Jinmu Denshou Yaksa
A pseudo-3D third-person rail shooter of the Space Harrier mold. It had multiple developer credits and is exclusive to the PC Engine. Jinmu Denshou is an action game in which the player character marches towards the horizon while enemies fly towards him. It looks and plays like Sega's Space Harrier, its clear inspiration, though a major difference is that the main character is a samurai-like figure who is usually limited to attacking incoming enemies with his sword. After an upgrade, he is able to fire projectiles and he can also charge up an attack and unleash it to cause a significant amount of damage. The game has a few superficial platforming elements as well. Development of the game is credited to three separate teams: obscure TG-16 developers Manjyudo, Wolf Team (better known for their Tales series) and Goblin Sound who were responsible for the music.
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The game also likes to have a bunch of gimmicks to spice up the gameplay like a platforming level, a maze level and even a boss rush for the final stage. The game does not run well which is to be expected but it can sometimes chug badly like there was one time it ran at single digits but it was just one time. It’s so easy to get hit in this game especially by the stuff placed like bamboo poles. There’s some parts I’m just unsure how they expected you to even get even close to the end. By stage 4 I had to use save states because it’s just too hard and punishing.
The bosses are also so inconsistent in difficulty. Some of them aren’t too hard but they also randomly like to just make you fight two of them. The worst boss had to be the one made of fire, I just don’t know when the good openings are, he’s so erratic and he throws so many projectiles at you. I don’t even know how you beat these bosses without a projectile, I’m convinced it’s borderline impossible unless I’m missing something. Oddly the final boss isn’t all that hard, the only real challenge is if you do get hit, he can do a lot of damage. Even some of the bosses in the boss rush are easy only because they lack the second copy.
The game is just a mess and surprisingly horrible for Wolf Team standards. Though the game is usually credited to new developer Manjyudo. There’s just nothing fun here and when it gets frustrating, it’s really frustrating. There’s even a 2nd playthrough that I assume is harder but I don’t care enough to try it. I can’t recommend the game unless you really want a challenge. The music at least wasn’t too bad and the sprite art isn’t awful either but that’s the most praise you’ll hear from me. Well at least this wasn’t Manjyudo’s only chance as they would release another PC Engine game that year called…Rock On. One of the worst shmups on the system. Maybe they really are the fault of this game being bad…
Also the game ends on a TO BE CONTINUED. There was no sequel.