GOTY for 1984

I figured 1984 was a good year to start for coming up with Game of the Year since it's the first full year after the Famicon's release (July, 1983). Despite never owning a Famicon or NES, surprisingly I've played quite of few of games including Pacman (let's pretend Atari version doesn't exist) and of course, Duck Hunt. The most surprising part is I had friends at the time with a NES. As for Sega's SG-1000, well, I'm going to be mostly ignoring it as I'm not really into arcade ports.

I've even played games such as Nuts & Milk, which instantly brought back nostalgia tears with that darn music you can never, ever forget. Given that I DEFINITELY didn't own a Famicon as a kid for a Japanese exclusive title, I most likely played it on some unlicensed, shady Korean console with 100 games on one cartridge. (This game technically first came out in 1983 for the MSX, Sharp X1, etc. but I played the FC version which is significantly different.)

Umm, yeah I owned this game... TECHNICALLY

Tetris

Release date: Sometime in 1984

Now if I were to stick with the Jhipster theme, I would probably pick some silly Japanese arcade port like Pacman for GOTY but I must remind you, a REAL Jhipster appreciates ALL games and is only particular about playing Japanese games in their pure, unaltered form. In terms of pure fun, I would have to pick Tetris as GOTY for 1984. Even though I have not played the original version, the core gameplay remains unchanged from the original 1984 release as far as I can tell.

Yup, looks like Tetris but way more Russian
The highlight for me was playing against my friend on 2 player Tetris via that janky ass cable for the original gameboy. It even has the same dull green color scheme of the original so can't get more authentic than that. Right?

Verdict: GOTY runner up

King's Quest

Release Date: May 10

While I have tons of great memories of Tetris and it has a long line of puzzle games that expand and extend the original concept, King's Quest, or rather Sierra On-Line has far more personal significance for me. If you compare the games that came out around 1984, you can truly appreciate how revolutionary and ahead of its time the graphics were in King's Quest.

Believe me, for its time, this is fucking amazing.

I originally left this game out because I was a bit confused on the release date but this nice video explains that while it was shown in 1983, the official public release was indeed in 1984. So if you consider what games look liked especially as early as 1983, you can see why King's Quest is easily GOTY in terms of its sheer technical marvel and hey, it's not a bad game either to boot.

Whoa, an informative youtube video??? WTF is this shit?
While I did not play King's Quest around the time of its original release, to me, this marks a whole series of franchises and the golden years of a company that pretty much made up most of my childhood. Yes, I might not be retro hipster enough for the first King's Quest but I was there on my friend's Tandy (I was poor, remember?) with EGA graphics for Police Quest. I was also a fanboi of Space Quest and have fond (painful) memories of trying to get the mouse to work using HIGHMEM and various, ancient incantations from my AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS spellbooks for the VGA version of Hero's Quest.

I did try out a later version of King's Quest on Steam. Sure, the story is a bit primitive and some of the puzzles are the usual type of stuff from those days that are pretty much impossible to figure out without calling the Sierra hint hotline aka "1-900-OHMYGOD-TIMMY-WHAT-DID-YOU-DO-TO-THE-PHONE-BILL!!!!" However, even today, it was still fun to walk around in a full graphical map and explore and... stuff.

Verdict: GOTY Overall

Other games I tried

The Black Onyx（ザ・ブラックオニキス）

Release Date: January

I'm triggered by the objectified male bulge

CRPG addict has the historical background on this first-person DRPG and there's plenty of other info as being one of the earliest RPGs released in Japan (though it was made by a guy called Henk Rogers). These really early DRPGs are frankly hard for me to wade through. I did try playing a bit of the moe-fied GBC version that's more my style but yeah, I've got a million other games I'd rather play right now.

Zarth （ザース）

Release Date: August

If only the rest of the game looked like this... (spoiler: it doesn't)

Somewhat notorious as a bait and switch, Famitsu featured the screenshot above, which of course everybody assumed was the heroine or at least more than a passing minor character. Entering text via Kana input on a PC88 emulator proved too much for me so I watched a let's play on youtube. Can I join the cool kids crowd now?

Showing all the best parts of a game?! Trailers NEVER do that!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Release Date: September

A text adventure game that I remember giving up on in about 5 minutes back in the day. I am a Douglas Adam's fan so I tried playing again via flash but this game is brutal. PASS

> fuck this game
I type this command in just about every text adventure game I've played

Dragon Slayer（ドラゴンスレイヤー）

Release Date: September 10

Yikes, I did not play this version but not GOTY

Nihon Falcom's 2nd ARPG. I played the Saturn version for 20 minutes, plenty of time to get a feel for the mechanics. It's a great game for masochists I guess. Ugh, not even as good as Ultima I.

The Death Trap（ザ・デストラップ）

Release Date: October

Square, where is the sports bra patch per the ethics dept?

Notable for being Sakaguchi's first game from Square and the first ADV I've played so far with multiple endings.

Wingman（ウィングマン）

Release Date: November

Unlike Zarth, the rest of the game DOES look like this

Notably unlike Zarth, this game features a whole slew of great art and is the most visually impressive game so far for the year. Once again, the Kana input kind of makes this game impossible to beat without a guide. According to a random Japanese blogger, the guy that produced that one image for Zarth helped out.

Verdict: GOTY in visual and graphics

Hydlide（ハイドライド）

Release Date: December 13

If I was born like 10 years earlier and rich, I might've have enjoyed this

Yeah, yeah, this game gets the usual unfair flack from non-Jhipsters (AVGN, etc) due to  late localization but in the proper context, what's a better ARPG from 1984 or earlier? Certainly not Dragon Slayer at least. I can't stand scroll-hell PC-88 action games so I tried the Famicom version (1986) and it's playable at least with save states. The amount of EXP seemed really low and level progression tedious so I probably won't play through it but let's give credit where it's due.

Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Okhotsk ni Kiyu（北海道連鎖殺人 オホーツクに消ゆ）

Release Date: December 21

Unfortunately, the PC-98 version doesn't keep that clothing with improved fidelity

What a way to close out the year. Of course, this was when Yuji Horii was fine with showing his true pervy self. I played the PC-98 version but the story stuck with me after I navigated the pain in the ass maze at the end.

Verdict: GOTY for story and narrative

Wingman（ウイングマン）

Oh man, the things I do in the name of Jhipsterdom. While Wingman was on my list of Enix games to check out for 1984, I've been loathe to go through it even with a guide because it required kana input. You have no idea what a pain it is to type はめる ぶれすれっと in kana mode.

Unfortunately, I later found out that it's impossible to type ろ without a 106-key keyboard. Now, I do have an old Japanese laptop laying around the house but was too lazy to get it out so I figured out how to use the onscreen keyboard to type with keys I didn't have. Unfortunately, this changed some other things such as requiring shift+7 to type a single quote. You have no idea what a pain that is for typing in English.

UGH. Seriously, the shit I do for Jhipster-dom

So you can see why I skipped Zarth but Wingman is like a series on the PC88 with Wingman 2 and Wingman Special. Also, this game has far more illustrations than Zarth and seems much more fleshed out. According to some random Japanese website, apparently they enlisted the help of the guy who did that one good pixel art in Zarth for this game as well. He's definitely got some MS Paint skills fo' sure.

Alright fuck it, let's do this

This game is based on the manga of the same name and takes place a few volumes into the story. Now, I wasn't about to go fly to Japan to buy up the manga to get caught up on the backstory but I did brush myself up on the main plot and characters via you know online resources.

Shockingly, the anime was NOT available on Netflix
As a command line based ADV game, you're basically expected to just type shit until something works. Now, there's a helpful list of commands/locations at the bottom of the screen you can choose using the function keys but you still need to type shit that's not on the list.

Function keys? It's been a while my good friends.

For example, you're supposed to type "talk" and "cute" to get an item from the teacher. I'm not sure how you're supposed to figure out to say "cute" when the entire Japanese language is at your disposal. Even the early Sierra On-line games were not that brutal. Now, part of the fun in these games is trying to type shit like "fuck you" to see if the game has a clever response but given the fact that it takes me like 2 minutes to type a single word, fuck it guide time.

You're supposed to talk about じゅもん. How did I know? I cheated, sorry (NOT!)

What's kinda cool about this game is you can transform by typing "chaing" which is a combination of the words "change" and "wing" (amazing that didn't catch on). When you transform into Wingman, you can battle the villain in the area at the bottom of the screen. You have two attacks via the F1 and F2 keys: "Contini Punch" and "Wingle Crash". The wingle crash always resulted in me losing health as well so I stuck with punching but I guess it doesn't really matter whether you win or lose. The screen is upside down because it's a separate dimension for battling or whatever (just read the manga).

Score: 2 wingle contini chaings out of 5

I would say this is a pretty high quality adventure game for its time at least visually and a much better offering from Enix compared to Zarth. It helps that there's a whole manga/anime to fill in the settings since there's very little dialogue in the game itself. In fact, you kinda HAVE to read up on the story (unless you're cheating like me) to know your vehicle is called "winner" to chase after the villian (I thought it was "weiner" this whole time).

You're riding weiner... err winner here (not shown)

As you can tell, for its time, this is probably the most visually stunning game I've seen so far. It's just a darn shame I have to suffer through kana input for it. But I'm kinda starting to get the hang of it so I guess I can put that skill to use for the next text based retro PC game. Ugh, but then again, probably NOT.

Ugh, do I HAVE to save Miku-chan? How much more typing is involved??

Dang, look at those shadows, is that DirectX 12??

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

The Death Trap（ザ・デストラップ）

SQUARE? Never heard of em.

The Death Trap is Square's first game so of course I wanted to check it out. However, despite extensive googling, for the life of me I could not find the PC98 version without paying for the Egg re-release and I unfortunately "missed" out on the physical compilation disc. My past self would have scoffed at the 8,386 yen price but it's RAREZ now at about 5x the original price so I guess I should've bought two copies.

ONLY 1000 COPIES BUY BUY BUY NOW NOW NOW!!!!

Anyways, I skipped on this game because unlike the PC98 MASTER RACE KANJI BAE, the PC88 version is all in Katakana. I figured it would be pretty much impossible for my eyes to handle the Katanaka diarrhea. However, as it turns out, frustration is a relative feeling. After struggling with kana input for Zarth, just having the option to input Romaji made this game feel practically next gen.

Yeah, it's THAT Sakaguchi.

Given that it's Square's first game, I wasn't expecting much after trying to play Enix's Zarth (back when they were like Naruto and Sasuke but less gay). However, while the text input parser is pretty much dead simple confined to "verb noun" and "north", "east", etc., there are actually several branching paths so it has some replayability at least.

You need the card and parachute for the plane right away so this is not actually a branching path... but whatever

While Square Enix today is all about that Moepocalypse diaper panty politically correct fan service nowadays, notice the complete lack of fan service in the good ol' days. Nothing but an agent trying to save a ugly male scientist in the jungle. You won't see that game experience ruining fan service smut at least until Square's third title a whole 2 years later so... TAKE THAT GAMERGATE!

I'd hate to be a stickler but I don't think you can just ride a zebra in a jungle...

While the map might trick you into thinking you can do all kinds of kewl exploring, most directions are closed off due to the thick jungle. So it ends up mostly being trying random directions until the game lets you go somewhere.

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE ANY KEY??????

I can kinda start to see why Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin..., err... whatever that game was called was considered such a big deal in the day. This game has barely any story whatsoever and you're mostly just randomly going around the jungle. Which personally given the kana barf is kinda relieving.

Score: 1.5 No Death Trap cameo in World of Final Fantasy??? LAME! out of 5

Some of the puzzles are pretty much impossible to figure out because of the large number of useless items you have in your inventory. Or maybe it's not impossible, I dunno cause I didn't care and just used a guide. Moving around the map was frustrating, the story is pretty much nonexistent and there's barely any fan service. I would say play with a guide for kicks to see how Square started off but otherwise, you're not missing much. Still, that romaji input is so good... stupid Zarth.

This is perfectly reasonable jungle attire, NOT fan service

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Okhotsk ni Kiyu（北海道連鎖殺人 オホーツクに消ゆ）

In my quest to find the GOTY of 1984, I decided to check out everybody's favorite early murder adventure game: "Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin Okhotsk ni Kiyu". It's always good marketing to make a product with a name that's impossible to remember. I'm relieved to know it's a long time tradition and not some trendy shit that happened due to the Moe apocalypse (which I cleverly call the "Moepocalypse").

"Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online IV 3rd Squad Jam Betrayers' Choice" eh?

Since I can't stand reading text with no Kanji and I'm a PC Master race graphics whore, I decided to skip the earlier version and went straight to the PC98 Master race remake.

LOL, watch out kids, this is FC not the NES

Sure, the FC version has a much better soundtrack simply due to the fact that there's way more songs than the total of maybe like two tracks in the PC98 version but who cares?? BOOB LIGHTING!!!

PC (98) MASTER RACE FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY KANJI BAE

The gameplay is nothing more than endlessly trying out various menu options until you find the one that progresses the game, a shitty blackjack minigame, a lame ass maze, and clicking on random shit. Basically, one of those games that is pretty much impossible without a guide.

The dialogue is very bare bones and provides almost no character development (well, except the fact that your assistant is kind of a pervert) and while the mystery is at least much better than the first Jinguji Saburo game, it's still definitely no Gyakuten Kenji 2.

Even has obligatory Hollywood geisha. TIME TO LOCALIZE??

UPDATE: A few days after I finished the game and this post, I couldn't stop thinking about the story and the human drama that reveals itself at the end. While the dialogue was sparse, there was a lot of events that stuck in my head afterwards. As I play more games from that era, I can't help but feel this game had one of the best stories from the early 80s. I can finally start to see how it inspired Hideo Kojima to get into making video games.

Scale: 3 way better than that Shinjuku park scam from the first Jinguji game out of 5

While the PC98 version looks great, its major flaw is the serious lack of songs. That one BGM will drive you mad after awhile. Unfortunately, the hot spring easter egg nude scene didn't appear to be in the PC98 version either. As for the FC version... well it's the FC. I have not tried the PC88 or MSX versions and have no plans to ever.

There is no SFC version of this game... IDIOT!

An interesting title overall especially since the scenario was written by the creator of Dragon Quest and dare I say... a hidden gem?? I'm not sure why this game was not published by Enix as Yuji Horii's previous ADV game was. Weird.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely