9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [ Techno music ] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alright folks, it's Dr.Sparkle again 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Geez, It seems like forever since the last episode. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well anyways, sorry it's so late [br]but here we are again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The PC engine schedule seems to get a bit[br]more hectic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as we get closer to the 1989 holiday[br]season. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Today, We're gonna finnish up July and[br]blast through all of August and September. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We're gonna' see a number of arcade ports today, as well as some obscure (and rather shitty) original titles. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We ended last episode with a classic shooter, [br]Blazing Lasers, [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we begin this episode with a not-so-classic shooter, [br]Side Arms 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (or Side Arms: Hyper Dyne, as it's officially called in Japan) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the second port of a Capcom arcade game for the system [br](the first being SunSun 2) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, once again, this is published by N.E.C., [br]not Capcom themselves. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 However, in the U.S., this was one of the [br]very few TurboGrafx games not published by N.E.C. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rather, it was by a small company called Radiance Software, [br]which seemed to have very close ties to Capcom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They were also well known for their involvement in the canceled, ah, Nintendo Entertainment System California Raisins game. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The guy who ran Radiance, Christopher Riggs, actually lists himself as being a product developer at Capcom in the early 1990s. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Prior to Radiance, he apparently co-founded a company called Pacific DataWorks, with, uh, Troy Lyndon 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (who was an interesting guy who much later, uh, was behind the, uh, the infamous Left Behind computer video game. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Pacific DataWorks mostly did DOS and Commodore 64 ports for Capcom (including Side Arms!). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Riggs also had a company called Riggs Interactive [br]which did, uh, computer ports for Capcom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So it's no surprise that the first Radiance game is, of course, a Capcom port. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Anywho, Earth got blown up or something, and your little robot mecha dude is out there, uh, to kill lots of aliens. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Mechanics are moreorless like similar [br]shooters of the era (such as Gradius). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Enemies drop power-ups, speed-ups, and other types of, uh, special weapons. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nothing too new or exciting, here, but there are a couple interesting ideas. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The main one is: you can turn around and fire in the opposite direction by hitting the second button 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (making Side Arms kind of a predecessor to Forgotten Worlds). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, Side Arms was originally an arcade game from 1986. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Aside from the ability to fire, uh, front and back, [br]a big feature of Side Arms was that two players 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 could occasionally combine into [br]a single more powerful form 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (with one player controlling the mech and [br]the other controlling his special attack weapons). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The home version dropped this 2-Player mode, [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (meaning that your combined form is [br]basically just a temporary upgrade). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It lasts until you get hit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The other cool feature is the ability to select your... [br]which weapon you wanna lose from the Start menu 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (as opposed to losing your current weapon when you [br]pick up a new one, like in most other shooters). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can actually carry a whole bunch of weapons at once. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, this is actually very helpful, since certain types of [br]weapons are more useful than others in some spots. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In fact, certain weapons are pretty much vital for some areas. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this leads me to one issue that so many Shoot-em-Ups have. [br]If you die once, you are pretty much screwed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Side Arms is even much worse than many other similar games. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When the action gets hectic and you [br]screw up and get killed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you'll be brought back to life with, like, [br]a single random underpowered weapon, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 generally with enemies, like, [br]closing in on you from all sides. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, get killed and odds are good that you'll [br]get killed again within a second or two. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And there are so many damn enemies [br](like missiles, et cetera) that home in on you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and follow you around, as you try to avoid them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And when you have, like, a very basic weapon that only shoots in one direction, it's pretty difficult to pick these guys off. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Also, like Gradius, picking up too many speed power-ups will make you move, uh, too fast and be hard to control precisely. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Overall, it's actually a pretty hard game [br](harder than Gradius or R-Type, in my opinion) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it actually, uh, looks great and I liked it [br]better than the Genesis port of Forgotten Worlds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We exit July with a real stinker. [br]From AICOM, it' s Takeda Shingen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Aha!", you say, [br]"We've already seen this game on Chrontendo. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was, like, a strategy game, [br]published by HOT-B." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, no. This is actually a completely [br]different and unrelated game called Takeda Shingen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, Takeda Shingen (the real person) [br]was a 16th century warlord, known for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (among other things) [br]having a badass set of armor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (which is, uh, sort of [br]semi-accurately depicted here). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rather than being a Strategy game, [br]this is a rather dull Beat-'em-Up 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's a painfully slow affair. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You have exactly two moves [br](at least at first). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's Attack with a sword slash [br]and Jump. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You'll be, uh, taking enemies head-on, [br]uh, just sort of hacking at them until they die. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They block a lot, so normally [br]you'll just, sort of, walk up to them 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and start repeatedly slashing at them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They'll block a few times and then you'll get a hit in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This was a port of a Jaleco arcade game [br](which looks a lot nicer). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The game isn't exactly hot shit, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but your character moves much faster [br]and there's a bit of action. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is hardly top tier stuff, as of 1988, [br]but it seems reasonably bearable. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's even, like, bonus rounds [br]where you can get on a horse and do some target practice. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The horse stuff got completely stripped [br]out from the PC Engine version 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the result is just [br]so damn monotonous. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, I got a good way through this game [br]and there were a pretty limited number of enemy types