Wiki Project: Legend of the PC Engine '92-'94

It's past time to conclude the HuCard (or TurboChip) era and move onto new wiki pastures, but before we say goodbye to the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16's proprietary format forever it's time for one last Wiki Project update.

If you've been following my PC Engine adventures so far - here are the rundowns for 1989, 1990 and 1991 for a refresher - you'll know that by the early 90s the PC Engine was winding down in the face of the overwhelming technological might of its 16-bit generation contemporaries. The PC Engine was the first to arrive with 16-bit graphical power, but lacked an equivalent processor and CPU and all the other hardware gubbins to be truly 16-bit - not in the way the Genesis and SNES were, at any rate. Having a CD-based peripheral didn't entirely fix this problem either; even with the increased memory size and redbook audio, the games were still limited by the system's performance, which only saw a handful of RAM updates in its lifespan. I guess that's kind of the danger of going first with a lot of that tech: you also end up being the first to leave.

The HuCard format in particular waned significantly as the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 got older, with almost all its third-party developers opting (so to speak) for optical media because of how much they offered and how easy they were to produce. 1992 saw a total of twenty-nine HuCard games released in Japan, and 1993 and 1994 saw a total of twelve combined. Those numbers include fifteen TurboGrafx-16 games I've already covered elsewhere, so we're drawing from a pool of twenty-six PC Engine exclusives for the following lists. As such, I've dropped them to top fives instead of top tens.

As always, we start with a list of games I consider to be the most worthy of note of this batch - "interesting" in the most ambiguous sense - followed by a list of games I'm surprised were never localized for the North American market. (Worth keeping in mind here that HuCard games were still being localized right up until 1993 with the likes of Bomberman '93 and Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure.)

Top Five "Interesting" Games

	Toilet Kids: The scatological comedy platformer game Kato-chan & Ken-chan was infamously neutered for its North American equivalent JJ & Jeff, removing a lot of the standout puerile gags that could've covered for the game's mechanical deficits had they been left unscathed. There was no hope of bowdlerizing the equally poop- and penis-preoccupied shoot 'em up Toilet Kids however, and it wasn't that decent of a shoot 'em up to go through all the trouble of editing out approximately half of its enemies and backgrounds. Toilet Kids has some notoriety for its low-brow goofs, but is better known as being the classic case of a weird Japanese shoot 'em up; the sort that frequently appears on the PC Engine. It's pretty much the kind of game that the term "kusoge" was invented for. (3/6/1992.)
	The Tower of Druaga: Generally speaking Namco's The Tower of Druaga would be interesting for its historical status as a JRPG precursor, but that's more the domain of a series that focuses on early exemplars of that particular genre or a feature on Arcade games of the 1980s that pre-empted a lot of what be considered the big console genres of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras: platformers, RPGs, adventure games, etc. Rather, The Tower of Druaga for the PC Engine is fascinating on its own merits for what this enhanced remake opted to prioritize. Back when it was released in 1992, the original 1984 Arcade game was beyond hoary at that juncture, and so the game injects new life into the adventures of Gilgamesh by leaning hard on the original's nascent RPG aspirations. There's now more focus on equipping new armor and weapons, building up stats between each level and uncovering the game's many secrets with an in-game hint system delivered by the Goddess Ishtar, whereas previously they were just mysteries to be discussed among the inquisitive fans who came across them. It paradoxically feels archaic and new, like comparing a modern Ys game to its 1980s antecedents: a lot of the same elements, especially the look and the feel, are still there but years of incremental progress in the field of game design has made its presence felt. (6/25/1992.)
	Gekisha Boy: Running into similar localization problems as Toilet Kids, but with an added dose of nudity and copyrighted references, Gekisha ("Photography") Boy is a genuinely great game with a brilliant idea for a gameplay premise - one that Pokemon Snap would later use to moderate success, as you move on-rails through environments and need to seize on any and all split-second opportunities for a perfect photo - and a whole lot of daft humor. It's fairly punishing too, forcing the player to carefully memorize levels to know when and where to snap a picture for the high score total needed to progress, and some fast reflexes to avoid the various flashing objects thrown their way. (10/2/1992.)
	Momotarou Densetsu Gaiden Dai 1-Shu: Hudson's Momotarou games, whether they were the Densetsu RPGs or the Dentetsu railroad board games, are deeply entrenched in Japanese folklore (and Japanese humor) in a manner similar to Konami's Ganbare Goemon series. In this Gaiden game, the focus switches from the titular Peach Boy to three other unusual heroes, each of which offering a campaign with an entirely different structure. In a sense, it's Hudson chasing the model that made Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen stand out in its own series, putting you in the traditional hero role one minute and then as Princess of the Underworld or a kleptomaniac the next. (12/4/1992.)
	21 Emon: Mezase! Hotel Ou: 21 Emon is "interesting" for the dubious distinction of being the last official HuCard game ever produced, but it's also distinctive enough to be considered for this list irrespective of that fact. As a young hotel baron in the near future where friendly aliens are commonplace, this adaptation of an obscure anime tries to be three different board games at once: a property/rent commerce game like Monopoly, a "Game of Life" game with all its requisite random chance events, and something approaching a proto-Mario Party with end-of-turn mini-games that allow flagging players to close the distance cash-wise provided their memory or reflexes are up to the challenge. (12/16/1994.)

"Why Was This Not a Thing?"

	Mizubaku Daibouken: Better known as Liquid Kids, Taito's side-scrolling platformer attempts to transform their Bubble Bobble games into one with a more standard and contemporary approach to level design, but in the process robs what made Bubble Bobble and its sequels so special. Still, there aren't many games out there that let you play as an adorable platypus. At any rate, its tenuous gameplay link to Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars meant it could easily be marketed as part of the same group, and those games all did gangbusters for Taito overseas. (1/17/1992.)
	Ninja Ryuukenden: As in, Ninja Gaiden. Tecmo's first outing of Ryu Hayabusa was a bona fide hit for the NES, and there's little reason why the TurboGrafx-16 publishers didn't think to bring this graphically improved version over. The PC Engine Ninja Gaiden has its little gameplay quirks that perhaps prevents it from being on the same tier as its NES incarnation, but the 16-bit visuals would've surely corrected that imbalance when it came time to promote it. (1/24/1992)
	Cyber Dodge: Cyber Dodge landed in an era where people were becoming more conducive to grimmer narratives. The age of McFarlane (the Spawn one, not the Family Guy one) and Liefeld was upon us, and a game like Cyber Dodge which was filled with rad heavy metal gladiators, skeletons, terminator robots, dumpy Warhammer aliens, and floating Mortal Kombat robed figures would've hit that market just right. Dodgeball isn't exactly unknown to the States where it is so often the painful bane of many a middle-school student, and the game plays very similarly to the NES classic Super Dodgeball complete with special power throws unique to each team. We're also talking Compile here; the developer behind the Crush/Crash series of pinball games that were hits for the system in North America. (1/31/1992.)
	Parodius Da!: My reasons for including this one are a bit specious, given the SNES release of this game was only a localization success for Europe. In fact, there's never been an official release of a Parodius game in the States, though most still know it from its reputation. Parodius Da! is the second game in the series, but the first to be widely ported for various systems - it reached the NES, SNES, Game Boy, PC Engine, PlayStation, Saturn and Sharp X68000, the first three of which saw European localizations. If TurboGrafx-16 owners were sticking to their console for one reason, it was for all the wacky shoot 'em ups that were showing up for it, and you can't beat Parodius for that very specific model of game. The English localization in Europe, also released in 1992, meant Konami wouldn't have had to do much more work to make it ready for North America either, though I can concede the point that bringing the SNES version over would've made more sense. (2/21/1992.)
	Stratego: I'm still baffled that the PC Engine saw its own version of Stratego, albeit a very limited one-player version, and didn't think to localize it for North America. Stratego wasn't exactly invented in the States - various sources originally have it as either a Chinese, French or Dutch game, its long history making it difficult to pinpoint - but is widely loved over there for its simplicity. Well, once you understand what all the various pieces do. If I learned anything from working on a lot of NES and SNES pages, video games that were US-developed for a predominantly US market tended to be those based on licensed properties that were simply "games" of another phylum: professional sports, game shows and board games in particular. It's not like this was some bizarre homegrown Japanese version that made it play more like shogi or something either; it's a conversion of a home computer game put out by Accolade, for goshsakes. (7/24/1992.)

That's going to do it for this HuCard wiki venture. Thanks again to all who reads and comments on these features, and those that maintain the many anglophone PC Engine informational fansites out there. The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 has always enthralled the retro gaming community for being this missing link few know anything about, and those sites are demonstrable proof that the same mystique that captivated me enough to start perusing its libraries way back when starting the TurboMento-12 feature has inspired endless others to a similar extent. The TurboGrafx-16 is a footnote in many respects, especially in the US where it failed to make much of an impression or Europe where it sold in extremely limited quantities, but it's also responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs - the first console to employ 16-bit graphics and the first to integrate a CD drive and CD-based format - in video gaming history.

When I return to NEC/Hudson's little white box one final time, it'll be to check out the many Japan-only CD-ROM games that the system saw between 1988 and 1999. For the time being, however, I'll be working on some smaller miscellaneous projects here and there. In all likelihood, the next Wiki Project blog will cover the games demonstrated in January 2017's Awesome Games Done Quick speedrun charity event, so I'll see you all then.