Post by soop on Sept 14, 2018 8:38:20 GMT
If you've never heard of Street Fighter II, you must have been living inside a rock for the past 25 years. It's the game that redefined and popularised the 1 on 1 fighting genre, thanks to it's huge sprites, a wide range of characters, and a combo system that in some ways was a fluke. In the early 90's, some arcade owners were literally buying houses on the back of the earnings from Streetfighter cabs, and the debut on the Super Nintendo was so eagerly awaited that it sold consoles. At the sniff of a new version of the game, covers were dedicated to magazines, and pages upon pages were dedicated to artwork and speculation. It was a phenomenon.
The beauty of the game came from the variance, yet balance of the characters. At a high level, they didn't always get it exactly right, but the replay value is tremendous, and players quickly found some deadly, but hard to perform combos. The game also introduced special moves, performed with deft movements, or by charging a timed directional pull. It really was competitive gaming at its finest - in fact the game continues to be played competitively today. Champion Edition spruces up the graphics slightly, and enables the selection of the four "boss" characters, the final 4 fighters from the original game. The HuCard is necessarily one of the biggest, and had to perform some fancy mapping to get enough ROM on the card. Perhaps the only argument that can be made against this stunning conversion, is that you need to buy a 6 button pad to get the most from it, but aside from that, it's pretty much flawless. Arguments have been raging for decades on the subtle nuances between versions, but whatever your take, the PC Engine version of Street Fighter II CE is a work of art.
Dynastic Hero is another title in the fantastic Wonderboy series. For whatever reason, all the Wonderboy games on the PC Engine had their names changed and usually some minor sprite redesigns. The first was Bikkuriman World (Wonderboy in Monster Land), then Adventure Island* (Wonderboy III, the Dragons Trap) and now we have a port of the Megadrive game, Wonderboy in Monster World. The first thing you notice, is that the colours really pop in this one, with big, beautifully designed sprites. This is more of the same sort of thing, with a Zelda II style side on platform RPG. It has plenty of meat on it's bones too, with plenty of puzzles and hidden treasures. On the downside, although there are plenty of treasures, I recall that you can't actually view specific equipment stats without donning the armour, so sometimes shelling out a lot of cash for such items can be a risk. All in all there's a lot to be happy about here, it's a very solid port of a very good game, and it balances action platforming nicely with the RPG elements.
The beauty of the game came from the variance, yet balance of the characters. At a high level, they didn't always get it exactly right, but the replay value is tremendous, and players quickly found some deadly, but hard to perform combos. The game also introduced special moves, performed with deft movements, or by charging a timed directional pull. It really was competitive gaming at its finest - in fact the game continues to be played competitively today. Champion Edition spruces up the graphics slightly, and enables the selection of the four "boss" characters, the final 4 fighters from the original game. The HuCard is necessarily one of the biggest, and had to perform some fancy mapping to get enough ROM on the card. Perhaps the only argument that can be made against this stunning conversion, is that you need to buy a 6 button pad to get the most from it, but aside from that, it's pretty much flawless. Arguments have been raging for decades on the subtle nuances between versions, but whatever your take, the PC Engine version of Street Fighter II CE is a work of art.
Dynastic Hero is another title in the fantastic Wonderboy series. For whatever reason, all the Wonderboy games on the PC Engine had their names changed and usually some minor sprite redesigns. The first was Bikkuriman World (Wonderboy in Monster Land), then Adventure Island* (Wonderboy III, the Dragons Trap) and now we have a port of the Megadrive game, Wonderboy in Monster World. The first thing you notice, is that the colours really pop in this one, with big, beautifully designed sprites. This is more of the same sort of thing, with a Zelda II style side on platform RPG. It has plenty of meat on it's bones too, with plenty of puzzles and hidden treasures. On the downside, although there are plenty of treasures, I recall that you can't actually view specific equipment stats without donning the armour, so sometimes shelling out a lot of cash for such items can be a risk. All in all there's a lot to be happy about here, it's a very solid port of a very good game, and it balances action platforming nicely with the RPG elements.