this straightforward and easy difficulty is through continual respawning enemies and a very low enemy health item drop rate. If this balance wasn’t achieved, it would have made the game entirely too easy.

Where Neutopia really shines is in the graphics and music department. All the graphics have the classic Hudson quality to them, from each pixel to the backgrounds since in the overworld and look ominous in the dungeons. The music is one of the best scores in all of gaming. To say that is memorable is an understatement and each new area that you visit gives you another classic tune that will have you humming it days after.

Overall, while there are some portions of Neutopia that will having you blindly looking for the next key portion, the entire presentation makes this game an amazing alternative to the typical Hyrule Fantasy. If you aren’t fortunate to own a TurboGrafx-16 or a PC Engine, you can alternatively experience Neutopia on Nintendo’s Wii Virtual Console.

4 Hudson Bees out of 5

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sunteam_paul from pcengine.co.uk
Favorite NEC Memory: I have many fond memories of the PC Engine, from the first time I saw PC Genjin (Bonk's Adventure) to the first time I completed Ys Book I&II. But one of my fondest memories was a long time ago, when my collection was still small. I used to regularly go on a family holiday to the countryside, and after a couple of years I convinced my parents that I should be allowed to take my PC Engine with me. After all, it's pretty compact and there is always some downtime between trips out.

Given an opportunity,  I'd plug it into the TV at the holiday cottage that we stayed at and have a few quick goes of games like PC Genjin, Schbibin Man and Fantasy Zone. All this helped to pass the time between visits to the local arcades (after which I would list the games I played and draw little pictures representing the gameplay).

One morning I decided to stay in while everyone else popped out, and so I idly slotted in Atomic Robo-Kid Special for a relaxing bit of gaming time. I'd never beaten the game before as it was particularly challenging near the end, but this time fate smiled on me, and after a little sweat and a sore thumb I finally finished it.

To my delight I was greeted with a brilliant piece of music for the credits, so I grabbed my tape deck (which I had been using to sneakily record arcade music) and stuck it up to the TV speaker, as I never hoped to accomplish that feat again. Completing a game is not always a big deal, but the memories of the location and situation make this one I will never forget, and it's moments like that which made the PC Engine part of who I am today.

Developed by: Nihon Falcom Published by: Nihon Falcom & Hudson Soft Released: 1989 Genre: Role-Playing Perspective: Overhead Quote: “If Ys Book I & II was a woman, I’d marry it.”

A tower stands ominously in the distance. Lightning begins to flicker, illuminating the blanket of cloud that hangs over the night sky. The storm builds up to a crescendo. Evil is coming.

But the land wasn’t always like this. Hundreds of years ago, Ys was a thriving, almost perfect community, cared for by six powerful priests under the guidance of their two goddesses. Its prosperity was down to a wondrous material called cleria, formed by the priests from a mystical ‘Black Pearl’. But things changed. Evil spread across the land and the priests, believing the cleria to be the cause, buried it deep in the earth. To protect the Black Pearl, they lifted Solomon Shrine (and a significant portion of the land around it) from the ground and raised it high into the sky to protect it.

Many years later, in the land of Esteria that lay below, evil began to return. And it is at this time that the young, red-headed adventurer Adol arrived at the port town of Minea. There he was greeted by a soothsayer, who told of the task before him - to collect the history of Ys, written in six magical books, and drive the evil from the land.