Parasol Stars
One of the older TG-16 games in the collection, Parasol Stars is an arcade style action game where you play as a little chubby fella with a rainbow parasol who uses it to capture enemies and raindrops and fling them at baddies. Every enemy dispatched relinquishes food that can be gobbled up for points. The game's easy to control, fun to play and fast paced. What I really love is when you finish a board, instead of waiting for the next to be loaded, the little chubby fella spins around and flies to the next one so there's never a break in the gameplay. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by this one. I look forward to playing more.
Power Golf
After four holes with 54 strokes, I'm done. I don't have the patience to get good at this game. Golf games have evolved so much since that this is almost unplayable. There's no real way to discern just how far your drive will go. The power and hit indicator's WAY too fast to be precise. Maybe if this was the only golf game you had at the time, you'd put up with it, but it's just too frustrating for me to keep at it. Plus, the music really gets on my nerves. Leave this one in the sand trap.
Psychosis
After save stating like crazy during the second boss fight, I found this game more annoyingly difficult than fun. Shoot 'em ups need to find a balance of annoyance and difficulty, and this game does not have that balance. I'm also not much of a fan of the game's power ups, finding them not as powerful as they should be. For instance, when you have drones that fire lasers, above and below you, mere projectiles can still pass through them and blow you up. I think with a little more refinement, it could have been one of the better shooters on the system, as I really do like the designs of the first two levels. I just REALLY couldn't stand that god damned second boss. I can only imagine how people got past him without save states...
R-Type
If you played even just a few shoot 'em ups in your lifetime, chances are you've played R-Type. R-Type is one of the greatest shoot 'em ups in the genre with extremely tight gameplay. It's tough as nails, but it also provides you with great support in the way of drones and power ups, one of them being the reflective laser, perhaps the greatest power up of all time. I just finished level three, one of my favorites in the game, where you spend the level destroying an alien battleship top and bottomside, and then precariously lower yourself right in front of its eye to destroy it for good. Such great fun! My reflexes simply aren't as good as they used to be, though, so of course I abused the save state. But that's what it's there for right?
Soldier Blade
Now this is a shooter more my speed, and after a minute or two with the game, I know exactly why. It's clearly a redesigned Blazing Lazers, which I love. It has one of its power ups, and the first stage is almost exactly the same as BL. It also has a support drone, but I would have appreciated at least one more. What sets it apart, though, is that there are special moves based on which weapon type you're currently using. I like the bosses as well. I'll look forward to playing more of this game after I finish Blazing Lasers first.
Space Harrier
Well, look at that! Fourth shooter in a row in this blog! Something tells me I know what T-16's most preferred genre is... Anywho, this is Space Harrier, and you've probably played a version of it sometime in your life on some platform, whether it's in a compilation or an arcade machine in Shenmue. If you somehow never played Space Harrier, it's a third-person space shooter where instead of flying in a ship, you're holding on to dear life on a rocket that's also your gun, and things are flying at you rather quickly. I played this game on the Sega Genesis Mini, and as far as I can tell, it plays and runs exactly the same. But, I did finally have a reason to turn on my turbo button! Since I already have progress on the Genesis Mini, there's really no reason to play anymore of this version.
Splatterhouse
Ahh, the classic macabre beat 'em up that probably sparked its own video game violence debate! If you ever played this game, you most likely never beat the third stage boss. Well, I did! After several save state reloads... Even then, it was such a bullshit boss fight. Even after being given a fully loaded shotgun, you had to risk bodily injury to punch/kick this headbag wearing dual chainsaw wielding manic several times before he finally went down. Anyway, I don't remember the arcade version that well as it's been at least a couple decades since I played it, but this version seems to be up to snuff. Now that I finally beat this damned chainsaw boss, maybe I can see the rest of the game. God bless you, save states!
Victory Run
Victory Run's a single player race against the clock checkpoint to checkpoint racer. It's a little like Outrun in that you can see your car getting flipped should you crash into an object fast enough. You can also modify your part stats, allocating points to tires, engine, brakes, etc., so there's some customization to the gameplay. I tried to play it a few times, but it got a little too frustrating for me. I hate manual gearboxes in racers and it always slows me down way too much to downshift and upshift time and time again. I can see how it may have been fun back in the day, but it's clearly been outpaced by better racers in the 16-bit era.
Ys Book 1 & 2
This will have to be revisited at a later date. I just spent way too much time grinding money because I thought I had to buy a better sword when all I had to do was equip it, which I found out way too late. I know that the Ys series is significant in the RPG genre, and I want to find out why. It has a weird combat system in that you just bump into enemies you see in the field. If you hit them head on, you do more damage than they do, but if they get you from behind or corner you, you're done for. I've never played an RPG where the combat was that simple. Also, this is the second and final Turbo CD game in the American collection. As such, it actually has a voiced intro. That must have made Ys feel even more special back when the game first came out.
So that's it for the TurboGrafx 16 games. The next blog I'll begin playing games from the PC Engine collection. As always, thanks for reading.
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