Yuu Maze (Famicom Disk System)

Yuu Maze is the name it's known by in ROMsets and the like, but in-game, it also uses the name Youmais. It's also a port of the arcade game Raimais, so that makes three names. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with Raimais, since it appears in the excellent PS2 compilation Taito Legends Volume 2 (in my opinion, the greatest retro compilation ever released), but for those who aren't, it's like a very fast, futuristic version of Pac-Man, with various different kinds of enemies, a bunch of power-ups and lots of different mazes.

Yuu Maze is still worth talking about on its own though, since it's not a 100% straight port. Obviously, the graphics take a hit in the move from arcade to FDS, but there's also a few small design changes. The first you'll come across is that the stages now have two portals in each of them: you go into one, and emerge from the other. Then there's the fact that while Raimais had four different doors to go into between stages (each one leading to a different next stage, of course), Yuu Maze only has two. The third big difference is the hidden portals that are found in some stages.

In Raimais, it was pretty rare to find these hidden portals, and they led to secret boss stages. The problem with this, though, was that the bossfights were so tactically different to the regular stages that they were very difficult, and their sporadic nature made them hard to practice. In Yuu Maze, these hidden portals are a lot more common, and instead of leading to bossfights, they lead to timed bonus stages, giving the player sixty seconds to collect all the dots or kill all the enemies. Destroying enemies works in the same way as in Raimais though: there are power-ups that grant the player a laser or a temporary one-hit shield, so you can shoot the enemies or sacrifice the shield and ram them. There's also mines in some stages, which go off a few seconds after the player goes over them, killing anyone narby when they do.

There's also an edit mode, which allows you to make a little five stage course. It's about as complex as you'd expect from a console game released in 1988, but it's a nice little thing, that totally gels well with the simple structure of the game. Raimais is a criminally overlooked game in Taito's back catalogue, and Yuu Maze is a decent enough variant on it. I recommend playing either one of them, or both. Yuu Maze is a lot easier though, being very generous with the extra lives, compared to its inspiration.

Tyoushin Heiki Zeroigar (PC FX)

Ever since covering Kishin Douji Zenki FX all the way back in 2011, I've been meaning to get back to the PC FX, but as you probably already know, there's really not a lot to play on there if you can't read Japanese. But Zeroigar here is the console's one and only shooting game, and since a fan translation came out for it recently I thought I'd give it a go. Before I get on to the game itself, I have to say that the translation group did a really great job on it, not only is their script entertaining, but the yellow subs they used on the FMV cutscenes are a nice little nostalgic nod towards old subbed anime VHS tapes.

Now, as for the game itself, there's four different modes, all pretty different from each other. The main two are Anime Mode and Battle Mode. In both these modes, there's no scoring, with a system of EXP and levelling up instead. I don't really like this, as since levelling up only happens between stages or on continuing, it actually encourages continuing, when I'm more accustomed to (and in favour of) shooting games punishing continues. Levelling up in both modes increases the player's max HP and max ammo for their sub weapons (upon which I'll talk more later). Levelling up doesn't affect the main gun, which is powered up by collecting items in-game, and powered down by taking damage.

Anime mode is a typical story mode: you play through the stages, when bosses appear there's some dialogue, and between stages there's FMV cutscenes (of the high quality you'd expect from a console built specifically to deliver FMV cutscenes). Also, in this mode, sub-weapons are accumulated and powered up automatically as the player gains experience levels. Battle mode is structured differently, with players choosing one of three different robots and tackling stages individually. The levelling up system is still present, though in this mode, sub-weapons are acquired and powered up by spending money in the weapons shop between stages. You can also save your progress between stages in this mode.

The other two modes are Trail mode, which is a traditional Caravan-style 2-minute score attack, and Sakuraiger mode, which is a kind of alternative to anime mode, using the same levelling and power-up systems, though with different weapons. Sakuraiger mode presents a silly parody of the main story, told in childish crayon drawings, and in it, you play as the main character's sister piloting a giant robot version of herself. Despite the silly presentation, though, it's significantly harder than regular anime mode.

Zeroigar isn't a bad game, and it does have a ton of charm in its presentation (which is generally reminiscent of 90s OAV revivals of older properties, like the 1992-98 Giant Robo OAV series, for example), but it just didn't click with me. You should definitely give it a try, as it's a high quality game, and as I said, the fan translation is great, but it just didn't do it for me.
This game is also known as Choujin Heiki Zeroigar and God Fighter Zeroigar