Lei Nu Ji Shen (Game Boy Color)

It seems like it's been a long time since I featured a Game Boy game, and even longer since I featured a Chinese pirate original. Lei Nu Ji Shen (possibly also known as "Future Robot") stands out from the usual Chinese crowd by eschewing most of their common flaws.

As far as I can tell, though the look of the main character (and the game in general) is definitely heavily influenced by 90s mecha anime, the setting is original. The visual presentation in general is of a particularly high standard, with nice backgroundsand detailed sprites. There are also some amazing looking full screen graphics for an intro and ending and also for static post-boss screens. The music doesn't live up to the looks though, being a shrill, beeping cacophony.

The game itself is a cut above the norm too, as the controls are tight, if not original, and the game is actually at a playable level of difficulty. The way your robot plays is just like Megaman: he can jump, he can shoot three normal shots or one charge shot, and he can dash/slide by pressing down and jump together. The only addition is that the robot in this game can also double jump. There's even an idle animation, which is just another way Lei Nu Ji Shen shows the extra bit of polish it has above its peers.

The stage design is unfortunately the game's weakest point after the music, as every stage consists of walking from left to right, while constantly shooting and occasionally jumping over a bottomless pit. Even the combat is boring, since there's rarely ever more than one enemy onscreen at a time. The boss fights add a bit of variety, though the stages between them seem to be incredibly long.

Although Lei Nu Ji Shen is, as I've said, a lot better than the usual pirate original, especially the ones that appear on 8-bit consoles, I can't recommend it. Even though it does look really great, it's just not very exciting to play at all.

Sukeban Deka II: Shoujo Tekkamen Densetsu (Master System)

Or if you'd prefer, "Delinquent Girl Cop II: Legend of the Girl in the Iron Mask". I should also let the uninitiated among you know that this game isn't a sequel to an earlier Sukeban Deka title, but is based on the second Sukeban Deka TV series, which sees a girl named Yoko Godai, who spent her childhood with her head trapped in an iron mask, taking up the Saki Asamiya codename and becoming the second Sukeban Deka, in the hopes of finding the reasons and culprits behind her stolen childhood. It's an excellent show, and is currently being fansubbed by The Skaro Hunting Society, should any of you be curious.

The game presents a heavily abridged version of the TV show's plot, split into adventure segments and beat em up segments. Unfortunately, the adventure segments make up the bulk of the game, and though I admit that it's a genre that doesn't especially appeal to me at the best of times, Sukeban Deka II's adventure segments are of an especially old-school flavour. There are very few clues as to what is supposed to be done, and though there is an english fan-translation, you'll still probably want a guide to save the tedious effort of going to every room and clicking on everything to find clues and items.

The beat em up sections are much shorter, and similarly old-fashioned, but they're pretty fun. Typically, you'll fight off a small gang of high school boys, before fighting a boss, and though the gang fights are pretty much all the same, the boss fights are really varied, though oddly, they seem to actually get easier as the game goes on.

There's also a couple of 3D maze sections, though they are really just that: empty mazes for the player to navigate that just pad the game out and fill a little bit of extra time.

Unfortunately, I can't really recommend this game unless you really love the TV series, or if you want a nice little slice of 80s Japanese pop-culture (for some reason, I associate SEGA's 8-bit consoles with the period far more than I do the Famicom, despite the Famicom's near-monolithic popularity in Japan at the time, and it's can't be denied that Sukeban Deka is an important artifact of the era.). But if you just want a Master System beat em up, there are far better examples, like Hokuto no Ken or Kung-fu Kid.