The Legend of Zelda（ゼルダの伝説）

Well it's the end of the decade and what better way to end it by playing a classic that is now over 33(!) years old: Zeruda no Densetsu. What a great way to make myself feel freakin' old that is! Yes, here at Jhipster blog, us humble gamers take pride in not playing all that fancy new shit. I didn't buy any new games this year and put them into a hoarder box still sealed and untouched. Nope, totally did NOT do that.

Anyways, I was working on my 1988 GOTY list, checking out Fire Bam on the FDS that vaguely resembled Zelda II and then remembered I never played the first one and so here we are a few days and 7 hours of gameplay later and I'm happy to report that this 33 year-old, out of shape beer belly, middle age crisis Tesla buying game still holds up really well! And no, that description has absolutely no bearing on my personal appearance whatsoever!

Getting off my fat arse to switch to Disk Side B not shown here

This Famicom Disk System launch title really does justify buying an FDS at the time in Japan. The poor Japanese kids wouldn't get the FC version until 1994, years after the Super Famicom was already out! Sure, you have to flip the disk and deal with loading, but it's an amazing game for its time and even more so considering it was one of the launch titles on the system. Now, I obviously haven't played every game before 1986 but I have to believe this is the first action adventure game of this type.

"1 star, don't speak fucking french" -review on Amazon Japan

The title screen has a quick summary of the setting and story in English, I guess because it looks cool? Amazingly, it is grammatically correct and gets the point across. At least they were nice enough to ask you to look at the "book" in their customers' native language. I'm assuming they're referring to the game's manual.

Which button do I press to see this book?

Fortunately, due to the re-release of this game on the Famicom mini console, you can read a beautiful scan by Nintendo themselves (how nice!). I took a look at the English version and they "erroneously" translated Zelda's wet nurse Impa as a "nursemaid". Talk about discriminating against a perfectly legitimate and reputable profession. Time to go wild on Twitter! #CENSORSHIP2019 #BOYCOTTNOW

Kanji for "breast" + "mother" = "wet nurse". See, Japanese is so EASY!

I've always been intimidated by this game as you have pretty much almost full reign of the overworld map with no clear direction on the next destination. There's no giant rock blocking most of the way here until you get the right item to progress, this is old-school. However, playing with a guide, this game is probably just as fun as any of the more modern Zelda games. I don't feel bad about using a guide (sparingly) because honestly some of the hidden shit screams "please subscribe to Nintendo Power" marketing to me. For example, I don't think there was any hint on how to find the Magic sword.

Sure this one was easy to find but try to find the Magic Sword (Google time!)

Once you know which trees to burn with the candle and get a better sword and tunic, I found the difficulty was pretty fair though most of the bosses are pretty easy. I mean of course it is, you play a character that can burn a fucking tree with a candle for god's sakes! The hardest dungeon is probably the 6th level. That weird jelly enemy that steals your magic shield was SO ANNOYING.

The fact that you can only save when you die also really made it hard for me to put the game down (literally). I played the GBA version so no sissy save states or "life of luxury" mode for the privileged kids. Nintendo nowadays is all kid family friendly with the, "oh maybe you should take a break" messages. However, in this game, after you beat a dungeon, you get back all your health as if to invite you to keep playing and that's what I did instead of going to work or being a responsible member of society. Great game, thanks Nintendo!

Score: 4 breast moms out of 5 (7 hours to beat)

Great innovation! Ok, time to make like 20 sequels now!

I have to hand it to Nintendo here. They managed to create an entire new genre on a system launch title, which is really impressive. The open world exploration, smooth and fun action gameplay, this is a game that really wouldn't work on the PC-88/98. Ys doesn't come on PCs until a year later and it's choppy as hell. I missed out as a Sega kid, and only vaguely remember the snake from Golvellius at some other kid's house but I'm pretty sure it's not as good as this game.

There's also great replay value with the second quest after you beat the game for the first time. I haven't played the second quest yet but I still think it's amazing that they included a remix of the whole game. They certainly don't do that anymore at least for free. (Hard mode DLC only 800 yen!)

I definitely think for 1986 in terms of innovation, this deserves a 4 star great game score. The only minor downside is the fact that you need a guide and a lack of variety in the music. The overworld and dungeon themes are great, they didn't grate on my ears even after hours of gameplay. But those are the only two songs you hear the whole game except for the intro screen, the last dungeon, and the ending credits.

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

Murder Club（殺人倶楽部）

The legacy of the J.B. Harold series of detective ADV games goes back even further than the Tantei Jinguji Saburo series, though it doesn't seem to have the same miraculous tenacity. The series sadly got into the dead dumb-phone platform for the last 3 games and are basically unplayable as far was I'm aware. It's too bad because I'm kind of curious about the 5th game Seattle Purple Haze. The only thing I could find about the game was this tiny screenshot.

"Little did J.B. know that renting would lead to homelessness years later when he could no longer afford his Ballard rent due to soaring tech stocks."

Unlike the last 3 games which are lost in the heady days of flip phones and PHS (lol remember picchi?), the first game Murder Club has been ported to every platform imaginable. Its release history reads like some sort of abridged game console timeline from the original PC-88 1986 release to the MSX, Famicon, PC Engine CD, PC, DS, etc., the most recent release being a port of the iOS version on the Switch eShop. The later versions are all based on the DS remake which is the version I played.

God, Janet Robbins is so HAWT in the remake.

I believe the DS remake is mostly the same as the original but with a new coat of paint and some improvements to the UI. It also added an epilogue where you can check on what the cast is up to after the main game, as well as, a lead in to the sequel. Fortunately, my used copy had already unlocked the epilogue because supposedly you have to beat it with 100% completion to unlock and I only had 97% with zero desire to play all over again.

The official sites always feature Janet... Well, she IS hawt.

I also checked out the PC Engine CD version because it's the only version with all voiced dialogue. It's a rare fully bilingual game with both text and audio so no reason to pay $80 for the TurboGrafix CD version. But then again, what else would all the rich, privileged non-Jhipsters spend their money on?

Well, you have to spend your institutionalized socially advantageous money somewhere.

The unfortunate thing about the PCE version is that the BGM for the game is just awful. It's so weird because the title and setting screens have pretty darn good CD quality jazz music. A little too much soprano sax for my taste but still pleasant to listen to. What, did they think having a nice jazz BGM would be too relaxing or maybe it was some technical limitation? Even without a CD soundtrack, they could've done a better job with the sound chip IMO. At least in the DS version, while the BGM is super boring, I didn't even really notice nor care.

Yeah the OP sounds good but wait till the game starts...

Finally, onto the game itself, what's all the hubbub about? Is this game really so good that it needs to be ported to 13 different platforms over the span of 31 years? Well, for a 31 year old game, it's pretty good but that's not saying much. It's a standard old-school PC-88 ADV game which means you're trying menu option after menu option. I feel like some of the menu options are useless and should've been removed. For example, why the fuck would you want to ask everybody's blood type? Americans don't even know their blood type half the time. It's not like we're reading Japanese teen magazines to see what boy hunk is compatible with our blood type "personality". I actually had a tiny bit of fun seeing how many ways the VAs could say "I don't know" for all the various menu options but it gets old fast.

Today's blood type?? She's playing ya man! Get a DNA swab! You never watched CSI?

In addition, I understand that there weren't countless podcasts and murder channels to describe in depth how murder investigations were conducted in 1986 but the way you go about it is simply ridiculous. The game dumps a ton of characters on you at the very start which is a bit overwhelming, trying to remember who did what. After you spend a few hours asking everybody their blood type, you then get search warrants and start finding evidence I guess nobody bothered to dispose of. Then, you go to the DA to start arresting people for questioning. You press them with the evidence until they confess. Case closed. All in a good day's work, eh detective?

If you ignore the gameplay, this game does a pretty decent job of uncovering a web of human drama for you to untangle. The story pales in comparison to the deep human drama presented in Hokkaidou blah blah but it kept me interested enough once I got over the initial mental hurdle of memorizing all the characters.

Unfortunately, this is the extent of the fan service. No Yuji Horii panti here.

Score: 2 "Look at my amazing complete PC Engine collection, no it doesn't bother me that I can't read most of it, I'm a Youtuber not a gamer silly!" out of 5 (8 hours to complete)

Pretty cool but how much was a Sharp X68000? Probably like one of my kidneys.

As I look back on the short list of games I completed so far from 1986, I would say that this game is a very middle of the road average 3 score for its time. The remake was fairly well done in that it was faithful to the original while adding some minor improvements. However, in today's standards, this would be a hard one to recommend unless you're striving to be a Jhipster gamer historian like yours truly or just really partial to old school ADV games.

The only reason to buy the U$ version is if this typo bother you. #1stWorldProblems

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

Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu（ウイングマン ２ -キータクラーの復活-）

About a year and a half after the release of Wingman, comes the sequel from Enix: Wingman 2 and Kitakura comes back in this one. Now, I only read the first few chapters of Wingman to get a sense of the overall setting so I had no idea that Kitakura had gone anywhere. I'm not sure of the story timeline but I guess Kitakura was presumed dead and it seems kind of silly to announce his revival right in the fucking subtitle but there ya go. (Spoiler alert?)

Now all I do is play PC88 games while listening to Plastic Love (tnx YT) 

So, according to random Japanese blogger, the first Wingman sold pretty well (at least for those times) though nowhere near the level of Xanadu, which I don't get cause fuck that game. Anyways, it sold well enough I guess for Enix to go for round 2 and it's what you would expect pretty much any sequel to be: the same shit as the last game but more of it and better. Also, now complete with the obligatory Enix fan service (only one as usual for um... "marketing").

Queue the obligatory Enix fan service click bait

In the gameplay department, they made the user interface a little bit easier to use by allowing you to point at shit to either go somewhere or look at something. Dayum, what is this? Apple II?

Whoa, a cursor? WTF is this newb shit?

You still have to type a bunch of random shit you would probably never guess without a guide but thank god I discovered this little tool that let me bypass the old-school kana input. Unfortunately, there were some bugs using the tool with small kana such as when trying to type "buy juice" so I did have to pull up a pic of the PC88 keyboard at times, but overall WAY easier this time around.

Well well well, looks like we got ourselves a Casanova here.

I'm going to confess to totally cheating again this time around. While the cursor does make things a bit easier than the first game, there's a bunch of random guesswork like having to say "cute" to get an item (again). They have some traps too such as making you go out of your way to pick up some medicine that is never used. When Miku is unconscious, forget about the medicine, you're supposed to type "do kiss" for some reason. Maybe it's a reference to the manga, I dunno but fuck it, guide time. The guide also helped when the game failed to progress as there's a bug that may require you to save and reload (emu save state doesn't count duh).

Kissing without consent is rape! #metoo

Once you cheat, it's a pretty short game as usual but there's a lot more PC88 art to enjoy in this sequel. Although I have to say that even though there is more art, not all of the art looks well... proportional. I'm no artist so I'm not gonna gripe about it but could it be that the Zarth artist was feeling a little time crunch? Who knows? Maybe somebody can kickstart a book about it.

Is this camera angle necessary? I demand a high-tech cape!

One thing to note is that the ending of this game matches the ending of the manga so you might want to avoid if you plan on reading the manga (yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of you out there). Given that it seems the story is pretty much concluded in the manga and this game, I'm curious to see where they take things in the next game: Wingman Special.

Score: 2 disappointed "tweet #metoo" command didn't work out of 5

Overall, a pretty solid ADV sequel at least for those times but there's a lot more competition in 1986 than there was in 1984. The little mini game was a nice distraction though and pretty decent for what it's worth.

This mini game is better than in the previous game but no Contini Punch

The music was also pretty darn good at least in terms of PC88 levels. I should know cause all I listen to nowadays is PC88 music and city pop cause that's what Youtube tells me to listen to.

Coming up next: Plastic Love daft punk nightcore remix 2

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

Dead Zone（デッドゾーン）

Yeah, don't think so.

I'm going to make this post a quick one because I really don't have much to say about Dead Zone, a Family Computer Disk System ADV game from Sunsoft. Typical of console games from this period, the cover art is kind of deceptive as the actual graphics are pretty crude. I know this isn't PC88 Master race but still, it's 1986. Compared to Wingman from 2 years prior, this just goes to show how inferior consoles were back in the day.

Thankfully, at least cause FDS, you don't have to type anything. Even so, there's so many commands and possibilities, I would say this is another game that's almost impossible without a guide. It doesn't help that you can barely tell what you're looking at cause of the lame graphics.

LOL, that's quite a fancy plug there. Is this DirectX 12???

The puzzles are pretty intense and if you like that kind of thing, might be something that's even enjoyable. You start out in a garbage dump Star Wars style and have to make your escape by causing the walls to come closing in. You can then use the walls to climb up to the ceiling vent before it crushes you.

The game is filled with those kind of challenging puzzles if you're a masochist I guess. As for me, of course, I have no patience for that kind of thing so cheat time it is (AGAIN). Similar to Suisho no Dragon, the other FDS adventure game I've played so far, the story is pretty minimal and all is revealed in like 5 lines of dialogue at the end. I guess I was supposed to buy the game with manual if I wanted to get the whole backstory... SORRY.

Oh, well that explains why the game has no back story...

However, I have to give credit to this game for its interesting puzzles at least. The gnarliest is the final password, which Carry, your robot companion claims is 1215225. The real password is 1311825 and the reason I found was on a random Japanese blog.

数字はアルファベットの並び順。キャリーが言っているのは「12＝L、15＝O、22＝V、5＝E」で「LOVE」となり、正しい方は「13＝M、1＝A、18＝R、25＝Y」で「MARY」である。

Lies, just like the cake. Damn robots.

Also, there's a weird mini-game intermission kinda thing in the middle where you have to catch onigiri being thrown by an old guy. Weird.

Is there some mythos I don't know about that explains this?

Score: 1.5 well at least the title screen and box art looked good out of 5.

There's nothing exactly wrong with this game besides the ho-hum graphics and lackluster story. It could be a good game to try if you like nigh impossible puzzles solved strictly by selecting menu options. Oh well, at least the title and ending looked cool.

Oh man, this game is going to be SO COOL.

Well, at least the ending was cool...

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

In search of GOTY for 1986

Oh my god, as if to make up for the dearth of games in 1985, 1986 can be pretty much considered a gamer's paradise (if you were rich) of the 80s. The Famicon Disk System launched in February and pumped out some mega hits including Zelda as a launch title. Meanwhile, the PC Master race was not to be outdone either with tempting titles from both sides of the Pacific.

As for the Famicon, it's still firmly in the camp of arcade style games that are designed to make you want to murder somebody, for example fucking Goonies. Now I loved the movie primarily cause of the smart Asian kid with the gadgets but the game not so much. I played a bunch of the Famicon games released in 1986 like Goonies and Kage no Densetsu much later with that shady 100 games-in-one cart Korean console and well, needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

Fuck this game, fuck it to hell

As for me, besides some odd titles I've played on other people's expensive PC hardware (C64, etc.), this was the start of my childhood nostalgia rose-tinted glasses of the mighty Master System. While early shooters are kind of dated now, at the time I played the SHIT out of Astro Warrior. That and of course Space Harrier are the games of 1986 that made up my childhood. Now, I didn't have/rent these games IN 1986 (duh, these are Japanese release dates) but these are the games I grew up with probably around the late '80s. Yeah, pre-orders and scummy resellers weren't really a thing in the golden age.

As for Space Harrier, while the vanilla arcade port came out in 1986, I believe I must've had the later 3D version cause I remember killing my eyes with those glasses. Come to think of it, that might have something to do with why I can't see shit anymore. Ah, the good ol' thrilling days of rampant lead paint and potentially life-threatening toys before all this Obama death panel government interference!

We wore these while licking lead off GI Joe figures but somehow still not as dumb as SJW millennial kids nowadays

However, I'm not a dumb kid anymore and have far more sophisticated tastes, so let's see which games have the best boobies... er... I mean have the best expression of gameplay aesthetics... and... interactivity... and stuff....

Family Computer Disk System

I bet the game looks just like this!

There's a lot to like in the FDS's offerings in 1986 that are obvious contenders for GOTY, mainly Legend of Zelda, Akumajou Dracula (aka Castlevania for the non-Jhipsters), and Metroid. That's quite a hefty lineup for a peripheral, especially during its very first year on the market. For the serious Japanese gamer able to blow ¥15,000, it's a must own item as Zelda and Akumajou Dracula didn't get FC ports for many, many years. Metroid never got ported at all, you would have needed to wait till 2004 to play on the GBA!

I played through a few levels of Akumajou Dracula and I can't deny that it's fun. I certainly got good at avoiding those pesky flying Medusa heads. But not GOTY mostly due to my genre preferences.

Also on the FDS, I played an adventure game called Dead Zone. While the cover and art style outside of the game looked good, the game itself was brutally difficult and had a minimal story like many adventure games during this time. It was just so-so.

The Legend of Zelda

I was definitely late to the party with this one but I can add my voice to the consensus that the first Zelda game is a timeless classic that was amazing for its time. It's still fun to play today and very close to being my GOTY.

Metroid

Technically I haven't played Metroid yet but I did beat the GBA remake. It's almost a completely different game so I can't say too much about the original version. However, I just couldn't really bring myself to play through it after the oh so much better remake.

Zeta

I feel like 1986 is a good year to check out Champion Soft's lineup. Even though they have a couple games going all the way back to 1983, it's a bit too dated even for me. Zeta, on the other hand, is a very interesting idea of bundling a magazine with software in probably one of the earliest if not the first example of virtual idols. The software even has a contest for favorite idol conducted by sending in a postcard from the magazine (it might be a tad bit late to send now). The Disk Magazine was published biannually until 1987 with a total of 5 volumes. Considering the big cultural impact virtual idols have had in Japan from the likes of Hatsune Miku, Love Live, etc., Zeta is definitely a noteworthy game for GOTY just in historical terms.

This is vol 1, issue 2, the only picture I could find online

If you've never heard of Champion Soft, you may have heard of their brand AliceSoft, which I thought was the name of the company for the longest time. Champion Soft is still around and is the developer responsible for AliceSoft (the brand). So definitely a lineup to keep an eye out for in terms of Jhipster gaming history.

Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter

It seems Sierra On-line is still the dominant pioneer in the English-speaking adventure genre and boy, did they knock it out the park with the hilarious new series: Space Quest. Yeah, they also released the rather simplistic licensed game The Black Cauldron and yet another King's Quest but Space Quest is one of the series that I actually played and loved growing up, playing with my friend on his (rich) parent's Tandy on EGA graphics or whatever.

I loved the premise of Roger Wilco's anti-hero persona as you play a loser janitor on an accidental adventure to save the universe. As a bullied nerd, this was the perfect game to release some stress, er, I mean if I WAS a bullied nerd. Of course, as a super popular stud surrounded by chicks, I can only guess but I bet some poor nerd would have really enjoyed this game.

One of the best premise for an amazing series of adventure games

I would say in almost any other year, Space Quest I would be a no-brainer for GOTY but alas, 1986 is not just any year and there are some heavy contenders this time around. However, it at least deserves an honorable mention.

Alpha

Not to be outdone by the competition, Square released Alpha this year and so far I would rank it as their best Adventure game by far. Leagues ahead of Death Trap and Death Trap II, it features probably some of the best graphics (boobs) on the PC88 and it's not just ONE picture like Enix's scammy Zarth. In addition to some nice puzzles (boobs), it has a decent story (boobs), a nice OP theme song (boobs), and even a bit of animation. This definitely would have been a contender for GOTY if it came out in weaker year.

Like one nipple away from GOTY

Dragon Quest

While I gave the Famicon a lot of flack for being a mediocre platformer/action home console, there is one major exception. Even though all the cool games such as Metroid and Zelda were being released on the Famicon Disk System this year, surprisingly Dragon Quest came out on the regular ol' Famicon.

Reading on the Famicon? What is this? FDS wannabe??

There are countless "articles" written by some nerd in his mom's basement about how JRPGs are really CRPGs and how they are more linear because of story or some bullcrap. However, at least for our good ol' pervy friend Horii, anybody who's played Karuizawa Yukai Annai can see where Dragon Quest's roots came from. 

 

Pfft, so much for those Reddit/Kotaku/Polygon JRPG history "experts"

The final RPG portion of Karuizawa Yukai Annai is not so much linear, but better described as extremely primitive. You have to fight enemies in a certain order as the game balance is extremely tight and restricted. While DQ, being a full fledged RPG rather than just something tacked on the end, obviously has a lot more leeway in terms of balance, it still requires you to go to certain places in a certain order and weapon upgrades become available just when you need them.

I really enjoyed the tight balance and simple linear gameplay but I think it was more a product of simplicity and time constraints rather some stupid cultural bias as some dumb "JRPG vs WRPG" blogger would like to think. The fact is, with more ambition and budget, the next two sequels, especially 3, become much more open-ended as soon as you get the boat. Personally, it's why I hated 2 and still slogging through 3 because exploring without a clear goal with random encounters ain't so much fun when you're a busy adult. I'm sure it's great for kids to waste time on the ONE game they're stuck with for months, but no thanks, I'll stick with the good ol' simple DQ1.

While I played the SFC version, which has better music and sound so there is a little bias there. However, besides the much improved menu interface, it's still a similar experience to the original. While Zelda comes close or even tied, Dragon Quest is my GOTY for now mostly because I'm partial to RPGs.

Other games of note

VR remake candidate?

177
While I didn't try this game myself, 177 is a noteworthy game for perhaps being the first example of the Streisand effect in gaming. Though since no internet, the effect was a mere golf clap, this pretty simplistic and frankly bad game has the notorious distinction of being the first adult title discussed in the National Diet. No idiots, it's not some new diet fad, I'm talking about Japanese politics.

Apparently 177 is the law concerning rape and you basically just chase down a woman in the park and well... 177 away. According to Wikipedia, this game was practically pulled from the market after the Diet got wind of it. Pfft, silly politicians, I guess they didn't even know about Tenshitachi no Gogo released a year earlier, where one of the menu options is "rape". Due to the increased notoriety and the subsequent ban, this game is supposedly now a rare collector's item. Way to go collectors!

J.B. Harold no Jikenbo Murder Club
A decent detective story with standard PC-88 ADV menu action.

Suishou no Dragon
The other Square developed game in 1986, published by DOG. Maybe because it was crippled by not being on PC master race hardware, I thought it was just so-so.

Valis: The Fantasm Soldier
I played the PC Engine remake which was pretty good but the original 1986 release looks pretty rough.

Wingman 2: Kitakura no Fukkatsu
Not a bad sequel but there are better ADV games.

Ganbare Goemon! Karakuri Dōchū

I spent a few hours playing the first Goemon game given that it's a fairly extensive franchise. I didn't beat it but it was certainly one of the better action games for this year. Having small, first-person mazes was nice distraction. However, it does get a bit repetitive after the first few levels and there are no bosses or anything of the sort.

Games I plan to try later

道化師殺人事件
コスモエンジェル
King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human
マドゥーラの翼 レイラ

ハイドライドスペシャル

ワルキューレの冒険

Suishou no Dragon（水晶の龍）

After Alpha, Square published some shooters (meh) with Thexder and King's Knight. But we all know their true soul is in adventure games so I'll be skipping those. Which brings us to their first console debut on the Family Disk System: Suishou no Dragon (again not counting Thexder cause it was licensed).

Yeah fuck Kanji, "Ryu" is so passé

Not sure why they used the Kanji for "Ryu" and yet read it in English as "Dragon". I guess it's because English is "cool". Anyways, does Suishou no Dragon live up to the high standards of Alpha, despite being crippled by outdated console technology? Let's find out! (totally unbiased)

Loading... loading... please wait... ok... WAIT load some more... aaaand... loading again

The game starts out with an interesting premise. Right away, your ship is shot down by a flying dragon IN SPACE. Yeah, a space dragon (cool) and then....please wait.

As I explained previously, I didn't grow up with the luxury of importing every (any) piece of fancy gaming hardware back in the day so this is actually my first time playing a FDS game and man, the loading time is a big bummer. The emulator I was using unfortunately pauses when I try to multitask so I had to actually watch it do its fake emulated loading shit. At least I didn't have to get out of the chair to flip the disk, something that happens annoying while moving around in the middle of town.

Her name Yujin ironically also means "friend" (spoiler... not really)

The character design is pretty good even though it definitely has that family Famicon look to it. The control sceme is a bit awkward in that you first have to move your cursor BEFORE you select the action but I got used to it. Oddly enough, you never need to use the"throw" command in the entire game (the flying rock command on the upper right). I especially liked the fact that when you die, it automatically starts you a few actions before, removing the need to save incessantly. That's some next gen Call of Duty shit right there.

Aaaaand the game is over. No seriously, this game is probably about the same length as WILL Death Trap 2 and can be beaten in under an hour with a guide. Yes, I did waste some time aimlessly wandering around in space and desert but there's no map so it's not like you can enjoy even manually mapping anything. The story is slightly better than Death Trap 2 but not by much. You barely interact with any characters and the plot just barfs all over you in like 5 seconds. In fact, I can probably write more about the scandal surrounding this game than about the actual game itself.

The infamous scene with Shinshia (whom you barely interact with)

The first thing that shows up on a google search for this game is the whole Famitsu fake article "scandal" hinting at... um, I don't really know given my cleansed, pure soul. Of course I'm talking Jhipster google search as an English search just turns up roms and translation patches. (English, English, English is that all you guys care about? Geesh!)

Apparently "Family" Disk System also caters to the masturbating teenage son (or daughter, no need to be sexist)

Apparently a lot of hopeful boys (or girls, or fuck it let's just include gender-neutral and gender-curious, it's fucking 2017 after all #trump #armageddon) were dissapointed to find out the rock-paper-scissor easter egg mini game was just Famitsu's ploy to trick its competitors. They flat out made up shit with elaborate fake screenshots apparently just to figure out which competitors were wholesale copying their content.

Now, non-jhipsters may say you'd be stupid to think there would be nudity in a Nintendo console game but that's for Reggie-Puritan-OMG-Congressional-Hearing-Time NoA. After all, your beloved DQ father Horii was a perv back in the good ol' days.

The good ol' days before all that squeeky clean DQ mainstream shit (no nipples though)

Other than that interesting bit of history, I don't think you would be missing much by skipping this one. While it started out interesting, the story is short and dead simple, there's pretty much zero character development and the puzzles were nothing special. Compared to Alpha, this is a pretty big downgrade. Even Alpha had at least music for both the intro and ending, this game only has ONE song at the end and the rest is either silence or super annoying sfx. At the very least, I got a kick out of the space scooter that you putz around in space with.

Don't worry, your space scooter will be upgraded to a space motorcycle later

Score: 1.5 yes, a scooter sounds like the perfect engineering design to explore space!!! out of 5

At least now I'm a more learned gaming historian and "in the know" for future references and parodies. I'm sure that'll totally come in handy in real life.

Oh, I GET IT NOW AHAHAHAHA!! Ok, where's my paycheck? I've got bills to pay!

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

Alpha（アルファー）

I thought I was being clever when I snarkily remarked that Square didn't do fan service in the good ol' days until their 3rd title in 1986 but I forgot about Cruise Chaser Blassty so I actually meant their 4th title (ignoring Thexder which was not developed by Square). So I guess the joke's on me, SJWs WIN AGAIN! Anyway, here we are finally, playing Square's first masterpiece, Final Fan- err, I mean Alpha. Oh, you play as a girl with no memories NOR any pants? GOTY!!!

Let's make Beta next! Naw fuck it, go straight to Final (Fantasy)

At first, I was so spoiled by the compass directions in Will Death Trap II that I was totally lost until I realized that the game was dumbed down even further by allowing you to use directional keypad to make your way around. (Geesh, kids nowadays...) Not the arrow keys, I'm talking turn Num Lock off directional keypad old-school.

Knowing how to move around, you can figure out most things by playing blind except it has this weird thing where you have to get caught by robots like 3 times to progress the game. HOWEVER, you'll lose all your items so you have to wait until a certain point to pick up anything.

They take the gun but apparently you were able to hide the gold key... somewhere. HEH HEH HEH

In typical old school adventure style, if you lose your items, you're pretty much screwed and beating the game is now impossible without starting from an earlier state.

I'm not doing anything shady, no siree!

This game feels like what Will Death Trap 2 should have been if it was 3x longer and actually had a plot. There's a bit of story with even somewhat of a minor twist. Plenty of that nice ascii por- err I mean traditional pixel artwork. There's lots of places to explore though the "maps" on either side of the screen are totally useless this time around. Good thing I have the trusty internet to guide me.

Yeah, there are some kinks, like how the Stadium which blows up at the very beginning of the game still have people running away even at the end. And sometimes you can shoot the robot police and sometimes you can't. Basically, if you can't shoot the robot, then you've missed something or you're going the wrong way.

The most incompetent robot police ever. Stupid devs probably didn't QA them.

Overall, I think Alpha is a huge step forward from Square's previous adventure games. There's a lot of great looking art, a couple cool animations, and plenty to like in terms of fan service. Though technically, the well positioned strand of hair means it's not really a 18+ game. The one song that plays in the intro and ending is pretty good too. If they keep this up, there may be some amazing visual novels coming from those guys in later years.

  The rest of the game is filled with horrible sound effects but this OP is not half bad
Score: 2 I bet these Square guys must be making some great visual novels nowadays, right?! out of 5.

That's a pretty cool logo, wonder what happened to these guys?

Additional screenshot for the future gaming historians.

You might want to look into a chiropractor for that back problem...

Apparently radar is far more useful than we originally imagined

Zero-gravity and boobs... I think we're onto something here Square! $$$!!

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