In search of GOTY for 1989

While us Americans in 1989 were enjoying the last good Indiana Jones movie (you know, before the aliens anal probed the series), in Japan, the next generation of gaming was heating up with PC Engine picking up momentum and the MEGA DRIVE's first full year on the market. Nintendo however continues to dominate with the Famicom in the middle of its lifecycle while the Disk System started to wind down with only 20 releases. No worries, Nintendo had a new entry up their sleeve: portable gaming.

GAME BOY

If you're old like me, you might have at one point played one of those shitty Tiger Electronics sad excuse of pretending to be a game. Ignoring unplayable shit like that, it's safe to say the GAME BOY was the first portable gaming handheld that had a rich and actually fun library.

Yay, you can still buy this shit (why though?)

Despite never owning a NES nor a Genesis as a kid (no matter how much I begged and cajoled), I did have access to the GAME BOY thanks to my older sibling's arubaito money. She got it for herself but I um... "borrowed it" and played it for way longer than she probably ever did. Ah, the nostalgia of playing Tetris with my buddy head-to-head almost literally with that short ass link cable. I watched the space launch and the other ending so many times, seeing it again immediately brings back those nostalgia tears. I never did figure out what the fuck launching into space had to do with lining up blocks but kids don't sweat the details.

Plot twist: we were distributed compute units for Russia's space program

I think many of us older folks have fond memories of staring at that green screen for hours on end with no backlight and by some amazing coincidence, we're all also probably near-sighted. Super Mario Land was a solid and fun launch title, which I got good enough to beat in an afternoon whenever I was bored. And there were even a couple RPGs in the first year, one of which was Selection: Erabareshi Mono which has the word "select" in two languages for some reason? I did play the English version The Sword of Hope as a kid and vaguely remember wasting hours trying to figure out how to get to the next area. It was a weird RPG/Adventure game hybrid that brings back nostalgia tears that are a bit too salty to consider for GOTY.

Random encounters and puzzles were perhaps not the best combination

I have to say looking back at things in context, the Game Boy was an amazing piece of technology for its time. Yeah sure, everything is various tones of green but putting the lack of color aside, the sound chip is amazing. Check out some of these rocking tunes!

Makai Toushi Sa·Ga（魔界塔士Sa・Ga）

Release Date: December 12

I played the WonderSwan Color version of the first Saga game. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much the same except of course, with you know, color. Localizers fucked up as they often do by calling it The Final Fantasy Legend. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with Final Fantasy. 

It's a pretty simplistic RPG but what can you expect given that it's the first RPG on a portable console (that I know of). It's a cool game and pretty fun especially considering that it came out in the first year of the GAME BOY. The setting is definitely not your normal fantasy RPG, as you can clearly tell from the rocket launcher and chainsaw on the cover. We definitely need more RPGs with modern weapons other than Metal Max.

While I haven't played many GAME BOY games, it's generally because they are too simplistic for my tastes. Being one of 2 RPGs released in the first year, this is definitely my GOTY for the system as it was actually pretty fun even today.

Verdict: GOTY for portable gaming

PC Engine

The PC Engine really started hitting its stride this year, offering what in my mind is undoubtedly the most technically advanced titles. Even super expensive PCs didn't offer CD quality music yet. There are a ton of titles I still need to play through so I'm sure I will be updating this section over the years.

Valis II（ヴァリスII）

Release Date: June 23

Overall, I liked Valis II though parts of it definitely got really frustrating near the end. While I wouldn't say that it's one of the best action games, once again the PCE CD technology shines here so I would say this takes GOTY for Soundtrack until I find something better.

Verdict: GOTY for Soundtrack

Ys I & II（イースI・II）

Release Date: December 21

The first two Ys game on PC were so choppy, I wouldn't really consider them playable. For me, the PCE port is the first platform where it was genuinely fun to play. While I had a blast with the PSP version, it would have been amazing to play this version all the way back in 1989. It's all about the bump for reals. Once you go bump, you never want to go back!

Verdict: GOTY for Action

PC

While I haven't yet had the time to really dive into the Japanese PC88/98 games, Sierra was still pumping out great titles such as Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon and who can forget Hero's Quest: So You Want to Be a Hero.

The latter was especially highly regarded for mixing RPG elements into Sierra's classic ADV games and not in a shitty way like The Sword of Hope. I played the heck out of the later VGA remake as a kid and really enjoyed how your character class directly affected how you played the game. However, enough talk about Sierra, there's a new game in town.

SimCity 

SimCity from Maxis was definitely a highlight for yet more childhood nostalgia. To be clear, I was not part of a rich family with a Mac or Amiga so all of my time playing SimCity was the SNES version that came out a couple years later. And to be fair, SimCity 2000 is so much more superior and the Maxis game I spent the most time on.

Wow, this city looks like shit. Greg Abbott, are you playing games again?!

However, SimCity deserves GOTY due to pretty much bringing about an entirely new genre of games. Sure, you can dig up earlier sim games that probably have some aspect of city building but not one that included zoning, connecting power lines, managing traffic, etc., etc. As for me, playing this on the SNES was the gateway to hours of fun from SimAnt and of course, the freaking amazing SimCity 2000. Reticulate some splines, y'all!!!

Verdict: GOTY Overall

Other Games I tried

MOTHER

Release Date: June 23

MOTHER is finally available in English so the Jhipster smugness factor is gone but honestly, I did not enjoy this game at all. It feels limited on the Famicom especially compared to newer systems that were available at this time. GOTY for the category: "Thank god for save states!" Meh.

Verdict: GOTY for being overrated

Dragon Knight（ドラゴンナイト）

Release Date: November 1

Dragon Knight is definitely not a great game, much less GOTY. It's a very simplistic DRPG with a single party member and hardly any depth to the gameplay at all.

Butt (sic) if you think about the graphics, you'd be hard pressed to find anything that would tickle your fancy like this on say the Famicom. I'm a sucker for the retro style and comparing it to other games that came out in 1989, I'm afraid it really is one of the best looking games this year.

Verdict: GOTY for visuals "assets"

Games I plan to try later

FC

がんばれゴエモン2

西村京太郎ミステリー ブルートレイン殺人事件

里見八犬伝

山村美紗サスペンス 京都花の密室殺人事件

マルサの女

スクウェアのトム・ソーヤ

暗黒神話 ヤマトタケル伝説

ヘラクレスの栄光II タイタンの滅亡

ハイドライドIII

スイートホーム

Megadrive

ファンタシースターII 還らざる時の終わりに

ヴァーミリオン

PCE

コブラ 黒竜王の伝説

魔界八犬伝 SHADA

エナジー

凄ノ王伝説

神武伝承

天外魔境 ZIRIA

ニンジャウォーリアーズ

ガンヘッド

めぞん一刻

ワンダーボーイIII モンスター・レアー

鏡の国のレジェンド

ダブルダンジョン

ニュートピア

弁慶外伝

PC88

Emerald Dragon

魔晶伝紀ラ・ヴァルー

Dragon Knight（ドラゴンナイト）

Dragon Knight is a DRPG where you save the kingdom/town of Strawberry Fields by defeating Dragon Knights. No literally. Dragons that are also knights (spoiler alert?). Personally, I think the game would have been much better if it had SPACE Dragon Knights but I digress.

The knight jumps into the dragon's mind... or something

Because I'm retro old-school, I first played through the original PC version. Not surprising for this type of game, but the kingdom/town is comprised solely of women. Now, I'm not sure how that works since Luna's mother is in the game and hence they must have some way to reproduce. Either they have some secret scissor magic (LOL) or maybe they hire out for some umm... outside help.

Luna, hate to break the news but your dad is... um... a test tube

One of the major problems with the PC88 version were the long load times and significant lag. The game was sluggish even at a blazing FOUR MHz so I dialed up the juice in my emulator all the way up to eight, count em EIGHT MHz!! Maybe the PC98 version is much better but I always have issues with those emulators.

8 MEGA POWER!!!

There's really not much to say about this game except that it's a very, very simple RPG with one attack and one heal spell, no items, and limited equipment. Now, as far I as I could tell, there is no automap feature and while I would love to map stuff out myself (ugh no), I have a life so I looked up the maps on the Suupaa Information Highway.

Nothing like a BACKLER to fend off them monsters

It's essentially a DRPG version of 闘神都市 except without all that sex. In fact, there is no sex whatsoever as you're practically a saint, saving all these women from the goodness of your heart. #WhiteKnight #FriendZone #ClosetSexOffender

What? Clothing? THE NERVE!

Unless you're really insistent on seeing some nipples, it's better to just play the PCE CD remake as it has an expanded story and nothing is cut. In fact, a lot of stuff has been added including bits of fabric or hair in some key strategic spots. I do have to point out that the the PC R-18 version has one image that probably won't be legal today thanks to America's proud work in changing the Japanese sexist laws. Thanks America! I won't put up the image of the match girl here so you'll have to play yourself if you're curious.

Is that one pixel going to make this blog NSFW??

I have to admire the fact that this game has different music for each of the 6 dungeon floors but man, PC88 music is not something you want to jam to for any length of time. I would put a link to one of the songs but nope, here's another screenshot, you horn dog!

There's like 3 other characters that look identical to this one

The PCE CD version is quite a faithful remake as all the dungeon maps are the same EXCEPT oddly enough the 6th floor. In addition to adding SUUPAA CD-ROM POWER voice acting, the game balance was also significantly tweaked. In general, the PCE version is almost TOO easy except for the weird difficulty spike at the black dragon. I grinded for a while there just to discover you only need to survive a few turns to win. MEH

Pretty much the same as PC except for, well try to guess.

Because of the addition of voiced dialogues, you can no longer change the main character's name from Takeru. A fair amount of dialogue was added with some minor plot changes including dialogue lines to hint at a larger story. Another big change is the ability to have a second party member. There's quite a few lines of dialogue in the original version where the main character complains that nobody ever tags around to help. I guess the developers took this to heart and decided to address his complaints. Also, the remake has automap though since I knew where everything was at this point, it was kind of moot (except the 6th floor).

This screenshot makes this look like an actual decent RPG

Score: 2.5  you're probably still googling "match girl" aren't you? out of 5.

I would say this game was a 2.5 including the remake given that it's based on a game from 1989. Yeah, the mechanics are dead simple but sometimes I'm in a mood to play a brain dead RPG without having to think about complicated shit like um... items. I had fun with it even though it's not a great game by any means.

SJWs in a rage right now might want to listen to these lyrics
Some extra screen shots cause, "Hey, I need to make some clickbait revenue too you know!!" I AM a "professional" after all!!

Pretty much the same as PC except for well... what do YOU think?

I tried to go back to the town and NUTHIN

Yeah, I actually finished this shit... TWICE. Don't know why

Next time, I'll probably just stick with the console shit

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

Valis II（ヴァリスⅡ）

I thought Valis II on the PCE CD was also a remake of the MSX/PC88/Sharp X68k, etc. PC versions and that it was simply made before the remake of the first game. Fortunately, Wikipedia (.jp of course) set me straight and it was actually developed simultaneously by an entirely different team. The PCE CD version dropped the 「夢幻戦士」 part of the title and was named simply Valis II.

As a result, this is almost essentially an entirely different game and I guess there are pretty large differences in the plot was well (my in-depth 5 min wikipedia research). While I thought the cut scenes were awesome, the story in the PCE CD version made very little sense to me. Still, I have to give this one props for being WAY AHEAD of its time technically at least in the home console market (hail PC(88) master race). To have fully voiced cut scenes at the height of the FC days really makes those kids playing Goemon 2 or whatever seem like, well child's play.

Yeah, the window is small but try comparing it to FC games from 1989

Plus, Yuko is a strong female protagonist bad ass this time around so you can't go wrong with that... oh but bikini armor... never mind! Japan it seems was still stuck in the middle ages when it comes to women's rights. Thank god America had it all figured out by then.  #MeToo. #TooSoon?

NOT SJW approved

The music was pretty darn good as well and this game is worth a play-through perhaps just for the soundtrack alone. Given that this game came out in 1989, in the context of the time, this is a pretty damn awesome game. However, by today's standards, the biggest problem is that actual game itself isn't the best platformer out there.

Not gonna lie, I was jamming during this tune
I'm going to be straight up honest here. Since I discovered the save state feature in the PCE emulator on the Vita while playing Valis I, I couldn't help but use it heavily for the sequel. Yeah, I technically cheated but the game was not good enough in my mind to expend the same amount of energy replaying over and over, the "correct" way. Especially when you consider those god damn annoying tiny floating spikes on fucking moving platforms in Act 5.

No seriously, fuck this shit

Playing this after the first remake was quite a step back in terms of both the in-game graphics and gameplay. Not just the lack of skirt physics, there is no longer a slide kick but the biggest problem was that the sword powers were very unbalanced. The power that can grow to the height of your character was so much more superior to all the other powers, that you want to avoid getting anything else at all costs. The projectile is huge and it even swallows incoming projectiles unlike the rest of the dinky, weak powers. My favorite homing missile from the first game was especially disappointing as it barely even homed and only fires one missile at a time even at max strength.

Score: 2.5 I guess the world wasn't ready for skirt physics before the 90s out of 5

I scored this one above the 2 mediocre score mostly because of its superior cut scenes and CD capabilities before even the SFC came out. Like many fellow non-Jhipsters, my first full CD-ROM experience came many years later with Myst on a machine that cost several thousands of dollars. It must have been real nice to be a Jhipster back in the day. Yeah, this game was localized I guessed and released on the TurboGrafx-CD in 1990 but who had one of those? Also, who wants that awful English dub anyways?

Me back in the day when I didn't know Japanese

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

Makai Toushi Sa·Ga（魔界塔士Sa・Ga）

Makai Toushi Sa·Ga or "The Final Fantasy Legend" to the non-Jhipsters is the first game in the SaGa series and calling it Final Fantasy was a typical marketing ploy, or at least that's how I understand it with my deep in-depth 2 minute Google search knowledge.

Since I haven't played any of the other SaGa games, I'm not sure how strongly they tie together in terms of plot. Actually, I DID finish Final Fantasy Legend III as a kid and I vaguely recall something involving robots, and time travel. So I'm guessing it really doesn't matter what series it's "officially" a part of.

Since I already ruined my eyes as a kid with hours of Game Boy green screen game time sometimes with the majestic Light Boy, I decided to indulge in the fancy WonderSwan Color remake this time around.

Holy shit! Look at that kid blinding himself!

Holy shit, is that like 256 shades of green?!!

Much like Bruce Lee's last movie, I didn't expect much from a game that consists of climbing up a mysterious tower solely because it's there. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the various settings as the tower is actually connected to various worlds.

The first world at the bottom of the tower is the least interesting

Before you can even get INTO the tower, you first have to collect a number of items and do some quests such as hooking up a king with the prettiest girl in the town. Is it just me or does this girl look like some giant one-eye monster? I dunno, there's friendly monsters all over the towns so maybe she's supposed to be one of those one-eyed creatures that became the series mascot.

Maybe I'm just not understanding the pixel art here

The game system was certainly new and interesting before I got familiar with it. First of all, you will constantly run out of room in your tiny inventory. It got so bad to the point where I just stopped opening treasure chests. Humans actually have double the inventory of espers because half of an esper's inventory is filled up by abilities. The esper's abilities are also changing randomly so you just kind of use what you got if it's helpful. Or not, if it happens to be shitty abilities.

However, despite my inventory troubles, I'm glad I only had one human in my party because while they can carry more shit, you have to manually upgrade their HP, strength, and speed with items, which is a time-consuming and annoying affair. You also probably want to have one monster in your party to eat the various meat and play around with the tranformations. Don't worry which monster you pick in the beginning because they all suck. Only once you start climbing the tower do you get some decent meat to transform into useful monsters.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention that your weapons can only be used a certain number of times before they disappear. Yeeeaaaaaaahhhh.

I'm gonna need you to stock up on some Katakanas, we're running low

As for the story, I actually thought it was pretty good. It was definitely interesting how you straight up murder people and you can inspect the dead body and the game says, "he's fucking dead, dude" (paraphrasing). I'm not sure how The Final Fantasy Legend localization dealt with it but I bet Reggie wouldn't be happy with all the dead bodies.

Jim, a cold-blooded killer or valiant hero? Stay tuned!

There were some scenes that were pretty intense and overall the story was definitely more than I expected of Square's first Game Boy game. These were still the days when portables were seriously behind in horsepower compared to consoles. Yes, I know I'm playing the much later WonderSwan Color version but besides minor differences such as freakin' color, I'm guessing the plot is still largely the same.

Minor story spoilers to follow, though totally unrelated to the main plot. Stop reading here if you're highly spoiler sensitive.



One particular scene of note was the room where you can pick up the one and only nuclear bomb in the game that can only be used once. The room is actually a shelter with 3 dead kids and a dead father who left a note hoping the kids can survive with limited water and food. GOT DAYUM! Sorry (dead) dad, um... they didn't make it. Thanks for the nuke though!

Corpses of dead children, thanks Nintendo!

On a totally unrelated note, I happened to get a little bit of historical background on the bosses in this game totally randomly while playing Memories Off 2nd. I just happened to be playing this game around the same time when the teacher started explaining about the four guardian beasts: Seiryu, Suzaku, Byakko, and Genbu. Weird!

I think I can complete my college degree this way! 

Score: 2.5 oh man, watch me nuke this guy to kingdo- gaaaaah! out of 5 (10 hours to beat)

In no way would I describe Makai Toushi Sa·Ga as a great or even necessarily a good RPG. It has some weird balancing issues where most bosses can be killed in only 3-4 turns. The mechanics, while unique, are kind of clunky and restrictive (though still much better than POS Mother). There are also some gnarly puzzles that would be a total pain in the ass if I didn't just resort to a walkthrough.

In actuality, the chainsaw is a pretty shitty weapon

Still, I loved the setting and the idea of mixing swords, magic, and freaking missile launchers. It kinda reminds me of Megami Tensei II, which I also happen to be playing at the moment. (Yeah, I'm so cool.)

There's just so much satisfaction in beating the final boss with a nuclear bomb as unrealistic as that is, I'm looking forward to the next entry in this series. Overall, it's a nice little, short RPG for the old-school limited portable systems.

Oh, I will definitely see you again on the DS.

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

MOTHER

Mother is probably the best game I've ever played. I was such a fool to think games like Final Fantasy were grindy because this game makes other game's grindyness feel like a walk in the park. Playing this amazing game makes all other games seem so much better. It really does wonders to get you into the mindset of how amazing those other games are... by comparison.


To be fair, going into this game, I had fairly high expectations. I was hoping to walk around, meet some charming characters, experience a nice but simple story, and gain a sense of satisfaction from grinding some levels and beating a boss.

Instead, what I discovered was an amazing, huge open world, maybe something like Grand Theft Auto (kids, I'm talking GTA 1 and 2). The only tiny difference would be to remove all the buildings and anything remotely interesting and turn it into a sprawling expanse of nothing but mountains, trees, and rivers. Then sprinkle in some remote locations that are impossible to find and complement it with the most useless map EVAR. My dog took a piss on the dirt once and it was a better map than this crap.

You can't find your way around? What are you, stupid??
The green arrow CLEARLY shows where you are.

Now finish off the masterpiece with an encounter rate that is apparently suffering from bipolar and refusing to take the meds. You trying to go somewhere? BAM, encounter. Ok, try to take a half step. BAM, encounter. You trying to grind? Ok, cool, you can wander around the sprawling wasteland for miles with absolutely no encounters.

This poor kid has no idea that he lives in the middle of nowhere

Now the version I played was the improved GBA version based on the English version that was only now just released for the Wii U as Earthbound Beginnings. It has some nice extras not in the original Famicon version such as the various censorship for the delicate US audience. Putting sarcasm aside, the L button was a life saver for one-handed playing, which is always a nice bonus for multiasking. And if there was any game that required multitasking, boy, is this it!

I didn't even know about the dash button until well into the second half of the game. (I really need to get into the habit of reading the manual.) But still, I'd rather stick to the left hand and forego the dash to multitask another game.

Kids nowadays be like, "What's a manual?"

To be honest, this game wasn't really all that bad once you give up on trying to play it blind, getting hopelessly lost in the massive map, and random encountering up the wazoo. Load up a faq, find a REAL map, and just follow the instructions.

Actually, GTA is probably too small to be a good comparison. You're gonna have to zoom in to see the red dot.

But the grindiness near the end is just ridiculous. Just when you get totally fed up with constantly running out of space in your tiny inventory, you finally get double, then triple the inventory space as you add members to your party. Unfortunately, it also means your experience now gets halved and then cut into 1/3. Not to mention, the enemies actually start to get REALLY hard and to add insult to injury, hardly give out more experience than the weaker enemies.

Finally, when you get the Katana for Teddy, who actually has some cojones instead of the other party members that seem to love getting killed, you're ready to KICK SOME ASS!!!!!!


10 minutes later...


Teddy leaves your party for the rest of the game. WTF.

The last area seemed pretty much a grind nightmare without Teddy but fortunately, you get some help temporarily. I was able to stock up on heal items and just grinded that short section of the game for hours. Thank god for emulation save states. However, even at level 39, once your help leaves, I could barely handle 4 starmen. As a tip, make sure to get both Franklin badges cause then your cheap death ratio goes down from 100% to just 33%. (Did I already say thank god for save states?)

Fortunately, right around the point when you're totally fed up with this game, it ends. It's even kind enough to dump you right at the end without having to go through the last area with no help.

Look, maybe I'm not hardcore or retro enough to be able to appreciate this frustrating mess. Fine, I'll go load up Minecraft, Dota 2, or whatever the kids are playing nowadays. But man, I seriously doubt I would have had the grit to finish this game without the blessed miracles of save states. On the positive side, the GBA emulator on the PSP is fucking amazing.

Score: 1 rose-tinted nostalgia glasses out of 5 (plus a half-bottle of whiskey needed).

Oh yeah, and I guess there was some kind of story. I wouldn't expect too much in that department though. At this point, I'm really hoping Mother 2 lives up to the hype because buying Mother 1&2 CIB was NOT cheap.

Optional +.5 bonus for making Mother 2's graphics look practically next gen in comparison after you get used to Mother.

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