Jagur: Golden Triangle (1987) Hudson Soft MSX

Jagur: Golden Triangle

Hudson soft, recently departed, is known to modern and "casual" retro gamers chiefly for their Bomberman and Adventure Island games. Hudson soft began releasing games in 1983, for a variety of Japanese home computers, including the FM-7, NEC PC-6001, NEC PC-8801 and the MSX. And while many games Hudson released on computer platforms would eventually find their way to a home console, such as Bomberman or Binary Land, not all did.

Such was the case of Jagur: Golden Triangle (also known as Jagur 5), a very early-looking proto action RPG from 1987.

The plot concerns the main character trying to find his comrades after a plain crash, and also beating some dictator along the way.

The first level is the most unique, as one has to go into different shops, trying to find your randomly placed comrades and getting them back, though some refuse to join you unless you have a gun and or some "drugs" for them. You acquire money by going around and shooting respawning enemies and picking up loot, until you have bought everyone guns and other necessary equipment, whereafter you will be allowed to "rent" a jeep and exit the level.

The next, the jungle, is your hub, in which you go back and forth, accessing the five levels at your disposal through obvious gates, provided you got the necessary equipment from the right huts, like a rocket launcher to blast open walls.

Each level has a different objective: In the shaolin temple level you have to blow up pagodas to collect scrolls, in the forest you have to push giant stone heads out of the way, in the field you have to go solo, buying various items for a woman who then turns on you for some reason and you have to kill in a boss battle (along with a flying bird for some....you get the idea) and in the base level you have to get a flamethrower to burn all the flowers in the level and in the canyon level you must make your way through a lengthy canyon segment and then blow up a giant stone face. The final level is a bit of a let down as it's an endurance round where you have no chance to not get hit constantly and lose at least one team member (the amount of surviving team members is apparently reflected in the game's ending).

All the above makes Jagur a really interesting though flawed game, due to the lack of mind numbingly lazy repetition which was still present in very many games of this era, and it also has a definite ending, also not a sure thing back in 1987.

Koneko no Daibouken: Chibi-chan ga iku (MSX, Casio, 1986)

Courtesy of Odino, on Gamefaqs

The MSX remains the most well known of the Japanese gaming computers of it's day in the West, mostly due to the Metal Gear series. However, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a casual retro gamer who could name you a game on the platform other then Metal Gear. At most you will find a Castelvania fan who is aware of the severly altered version of the first Akumajou Dracula for the MSX, but that's about it.

As such, developers and publishers who released a large part of their output on the MSX are equally as mysterious, the watch maker Casio being known primarily for it's electronics and wristwatches outside of Japan. Between 1984 and 1987 they released at least 23 games for the MSX, before moving on to the next level and releasing their own console, the Casio Loopy. And they did what all sucessfull game companies did and made a console specifically targeted at girls (or rather at the vague idea of what girls would find appealing, mostly coming from middle aged men in business suits).

Pictured: Failure

And judging by the vast amount of nothing you know about this system and it's extensive, 10 unit library of female-oriented romance and dress-up games, it's safe to assume Casio was never that good at this whole "video game" thing. Probably the most interesting of their MSX games is Moai no Hihou, simply because it's a basic puzzle game where you break blocks and try not to screw yourself over in the process of making a path to the exit, the interesting part being that the game boarders and between level cutscenes feature Moai heads, despite them not seeming to feature in the actual game itself.

To be fair Casio also released the PV 1000 (and the PV2000 home computer version) console in 1983 and it's pretty sad that that console had more games on it then Casio's 32 Bit Pièce de résistance that came out more then a decade later, and most of these were actual games (like Dig Dug or Pooyan).

Todays subject was released by Casio in 1986, bearing the name Koneko no Daibouken: Chibi-chan ga iku. It stars a cat going through screen infested with vermin as he tries to get to the end of the level. However there is something oddly familiar about it, like I've seen it befo-

And it's all downhill from there.

Koneko no Daibouken is an all out clone of Super Mario Bros., released a year prior to this game.You collect items to increase your size, decrease in size after you are hit, make your way to the end of the level, enter a building and then have a balloon rise up from the roof.

You can also collect items to be able to shoot (the first one is actualy completely useless as the straight shot fails to kill some enemies on the ground) oh and there's some enemies you can kill by jumping on them from above.

There are three worlds, Peach Town, Apple Town and Lemon Town. Their names have nothing to do with the levels themselves however. Each "town" consists of 6 levels, two of them forest, one a cliff, one a log jump, one a

.......and the final one being a city overrun by giant ants. The levels don't realy change up at all from one world to the next. In fact when entering the same level type in a new town you will notice the game simply plops you down a bit into the exact same level as before, except they add a few new rooms before the exit.

Then when you get to world 3 they do that again.

Another interesting thing to note is the flower which you collect for points. The white flower that is, the red flower shrinks/kills you when you touch it.

Beyond that there isn't alot to say about the game on it's own because it's such an obvious knock off.  The game can't scroll so you just get warped to a new screen once you go far enough to the right, there are no bosses or anything to spice up the gameplay, the enemies are boring and uninteresting and the whole thing feels empty and uninspired, or rather too inspired to bother to come up with anything of it's own.

Dragon Ball Dragon Dai Hikyou (1986, Epoch, Super Cassette Vision)

The Epoch Super Cassette Vision was released in 1984, to try and take on Nintendo's Famicom, which hit store shelfs a year beforehand. It was the successor to a 1981 console named the Cassette Vision.

The Super Cassette Vision, taken from www.videogamelibrary.com

What set the systems apart that while the Cassette Vision library will instantly remind anyone who even glances at it for a moment of Atari, the SCV could graphicaly stand up, and even beat, many early Famicom titles. The system even managed to get released in Europe and sell moderately well under the name Yeno.

However, the race was lost largely before it had truly begun and the SCV fell into obscurity, having only survived for two years while Epoch eventualy began releasing games on the Famicom in 1989.

The reason one brings this up is that, even though the system had a very small library, it managed to acquire some pretty impressive licenses in it's short run, these consisting of Doraemon, Lupin III, and even got to porting reasonabely remembered titles like Pole Position (II) and Boulder Dash. Amongst these was the game covered today, Dragonball Dragon Dai Hikyou.

Interestingly enough this game came out the exact same year as the much despised Dragonball Shenlong no Nazo on the Famicom, however, if availible release information is to be believed, Dragon Dai Hikyou preceeded it by a good two months. And not only that, but for all it's flaws, it's still a much better product, though sadly the system's swan song as well.

Right out of the gate the game surprises you by being.....a shooter. Probably the last genre you would think of when someone says Dragonball (and there is a bit of an issue in the fact we spend the whole game looking at Goku's back). But remember that this was 1986, and the series wasn't even halfway through it's first, pre "Z" ish faze.

You start off as Goku, flying on Nimbus, using your staff (which bends so much it looks like it's made of rubber) to attack airborne enemies while reserving your kamehameha's for ground based objects (think Twinbee, only much more destructive) though you can shoot stuff in front of you too, if you want. One of the first things you'll notice are the faces of your friends, strewn all over the place. These give you points, though sometimes they grant you other things, like auto fire on the staff, kamehameha's, or both (depending on whether you picked up Krillin, the Ox King, or Mutten Roshi). One of the second things you may notice is you can only go up halfway across the screen. In order to be able to get to the top of the screen you need to pick up a powerup.

Yes, I'm serious. You have to pick up a glowing red arrow which somehow gives Goku the ability to fly a tiny bit further ahead. You also lose it whenever you go to the next level.

There are basicly two types of enemies. Flying types that try to bump into you in various ways, (and the ocasional fish) and ground based enemies throwing crap at you. This ranges from the giant rabbit to the cyborg terminator thing to Pilaf. Interestingly, some of these behave a bit different from one another. Pilaf will only run a short distance from the egde of the screen before leaving, the cyborg goes back and forth in short patterns, while the others usualy just run from left to run/vice versa.

The end of the level consists of a large, seemingly barren area with many flying enemies and a whole bunch of containers on the ground. You have to bomb these to find the dragonball to move on to the next level, and the area will loop until you do. However sometimes amongst these boxes you will find a sign that says "End". And what does it do ?

It kicks your ass back to the title screen.

No I mean it. It literaly kicks you from the begining of the first level to the title screen. It also appeared on some later levels but I never had the balls to test what they do then.

Finaly, there is one more thing you can do. A few times throughout the game you will see Muten Roshi standing on the ground below. If you touch him, you're taken to a one on one duel with him. Now the first fight is manageable, if a bit weird due to the odd hit detection and stiff jump controls, but the later two fights are impossible. Simply because Roshi has Kamehamehas now and will immediately begin using them right as the fight starts. You have no time to run away and if you jump over the first one, you'll descend so slowly that you won't have a chance to avoid the next one. And worst of all the AI will spam these every time you make a hit, aside from going off on a timer, and it will never stop shooting until it hits you. If you manage to somehow avoid two shots, he simply shoots a third and I never managed to dodge it.

The Ending.

Overall, the game is a bit weird and has some odd concepts that one wouldn't normaly find in a shooter, even of this vintage, but they tried something and it mostly works, not to mention the graphics here, even with only showing the characters' bodies during the fight with Roshi, are absolutely stunning when compared to the Famicom game released two months after this one. There's also some nice touches here or there, like when Bulma throws you a capsule from a ship and you don't catch it in time it hits the ground and turns into a vehicle of some kind. I'd suggest giving this one a go, just because it's totally different then what you'd expect.

Matou no Houkai: The Hero of Babel (Famicom Disk System, 1988, Carry Lab/Pony Canyon)

It doesn't matter that this game is a rip off. That's not the issue here at all. What is the issue are the faults that make it inferior to what it's aping.


First of, for those not in the know, Matou no Houkai: The Hero of Babel is a Famicom Disk System game that closely resembles Castlevania. After having played it I'd actualy say the similarities are sorta superficial and don't reach further then the first level or so, beyond one or two things.

The game starts you off inside a rather sparsely lit castle. Unlike the Belmonts, your hero here follows the more common sense route of using sharp metallic objects instead of whips and I can't fault him for it, I'd probably do the same, if by some miracle the world suddenly became 2 dimensional, poorly animated and filled with all sorts of monsters who have nothing better to do then do go back and forth seemingly without purpose forever.



However, don't go thinking about going on your merry slugfest just yet. You'll soon realise that, unlike in the Castlevanias, your jump is basicly a cosmetical additional, who'se purpose is ocasionally jump up a stair (and you can just hop up automaticaly by <i>walking </i>towards the stairs) or over a flame in Level 5, however as far as bridging any sorta gaps is concerned.....well he's no Mario, let's put it at that.


Indeed, the levels are laid out so you think you're supposed to jump over a gap but then fall through - either because of an invisible block or just because. However, and this is the biggest difference between, well ya know, the levels are actualy circular, which means every floor and platform loops around so you just have to go to the side if you can't go up directly. Also finding invisible elevators is crucial to getting anywhere.

Further differences include the fact you never leave the towers, unlike in Castlevania 2 where indeed traveling betweent he mansions is a big (and possibly highly unwelcome) part of the game. Here you're always in a tower and never see as much as a window or terrace.



Every level or "floor" of the tower has many doors and various secrets you need to discover. I mainly followed a guide so I can't say how comprehensible the character dialogue is, in comparisson to....I reffer you to the previous "ya know". Finding all the secrets enables you to get plot critical items and extra special weapons. For example the bombs are necessary later on to find secret entrances and rooms. You use these by selecting them in the menu and then pressing attack and down....however once you collect a weapon you keep it at all times and simply need enough "WP" ammo (usualy collected from enemies) to hurl it continously. One rather annoying detail, you can actualy hit yourself with your own weapons if they bounce back and <i>will </i>take dammage.



Enemies, upon defeat, drop chests (you also find chests in walls and lying around in various rooms). These may contain either WP, sometimes Luck (which I have no idea what it even does) and Life, although regular enemies never seem to drop that.



The game also features experience points. These seems to increase your maximum life, but don't realy seem to influence your attack power much.

Pictured: Your "fight" with the true final boss

Now the least impressive thing about the game is it's level design. Because there realy isn't that much to speak of. Gaps in the floor you bridge on horizontal or vertical elevators, ladders and monsters appearing every single time your feet touch a new platform. The monsters spawn so predictabely and act so similarily that fighting them isn't all that fun.


The mini bosses are slightly different, with each level having several. These either have or don't have a health bar but generaly act the same. Also there's a boss at the end of every level, unlike a <i>certain </i>other game brought up previously. However the bosses all have the amazing ability to warp from one end of the screen to the other, and even be on both sides at once.


The games biggest problem by far is it's inventory. Here every single potion and weapon's recharge takes up a seperate slot, which means these may prevent you from obtaining critical items such as keys from chests. However the chests dissapear upon non-collecting them anyway and this can seemingly lead to an unwinable state. In addition you have trapped chests, which face a different direction then normal ones, may have power downs in them and in at least one level I couldn't get the level exit key because I collected a trapped chest without using the item necessary to untrap it and it was just gone and refused to come back even though the pillar it was hidden in reset when I left the room.


If you manage to sucessfully get to the end of the fifth level, you have to face the final boss, under a time limit, something not present until now. You have to use the final special weapon, a spell book, to kill it quicker, however if, like me, you didn't bring any WP refills with you then you have to finish the guy off by hitting him with your sword. Easier said then done when the guys fires off clusters of bullets so tightly packed that hitting/awoiding all of them is a matter of extreme luck and he seems to have an area around his sprite where he gives you dammage even though you're not touching him directly.


After you beat him you get a choice of three doors. These lead to a different series of bosses, however your health or WP stock doesn't get replenished at all. Worse, the timer is still going. And the absolute worst thing is that even the shortest route has you face the boss of level 3.

Why is it so bad you ask ? Well because the level 3 Boss is the only boss in the game who spends 90 % of his time banging his head against the ceiling, completely out of your reach. Even if you had any weapon ammo left, it wouldn't reach him. And he fires off small egg like things that burts into multiple projectiles which - thanks to the "enemies and projectiles can teleport from the egde of the screen but you can't" "feature", are even harder to hit/avoid. And in addition to this you have to have enough time after you beat this guy to go up the stairs in the next room, talk to the princess, use an item and wait for a second or two. And if you die you have to redo the whole level.


I wanted to like this game but it becomes monotonous with it's "no brains needed" level design and the fact the last boss fight is nearly impossible unless you're loaded with special weapon refills.

Heavy Nova (Sega Genesis, Holocronet/Micronet 1991)

This robot has been specificaly designed to run into wall

Heavy Nova is a game where the blocking is so good it effectively kills the game. To elaborate on this notion, the game is a typical robot game of the era, which tries to combine one on one fighting segments and platforming segments, except one good look will tell you what they spent all their time effort on. The platforming stages are realy short and the only thing that keeps you from jetpacking through them in under twenty seconds are the annoying gates and things positioned around the levels. Even so, the levels are still pretty short and only cover a few screens and there's only a handfull of items in each, at most. There's basicly a single type of in-level enemy you'll run into all the time, an annoying little bugger thagt shoots missiles diagonaly and whom they just love to position just off the edge of platforms, so when you try and duck under his shots you get hit and fall back. And this will happen to you alot because you can't jump in this game.

The afforementioned little bugger that shoots missiles

Basicly the programers took a fighting game engine, where you jump by pressing up, and slapped it onto a platforming segment with holes and mines and stuff. And worst you don't just jump you jetpack upwards and in order to avoid landing on the next thing you should be jumping over you have to jam the opposite direction to your movement, otherwise you'll overshoot and take dammage. This mechanic realy makes platforming a chore, especialy when you involve laser turrets, timed gates and some....weird transparent glass brick that flies around the level erraticaly and can't be destroyed except for right at the very end....for some reason. Also sometimes you'll run into invisible walls preventing your jetpack ascent because the programers want you to take this one specific route, and being able to go round the same suspended platform from the opposite directon would make too much sense I suppose.

I can just hear Tchaikovsky in the background

Once you manage to get to the end of a level you'll be treated to a session of interpretive dance. I say that because 90 % of each battle involves opponents simply jumping around and pirueting in the air (a jumpkick attack that you now just have, even though you still can't jump normaly when you'd need to). And here is where the whole "block" thing comes back into play. You avoid an enemy's attack by either "jumping" upwards with the jetpack or crouching down. This is naturaly rather easy to do, to the point where almost all of your shots will miss because the opponent will naturaly avoid them by moving towards you. You have a long list of moves but you need to acquire the apropriate level up icons in the platfoming segments to use them, and they're so unreliable that you can just rely on good old fashioned punches and kicks, and you'll get as much enjoyment out of this as you would desperately trying to throw your missiles at the opponent (they can only be fired from a certain distance away for some reason) and him ducking down before every single one of them.

Basicly every single character in this game can be repurpossed as scrap metal as far as I care.

Warlock (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, 1994, LJN/Trimark/Realtime/Acclaim)

The fact of the matter is, yes, I should have known better. This is LJN/Acclaim we're talking about after all. Their track record recquires no great analysis. The game's reviews are also not that great. And yet, I had some hopes for this title. Mainly because it seemed to be a basic platformer where you jump around and shoot energy bolts at werewolves.

It's a lot less impressive if you have to spend six levels in it.

But the problem is that while this game starts out okay, it never stretches to become anything more, and it repeats the parts that are "okay" about it so much, until eventualy you stop tolerating even those. But lets start at the begining.

The controls is where people usualy start complaining about sub-par videogames, and this game is no exception. The basic attack is alright, aside from the default ducking whenever you fire off a shot (and the fact that "early on" you're shots don't travel the whole length of the screen, meaning you have to engage in a fair fight with the energy beam shooting enemies), but the roll move is impractical and you will execute it more often then not when you weren't thinking of doing anything of the sort, and roll right into harms way. Worst of all though, are the spells. You pick these up individualy in every level, and there's lots to go around (each slot can supposedly hold 255 spells, but it only shows you have 9, which is sort of impractical), and you will need it since health magic literaly regains one point of dammage each (indicated by your face turning into a skull in the typical 90's way) and there are spots where getting hit is pretty much guaranteed.

Contrary to how it looks this thing is virtualy harmless.

This is usualy due to the bats and other flying enemies, who'se paths are so erratic that shooting them in time before they bump into you is a matter of either luck or split second timing. And there are ALOT of bats in this game.






Then, towards the end, there are enemy spawners and infinite spawn locations where not getting hit seems absolutely impossible, which is always the mark of great game design.

The last set of levels and now they roll out the generic
"punk guy with long hair" enemy type. Not a good sign.

Finaly, your worst, most feared enemy in the game, are pits. Because if you die once, you lose all, let me repeat, ALL the magic spells you got throughout the whole game up to that point, which can total several hundred if you bother to look for all the secret areas in a given stage. This means you've now gone to loaded with regeneration and offensive spells to being absolutely destitute and incapable of throwing a single thunder spell.

But there are many areas in the game where there's another level of platforms below the edge of the screen. However there's very little indication,so you can end up killing yourself trying to find new places to go. And in addition to all this, falling from too great a height kills you too.

Now this could all be forgiven....maybe, possibly.....if the game was varied and surprising but that is not the case.

The level themes repeat over and over again, usualy just switching between two slighly different ones for awhile before changing to a different theme that will get altered with some other theme for about six levels etc. The game is exceedingly long, with 15 stages, and the begining can be very deceptive. You have to collect six runestones to stop the Evil One (I'd make a joke about this being the Devil disguised by throwing a children's blanket over the head with the hoofs still very visible, but the game is technicaly movie based and I'm not familiar with the source material, so I can't do that), but you get the first two in the first two levels. And then you go on....and on....and on and nothing.

Yeah. Reel threatening,

 


To top it all off there aren't realy any moments where the game breaks the monotony of switch puzzles and swinging axes you have to jump over and fire spewing gremlin statues you have to get past, besides one a good 8 level in where you turn into one of the enemies and have a laser duel with a different laser throwing enemy, and the final boss fight....which is incredibly easy if you held on to your stock of magic. Otherwise you fight the same almost generic enemies and get hit by bats over and over again until you win, get a one paragraph text ending and immediately get mesmerised by the end credits.

Sadly I don't think you'll want to play that far.

Sakigake!! Otoko Juku - Shippuu Ichi Gou Sei (Famicom, 1989, Bandai/TOSE)

From the same developer that brought us Saint Seiya - Ougon Densetsu Kanketsu Hen comes this gem, and only a year later. Because disgracing just Masami Kurumada was not enough I guess, so Akira Miyashita joins the fold of the many many people who'se work got bastardised by TOSE.

The "progress" map which comes up so
rarely you'll forget it even exists most of
the time.

Now let's get something straight here. This game is not as bad as Saint Seiya ODKH (hereafter reffered to, somewhat incorrectly, as Saint Seiya 2). Almost nothing on this earth is. That's not to say this game is good, but I'm just giving credit where credit is due in that TOSE in a mere one year's time managed to learn to make a game who'se mechanics are comprehensible to non Harvard graduates and that even theoreticaly respond in a way which can be replicated when the need arises. But don't fret, the absolute monotonous game length and the complete lack of any entertainment are still retained to preserve that classic TOSE feeling.

And the game begins. And never even remotely
looks like anything else but this.

 Not being familiar with the source material this time around, I can't realy say how much this game tarnishes the original's good name, but I will probably wager a guess and say the manga at least depicts the characters distinctly, and doesn't instead resort to having them share the same model except for the one on one fights. This is especialy heinous since playing as the different characters would most likely be one of the main reasons why anyone would even buy this game at the time. Because TOSE never develops for anything but a currently running series it seems and it's pretty bad when there's something I can say Saint Seiya 2 actualy did better. Once again, not good mind you, better.

And no, putting piranhas in your game hasn't
been original since Super Mario Brothers TOSE.

The game is basicly just a dirt simple action side scroling beat em up....almost. Because we all know the that if TOSE would have to actualy develop something and not try to "improve" it in some way then they'd need alot of snowplows down in Hell. You have to wander around entering doors and try to find your way to the boss. Every place looks pretty much like every place else and an incorrect choice simply loops you back out. The enemies are usualy the exact same (and the game only has three sprites for them anyway) so that doesn't help. Later on the game adds moving platforms, necessity to go down trap-like shafts (some of which simply loop you back out) or hitting a completely invisible wall that prevents you from passing until it doesn't anymore.

The begining of the game, with every character selected
in turn.

You have two attacks, a short punch and a much longer kick. Normaly this would be enough but the enemies can guard against your moves at least 50 % of the time so you will most likely take dammage. You will definitely take dammage from the invisible holes that are on every level that have no indication of them being there and you will fall into every time unless you just happen to jump over them. The only way to recover health for your specific character is to either find a random guy in a random door who will refill it or....a chorus. (Edit: this does make sense in context of the series)

Yeah you basicly select the option, then the amount of health to be refilled, some guys come onscreen and start singing and your health increases by the amount you set earlier, decreasing the overall amount availible when selecting this option. You can also select this and not replenish any health, for what reason I don't know.

As noted your characters look and behave identicaly, except in the boss fights where you suddenly get new sprites and actualy varying abilities. One of the guy's has a sword, but he loses this the moment he's knocked down once, so it's not much of a plus. The other's usualy have some variety of punches, (the last guy having no immediately visible improved attack ability but he does backflips), one guy has a knife that never falls out of his hand, and one of the bosses that later joins you makes supper fast kicks but seems realy hard to move around.

The bosses themselves just reuse the handfull of rooms availible, and mostly have a very basic run-up-and-hit-you type of strategy. Beating them refills you no health for said character when going to the next level.

And then the game simply goes on and on....and on. At first it changes scenery every two levels but then the last area has around five levels that take place in it and nothing ever realy changes. There's somewhere around 18 levels and the game stops being even the slightest bit entertaining around level 8. At least Saint Seiya 2 had a reason for being as overly long as it was, here it seems completely nonsensical.

In the end, there is nothing you'll remember about this game, and frankly there is nothing here that deserves it.