Chrontendo Episode 51

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Hey folks it's me Dr. Sparkle

back again with Episode 51 of Chrontendo

Now I'll be honest

I've actually had a pretty rough

last couple of weeks.

Those of you who follow

my Twitter account or check

the blog will know that our

dog Molly passed away recently

at the age of thirteen. And it

was all very sudden. She seemed

fine, healthy, then one day she

acted a little tired. We took her to

the vet and within a week it was -

it was all over. And she really was

an amazing dog. She discovered

breast cancer in two different people, and you

know it's really going to be

difficult without her. And then

almost immediately afterwards

my wife actually lost her wedding

ring. Not lost as in misplaced but

rather gone forever. And even

though it's only a ring she had

a great deal of attachment to it.

You sort of think of your

wedding ring as something you'll

carry with you for your entire life

and she was just so broken up

over it. But regardless Chrontendo

Episode 51 is finally done

and one last thing. I have some

changes planned for Chrontendo in

the near future. Hopefully changes

people will like. More details about

this will emerge soon. For today

we have fifteen games from late

November to early December

1989, including some US-only games.

Prepare yourself for another

Beam-devloped game. And one of the

most obscure US games

published by Nintendo. Also a couple

of military strategy games and two

very unusual RPGs, including one

from Square. So, let's get started.

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Yep, the first of two games

from November 17th, this one's from

Irem, apparently developed by Tamtex.

Gekitotsu Yonku Battle - this is the

second mini Yonku game

we've seen for the Famicom, and the

last - I think. Mini Yonku, as you

might recall, were those little

highly customizable racing cars that

were quite popular among

Japanese kids at this time

and maybe still are. We've

previously seen a Mini Yonku game

from Konami a couple months

back. That one actually

licensed the name of

Tamiya, the most popular

maker of Mini Yonku cars.

This one, however, is totally

generic. Gekitotsu Yonku

Battle is a very minor

slight game. It's a simple

top-down, arena battle

racing deal. Your object

here is to collect Teki

which you do by collecting

flags and you get flags

by destroying the other cars.

Ramming into cars will

destroy them. Getting rammed

or hitting an obstacle will

damge your car. You can see

your vehicle's health on the

bottom left there - it's

Life Meter. So the object is

to ram enough cars to generate

a flag. When this happens the

flag will show up on the main

map. You then need to rush over

to the flag, trying to

destroy cars along the

way. This will raise the

number on the flag.

When and if you flip the

flag you will get the number

of Teki as are on the

flag up to the maximum of

five. There is always the

chance that another car

will collect the flag first.

And then once you've

collected enough Teki

you win the round and

move on. And that's

actually it. Oh yeah,

there are these lame

animated scenes between

the rounds. I'd

hesitate to call these

cut scenes exactly.

So a couple points about

this game. Each round adds

to the selection of cars

you can pick but despite

some rad names like

Battle Super Sabre, the

only difference is these

sprites. The cars all function

exactly the same as far as

I can tell and there's no

customization options

or anthing like that. It's

a very simple game. There

are a few special items

you can pick up on each

level - the turbo thing

that makes you go faster

and much more importantly

a star that gives you

temporary invulnerability.

Other than that there's

really not much here

other than smashing into

cars. There are these

bonus stages where you

drive around picking up

flags for points which have

no end-game purpose other

than aiming for a

high score. And the weird

thing is, there is

no two player mode. That

would seem like a good

idea for a game like

this but I guess it would

require cutting the

screen in half. Bottom

line is, it seems like

a well-done game in

many ways but it's

just a very, very simple

one with not a whole

lot to do.

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