2. Pengo (Atari 2600)
3. Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii)
4. Knights of Xentar (PC)
5. Hoshi o Sagashite... (Mark III)
6. Dead Zone (Famicom Disk System)
7. Samurai Sword (Famicom Disk System)
8. High School! Kimengumi (Mark III)
Unlike their contemporaries (such as Konami), Capcom was never a big supporter of Nintendo's Famicom Disk System. Releasing a grand total of three games for the peripheral, two were arcade ports that later showed up on the NES in North America. Capcom's final FDS release was an exclusive: an adventure game known as Samurai Sword which never left Japan and was later fan-translated in 2003.
The protagonist of Samurai Sword is a young man, named by the player. He's soon joined by a white mage known as Saria. Their mission: to defeat the dark mage Soron (not to be confused with Sauron). Soron is a bad dude, he's destroying everyone and everything, and so on. Gameplay is fairly self-explanatory and completely menu based (no "point and click" elements). Aside from the standard actions, the player can call on Saria to cast one of her spells, which can cast light upon dark areas, damage monsters, and so forth. The game lacks an open world, but progresses in a series of discrete chapters, each sporting a new setting. Saving to disk can be done between chapters, and nowhere else. You might think that this compact structure would render the game easier than its peers. You would be wrong.
Aesthetically, there's a lot to like here. This is A-list developer Capcom, after all. The four environments - woods, a desert, a futuristic city, and Soron's palace - are all pleasant to gaze upon. Character sprites are excellent as well, as are the facial portraits of the hero and Saria that display during dialogue sequences. I do wish the main action window were larger, however. It's criminally small, making the game perpetually awash in blackness. And there is a persistent soundtrack. Clocking in at about sixteen minutes, it boasts the type of solid tunes you'd expect from Capcom. The "city" music is especially memorable, reminiscent of one of the better retro JRPG town themes.
Unfortunately, Samurai Sword is somehow even more obtuse than most Japanese adventure games of the era. Navigation is strange. You can move in the standard cardinal directions, but then commands like "forward" and "back" are thrown into the mix, making each area difficult to map. The game is also very fond of "warping" the player at pivotal moments, and at least two areas can trap the hero along endless looping "lost woods" pathways. Analyzing found objects is also clunkier than it needs to be. There are both "look" and "check" commands, for some reason, and while some items are picked up automatically others need to be "taken" by the player. And of course there's the classic troll move: forcing one to repeat the same action multiple times until the desired result emerges. Some of the puzzles are admittedly humorous (there's one section where elves will only let the party pass after they've all imbibed some booze), while others verge on the infuriating (there's a guard at the city gates who won't let the hero pass, nor will he respond to commands... eventually he gets bored and simply walks away).
Capcom attempted to spice things up by adding combat to the game. Each area contains at least one type of "boss" creature. The hero and Saria are unable to defeat these fiends when they first encounter them. Instead, they must spend time exploring their surroundings looking for a new weapon or some sort of enhancement for one already in their inventory. Even when powered-up, combat is a tedious affair. The "fight" command would seem sufficient, but it often fails, forcing the player to "use" a weapon instead, or even to "look" at one which may cause it to become "enchanted" or whatever. Saria is blessed with some offensive magic, but she drinks too much (seriously) and oftentimes finds herself "paralyzed" as a result. The most entertaining (arguably the only entertaining) battle in the game is against the wyvern that guards Soron's palace. He can't be defeated, so the hero must opt instead to knock over the knight that rides the wyvern, appropriating the reptilian beast for his own use. Epic.
So, while Samurai Sword looks and sounds nice, it's far too cumbersome to recommend in earnest. It feels like a quick and dirty attempt to get into that burgeoning adventure game market, and not a wholly successful one. The existence of Ace Attorney is enough for Capcom to redeem themselves though, I suppose.
Well, I sure was bamboozled by this one! I guess that's what I get for not doing research. See, I had heard that High School! Kimengumi was a fan-translated "adventure game" for the Mark III (Japanese Master System), so I assumed it was something along the lines of Portopia and proceeded to purchase a copy. Turns out the game is actually: 1) yet another member of the nebulous "action-adventure" genre, and 2) bad.
High School! Kimengumi is a licensed game, based on a 1980s manga and anime series of the same name. "Kimengumi" here refers to a club of various high school misfit boys. However, the game's protagonist is a young lady. The character, Kawa Yui, has her, uh, skirt ruffled by one of the boys in the opening cutscene. She subsequently declares revenge. Unable to match their brute strength, Kawa Yui must rely on a series of tools to trap the hoodlums. I think she's letting them off easy.
The game's top-down, with an interface that's reminiscent of Exidy's Venture (a reference surely everyone will understand). There's a main "map" of the school's interior, with a series of labeled classrooms that can be entered. Most classrooms are nearly identical in appearance, though there are some unique environments like the headmaster's office, music room, library, and so on. Upon entering a room, Kawa Yui must avoid physical contact with the Kimengumi and raid desks looking for tools. The most important item is the rope, which is needed to tie up, and then dispose of, each Kimengumi member. However, before they can be shackled, each boy must be "distracted" by some other object or event. So, for instance, one boy begins daydreaming when presented with a love letter. Another becomes hypnotized by Kawa Yui's piano skills. Yet another can't resist the allure of baseball. When five boys are captured, the game is completed successfully. Surprisingly, there are plenty of items and rooms that need not be obtained or visited (and some items simply grant points), and the game's ending is altered slightly based on this completion rate.
Graphics are a mixed bag. The sprite work is quite impressive. There are some massive and well-animated sprites displayed during the cutscenes. And the Kimengumi themselves all look unique, displaying a wide array of facial expressions. Kawa Yui herself is quite adorable (or should I say... kawaii). However, the stage graphics are questionable, give off a copy-paste vibe, and feature some rather gaudy color choices. The "map" is especially hard to look at. There's but a small selection of music (and only one track extends beyond a single minute) but it's all catchy enough.
Gameplay is what truly suffers. Deducing what to do, and when, is extremely difficult. The rope, the first and most essential item, is extraordinary well-hidden. Once obtained, capturing the Kimengumi requires almost pixel-perfect precision. In other words, Kawa Yui must be lined up directly with - almost touching - one her foes, before the rope can be properly activated. And there's no room for error: touching a Kimengumi leads to an instantaneous Game Over: no lives, no continues. Searching the desks for items is also a colossal pain as the swarming Kimengumi don't move in accordance with any real predictable pattern. Also, some desks contain frogs. Wanna guess what happens when Kawa Yui touches one?
Even the menu system is a fail. Said menu is used to utilize items, speak to other characters, and so forth. The Master System controller has two action buttons, so assigning one to "confirm" and one to "cancel" is the most obvious control scheme. Instead, one button is used to open the menu and confirm all choices; there is no cancelling. As for the other button: it's used to open doors and desks (which should have been done automatically) and use "equipped" items. Overall, High School! Kimengumi is just sloppy and undercooked. I'm actually somewhat surprised Sega didn't release this in America -- they could have easily scrubbed out all the Japanese references and they certainly had no issue with dumping bad games upon us. In any event, I'd rather have detention than play this again.
Thanks, think someone beat me to the punch though.
