Delisoba Deluxe (Saturn)

So, it's another one of those candidates for the title of "rarest Saturn game of all", and like Heim Waltz, it's one that was never released on sale in shops. Delisoba Deluxe was only given out as a prize to contestants on a TV game show, and playing the game was apparently also part of being on the game show, though I haven't been able to find out whether that's actually true or not, or even the name of the show itself. As you might guess, then, unlike Heim Waltz, Delisoba Deluxe is an actual playable game! And not only that, but it's also developed by Cave, which can only push its price up even further.

What it is is a fairly basic against-the-clock racing game, in which you play as two people atop a moped, hoping to deliver something to the TV studio before time runs out. I guess there must be some rule I'm missing out on from not having seen the TV show, because it seems like even if you don't crash at all, it'd be impossible to complete the "TV Original" mode without running out of time at least once. Luckily, though, there's two other modes to play. The second mode is Time Attack, which isn't much diffrent from TV Original, except you don't run out of time, and you're just trying to set records for finishing the course.

The third mode is the most exciting, and the one in which you can really see that this is a Cave game: Coin Links. In this mode, you've got a much more generous time limit, and the aim is to drive through the course collecting coins for points. This being a cave game, there is of course a scoring system, whereby coins are worth more points as you collect them in quick succession, with a little time meter in the corner of the screen showing you exactly how long you've got to get the next coin before dropping your combo. It's not like the complex and byzantine systems seen in their more recent games, but this was relatively early in their life as a company, and it is almost exactly like the combo system for killing enemies in the Dodonpachi games. It's interesting to see something like that in a game that was probably mostly in the hands of normal, non-arcade obsessed people for a long time.

Other than that, there's a map edit mode that seems a little glitchy, and I unfortunately couldn't figure out how to actually ride on the edited course, which is a shame. There's not much more to say about this game, really! It's a pretty fun diversion for about 15 minutes, and I can see people possibly getting into the Coin Link mode, trying to beat their scores, but it's also one I definitely recommend emulating. You're unlikely to ever see a real copy for sale, and if you do, it'll be hundreds, maybe even thousands of pounds to buy.

Panic Road (Arcade)

Video pinball games make sense on home systems, as there are factors of cost and space that make keeping a pinball collection at home incredibly unrealistic for anyone but the most crooked robber barons. In arcades, though, they're a much odder prospect, since most places that have arcade machines are also places you're likely to find pinball tables, so who would bother playing an untactile facsimile when they can play the real thing? Which is probably why, off the top of my head, I can only think of two pinball arcade games: the pornographic Gals Pinball, and this one, Panic Road.

Panic Road features some early examples (maybe even the first, but I'm not sure on that) of a video pinball game having features not possible on real tables, too: there's roaming, destructible enemies in place of stationary bumpers, there's multiple tables, and were those multiscreen tables real, they'd definitely be abnormally long compared to their peers. You don't get to choose which table you play, though, as the game takes a videogamey approach to progression. Each table has a goal, which reveals a key when fulfilled. Hit the key with the ball andgo to the next table!

The problem is that the game doesn't tell you what these goals are, and they're not particularly intuitive, either. The first table's goal is to collect the numbers 1-2-3 that are in a row about midway up the table, the ocean-themed table two has you hitting every clam on the table so they open up, and though I made the key appear on table three, I still have no idea what triggered that. It just seemed to happen. At least the table's themes are varied, though: table one is in a little garden with mushrooms, strawberries and wooden fenceposts, table two is as mentioned before, in the ocean, while the third table is just an arrangement of random objects, like moles, pencils, disembodied hands and a pink mountain.

Panic Road is an okay game. The opacity of each stage's goals is a problem, as are the slightly odd ball physics (which can be forgiven considering the game's age), and it obviously doesn't hold a candle to many of the console pinball games that would come later, but it's a fun enough distraction. I imagine it wasn't very popular with arcade operators, though: my first credit with no prior practice lasted over 20 minutes, and none of those that followed were any shorter.