Ruruli Ra Rura (PC FX)

It's a PC FX game! So let's get all the usual cliches out of the way first: it's got beautiful animated FMVs, it's a console with lots of wasted potential, this game was inexplicably released in 1998, I have no idea how anyone turned a profit making games for a console with such a tiny userbase. Anyway, Ruruli Ra Rura, is a kind of metrovania-type affair, though it leans heavily towards puzzles than action. Also, besides the obligatory excellent FMVs, it looks like it could have come out on the PC Engine a decade earlier. The in-game graphics are really simple, with really small sprites and so on.

You start the game as a Samurai guy, and as the game goes on, you meet and recruit more allies, all with different abilities: shooting fire to destroy ice walls, running across narrow ridges, swimming, and so on. There's a common complaint levelled at metrovaniae, as well as similarly-structured games in other genres, like the Legend of Zelda games, for example, that most of the abilities you acquire have no practical purpose except for acting as keys to unlock the specific obstacles they're designed for. I think Ruruli Ra Rura is the most egregious example of this I've encountered. You can only switch characters at save points, and when you're not specifically sending an ally out to get past an obstacle, you're better off playing as the Samurai, as he's the only one that's remotely competent at fighting enemies. Plus he's got a fast normal walking speed (which is still very slow. Slow walking speeds are a plague in this game).

Though I've got a lot of complaints about this game, I can't honestly say I haven't enjoyed playing it. There's just something slightly satisfying about the slow-but-sure progress you make through the world. There's a translation patch available that translates all the menus, making te game a lot more playable to the Japanese-illiterate, though unfortunately, unlike the patch for Tyoushin Heiki Zeroigar, it doesn't add subtitles to the FMVs, so you don't get the exact nuances of the plot. Although I don't think we're missing out on a great deal, since as far as I can tell, the tone is that of a very silly slapstick comedy, very much in the vein of all those Dungeons and Dragons-inspired OAVs of the 90s like Slayers, Dragon Half, Ozanari Dungeon, etc.

I think I've covered everything I need to here, right? It's a deeply flawed, but fun and charming game, with all the 90s anime polish you'd expect from a PC FX game.

Small Game Round Up Vol. 2!

It's time for some more ancient games that are too simple to support entire posts on their own! Today I'll be talking about just two games, both on the MSX, and the first is Godzilla vs. 3 Major Monsters, also known as Gozira 3D, for some reason.

It's a single-screen action game, that's just barely above the level of complexity of a handheld LCD game, or possibly one of the more advanced Atari 2600 games with slightly better graphics. The action all takes place in a classic tokusatsu rocky desert, and starts with Megalon emerging from holes in the ground. Obviously, you play Godzilla, and you just blast him with your atomic breath. Do this 10-15 times (I think Megalon has to have dug at least eight holes before this stage ends, as opposed to reusing ones he's already dug), and Megalon will be replaced by two Kumongas (they're really being generous with the term "major monster" in this game, aren't they?)

The Kumongas will pop up out of the holes at random, to shoot webs and energy bolts at Godzilla, like a more aggressive whack-a-mole game, and I think you have to hit each one three times to be rid of them. The final, and easiest enemy you have to face is King Ghidorah, who slowly flies down from the top of the screen occaisionally shooting a gravity bolt, but mostly doing nothing. Just blast him until he goes, and the whole thing starts again, but slightly faster. It's nothing spectacular, but it's an okay diversion for five minutes or so. Also, the Godzilla sprite looks great when walking left or right (but terrible when walking up or down).

The other game I hve to talk about today is one of possible historical significance, and very little else. Nyannyan Prowrestling might be the first ever women's wrestling videogame. It came out in 1986, the same year as SEGA's Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto, though I haven't been able to track down an exact date for either game, so I can't say for certain which was first. Even if SEGA got there first, this might still be the first home videogame about women's wrestling, if it came out before the 20th of July that year (when Gokuaku Doumei Dump Matsumoto's Master System port was released).

Anyway, other than that bit of trivia, there's not much positive to say about this game. All the wrestlers have the exact same sprite, it uses a bizarre menu-based control system (though to be fair, a few early combat sports games did this, including the Boxing and Pro-Wrestling games on the SG-1000. There's a lot of SEGA talk in this review, isn't there?), and for some reason, all the matches take place on basketball courts instead of wrestling rings. On top of all that, you have to play it with the keyboard, as it doesn't acknowledge controller inputs! There's not much more to be said about this game. It's an interesting historical footnote, but not much else. Don't waste your time, except to satisfy your curiosity.