Seikima II Special: Akuma no Gyakushuu! (MSX)

You might (but probably won't) have guessed from the title that this game stars the 80s-90s metal band Seikima II. I hadn't actually heard of them before playing the game either, so don't feel too ashamed. As it turns out, they're pretty good. A bit of backstory that's (sort of) relevant to the game: the band is a group of high ranking demons sent to earth by Satan to spread his worship and also to conquer the earth through the medium of heavy metal. This is relevant to the game, as the game's villain is Zeus, king of the gods and enemy of Satan, who has kidnapped four of the band members of Seikima II, leaving only the singer, Demon Kogure to save them.
He saves them by jumping around various locations collecting stuff. Stuff like heads, ku klux klan dolls, apples and so on. The basic idea of the game reminds me of old british computer games, like Bruce Lee and Jet Set Willy, in which the goal was to explore large maps and collect all of a certain kind of item. This game doesn't have one large map, though; each missing band member is trapped in a different stage, and each stage is split into eight areas, each a few screens wide. As well as the items needed to complete the stages, there's also health increasing blood potions and money. The money is used in the shops (represented by big eyeballs) to buy extra blood potions (which should only be done in emergencies, dues to the scarcity of money), weapon upgrades and musical instruments (one per stage, they have no in-game use, but are necessary to get the best ending).
The "special" part of the game's title alludes to the fact that it's an upgraded port of a Famicom game, the most obvious changes being improved graphics and different jump physics. In the original version, there were two kinds of jump available: high jumps, done by pressing the jump button then left or right, and long jumps, done by pressing jump and left or right together. That system felt stiff and strange, and the more traditional jumping that replaces it in "special" is much preferred. Pointless semi-related trivia: I first heard of this game when I saw Arino buy a copy of the Famicom version in an episode of Game Center CX.
In conclusion, this is a pretty good game. It's nothing special (aaaahhh!), but it is definitely an improvement over the Famicom original. Plus, Seikima II are cool, so that's a bonus.

Disc Station #10 (PC98)

Another Disc Station post, this time being the first DS to come with videos on the disc! Videos that came in a convenient .avi format so they can easily be uploaded to Youtube! How exciting!
But before all that, the important part: the games.
First up is Rude Breaker, a decent shooter that's highly reminiscent of the later games in Hudson's Star Soldier series. I think given the popularity of that series in Japan, it's safe to say that this game was probably a homage to them, rather than a rip off. Unfortunately, I'm not really a big fan of that series, and some of the things I dislike about them are present here: the stages feel like they're really, really long, and though you might die a lot, it also seems to take a really long time to get game over. I guess if you do like the SS games, you'll probably like this too, though. It has really nice high resolution graphics like you'd expect from a PC98 shooter, too.
The second game on the disc is Runner's High, about which I have already written. I guess the last part of that old post looks kind of silly now, as it seems that it actually was published on a Disc Station. Hmm.
Third up is Matsuri, which isn't really a game, but an interactive thing like the Apple Sauce Room things that were on the early DS98 discs. But! instead of a room, you have a whole festival of things that do weird stuff when you click them! Literally minutes of fun to be had!
Also on the disc are Kirifuda, a very very Japanese card game that seems to be based on hanafuda, and which is completely incomprehensible to me, and another set of Nazo Puyo puzzles, if you like that sort of thing. What a long sentence.
The videos include ads for the Mega Drive port of Madou Monogatari and the SNES Port of Puyo Puyo 2, a video of what appears to be some kind of compile promotional event, and, most interesting of all: a Compile recruitment ad! I've uploaded the Puyo ad and the Recruitment ad for your enjoyment: