Doujin Soft Spot

[Spacewalk]

GR 3

La-Mulana wasn’t the first MSX throwback NIGORO worked on, back when they were known as GR3 Project they released a Gradius fan game under the name of “Kenami”. If you’ve never played an STG on the MSX or any game on the MSX for that matter then this is certainly going to be an eye-opener. No it’s not a performance issue, it’s supposed to scroll column by column, the MSX couldn’t do smooth scrolling. Just wasn’t made with that in mind. It’s incredibly jarring and will probably give you a massive headache so all you can really do is try and get used to it.

Hopefully you will have more than four E’s by the end of the stage.

It’s still a damn good game though and shapes up well compared to official Gradius titles. It looks really good and sounds really good just like something Kenami, sorry, Konami could’ve made themselves. Like a real home port you’re only allowed two options max but to make up for that shortcoming you can buy new weapons after each stage using any ‘E’ orbs that you’ve collected. You better hope you can play a stage perfectly, just like your power levels your currency gets zeroed when you get killed which is going to happen frequently unless you’re really good at Gradius. It is such a difficult game. Oh god it is so so difficult I’d rather play loop two of Gradius 3 even though it’s totally bullshit. I’d go a remake though, they remade La-Mulana they should remake this. If it was as good as Hydorah that’d be sick.

The first stage has a really cool boss at the end. I can’t imagine what this is going to be like playing Re-DEATH.

Then you get to version Re-DEATH which is the hard version. Yep, the standard game is the easy mode. In addition to more aggressive enemies stage layouts have been tinkered with which is a genuine reason to play this if you can take it.

This is as far as I got.

Some versions of this only work on old version of Java. I threw up everything I had that wasn’t my dinner so it’s up to you to find the ones that work. Of course the hard one is one of those, hah hah, fun for everyone. Now excuse me I gotta go throw up.

WTF dude even the Spectrum could scroll things smoothly.

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G-Type

Well, you tell me where the enemies are.

Gradius and R-Type together at last like chocolate and orange. It’s a Click n’ Create game and we all know about those so if you’ve got a pad and want to use buttons 3 and 4 ("C’ and ‘V’ on the keyboard) you’ll have to set 'em up with JoyToKey or whatever.

These guys had to turn up some time.

R-Type mechanics work well enough in a Gradius environment even with the power-up bar. It’s just fun to use a Force Pod to take down enemies from a different game, shooting it into the face of bosses, using it to block Moai Head ring lasers even though lasers and particularly big bullets slip though. The developer was kind enough to respawn you instantly after you die and not send you back to a checkpoint which is very appreciated especially after GR 3.

The charge shot is more trouble than it’s worth.

Get it from the usual place.

[Spacewalk]

GREATEST DRIVERS

All these action shots are from the demo reel so the HUD doesn’t get in the way.

A dinky rally game. Twelve cute cars. Time attack in four tracks with eight layouts. Race against replay data with up to three cars. Realistic car tuning (over ONE MILLION patterns!) and high speed drifting. Writing about games is easy when all you’re doing is quoting the back of the box. Being cute the cars have squashed up proportions similar to those old Choro Q/Penny Racers/Road Trip games on consoles. That’s where the comparisons end though, you aren’t getting an explorable world or wacky customisation.

You get an explanation of what tuning does to each aspect of the car so even luddites like me can be a pro.

There are four courses as well as mirrored versions on offer. If you go too far off-road you’ll get auto centred on the track which is silly since this is a rally game. Also kinda annoying since there are parts of the track where you don’t get much leeway before it corrects you. The actual driving bit feels pretty good though, you can expect some off-road slipperiness but with tuning your car just right you can compensate, simple as it is. It’s probably a good idea to have different settings for different tracks. Or not, you can just close your eyes and change the settings randomly to get a car that plays ridiculously awful but you’ll get a laugh out of it.

Eat my dust, suckers!

Also from the developer: Pretty Chasers is even more dinky and cute racing game. Three tracks, two driving styles, very simple controls and you can race with up to nine other cars. The Greatest Witch is a party game where you have to be the last witch standing or hovering I guess. You know what this reminds me of? Jump ‘n’ Bump only with cute little witches instead of rabbits. Their other site which got eaten by the internet had another game or two that I forgot the names of. Maybe it’s worth hitting up Vector to find those.

Developer’s site.

[Spacewalk]

RIDER

A motorcycle delivery game. You’ve got a package to deliver and the clock is ticking so you’ve gotta go fast whilst trying not to break any traffic laws whilst The Man is around. On later jobs he’ll be sneakily hiding behind road side scenery. Look out for boxes! If you accumulate too much damage that’s a bike that gets removed from play and you have to choose another one. The entire game is one big risk/reward mechanic and it’s a lot of fun.

Sneaky bugger.

To control your bike you move your mouse over the green plane at the centre of the screen. Vertical movement is for acceleration and braking, horizontal movement is for turning. Left and right mouse buttons look over your shoulders, middle button zooms in slightly so you can get a better look at whether that’s a traffic cop or just a pedestrian. I think this is really cool, it’s not a control method that I’ve ever come across but it works quite well.

You can cross over to the opposite lanes but it’s not recommended.

Also by the developer: not much in the way of games, an older version of Rider and Alpha Strike a strategy game set in deep space that’s also a screensaver? What I’m getting from the machine translated description is that you plan out your orders firs then run the game/screensaver and it all plays out which kinda makes it sound a lot like Gratuitous Space Battles but that sounds too good to be true. The rest is database and management apps.

Developer’s site.

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HACK9

You’d look sad too if you knew that the guard positioned just outside the door you just went in respawned and shot you in the back when you tried to enter it again.

If you liked Cave Story but wished it was a brutally hard stealth action game then do I have the game for you. I could not warm to Hack9 for only the cold touch of the reaper awaited me. An evening of trying to make as much progress as I could tolerate would always end machine gunned to death by tanks, blown up by missiles and a dirt nap on a bed of spikes. Make sure you grind 120 moneys in the first two rooms so you can buy a terrible pistol from page two of the arms merchant’s store. Using HP max items doesn’t give fixed increases, that’s a great idea that all games should use. Glowing appraisal! I try to be positive about any of these write ups but I wasn’t having any fun.

Also by the developer: Hacker9 which looks real similar to Hack9 which means that I’m going to completely ignore it. Ghost9 Solid which I’ll admit does look pretty cool and a bunch of other games that only have downloads for patches but are probably just rehashes of the same idea.

Developer’s site (English).
Developer’s site (Japanese).

[Spacewalk]

DESTRUCTION DESIRE

Destruction Desire is compact. Only five characters, beat 'em all and you get thrown into a second loop which is more difficult. Beat 'em all again and you get the chance to be destroyed by fighting against all the other characters at the same time. There’s an obvious Guilty Gear influence at work here and not just visually, I’ll bet that a few of the gameplay systems made the leap too all tied to the visually pleasing meter in the bottom corner of the screen but I haven’t played Guilty Gear in ages so I can’t give you any specifics. It’s an alright game but I was ultimately left wanting. A manual. I mean, it’s not exactly a difficult game to figure out but it’d still be handy to have one around.

Get it here.

[Spacewalk]

FATE AXIS

A good looking fighting game that features a cast of stereotypes such as cool protag with duals swords, spunky fighting girl, beastfolk who is a magic experiment or the last member of an extinct race (who were magic experiments) and Mr. Leave-Me-Alone with a chainsword. Of course they all have silly names. Gameplay is nice with good combo potential, fast filling meter, ring outs and you’ve got side step buttons to make it feel a bit more 3D. There’s also a technique called a “Fate Action” that buffs your attack, defence or chain attacks if you want something more to sink your teeth into. It’s one of the best doujin fighters I encountered. Most interesting other than this being a game that wasn’t developed with Fighter Maker is the pause button that lets you rotate the camera in order to get exciting screenshots.

Developer’s site (archived).
Vector link.