PasokonDeacon
1983
Since the other reviews (so far) are only covering the very not good PC-88 & PC-98 ports, let's talk about the X1 original.
This isn't an amazing arcade shooter, at least not compared to Xevious or Star Force from the era. But it's a lot better than given credit, at least on Sharp X1 & MZ micros. I first got into playing this several years ago, each time warming up a bit more to how it plays. For comparison's sake, even the mighty Famicom wouldn't have any original STGs of this caliber & ambition until 1985 onward. Kotori Yoshimura built this turn-of-'84 tech showpiece all on her own, yet it's still fun if you like a more strategic open-range shooter. (I play this on an X1 emulator using cursor keys with no other enhancements or major changes.)
A big issue I see players having is keeping track of shots while landing your own, whether in air or on ground. Thankfully the game's soundscape, though sparse, makes enemy fire identifiable enough for quick dodging. Pay attention to the dull blips of enemy shots, and also keep a mental bead on where enemies are spawning. Certain foes will intercept you & lead shots better; they're usually a light pinkish-red in this version. I make sure to eliminate or avoid them as much as I can while bombing targets to find the real prize: the Dyradeizer bomb-ables.
It's possible to meticulously clear each stage, but the smart play for seeing more of the game (let alone clearing a loop) is to reach the stages' second phase quickly. Reaching the Dyradeizer side of each stage simplifies matters a lot since there's less dogfighting & more dodging turret fire. It's also simple to just destroy the Dyradeizer core ASAP if you're ready to proceed, rather than continuing to bomb out the rest. Getting through stages like this helps with learning movement & spawning behavior, which in turn makes playing for score much more manageable.
Enough strategy. What's the deal with Thunder Force on X1?! /seinfeld
I liken it to a long-lost pen pal of Raid on Bungeling Bay, but with more obvious Namco influences (ex. Xevious, Bosconian) and more impressive visuals. The X1 original uses the PC's built-in spriting hardware (the PCG chip) to handle stage objects & actors faster than any other PC STG of its time. This doesn't make it unplayable, but certainly zippier than you'd expect from a mid-era 8-bit micro. The simple control scheme, level progression, & enemy roster means it's easy to get started with Thunder Force. It's a very difficult game for sure, yet hardly a mystery. Maybe the enemy bullets could have been drawn more visibly, but they're readable enough after playing for 15 minutes.
The game's ports retain the solid game loop, particularly the scoring system & map/enemy variety, but massively lose out in other areas. (I'll exempt the MZ-1500 version here for being fairly close to X1 and arguably a better speed for some players who want to learn the game.) At that time, the PC-88 really couldn't handle this kind of game, even with the fastest pseudo-sprite coding in games like Kazuro Morita's Alphos. Surprisingly, even the more underpowered PC-6001 port feels better to play (and a lot more impressive) than that of its bigger cousin. And since the FM-7 release basically matches the PC-88 one, that makes for a poor but unsurprising showing. Yoshimura & her co-programmers had to make not just these ports in rapid succession, but tons of other quick ports during those pre-Mega Drive years at Tecno Soft. Rushed ports were common, and it's a travesty how many people get their first glance at this game via its less-than-representative versions.
One flaw that's always irked me is how the game handles shot collisions. You really have to commit to your own ground bombs, ex. not changing direction immediately while the shot lands, or else you risk not blowing something up. It's much less problematic with air fire thankfully, but hardly ideal. And there's the old problem of not being able to stop mid-flight, requiring you to manage your direction at all times. This leads to a lot of circular movement around parts of each stage if you're trying to destroy everything. Even I get a bit exhausted by this! But it's a matter of getting used to these weird physics & building your tactics around them. Pro tip: the game calculates enemy fire direction based on where you're flying when it's calculating their attacks. Use that to manipulate enemy fire away from you, then make your attack.
It's worth dealing with some odd collision detection & tricky enemy patterns for one of the best pick-up-and-play arcade originals defining the early J-PC software lineup. Yoshimura & her colleagues would proceed to form Arsys Soft a year or so later, where they made much better works like WiBARM & Star Cruiser. But games like Thunder Force showed her ability to evolve arcade-style play on a home platform—no mean feat at a time when Japanese PCs' hardware & developer support was more fragmented. Both as a history piece & a game today, Thunder Force on X1 is worth a shot if you like the rest of the series or want to experience how the early post-Galaga shooters began to evolve.
Also, I'm glad to say there's no quaint, irritating rendition of the William Tell Overture in this version. You can put on any music you'd like!
This isn't an amazing arcade shooter, at least not compared to Xevious or Star Force from the era. But it's a lot better than given credit, at least on Sharp X1 & MZ micros. I first got into playing this several years ago, each time warming up a bit more to how it plays. For comparison's sake, even the mighty Famicom wouldn't have any original STGs of this caliber & ambition until 1985 onward. Kotori Yoshimura built this turn-of-'84 tech showpiece all on her own, yet it's still fun if you like a more strategic open-range shooter. (I play this on an X1 emulator using cursor keys with no other enhancements or major changes.)
A big issue I see players having is keeping track of shots while landing your own, whether in air or on ground. Thankfully the game's soundscape, though sparse, makes enemy fire identifiable enough for quick dodging. Pay attention to the dull blips of enemy shots, and also keep a mental bead on where enemies are spawning. Certain foes will intercept you & lead shots better; they're usually a light pinkish-red in this version. I make sure to eliminate or avoid them as much as I can while bombing targets to find the real prize: the Dyradeizer bomb-ables.
It's possible to meticulously clear each stage, but the smart play for seeing more of the game (let alone clearing a loop) is to reach the stages' second phase quickly. Reaching the Dyradeizer side of each stage simplifies matters a lot since there's less dogfighting & more dodging turret fire. It's also simple to just destroy the Dyradeizer core ASAP if you're ready to proceed, rather than continuing to bomb out the rest. Getting through stages like this helps with learning movement & spawning behavior, which in turn makes playing for score much more manageable.
Enough strategy. What's the deal with Thunder Force on X1?! /seinfeld
I liken it to a long-lost pen pal of Raid on Bungeling Bay, but with more obvious Namco influences (ex. Xevious, Bosconian) and more impressive visuals. The X1 original uses the PC's built-in spriting hardware (the PCG chip) to handle stage objects & actors faster than any other PC STG of its time. This doesn't make it unplayable, but certainly zippier than you'd expect from a mid-era 8-bit micro. The simple control scheme, level progression, & enemy roster means it's easy to get started with Thunder Force. It's a very difficult game for sure, yet hardly a mystery. Maybe the enemy bullets could have been drawn more visibly, but they're readable enough after playing for 15 minutes.
The game's ports retain the solid game loop, particularly the scoring system & map/enemy variety, but massively lose out in other areas. (I'll exempt the MZ-1500 version here for being fairly close to X1 and arguably a better speed for some players who want to learn the game.) At that time, the PC-88 really couldn't handle this kind of game, even with the fastest pseudo-sprite coding in games like Kazuro Morita's Alphos. Surprisingly, even the more underpowered PC-6001 port feels better to play (and a lot more impressive) than that of its bigger cousin. And since the FM-7 release basically matches the PC-88 one, that makes for a poor but unsurprising showing. Yoshimura & her co-programmers had to make not just these ports in rapid succession, but tons of other quick ports during those pre-Mega Drive years at Tecno Soft. Rushed ports were common, and it's a travesty how many people get their first glance at this game via its less-than-representative versions.
One flaw that's always irked me is how the game handles shot collisions. You really have to commit to your own ground bombs, ex. not changing direction immediately while the shot lands, or else you risk not blowing something up. It's much less problematic with air fire thankfully, but hardly ideal. And there's the old problem of not being able to stop mid-flight, requiring you to manage your direction at all times. This leads to a lot of circular movement around parts of each stage if you're trying to destroy everything. Even I get a bit exhausted by this! But it's a matter of getting used to these weird physics & building your tactics around them. Pro tip: the game calculates enemy fire direction based on where you're flying when it's calculating their attacks. Use that to manipulate enemy fire away from you, then make your attack.
It's worth dealing with some odd collision detection & tricky enemy patterns for one of the best pick-up-and-play arcade originals defining the early J-PC software lineup. Yoshimura & her colleagues would proceed to form Arsys Soft a year or so later, where they made much better works like WiBARM & Star Cruiser. But games like Thunder Force showed her ability to evolve arcade-style play on a home platform—no mean feat at a time when Japanese PCs' hardware & developer support was more fragmented. Both as a history piece & a game today, Thunder Force on X1 is worth a shot if you like the rest of the series or want to experience how the early post-Galaga shooters began to evolve.
Also, I'm glad to say there's no quaint, irritating rendition of the William Tell Overture in this version. You can put on any music you'd like!
1983
WOW! YOU LOSE!! (by playing the downgraded Famicom port of a 1983 game?)
Bokosuka Wars was to Japan's real-time sim/strategy genres what Utopia, Stonkers, & Cytron Masters were to '80s Western PC RTSes. I'd argue this game was more important than them simply for its influence on Tecno Soft's Herzog series, which itself inspired Westwood developers who'd later make the seminal Dune II. That's a lot of words to say this isn't some throwaway footnote in the Famicom library. Japanese PC game conversions to Nintendo's machine were a big event in those early years, and Bokosuka Wars had a genuine wow factor that still matters.
ASCII published this lone creation by Koji Sumii (today a traditional craftsman & puppeteer) on cassette for Sharp's X1 micro-computer back in '83 to much acclaim. It got an expansion/sequel the year later and ports to other PCs before reaching the Famicom. Despite a modern sequel being well-received, the Nintendo rendition has gone down in kusoge history. After all, why try & play this experimental proto-RTS on its own terms when you can bumble into an early wipe & laugh at the game over screen? /s
Context aside, I still have a lot of fun with the PC original, which combines basic real-time strategy mechanics with a light RNG layer & simple to understand progression. Unlike the Famicom port where you start with no soldiers at all, the X1 original gives you a big starting squad. This lets you get used to the controls & your units' frailty before you dive headfirst into the front-lines. Learning how to make new units from trees, plus how to quickly reposition grunts in front of you to do battles, becomes second nature after a while. I wouldn't call this an easy game, but it's hardly as ill-designed or inscrutable as retro discussions make it out to be.
I'd mainly recommend playing this if you're interested in the RTS genre's history or would enjoy a simple, sometimes frustrating but ultimately compelling arcade wargame. The X1 version's not too hard to find out in the digital wilderness, but I wish it was officially accessible via a modern remake or even through Project EGG for PC users. It's an important & distinctive piece of software which paved the way not just for Herzog (Zwei) & Dune II, but other oddities like Kure Software's Silver Ghost & First Queen series.
Bokosuka Wars was to Japan's real-time sim/strategy genres what Utopia, Stonkers, & Cytron Masters were to '80s Western PC RTSes. I'd argue this game was more important than them simply for its influence on Tecno Soft's Herzog series, which itself inspired Westwood developers who'd later make the seminal Dune II. That's a lot of words to say this isn't some throwaway footnote in the Famicom library. Japanese PC game conversions to Nintendo's machine were a big event in those early years, and Bokosuka Wars had a genuine wow factor that still matters.
ASCII published this lone creation by Koji Sumii (today a traditional craftsman & puppeteer) on cassette for Sharp's X1 micro-computer back in '83 to much acclaim. It got an expansion/sequel the year later and ports to other PCs before reaching the Famicom. Despite a modern sequel being well-received, the Nintendo rendition has gone down in kusoge history. After all, why try & play this experimental proto-RTS on its own terms when you can bumble into an early wipe & laugh at the game over screen? /s
Context aside, I still have a lot of fun with the PC original, which combines basic real-time strategy mechanics with a light RNG layer & simple to understand progression. Unlike the Famicom port where you start with no soldiers at all, the X1 original gives you a big starting squad. This lets you get used to the controls & your units' frailty before you dive headfirst into the front-lines. Learning how to make new units from trees, plus how to quickly reposition grunts in front of you to do battles, becomes second nature after a while. I wouldn't call this an easy game, but it's hardly as ill-designed or inscrutable as retro discussions make it out to be.
I'd mainly recommend playing this if you're interested in the RTS genre's history or would enjoy a simple, sometimes frustrating but ultimately compelling arcade wargame. The X1 version's not too hard to find out in the digital wilderness, but I wish it was officially accessible via a modern remake or even through Project EGG for PC users. It's an important & distinctive piece of software which paved the way not just for Herzog (Zwei) & Dune II, but other oddities like Kure Software's Silver Ghost & First Queen series.
1996
The smell of tarnished metal...the steely iron clash. You're just one more pilot among them. Their fathers spoke proudly of serving the greater good, and their mothers saw the devastation lying ahead. It wages on into this 21st century of late-capitalist warfare, trading out cavalry for HIGH-MACS mechs. Nations conglomerate under defense pacts, water and other resources run scarce, and you're either going to survive a conqueror or become a statistic.
Gungriffon doesn't bash you over the head with its themes. Like similar mech action series (think Armored Core), it's about having a blast first & thinking of questions later. You can go from portentous briefing screens to hard-rockin' gunfights to a cheery high scores menu in a matter of minutes. The game combines a simple, fast, and engaging game loop with just enough worldbuilding depth to keep you hooked. As the first Saturn title I ever played & completed, I couldn't have asked for anything better.
This 1996 Saturn exclusive was something of a passion project for the late Takeshi Miyaji, one of Game Arts' co-founders. His fondness for Kee Games' '70s battler Tank, plus his work on previous successes like Silpheed, eventually led him & co-developers to make a 3D mech game pushing the Saturn to its early limits. In short, they saw the ailing system as a way to achieve something even more impressive. Game Arts had built their reputation on squeezing incredible audiovisuals & playability out of tricky platforms like the PC-8801. Even with the Saturn's faults, they could make something even the PlayStation would covet.
Rather than make either a strict simulation or arcade romp, Game Arts blended both approaches. Gungriffon isn't the easiest mecha game out there to learn, but it's on the easier end of simcade. Your face buttons handle everything from acceleration & deceleration to jumping & night vision. Movement involves a mix of the D-pad and holding down strafe. You can cycle through weapons quickly, turn only your turret while moving in a direction...there's a good amount of fluidity & skillful play here. Even if you're unused to first-person mecha action, the game's initial missions aren't that punishing, letting you get to grips with controls & mission progression.
Gungriffon consists of 8 main missions, 2 training sorties, and replay incentives such as end-of-level rankings & difficult modes. I wouldn't call it a content-rich experience, but what's here is quality over quantity. After a standard kill-em-all opening battle, your objectives branch out into escort jobs, stealth missions, & base invasions. The game ends on a tense, oppressive dive into a nuclear missile silo where you fight past other HIGH-MACS pilots of your caliber to deactivate a launch. You're able to simultaneously save in-between missions a run & redo missions for a higher score ranking. For its time, this was a player-friendly package.
Granular controls, well-balanced difficulty, a bevy of different foes, & mission variety are all well and good. But what sets this apart from MechWarrior 2, Thunder Strike 2, & other mid-'90s mechanized action classics is the aforementioned score aspect. Like other score-heavy Saturn greats (ex. NiGHTS), this emphasis on player skill & performance isn't just for earning bragging rights. The game wants you to play fast & aggressive, albeit with intelligence. Turtling is both harder & less desirable here than in Gungriffon's more sim-heavy brethren, but still viable when necessary.
None of this would be all that fun without the technical prowess needed for even early 3D military combat. I brought up Armored Core earlier for a reason. Both games wrought fast 3D graphics for the genre at key intervals in their systems' lifecycles. Gungriffon's solid draw distance, environment detail, & elevation in level design keeps it competitive with more ambitious titles later in the Saturn's life. You also get an aesthetically enticing but usable HUD mimicking that of cockpits from mecha anime & figher jets. With all the chaos happening on-screen, Gungriffon's a technical triumph for a console saddled with 3D woes.
Game Arts hardly skimped on the rest of the game's polish & presentation, either. Story scenes are efficient, painting a dire picture of a weaponized near-future forever embroiled in conflict. Sound design ranges from heavy clanking to atmospheric ambiance to the strident cries of your perishing comrades. Above all, the mercurial, genre-spanning soundtrack from ex-Shining composer Motoaki Takenouchi dominates the soundscape. I became a fan of his classically-tinged prog rock & ambient style here, finally shackled from FM synthesis & able to either rouse or discomfort any player. Were it remastered today, Gungriffon would retain its mystique through audiovisuals alone.
That's another thing it shares with Armored Core: an alluring combination of tests & tropes to keep you coming back. Mecha games struggle so often with presenting distant, sometimes alienating worlds of war in an entertaining fashion. They risk boring or frustrating players almost as often as they risk compromising the harsh worldviews they portray. Gungriffon succeeds at balancing the gravity of its story conflict with player agency & replayability. Much like From Soft's later take on the genre (just without the customization angle), Game Arts wants you to stay in high spirits even as you obliterate enemy camps & ace pilots like yourself.
Thanks to strong sales & critical reception, Gungriffon would become a small but notable series on Saturn, PS2, & Xbox. It dwindled away as Game Arts' other major IP, the RPG series Grandia, fell on hard times. The difficult move to HD game development ultimately pushed Game Arts and its properties into an identity-robbing merger with GungHo, but I hold out a sliver of hope for Gungriffon's return in my lifetime. At the very least, I'd love to see some developers create a throwback first-person mecha game in this vein, perhaps with more of an arcade bent to contrast the recent crop of Armored Core-like indies.
If you've got a Saturn or means to emulate it, Gungriffon's one banger of a system-pushing mecha classic. I've yet to try its Saturn sequel (which doesn't need an English fan patch, but could benefit from one), and the Xbox game's a blind spot for me also. I'll confidently recommend the PS2 entry, Gungriffon Blaze, strips away some of the sim-y bits while nearly perfecting the original's structure, adding analog controls & other modernizations. But I'll get into that later with a proper review. Until then, I hope the seminal Game Arts mecha FPS is now on your radar or higher up your shortlist!
(Shout-outs to Thexder & Veigues for paving the way. Those are much simpler mecha action titles compared to what Game Arts later made, but you can see the evolution towards Gungriffon within them.)
Gungriffon doesn't bash you over the head with its themes. Like similar mech action series (think Armored Core), it's about having a blast first & thinking of questions later. You can go from portentous briefing screens to hard-rockin' gunfights to a cheery high scores menu in a matter of minutes. The game combines a simple, fast, and engaging game loop with just enough worldbuilding depth to keep you hooked. As the first Saturn title I ever played & completed, I couldn't have asked for anything better.
This 1996 Saturn exclusive was something of a passion project for the late Takeshi Miyaji, one of Game Arts' co-founders. His fondness for Kee Games' '70s battler Tank, plus his work on previous successes like Silpheed, eventually led him & co-developers to make a 3D mech game pushing the Saturn to its early limits. In short, they saw the ailing system as a way to achieve something even more impressive. Game Arts had built their reputation on squeezing incredible audiovisuals & playability out of tricky platforms like the PC-8801. Even with the Saturn's faults, they could make something even the PlayStation would covet.
Rather than make either a strict simulation or arcade romp, Game Arts blended both approaches. Gungriffon isn't the easiest mecha game out there to learn, but it's on the easier end of simcade. Your face buttons handle everything from acceleration & deceleration to jumping & night vision. Movement involves a mix of the D-pad and holding down strafe. You can cycle through weapons quickly, turn only your turret while moving in a direction...there's a good amount of fluidity & skillful play here. Even if you're unused to first-person mecha action, the game's initial missions aren't that punishing, letting you get to grips with controls & mission progression.
Gungriffon consists of 8 main missions, 2 training sorties, and replay incentives such as end-of-level rankings & difficult modes. I wouldn't call it a content-rich experience, but what's here is quality over quantity. After a standard kill-em-all opening battle, your objectives branch out into escort jobs, stealth missions, & base invasions. The game ends on a tense, oppressive dive into a nuclear missile silo where you fight past other HIGH-MACS pilots of your caliber to deactivate a launch. You're able to simultaneously save in-between missions a run & redo missions for a higher score ranking. For its time, this was a player-friendly package.
Granular controls, well-balanced difficulty, a bevy of different foes, & mission variety are all well and good. But what sets this apart from MechWarrior 2, Thunder Strike 2, & other mid-'90s mechanized action classics is the aforementioned score aspect. Like other score-heavy Saturn greats (ex. NiGHTS), this emphasis on player skill & performance isn't just for earning bragging rights. The game wants you to play fast & aggressive, albeit with intelligence. Turtling is both harder & less desirable here than in Gungriffon's more sim-heavy brethren, but still viable when necessary.
None of this would be all that fun without the technical prowess needed for even early 3D military combat. I brought up Armored Core earlier for a reason. Both games wrought fast 3D graphics for the genre at key intervals in their systems' lifecycles. Gungriffon's solid draw distance, environment detail, & elevation in level design keeps it competitive with more ambitious titles later in the Saturn's life. You also get an aesthetically enticing but usable HUD mimicking that of cockpits from mecha anime & figher jets. With all the chaos happening on-screen, Gungriffon's a technical triumph for a console saddled with 3D woes.
Game Arts hardly skimped on the rest of the game's polish & presentation, either. Story scenes are efficient, painting a dire picture of a weaponized near-future forever embroiled in conflict. Sound design ranges from heavy clanking to atmospheric ambiance to the strident cries of your perishing comrades. Above all, the mercurial, genre-spanning soundtrack from ex-Shining composer Motoaki Takenouchi dominates the soundscape. I became a fan of his classically-tinged prog rock & ambient style here, finally shackled from FM synthesis & able to either rouse or discomfort any player. Were it remastered today, Gungriffon would retain its mystique through audiovisuals alone.
That's another thing it shares with Armored Core: an alluring combination of tests & tropes to keep you coming back. Mecha games struggle so often with presenting distant, sometimes alienating worlds of war in an entertaining fashion. They risk boring or frustrating players almost as often as they risk compromising the harsh worldviews they portray. Gungriffon succeeds at balancing the gravity of its story conflict with player agency & replayability. Much like From Soft's later take on the genre (just without the customization angle), Game Arts wants you to stay in high spirits even as you obliterate enemy camps & ace pilots like yourself.
Thanks to strong sales & critical reception, Gungriffon would become a small but notable series on Saturn, PS2, & Xbox. It dwindled away as Game Arts' other major IP, the RPG series Grandia, fell on hard times. The difficult move to HD game development ultimately pushed Game Arts and its properties into an identity-robbing merger with GungHo, but I hold out a sliver of hope for Gungriffon's return in my lifetime. At the very least, I'd love to see some developers create a throwback first-person mecha game in this vein, perhaps with more of an arcade bent to contrast the recent crop of Armored Core-like indies.
If you've got a Saturn or means to emulate it, Gungriffon's one banger of a system-pushing mecha classic. I've yet to try its Saturn sequel (which doesn't need an English fan patch, but could benefit from one), and the Xbox game's a blind spot for me also. I'll confidently recommend the PS2 entry, Gungriffon Blaze, strips away some of the sim-y bits while nearly perfecting the original's structure, adding analog controls & other modernizations. But I'll get into that later with a proper review. Until then, I hope the seminal Game Arts mecha FPS is now on your radar or higher up your shortlist!
(Shout-outs to Thexder & Veigues for paving the way. Those are much simpler mecha action titles compared to what Game Arts later made, but you can see the evolution towards Gungriffon within them.)
Stale isn't strong enough a word. The content recycling is one thing, though disappointing given the years between this & Wild World. But the dialogue looping is inexcusable. The original Animal Crossing & its DS sequel both offered just enough variety in conversations across villagers to keep the game loop working. With your neighbors getting stuck on one damn thing so often in City Folk, the illusion's dispelled.
Then you see how, even with some added content like new holidays & collectibles, the city itself is just a demystified way to access previously event-only features. Sure, it's awesome that I can get my hair done anytime vs. the dumb unlocking method in WW. But why not simply give & tell players a way to get the hairdresser at Nookington's? Then you can stay in the village—you know, the actually relevant setting of the game. Instead of finding better ways to let players unlock & integrate new functions into the village, City Folk took the easy way out, and it's harmed it ever since.
The developers must have realized (or learned through market research) how badly they missed the mark on most players' expectations. New Leaf fixes so many of CF's omissions & questionable decisions. But for all the fun I can still have with this entry, it just has me pining for a WW decompilation so we can get proper content & mechanics mods for it already. I loved this as a kid, but would much rather play the idiosyncratic GC versions or WW for those neat villager hobbies & pictures. Even returning now with cheats & emulation niceties doesn't make a dent in CF's mediocrity.
I haven't even touched on dirt paths, barely improved online, using the pointer for typing, and other exhausting but well-trodden topics. All I can do now is ponder how much worse this could have turned out if not for the core developers' consistency in porting the working bits of GC & WW over. I'm just glad even the most mid of pre-New Horizons entries is still a little fun. (N64 is a glorified prototype, so I'm not counting it here.)
Then you see how, even with some added content like new holidays & collectibles, the city itself is just a demystified way to access previously event-only features. Sure, it's awesome that I can get my hair done anytime vs. the dumb unlocking method in WW. But why not simply give & tell players a way to get the hairdresser at Nookington's? Then you can stay in the village—you know, the actually relevant setting of the game. Instead of finding better ways to let players unlock & integrate new functions into the village, City Folk took the easy way out, and it's harmed it ever since.
The developers must have realized (or learned through market research) how badly they missed the mark on most players' expectations. New Leaf fixes so many of CF's omissions & questionable decisions. But for all the fun I can still have with this entry, it just has me pining for a WW decompilation so we can get proper content & mechanics mods for it already. I loved this as a kid, but would much rather play the idiosyncratic GC versions or WW for those neat villager hobbies & pictures. Even returning now with cheats & emulation niceties doesn't make a dent in CF's mediocrity.
I haven't even touched on dirt paths, barely improved online, using the pointer for typing, and other exhausting but well-trodden topics. All I can do now is ponder how much worse this could have turned out if not for the core developers' consistency in porting the working bits of GC & WW over. I'm just glad even the most mid of pre-New Horizons entries is still a little fun. (N64 is a glorified prototype, so I'm not counting it here.)
No grail. Necropolis only. Mandate of Heaven.
Is there anything as amusing here as a Scooby-Doo chase around the map, with one deathball vs. a bunch of under-supplied riders? That's the average HoMM3 late-game on some maps. You learn to fuck with the AI as much as possible, just in case some pathfinding manipulation buys you time to restock troops. Maybe beelining for those magic artifacts—a 5th level spells hat, for instance—can turn the tide in battle. The final scenario in Restoration of Erathia had me playing cat-and-mouse this way. It got frustrating at times, but persistence pays off in any of these games. I sunk more than a hundred hours to stop a cursed king, and I felt redeemed.
There's much I could say about HoMM3 in general, one of PC gaming's evergreen staples. As for the base game's campaigns, I'll note how well the scenarios inch upward in length & complexity. The first three campaigns, with three missions each, covers much of the basics & common strategies you'll need to master. Juggling multiple town types leveling up your heroes to cover more ground (before creating that aforementioned deathball) is all crucial to later success. I just have to laugh at the actual tutorial since it teaches you relatively intuitive actions while the early-game gives you useful hints in a story context. The difficulty curve is balanced enough, at least in the Complete Edition, to ensure you'll get through the game's first half.
Things get nuts once you reach Steadwick's Liberation. The game knows you've learned how Castle heroes, troops, & buildings work. But now you'll be fighting your own kind turned heel, with way more resources & action economy than you can muster. It's here where I learned just how much of a numbers game HoMM3 can become. Trading makes or breaks your game, low morale can ruin your battle tactics on a whim, and unit upgrades only work so well when you're running out of gold for other things. I got used to taking my spellcasters anywhere they could fight & then restock MP, just abusing their magic attacks to compensate for having so few units.
Compared to its predecessors, base HoMM3 already has a more muted, aged aesthetic that clashes against the story's cheesy moments. It's fun to witness characters & concepts derived from the main Might & Magic games (themselves derived from many late-night D&D pizza parties) utterly destroying each other. New World Computing clearly loves the world they're working with, no matter how simple & blockbuster in scope. For lack of an essential AD&D Birthright game, this era of HoMM feels like the proper off-brand equivalent, a realm of enormous warfare contained in charismatic personages.
It's a shame, then, that the post-game campaign is such a whimper. I love the idea of people from Erathia & AvLee joining up to form their own equitable, sovereign country. There's just not a lot to really do in these last few scenarios, however. Learning how to dig up the Grail is nice and all, and nothing here ought to match For King and Country's harsh skill wall, but I'm not playing this game for a victory lap. Any chance to reach high-level spells & army crafting, then go ham on my opponents, is much more fun.
Still, I've been loving my time with HoMM3 so far. It's living up to the hype and then some. Excellent map design, meaningfully diverse units & character advancement...it's all here. I grew up with HoMM4 and will hopefully still enjoy it, yet I can already see why others consider that sequel such a downgrade. Here's hoping the upcoming expansions keep this up.
Is there anything as amusing here as a Scooby-Doo chase around the map, with one deathball vs. a bunch of under-supplied riders? That's the average HoMM3 late-game on some maps. You learn to fuck with the AI as much as possible, just in case some pathfinding manipulation buys you time to restock troops. Maybe beelining for those magic artifacts—a 5th level spells hat, for instance—can turn the tide in battle. The final scenario in Restoration of Erathia had me playing cat-and-mouse this way. It got frustrating at times, but persistence pays off in any of these games. I sunk more than a hundred hours to stop a cursed king, and I felt redeemed.
There's much I could say about HoMM3 in general, one of PC gaming's evergreen staples. As for the base game's campaigns, I'll note how well the scenarios inch upward in length & complexity. The first three campaigns, with three missions each, covers much of the basics & common strategies you'll need to master. Juggling multiple town types leveling up your heroes to cover more ground (before creating that aforementioned deathball) is all crucial to later success. I just have to laugh at the actual tutorial since it teaches you relatively intuitive actions while the early-game gives you useful hints in a story context. The difficulty curve is balanced enough, at least in the Complete Edition, to ensure you'll get through the game's first half.
Things get nuts once you reach Steadwick's Liberation. The game knows you've learned how Castle heroes, troops, & buildings work. But now you'll be fighting your own kind turned heel, with way more resources & action economy than you can muster. It's here where I learned just how much of a numbers game HoMM3 can become. Trading makes or breaks your game, low morale can ruin your battle tactics on a whim, and unit upgrades only work so well when you're running out of gold for other things. I got used to taking my spellcasters anywhere they could fight & then restock MP, just abusing their magic attacks to compensate for having so few units.
Compared to its predecessors, base HoMM3 already has a more muted, aged aesthetic that clashes against the story's cheesy moments. It's fun to witness characters & concepts derived from the main Might & Magic games (themselves derived from many late-night D&D pizza parties) utterly destroying each other. New World Computing clearly loves the world they're working with, no matter how simple & blockbuster in scope. For lack of an essential AD&D Birthright game, this era of HoMM feels like the proper off-brand equivalent, a realm of enormous warfare contained in charismatic personages.
It's a shame, then, that the post-game campaign is such a whimper. I love the idea of people from Erathia & AvLee joining up to form their own equitable, sovereign country. There's just not a lot to really do in these last few scenarios, however. Learning how to dig up the Grail is nice and all, and nothing here ought to match For King and Country's harsh skill wall, but I'm not playing this game for a victory lap. Any chance to reach high-level spells & army crafting, then go ham on my opponents, is much more fun.
Still, I've been loving my time with HoMM3 so far. It's living up to the hype and then some. Excellent map design, meaningfully diverse units & character advancement...it's all here. I grew up with HoMM4 and will hopefully still enjoy it, yet I can already see why others consider that sequel such a downgrade. Here's hoping the upcoming expansions keep this up.
PoPoLoCrops! FarmPG cuteness from start to finish. Add a tad of Ghibli-esque darkness on the fringes, perhaps. It's an odd way to start my PoPoLoCrois journey, but far from an unfitting one. I had worries about how well the Story of Seasons systems would integrate with what's otherwise a regular series entry, spinoff status aside. So I'm glad to say that you neither have to rely on farming too much, nor simply ignore it for other items & buffs. Good QoL features & menu design helps out here, but also the strong pacing elsewhere.
The whole premise of a foreign country's purported leaders being parasitic conquerors of both your home & theirs gets things rolling. You go from a fun if slight celebration of Pietro's accomplishments to date (something I'll be more familiar with later) to getting marooned in a strange land, fighting on the backfoot. Early dungeons & world traversal hardly take much time. This definitely feels more like a JRPG for fans of towns & characters, less so encounters. Much of the game loop teeters between quick trips to your ranch (economy) & engaging with story areas and events.
Sorry Pokemon, but this adventure has the superior Galar(iland) region. Epics & Marvelous do a stellar job of balancing the new cast, populace, & worldbuilding with returning parts of the PoPoLoCrois world. I had such a smile on my face when finally getting to fight alongside a distraught GamiGami trying to regain his big bad status. Or how about realizing who the conspicuous wolf at your side really is? (An old friend indeed!) All the towns are fun to explore & talk your way through, and I certainly can't recall any bad dungeons...just some less than interesting ones.
While the farming & story elements have a satisfying synergy, the combat here is almost as standard as it gets for a modern handheld JRPG. Not a bad thing, but it's hard for me to get excited about this when something like The Alliance Alive arrived shortly after on this system. The most notable aspect is the grid-based movement & diversity of AoE/position-based abilities on offer. It's mostly harmless, and the difficulty balance is solid. Just don't get into this for the sake of challenging battles. You can mess with the optional ranch battles for a bit more loot & leveling, but I never finished that side-mode.
I hope this gets a proper remaster at some point. It's way more PoPoLoCrois than Story of Seasons, for the better I'd argue. Among XSEED's other localizations, this remains one of the most unsung, and changing that would be awesome.
The whole premise of a foreign country's purported leaders being parasitic conquerors of both your home & theirs gets things rolling. You go from a fun if slight celebration of Pietro's accomplishments to date (something I'll be more familiar with later) to getting marooned in a strange land, fighting on the backfoot. Early dungeons & world traversal hardly take much time. This definitely feels more like a JRPG for fans of towns & characters, less so encounters. Much of the game loop teeters between quick trips to your ranch (economy) & engaging with story areas and events.
Sorry Pokemon, but this adventure has the superior Galar(iland) region. Epics & Marvelous do a stellar job of balancing the new cast, populace, & worldbuilding with returning parts of the PoPoLoCrois world. I had such a smile on my face when finally getting to fight alongside a distraught GamiGami trying to regain his big bad status. Or how about realizing who the conspicuous wolf at your side really is? (An old friend indeed!) All the towns are fun to explore & talk your way through, and I certainly can't recall any bad dungeons...just some less than interesting ones.
While the farming & story elements have a satisfying synergy, the combat here is almost as standard as it gets for a modern handheld JRPG. Not a bad thing, but it's hard for me to get excited about this when something like The Alliance Alive arrived shortly after on this system. The most notable aspect is the grid-based movement & diversity of AoE/position-based abilities on offer. It's mostly harmless, and the difficulty balance is solid. Just don't get into this for the sake of challenging battles. You can mess with the optional ranch battles for a bit more loot & leveling, but I never finished that side-mode.
I hope this gets a proper remaster at some point. It's way more PoPoLoCrois than Story of Seasons, for the better I'd argue. Among XSEED's other localizations, this remains one of the most unsung, and changing that would be awesome.
1982
So it goes, the repeating blunders of pi(lots). I can't help but laugh every time I hit the green & go boom, knowing it's as much a technical choice as absurd design. Believability aside, it's nice to face consequences for mismanaging your velocity & inertia. Just dodging the targets and naught else would get dull, an adjective I simply can't slap on River Raid.
Carol Shaw knew a good role model when she saw one. Konami's Scramble isn't quite as well-recognized today for the precedents it set, both for arcade shooters & genres beyond. Yet she was quick to adapt that game's scrolling, segmented yet connected world into something the VCS could handle. Making any equivalent of a tiered power-up system was out of the question, but River Raid compensates with its little touches. The skill progression in this title really sneaks up on you, much to my delight.
Acceleration, deceleration, & yanking that yoke—combine that with fuel management, plus the scoring rubric, and it's a lot more to absorb than normal for a VCS shooter. I made it to 50k points before feeling sated, having cleared maybe a couple tens of stages (neatly separated by the bridges you demolish), and I could go for seconds. Maybe some extra time & finesse could have added more of a soundscape here, albeit limited by the POKEY like usual. But there's a completeness, the beginnings of verisimilitude in this genre which you only saw inklings of before on consoles. Scramble's paradigm had come to the Atari.
Shaw's coding smarts are all over this, too. From pseudo-random endless shooting, to the play area using mirrored sections to minimize flickering, River Raid pushes its technical tier even beyond the smooth vertical scrolling. Going from 3D Tic-Tac-Toe to this must have felt triumphant. Her later works for Activision across Intellivision & succeeding Atari consoles carry on the pedigree made clear here. Worry not over fears of River Raid's reputation being outdated or unearned, reader. It's a worthy highlight of the 2600 library which I could fire up anytime in any mood.
Carol Shaw knew a good role model when she saw one. Konami's Scramble isn't quite as well-recognized today for the precedents it set, both for arcade shooters & genres beyond. Yet she was quick to adapt that game's scrolling, segmented yet connected world into something the VCS could handle. Making any equivalent of a tiered power-up system was out of the question, but River Raid compensates with its little touches. The skill progression in this title really sneaks up on you, much to my delight.
Acceleration, deceleration, & yanking that yoke—combine that with fuel management, plus the scoring rubric, and it's a lot more to absorb than normal for a VCS shooter. I made it to 50k points before feeling sated, having cleared maybe a couple tens of stages (neatly separated by the bridges you demolish), and I could go for seconds. Maybe some extra time & finesse could have added more of a soundscape here, albeit limited by the POKEY like usual. But there's a completeness, the beginnings of verisimilitude in this genre which you only saw inklings of before on consoles. Scramble's paradigm had come to the Atari.
Shaw's coding smarts are all over this, too. From pseudo-random endless shooting, to the play area using mirrored sections to minimize flickering, River Raid pushes its technical tier even beyond the smooth vertical scrolling. Going from 3D Tic-Tac-Toe to this must have felt triumphant. Her later works for Activision across Intellivision & succeeding Atari consoles carry on the pedigree made clear here. Worry not over fears of River Raid's reputation being outdated or unearned, reader. It's a worthy highlight of the 2600 library which I could fire up anytime in any mood.
2000
Welcome to driving schools, pirate ships, dragon coasters...the stuff plastic dreams are made of. Too bad you have to run the place.
Maybe it's not so bad—in fact, it's comically easy. You do have a semblance of time limits in the later missions, but building and maintaining parks is very straightforward. I wish the developers hadn't missed the boat on RollerCoaster Tycoon's additions to the park tycoon format; this one's much closer to Theme Park. While I don't have anything against Bullfrog's game, Chris Sawyer had quickly advanced the genre's complexity without sacrificing accessibility for new players. Most importantly, RCT & its ilk were much more about creatively designing & planning your realm, not just working with repetitive prefabs.
This makes Legoland a solid enough Windows 9x tycoon romp, but a rather shallow one too. It's fine when you're starting with tutorials offering limited attractions, scenery, and staff to manage, yet it doesn't ramp up much beyond that. A lot of the budget instead went to making as sleek & colorful a package as Lego Media could muster, with memorable FMV movies and the like. Music & sound design's also pleasant on the ears, so I can't complain there. As a kid, this seemed like the coolest game, a better structured alternative to Lego Creator that also let me feel like I was at the parks.
Assuming you can get it running on your PC (I fear for Steam Deck users...), Legoland's a reliably entertaining example of how diverse Lego games once were. Its controls & QoL features are definitely dated, but you're rarely if ever challenged to the point that you'll need modern streamlining. (Not that I'd ever complain about folks modding this game to a higher tier than it currently sits in!) Temper you expectations, though. The repetition, somewhat low amount of content, & constrained potential for sandbox play makes this more of a one-and-done for me.
P.S. The game's spokesperson & tutorial guy wouldn't last a day on social media. What a clown.
Maybe it's not so bad—in fact, it's comically easy. You do have a semblance of time limits in the later missions, but building and maintaining parks is very straightforward. I wish the developers hadn't missed the boat on RollerCoaster Tycoon's additions to the park tycoon format; this one's much closer to Theme Park. While I don't have anything against Bullfrog's game, Chris Sawyer had quickly advanced the genre's complexity without sacrificing accessibility for new players. Most importantly, RCT & its ilk were much more about creatively designing & planning your realm, not just working with repetitive prefabs.
This makes Legoland a solid enough Windows 9x tycoon romp, but a rather shallow one too. It's fine when you're starting with tutorials offering limited attractions, scenery, and staff to manage, yet it doesn't ramp up much beyond that. A lot of the budget instead went to making as sleek & colorful a package as Lego Media could muster, with memorable FMV movies and the like. Music & sound design's also pleasant on the ears, so I can't complain there. As a kid, this seemed like the coolest game, a better structured alternative to Lego Creator that also let me feel like I was at the parks.
Assuming you can get it running on your PC (I fear for Steam Deck users...), Legoland's a reliably entertaining example of how diverse Lego games once were. Its controls & QoL features are definitely dated, but you're rarely if ever challenged to the point that you'll need modern streamlining. (Not that I'd ever complain about folks modding this game to a higher tier than it currently sits in!) Temper you expectations, though. The repetition, somewhat low amount of content, & constrained potential for sandbox play makes this more of a one-and-done for me.
P.S. The game's spokesperson & tutorial guy wouldn't last a day on social media. What a clown.
2013
To some, Hydlide's redemption. To me, a reminder of what already worked. Revived-lyde, if you will. /dadjoke
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.
Nostalgia is a fickle thing to design around. Lean too hard on it and your game's core will collapse under the pressure of memories. Promise but under-deliver and you'll turn players off in due time. Fairune isn't a lot more than polished pastiche-cum-homage, but I believe it takes the premise of 1984's Hydlide & adjacent games to near its limits. All the old elements are here, just refined for a newer, more critical audience.
Yes, once upon a time in a land not so far away, game fans got a lot of enjoyment from the most basic of adventures with stat progression. Hydlide took its essentials from Tower of Druaga, placing that game's schoolyard secrets manifesto into a home play venue. This makes it difficult, if not frustrating to play today for anyone expecting what most consider intuitive design. That said, I think too many dismiss not just what Hydlide accomplished in its time, but how elegant it was & still is. Sure, you're bumbling around an overworld & dungeons looking for any possible hint towards progress. But in this way, it succeeds in mixing the classic adventure, puzzle, & dungeon crawling genres, creating a journey both timely yet archetypal.
If Hydlide's the role-playing adventure that canon forgot (or too quickly disqualified), then Fairune's the rejuvenation of all T&E Soft's game represented. I had so much fun traversing this small but detailed land, uncovering its oddities and flowing from one power tier to the next. Here, the nostalgia comes less from simply aping its predecessors, hoping for an easy connection to players. Rather, the excellently presented fantasy world & tropes convey a kind of pre-Tolkein fiction, both celebrated & demystified. Out with the enigmatic solutions, in with the peeling skin of what Hydlide sought to achieve.
The final boss becoming a classic arcade shooter is a bit too cute, though. (Even considering Hydlide creator Tokihiro Naito's own penchant for STGs, this was too on-the-nose.) And the game can only immerse you so much into this primordial high fantasy structure without iterating on its mechanics the way Fairune 2 does. But I think Skipmore's original throwback ARPG is a panacea for any discussions revolving around Hydlide & its place in game design history. The original J-PC game made a critical leap from Druaga's coin-feeding gatekeeping to a more palatable, individualized experience you could still share with friends & other gamers. Fairune recaptures the novelty, strangeness, and sekaikan that Hydlide's fans felt in the mid-'80s, just for today's players.
Even if I much prefer the sequel for how it posits a world where Hydlide's sequels didn't overcomplicate themselves to ill end, there's every reason to replay the prequel. Do yourself a favor and try this out for size. It might have you thinking twice about laughing off proto-Zelda examples of the genre.
1983
Green the putt. Ball the club. Falcom the Nihon. Meme the name.
Before Nintendo & HAL Laboratory codified the bare basics of home golf games—graphical aiming, multi-step power bar, you know the drill—experiments like this obscure Falcom release were the norm. They weren't alone: everyone from Atari to T&E Soft tried their hand at making either casual putt romps or hardcore simulations. Both consoles & micro-computers of the era were hard-pressed to make golf feel fun, even if they could simplify or complexify it. As a regular cassette game coded in BASIC, Computer the Golf always had humble aims, uninterested in changing trends.
I still managed to have a good time despite the archaic mechanics & presentation, however. Each hole's sensibly designed & placed to reflect growing expectations for player skill. Your club variety & multi-step power bar (yes, these existed before Nintendo's Golf!) also make precision shots easier to achieve. For 3500 yen, players would have gotten decent value, especially if you wanted something from Falcom with more of a puzzle feel. There's also the requisite scorecard feature, plus cursor key controls at a time when most PC-88 & FM-7 releases stuck with numpad keys.
The game's code credits Norihiko Yaku as programmer, and very likely the only creator involved. It's hard to remember a time when just one person could make a fully-featured home game, let alone at Falcom prior to their massive '80s successes. I appreciate the quaintness & low stakes of this pre-Xanadu, pre-Ys software you'd just find on the shelf in a bag, sitting next to all those Apple II imports that started the company. Soon you'd have naught but xRPGs & graphic adventures from the studio, all requiring more and more talented people to create. Sorcerian & Legacy of the Wizard make no mention of bourgeois sports; that's for the rest of bubble-era Japan to covet!
Maybe this will remain a footnote, but it's an inoffensive one. It's ultimately one of the best J-PC sports games for its era, right alongside T&E Soft's fully 3D efforts. Paradigm shifts would come with No. 1 Golf on Sharp X1, then Nintendo's Golf and competing pro golf series from Enix & Telenet. The times were a-changin'.
Before Nintendo & HAL Laboratory codified the bare basics of home golf games—graphical aiming, multi-step power bar, you know the drill—experiments like this obscure Falcom release were the norm. They weren't alone: everyone from Atari to T&E Soft tried their hand at making either casual putt romps or hardcore simulations. Both consoles & micro-computers of the era were hard-pressed to make golf feel fun, even if they could simplify or complexify it. As a regular cassette game coded in BASIC, Computer the Golf always had humble aims, uninterested in changing trends.
I still managed to have a good time despite the archaic mechanics & presentation, however. Each hole's sensibly designed & placed to reflect growing expectations for player skill. Your club variety & multi-step power bar (yes, these existed before Nintendo's Golf!) also make precision shots easier to achieve. For 3500 yen, players would have gotten decent value, especially if you wanted something from Falcom with more of a puzzle feel. There's also the requisite scorecard feature, plus cursor key controls at a time when most PC-88 & FM-7 releases stuck with numpad keys.
The game's code credits Norihiko Yaku as programmer, and very likely the only creator involved. It's hard to remember a time when just one person could make a fully-featured home game, let alone at Falcom prior to their massive '80s successes. I appreciate the quaintness & low stakes of this pre-Xanadu, pre-Ys software you'd just find on the shelf in a bag, sitting next to all those Apple II imports that started the company. Soon you'd have naught but xRPGs & graphic adventures from the studio, all requiring more and more talented people to create. Sorcerian & Legacy of the Wizard make no mention of bourgeois sports; that's for the rest of bubble-era Japan to covet!
Maybe this will remain a footnote, but it's an inoffensive one. It's ultimately one of the best J-PC sports games for its era, right alongside T&E Soft's fully 3D efforts. Paradigm shifts would come with No. 1 Golf on Sharp X1, then Nintendo's Golf and competing pro golf series from Enix & Telenet. The times were a-changin'.
2000
You know not a lick of FOMO until you peer into the Library of Babel that is original The Sims modding homepages. I ended up spending so much time modding this game that I realized I'd be better off messing around with the official expansions instead. And then I remembered that The Sims 2 effectively carries over all the original game's charm, and then some. Then again, I think the Second Life community inherited more of the "casual fever dream" creative aspirations that had been possessing social games like this since the days of MUDs (let alone worlds.com).
As something I played all the way back in kindergarten, not understanding an iota of the classic Maxis humor & sim details, The Sims has maintained its mystique well into modern day. From impromptu fires to questionable adulting skills, there's just a lot to take in whenever you start playing a new family. I learned how to play rotationally here before moving on to the sequels, knowing those would be even more intimidating. Consider this the training grounds for getting the most out of the series proper, perhaps.
One thing The Sims 2, 3, and definitely 4 are lacking in is Jerry Martin. His iteration on the long-form improvisations of virtuosos like Keith Jarrett & George Winston always puts a smile on my face, even knowing how simple, even workmanlike the chord cycles are. And the eclectic mix of big band, latin, & fusion jazz elsewhere sets this well apart from the more hyperactive, genre-agnostic work Mark Mothersbaugh excels at in the sequels. All in all, the audio direction is so damn focused.
Even if you skip this for more moddable, sophisticated series entries, it's both a fun nostalgia trip & one of the not-so-secretly best sim game soundtracks ever. The Sims remains very accessible today thanks to new installers & quality-of-life mods, plus a clean user interface enabling you in all the key areas. This was the Little Computer People of the Internet, even more than early MMOs like Ultima Online hinted at. A timeline w/o Maxis' quintessential suburban simulator would look unrecognizable, and I'm not sure I'd want it any other way.
As something I played all the way back in kindergarten, not understanding an iota of the classic Maxis humor & sim details, The Sims has maintained its mystique well into modern day. From impromptu fires to questionable adulting skills, there's just a lot to take in whenever you start playing a new family. I learned how to play rotationally here before moving on to the sequels, knowing those would be even more intimidating. Consider this the training grounds for getting the most out of the series proper, perhaps.
One thing The Sims 2, 3, and definitely 4 are lacking in is Jerry Martin. His iteration on the long-form improvisations of virtuosos like Keith Jarrett & George Winston always puts a smile on my face, even knowing how simple, even workmanlike the chord cycles are. And the eclectic mix of big band, latin, & fusion jazz elsewhere sets this well apart from the more hyperactive, genre-agnostic work Mark Mothersbaugh excels at in the sequels. All in all, the audio direction is so damn focused.
Even if you skip this for more moddable, sophisticated series entries, it's both a fun nostalgia trip & one of the not-so-secretly best sim game soundtracks ever. The Sims remains very accessible today thanks to new installers & quality-of-life mods, plus a clean user interface enabling you in all the key areas. This was the Little Computer People of the Internet, even more than early MMOs like Ultima Online hinted at. A timeline w/o Maxis' quintessential suburban simulator would look unrecognizable, and I'm not sure I'd want it any other way.
1978
And we can try, to understand,
The Atari games' effect on Nam[co]
Whether you're a plumber or a cute dungeon crawler, you're indebted to Nam, you're indebted to Nam. But it's not alright—it's not even okay. And I can't look the other way. Toru Iwatani's first game shows all the growing pains & missteps you'd expect from an arcade developer dabbling in microchip games after years of electromechanical (eremeka) products. It's more than a curio, though. The beginnings of Pac-Man's cheeky fun show up even this early, if you can believe it. Just know it's not the real deal—the Hee Bee Gee Bees, if you will.
Speaking later in his career, an Iwatani then swamped with management duties asserted that "making video games is an act of kindness to others, a tangible gift of happiness." This axiom of purpose comes after his own complaints about the stagnation of '80s game centers, then flush with shoot-em-ups and less-than-innovative software. Around 1987, even Namco's own arcade output had trailed off in mechanical ambition, trading out the derring-do of Dragon Buster for the excellent but conventional Dragon Spirit. One could argue he had rose-tinted glasses this early, ignoring all the clones and production frenzy of Golden Age arcade games like his own. But he's arguing most for elegance and player-first design, something attempted with Gee Bee.
Conceived as a compromise between the pinball tables he wanted to make and Pres. Nakamura & co.'s interest in imports like Breakout, their 1978 debut had ambitions. It's an early go at combining multiple mechanics and score strategies found in Steve Wozniak's creation and post-war pinball designs. Anyone walking by the cab would see the vague, amusing outline of a human face made from barriers & breakables. Together with the requisite comical marquee & paddle, this would have seemed familiar enough to players at the time while enticing them with novelty. What's the bee chipping away at? Are we stinging our selves with delight as the blocks dissipate, our attacks moving faster and faster? That kind of imagination springs forth from even a premise as simple as this.
I'm sad to say that the mind-meld of pinball and electronic squash just wasn't feasible this early on. Gee Bee offers neither the flash and nuances of the best flipper games Chicago could offer, nor the pure and addictive game loop Wozniak wrought from Clean Sweep. Iwatani and his co-developers hamstrung themselves by refusing to commit one way or the other. There's a few too many ways to screw yourself over in Gee Bee, from less intuitive physics to the screen resetting every time you lose a ball. Inability to reach high scores is one thing, but that denial of progress is a buzzkill. All your careful threading of the needle to hit all the NAMCO letters for the multiplier can go to waste in an instant. All the patience needed to clear one upper half, thus blocking the ball from a previously open tunnel, feels like a cruel joke.
If what I'm saying gives you the heebie-jeebies, then don't overthink it. The game's recognizable to modern players, and fun for a little bit at least. But there's just no longevity here except for ardent score seekers. I can see why, for all of Namco's work to promote it, Gee Bee didn't take off at home or abroad. Space Invaders had innovated upon the destructive form of Pong that Breakout started, while this feels like an evolutionary dead-end. Bomb Bee & Cutie Q would try to salvage this with some success, of course. I'm just unsurprised that Iwatani learned from the mistakes made here, keeping that focus on levity & eclectic design in Pac-Man & Libble Rabble. On a technical level, this board still has some positives of note, mainly its fluidity & amount of color vs. the rest of the market. It's worth a try for historic value, and a sneak peek of the game development ethos Iwatani spread to other Namco notables in the coming years.
The Atari games' effect on Nam[co]
Whether you're a plumber or a cute dungeon crawler, you're indebted to Nam, you're indebted to Nam. But it's not alright—it's not even okay. And I can't look the other way. Toru Iwatani's first game shows all the growing pains & missteps you'd expect from an arcade developer dabbling in microchip games after years of electromechanical (eremeka) products. It's more than a curio, though. The beginnings of Pac-Man's cheeky fun show up even this early, if you can believe it. Just know it's not the real deal—the Hee Bee Gee Bees, if you will.
Speaking later in his career, an Iwatani then swamped with management duties asserted that "making video games is an act of kindness to others, a tangible gift of happiness." This axiom of purpose comes after his own complaints about the stagnation of '80s game centers, then flush with shoot-em-ups and less-than-innovative software. Around 1987, even Namco's own arcade output had trailed off in mechanical ambition, trading out the derring-do of Dragon Buster for the excellent but conventional Dragon Spirit. One could argue he had rose-tinted glasses this early, ignoring all the clones and production frenzy of Golden Age arcade games like his own. But he's arguing most for elegance and player-first design, something attempted with Gee Bee.
Conceived as a compromise between the pinball tables he wanted to make and Pres. Nakamura & co.'s interest in imports like Breakout, their 1978 debut had ambitions. It's an early go at combining multiple mechanics and score strategies found in Steve Wozniak's creation and post-war pinball designs. Anyone walking by the cab would see the vague, amusing outline of a human face made from barriers & breakables. Together with the requisite comical marquee & paddle, this would have seemed familiar enough to players at the time while enticing them with novelty. What's the bee chipping away at? Are we stinging our selves with delight as the blocks dissipate, our attacks moving faster and faster? That kind of imagination springs forth from even a premise as simple as this.
I'm sad to say that the mind-meld of pinball and electronic squash just wasn't feasible this early on. Gee Bee offers neither the flash and nuances of the best flipper games Chicago could offer, nor the pure and addictive game loop Wozniak wrought from Clean Sweep. Iwatani and his co-developers hamstrung themselves by refusing to commit one way or the other. There's a few too many ways to screw yourself over in Gee Bee, from less intuitive physics to the screen resetting every time you lose a ball. Inability to reach high scores is one thing, but that denial of progress is a buzzkill. All your careful threading of the needle to hit all the NAMCO letters for the multiplier can go to waste in an instant. All the patience needed to clear one upper half, thus blocking the ball from a previously open tunnel, feels like a cruel joke.
If what I'm saying gives you the heebie-jeebies, then don't overthink it. The game's recognizable to modern players, and fun for a little bit at least. But there's just no longevity here except for ardent score seekers. I can see why, for all of Namco's work to promote it, Gee Bee didn't take off at home or abroad. Space Invaders had innovated upon the destructive form of Pong that Breakout started, while this feels like an evolutionary dead-end. Bomb Bee & Cutie Q would try to salvage this with some success, of course. I'm just unsurprised that Iwatani learned from the mistakes made here, keeping that focus on levity & eclectic design in Pac-Man & Libble Rabble. On a technical level, this board still has some positives of note, mainly its fluidity & amount of color vs. the rest of the market. It's worth a try for historic value, and a sneak peek of the game development ethos Iwatani spread to other Namco notables in the coming years.
1979
As said by a wise old sage: "be rootin', be tootin', and by Kong be shootin'...but most of all, be kind."
Everyone remembered the OK Corral differently. The Earps and feuding families each had their self-serving accounts of the shootout. John Ford, Stuart Lake, and other myth-makers turned the participants into legends, models of masculinity, freedom-seekers, and a long-lost Old West But the truth's rarely so glamorous or controversial. Just as the OK Corral gunfight never took place in the corral itself, Nintendo's Sheriff was never just the handiwork of a newly-hired Shigeru Miyamoto. How vexing it is that the echoes of Western mythologizing reach this far!
I am exaggerating a bit with regards to how Nintendo fans & gamers at large view this game. Miyamoto's almost always discussed in relation to Sheriff as an artist & assistant designer, not the producer (that'll be Genyo Takeda, later of StarTropics fame). That's not to diminish what the famous creator did contribute. While Nintendo largely put out clones and what I'd charitably call "experiments" by this point, their '79 twin-stick shooter defies that trend. It's still a bit rough-hewn, like any old cowboy, yet very fun and replayable.
Compared to earlier efforts like Western Gun & Boot Hill, there's more creative bending of Wild West stereotypes here, to mixed results. Though not the first major arcade game with an intermission, the scenes here are cute, a sign that the Not Yet Very Big N's developers were quick to match their competition. I do take umbrage with translating Space Invaders' aliens to bandits, though. Sure, this long predates modern discussions about negative stereotyping in games media, but that hardly disqualifies it. Let's just say that this game's rather unkind to its characters, from the doofy-looking lawman to his blatant damsel-in-distress & beyond. Respect to the condor, though. That's some gumption, flying above the fray on this baleful night, just askin' fer a plummet.
The brilliant part here is giving you solid twin-stick controls for moving & shooting well ahead of Midway's Robotron 2084. The dim bit is those enemy bullets, slow as molasses and firing only in cardinal directions. Normally you or the operator could just flip a DIP switch to raise the difficulty, but those options are absent too. What results is a fun, but relatively easy take on the Invaders template, one which rewards you a bit too much prior to developing the skills encouraged in Taito's originals. For example, it's much easier to aggressively fire here than to take cover, given the easily ignorable shields & posts. Your dexterity here compared to Space Invaders, or even Galaxian, tends to outweigh your opponents, for better and worse.
A counter-example comes when a few bandits charge into the corral, able to lunge at you if you trot too close. This spike in danger is exciting, an alternative to Galaxian's waves system which similarly revolutionizes your play-space. Where once you could just snipe at leisure, now you have to keep distance or get stabbed in the back! Of course, ranged exchanges were all that happened at the OK Corral. A little artistic liberty playing up the tropes can work out after all. Perhaps our strapping Roy Rogers believes in good 'ol fashioned marksmanship; he's a fool to deny himself fisticuffs, but a brave one.
When I'm not gunning down the circle of knives or playing matador with them, I think about how simple but compelling the game's premise is. We've gone from one Wild West tropset (the Mexican standoffs seen in Gunman & its ilk) to another, more politically charged one. You may be a lone marshall, but not much more than a deputized gang shooter. The game inadvertently conveys a message of liquid morality & primacy of who's more immediately anthropomorphic—empowering the Stetson hat over the sombrero. All basic American History 101 stuff, but displayed this vividly, this blatantly in a game this early? This seems less so Miyamoto's charm, more so his accidental wit.
Life's just too easy for the Wyatt Earps of this fictionalized, simplistic world. Another round in the corral, another kiss in the saloon, rinse and repeat. Maybe I'm giving too much credit to a one-and-done go at complexifying the paradigm Taito started, but it's filling food for thought. I highly recommend at least trying Sheriff today just to experience its odd thrills & ersatz yet perceptive view of the corral shootout tradition. The Fords & Miyamotos of the world, working with film & video games in their infancy, had a knack for making the most of limited possibilities. For all my misgivings, the distorted tales of the Old West are ample fodder for a destructive ride on the joysticks. Sheriff's team would go on to make works as iconic as Donkey Kong, so why downplay their earliest attempts to work with material as iconic as this?
I'm sure Sheriff will came back 'round these parts, like a tumbleweed hops from Hollywood ghost towns to the raster screen. Don't lemme see ya causin' trouble in The Old MAME, son.
Everyone remembered the OK Corral differently. The Earps and feuding families each had their self-serving accounts of the shootout. John Ford, Stuart Lake, and other myth-makers turned the participants into legends, models of masculinity, freedom-seekers, and a long-lost Old West But the truth's rarely so glamorous or controversial. Just as the OK Corral gunfight never took place in the corral itself, Nintendo's Sheriff was never just the handiwork of a newly-hired Shigeru Miyamoto. How vexing it is that the echoes of Western mythologizing reach this far!
I am exaggerating a bit with regards to how Nintendo fans & gamers at large view this game. Miyamoto's almost always discussed in relation to Sheriff as an artist & assistant designer, not the producer (that'll be Genyo Takeda, later of StarTropics fame). That's not to diminish what the famous creator did contribute. While Nintendo largely put out clones and what I'd charitably call "experiments" by this point, their '79 twin-stick shooter defies that trend. It's still a bit rough-hewn, like any old cowboy, yet very fun and replayable.
Compared to earlier efforts like Western Gun & Boot Hill, there's more creative bending of Wild West stereotypes here, to mixed results. Though not the first major arcade game with an intermission, the scenes here are cute, a sign that the Not Yet Very Big N's developers were quick to match their competition. I do take umbrage with translating Space Invaders' aliens to bandits, though. Sure, this long predates modern discussions about negative stereotyping in games media, but that hardly disqualifies it. Let's just say that this game's rather unkind to its characters, from the doofy-looking lawman to his blatant damsel-in-distress & beyond. Respect to the condor, though. That's some gumption, flying above the fray on this baleful night, just askin' fer a plummet.
The brilliant part here is giving you solid twin-stick controls for moving & shooting well ahead of Midway's Robotron 2084. The dim bit is those enemy bullets, slow as molasses and firing only in cardinal directions. Normally you or the operator could just flip a DIP switch to raise the difficulty, but those options are absent too. What results is a fun, but relatively easy take on the Invaders template, one which rewards you a bit too much prior to developing the skills encouraged in Taito's originals. For example, it's much easier to aggressively fire here than to take cover, given the easily ignorable shields & posts. Your dexterity here compared to Space Invaders, or even Galaxian, tends to outweigh your opponents, for better and worse.
A counter-example comes when a few bandits charge into the corral, able to lunge at you if you trot too close. This spike in danger is exciting, an alternative to Galaxian's waves system which similarly revolutionizes your play-space. Where once you could just snipe at leisure, now you have to keep distance or get stabbed in the back! Of course, ranged exchanges were all that happened at the OK Corral. A little artistic liberty playing up the tropes can work out after all. Perhaps our strapping Roy Rogers believes in good 'ol fashioned marksmanship; he's a fool to deny himself fisticuffs, but a brave one.
When I'm not gunning down the circle of knives or playing matador with them, I think about how simple but compelling the game's premise is. We've gone from one Wild West tropset (the Mexican standoffs seen in Gunman & its ilk) to another, more politically charged one. You may be a lone marshall, but not much more than a deputized gang shooter. The game inadvertently conveys a message of liquid morality & primacy of who's more immediately anthropomorphic—empowering the Stetson hat over the sombrero. All basic American History 101 stuff, but displayed this vividly, this blatantly in a game this early? This seems less so Miyamoto's charm, more so his accidental wit.
Life's just too easy for the Wyatt Earps of this fictionalized, simplistic world. Another round in the corral, another kiss in the saloon, rinse and repeat. Maybe I'm giving too much credit to a one-and-done go at complexifying the paradigm Taito started, but it's filling food for thought. I highly recommend at least trying Sheriff today just to experience its odd thrills & ersatz yet perceptive view of the corral shootout tradition. The Fords & Miyamotos of the world, working with film & video games in their infancy, had a knack for making the most of limited possibilities. For all my misgivings, the distorted tales of the Old West are ample fodder for a destructive ride on the joysticks. Sheriff's team would go on to make works as iconic as Donkey Kong, so why downplay their earliest attempts to work with material as iconic as this?
I'm sure Sheriff will came back 'round these parts, like a tumbleweed hops from Hollywood ghost towns to the raster screen. Don't lemme see ya causin' trouble in The Old MAME, son.
2011
More like a last resort, but hey, gotta use those air miles.
Wuhu Island seems like a downgrade from the charcuterie board that is Pilotwings 64's islands. You're forever going to squint into the twilight while riding thermals, or futzing around behind the volcano in a jetpack thinking "I could be in Little States right now, sneaking into airplane garages for shits 'n' giggles." Thankfully there's still a rock-solid game here, building off PW64's knack for mission design and controls.
Pretty much every vehicle feels as good here, if not better, from the training plane to the pedal glider. (I'm a big fan of the latter, a beefed-up hang glider with more room for error and skillful control). Knocking out the early challenges to organically unlock the second-tier ride types is as fun as you'd hope for. And to their credit, Monster Games understands how to subtly haul you around the island between missions, switching up the scale & sightlines of your aerial trip with ease.
I still think the minigames, fun as they are, aren't anywhere near good as the original game's attack 'copter mission, nor the cannon & hopper you could abuse in PW64. The squirrel suit seems very underutilized for all you could do with it; no "dive through portals!" mission sticks in my mind. And the free-flight mode takes one step forward with collecting the hints, but a gorillion steps back via that time limit. Did they just not understand the appeal of traveling the world in PW64's Birdman suit, or were they just too self-conscious about only having one island to work with?
Except they have the golf island, which also goes relatively ignored aside from the fight against Meca Hawk. Bringing that big 'ol box of bolts back was awesome and hilarious (a set of missions involving it would have been even better). Truth be told, it's only the clever reuse of such limited content in Pilotwings Resort that earns it that last half-star. I love the polished game loop, replaying missions for better ranks, etc. But you'd think Nintendo would have afforded Monster Games a few more months to add more, at least in terms of modes, mission variations, and an unlockable Birdman.
As the last Pilotwings we might ever see, given the corp's disinterest in the franchise, it's a nice stopping point for sure. I'm perhaps a bit biased as this was my early-adopted 3DS exclusive of choice, but it's very much worth a visit to Wuhu on these wings of music if you get the chance. (Or, you know, cross the high seas to reach the island.) At least you'll have some outright jammin' funk & fusion hitting your ears, and an excellent implementation of 3D back when it seemed like just a novelty.
Anyway, either I'm going to end up finding some new indie take on the Pilotwings concept or it's high time someone like me makes a fully-fledged revival of it.
Wuhu Island seems like a downgrade from the charcuterie board that is Pilotwings 64's islands. You're forever going to squint into the twilight while riding thermals, or futzing around behind the volcano in a jetpack thinking "I could be in Little States right now, sneaking into airplane garages for shits 'n' giggles." Thankfully there's still a rock-solid game here, building off PW64's knack for mission design and controls.
Pretty much every vehicle feels as good here, if not better, from the training plane to the pedal glider. (I'm a big fan of the latter, a beefed-up hang glider with more room for error and skillful control). Knocking out the early challenges to organically unlock the second-tier ride types is as fun as you'd hope for. And to their credit, Monster Games understands how to subtly haul you around the island between missions, switching up the scale & sightlines of your aerial trip with ease.
I still think the minigames, fun as they are, aren't anywhere near good as the original game's attack 'copter mission, nor the cannon & hopper you could abuse in PW64. The squirrel suit seems very underutilized for all you could do with it; no "dive through portals!" mission sticks in my mind. And the free-flight mode takes one step forward with collecting the hints, but a gorillion steps back via that time limit. Did they just not understand the appeal of traveling the world in PW64's Birdman suit, or were they just too self-conscious about only having one island to work with?
Except they have the golf island, which also goes relatively ignored aside from the fight against Meca Hawk. Bringing that big 'ol box of bolts back was awesome and hilarious (a set of missions involving it would have been even better). Truth be told, it's only the clever reuse of such limited content in Pilotwings Resort that earns it that last half-star. I love the polished game loop, replaying missions for better ranks, etc. But you'd think Nintendo would have afforded Monster Games a few more months to add more, at least in terms of modes, mission variations, and an unlockable Birdman.
As the last Pilotwings we might ever see, given the corp's disinterest in the franchise, it's a nice stopping point for sure. I'm perhaps a bit biased as this was my early-adopted 3DS exclusive of choice, but it's very much worth a visit to Wuhu on these wings of music if you get the chance. (Or, you know, cross the high seas to reach the island.) At least you'll have some outright jammin' funk & fusion hitting your ears, and an excellent implementation of 3D back when it seemed like just a novelty.
Anyway, either I'm going to end up finding some new indie take on the Pilotwings concept or it's high time someone like me makes a fully-fledged revival of it.
1993
It's no Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, but I'd prefer it be a well-designed puzzler than a mere funny PC-98 meme. Sex 2 ahem
Bit^2's 1993 train-crash avoidance simulator starts you off with an egghead of a railway operator asking you to manually operate their trains. Why? All the company's sensors & computers have gone haywire, and only you have the skills to run it all until it's fixed! Simple enough, just give me the master control panel and—oh, wait, I have to flip every little switch. Every train's gotta pick up their passengers or cargo, then make it safely to the exit. Someone's gonna owe me money after this job.
Chitty Chitty Train leaves you plenty compensated, thankfully. The game's mouse controls are smooth yet precise. Its audiovisuals are rock solid, from jaunty chiptune marches to the intricate pixel art. (Seriously, why doesn't this title get more attention from PC-X8 art rebloggers and art bots?! The eroge picks are getting old, fellas.) And just like you'd expect from a meticulous PC puzzler from this era a la Lemmings, each level offers plenty of challenge. Well-designed challenges, might I add.
We're far from Transport Tycoon and its descendants here, with nary an automatic timetable at hand. Think of it more like an arcade-y, non-sim distillation of A-Train's transit mechanics. All your train scheduling happens through manually clicking on switches, calculating how long different types of cars will travel the circuit you put them on. Quite a few early puzzles give you very limited headroom, stacking multiple moving engines across shared track they'll easily bash heads on. Planning your moves and switch timing is the meta, but a good amount of improvisation can help when least expected. It hardly feels like a train version of Sokoban, where you're so obviously restricted and can only realistically solve the puzzle in a given way.
Best of all, there's a map maker! Creating and sharing your levels via the game disk might have mattered more back in its heyday, but Chitty Chitty Train's such a small game in size that it's trivial now. You can try it out today via PC-98 emulators (hint: check a certain Archive), and I think any fans of old-school logic games will get plenty out of this very overlooked romp. Although the game's always had English menus, the recent fan patch does translate the opening if you're interested.
Bit^2's 1993 train-crash avoidance simulator starts you off with an egghead of a railway operator asking you to manually operate their trains. Why? All the company's sensors & computers have gone haywire, and only you have the skills to run it all until it's fixed! Simple enough, just give me the master control panel and—oh, wait, I have to flip every little switch. Every train's gotta pick up their passengers or cargo, then make it safely to the exit. Someone's gonna owe me money after this job.
Chitty Chitty Train leaves you plenty compensated, thankfully. The game's mouse controls are smooth yet precise. Its audiovisuals are rock solid, from jaunty chiptune marches to the intricate pixel art. (Seriously, why doesn't this title get more attention from PC-X8 art rebloggers and art bots?! The eroge picks are getting old, fellas.) And just like you'd expect from a meticulous PC puzzler from this era a la Lemmings, each level offers plenty of challenge. Well-designed challenges, might I add.
We're far from Transport Tycoon and its descendants here, with nary an automatic timetable at hand. Think of it more like an arcade-y, non-sim distillation of A-Train's transit mechanics. All your train scheduling happens through manually clicking on switches, calculating how long different types of cars will travel the circuit you put them on. Quite a few early puzzles give you very limited headroom, stacking multiple moving engines across shared track they'll easily bash heads on. Planning your moves and switch timing is the meta, but a good amount of improvisation can help when least expected. It hardly feels like a train version of Sokoban, where you're so obviously restricted and can only realistically solve the puzzle in a given way.
Best of all, there's a map maker! Creating and sharing your levels via the game disk might have mattered more back in its heyday, but Chitty Chitty Train's such a small game in size that it's trivial now. You can try it out today via PC-98 emulators (hint: check a certain Archive), and I think any fans of old-school logic games will get plenty out of this very overlooked romp. Although the game's always had English menus, the recent fan patch does translate the opening if you're interested.