Sega CD #3: Vay

Developer: SIMS

Publisher: Working Designs

Release Date: 10-22-93

 I shouldn’t have waited so long after playing Vay to finally get around to writing about it. It just doesn’t want to stick around in my brain. I’m not overly surprised. My brain is crammed full of knowledge, so it can’t be too comfortable up there. It makes sense that a less than memorable game would want to get out as quickly as possible. I remember seeing ads for Vay in magazines in the early 90s and really wanting to play it. There weren’t that many options for an RPG fan at the time, so any hint of a new RPG was exciting, even on a weird add-on that I wasn’t even convinced actually existed. Vay is one of the dozen or so obscure RPGs on Sega CD that make it so appealing to collectors. I know when I finally got my Sega CD I wanted to track them all down more than anything. Sadly, they were expensive fifteen years ago and have only gone up in price. Well I was finally able to play it, and it’s probably no surprise that it wasn’t all I expected to be. It’s not even pronounced the way I always expected. It’s pronounced Vai as in guitar virtuoso Steve Vai. You know, the legendary guitar player who was in Whitesnake for like ten minutes and because of it became a plot point on Salute Your Shorts. If you’re the average person of around my age that’s probably the only thing you know about Steve Vai. See, I’m already getting sidetracked into talking about 80s guitar players because Vay just isn’t that memorable. When a game is as vanilla as this one it’s the flaws that tend to stick out, and Vay certainly has its fair share.

 Vay is about as basic JRPG as it gets. Being staunchly traditional can be good for a JRPG, but there’s just nothing about the mechanics in Vay that make it rise above mediocrity. Sure, some of the advanced features are nice. It features nice looking cutscenes peppered throughout, and there is a good amount of mostly decent voice acting, but most of the game looks like your standard second-string Genesis RPG. It’s just too full of green fields, yellow deserts, and slate-grey caves. Very little of it stands out. The dungeons and bosses are fairly generic, so it really does feel like a game only for RPG obsessives like me who just have to play them all.

 The combat is what really brings the game down. When done right turn-based combat can be the best combat around. It’s all about planning and strategy. In Vay it’s all about attacking and attacking and hoping you don’t have to waste too much MP. For some reason the developers decided that instead of making monsters more difficult throughout the game they would instead just make attacks do very little damage. It felt like the farther into the game I got the less damage I was doing. Even getting more powerful weapons didn’t help much. This led to battles that were boring slogs instead of fun challenges. The only way to do much damage later in the game is from the one good magic user. Of course, since this speeds the game up and makes battles more interesting, they make this tedious too. There just aren’t any clear ways to recover MP with the one exception of gaining levels. Vay has another Great Greed situation where it becomes all about timing level gains. The difference is that where Great Greed was weird and interesting, Vay is dull and predictable. So, get ready to fight a bunch of boring battles for minimal gains while waiting to level up so you can take on a boss. It’s not a fun system.

 

This is another situation where I can’t figure out what other critics are seeing that I am missing. Both contemporary and modern reviews are mostly positive. Of course what critics liked in 1993 is probably the thing that gets criticized the most in 2023. Working Designs became infamous for their odd translations featuring numerous Americanisms and pop culture references. It’s surprising how much juvenile humour is in such a serious game. Of course, in 1993 critics loved it. They called it some of the most sophisticated dialogue ever in a game. That’s a bit odd in a game with so many Wayne’s World reverences and fart jokes. Sometimes this is fun, like when they reference something more obscure like Kraftwerk, but it can be jarring. Of course, I can see the reasoning behind it. The game has a decent story, but it’s a bit dry. Working Designs wanting something that would stand out more. It certainly worked at the time, but games and their reviewers have aged thirty years. It’s not quite as extreme as some of their other translations, but people certainly complain about this sort of thing today. They want authenticity, and I don’t blame them.

 I know I’ve been criticizing Vay a lot, but after reading so many reviews and waiting so long to play it I had high expectations. I just couldn’t believe that it would end up being so average. I was hoping that Vay would push Sega CD into the positive, but Vay is the definition of an okay game. It’s the type of game that is made for the purple section. Yes, that does mean that Gopher and Bible Buffet are going above it, but even I can’t let a mediocre RPG slide through based on genre alone. I did like it better than any of my other purple games, so it’s now the best okay game I have played. My list is really starting to get strange, but I suppose that’s the hazard of ranking every game I can get my hands on. Luckily, the Sega CD list is much easier so far. I have one good one, one okay one, and one bad one. I have a feeling that this is going to be a trend for Sega CD. There are around 150 games on the system, so I’d be very happy if 50 of them are good. Is that too much to ask? I’m just an optimist like that.

 

Sega CD quality percentage: 1/3 or 33.33%

 

Sega CD Rankings

 1. Lords of Thunder

2. Vay

3. Panic! 

Sega CD #2: Lords of Thunder

Developer: Red Company/Hudson

Publisher: Hudson Soft

Release Date: March 1995

 

If you feel like I wrote about this game already, don’t worry this is an all-new review. Unless this is the future and you’re reading this same review again. I’m sure it’s a good one and well worth re-reading. Anyway, I never quite know what to do with games released on multiple consoles. If I want to truly rank every game on a specific console it’s something that I am going to have to deal with. There are probably at least 250 games that are essentially the same on Super Nintendo and Genesis. Which one do I focus on? Do I review them both at the same time? Can I write ten different essays on the game Zoop? Perhaps it is something I will confront in the near future, but the decision is easier when two versions of the same game are different. That’s what the case is here. I also wanted to get back to Sega CD. The only Sega CD game I have rated so far is Panic!, and I hate to leave things on such a sour note. I figured rating a game I already like on another console would be a good way to get Sega CD in the win column. So just how does Lords of Thunder’s odd Sega cousin measure up to the original?

 Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. One thing the Sega CD versions has is an even more extreme rarity. This was one of the very last games released for the Sega CD, so it didn’t have a giant release in the first place. A boxed copy sells for over $300 these days, which is a bit high if we’re being honest. I have no idea why Hudson decided to port it to Sega CD two years after the original came out. They went from an extremely obscure console to a dying one. They should’ve just waited a few months and released it on PlayStation.

 

Despite the later release date, however, everything seems to be toned down in the Sega CD version. The graphics aren’t as nice, the music is too quiet, and it is slower in general. I can’t stand how you freeze for a few seconds when the TurboGrafx CD version was seamless. There is a tiny amount of voice acting in this version, but that’s the only thing that could really be seen as an upgrade and is seriously only a few seconds of voices. Cosmetic differences don’t necessarily damage the quality of a port, but there are a couple of things that really bug me in Lords of Thunder. In the TurboGrafx CD version, enemies would blink when hit in their weak spot. The game is full of unique enemies that take multiple hits, so it’s important to know what attacks are doing damage. They don’t always have a big red spot to shoot at, so you can’t really tell where to shoot just by looking. There were also some obstacles that can be destroyed and some that can’t be. Thanks for the no help, Sega CD. At least the bosses still flash when hit. It’s not a game breaker, but it is an annoyance.

 The most shocking difference, however, is the lowered difficulty. I will admit that I was only playing on normal difficulty, but I was playing it just to try it out and ended up beating the game. I know that I had been practicing on the TurboGrafx CD version, so it wasn’t a completely blind playthrough, but I’m not eve good at shooters. If you are a big shooter fan than the lower difficulty is disappointing. It just doesn’t have the pulse-pounding lunacy of the original.

 

I’m still going to put this one slightly into the good column though. It still has the great level design and money system of the original. It’s a bit more laid back, but there is enough challenge for it to not get boring. It’s not so much “Lords of Thunder” as “People Who Somewhat Control Thunder”, that still makes it fairly powerful. Sega CD should be remembered for its great shooters and RPGs instead of cheesy FMV games and failed multimedia experiments, and while Lords of Thunder isn’t a great game on Sega CD, it’s still a worthy addition to the library.

 I am going to rank Lords of Thunder at #64 just below the wonderfully kooky Ninja Golf. It’s just above Splatterhosue II which I don’t even remember playing. I must’ve enjoyed it, but I couldn’t even remember what console it was on. At least I will always remember Lords of Thunder was a Sega CD game. And you know what, being a Sega CD game isn’t a bad thing at all. Hopefully the console will have enough pleasant surprises to be worth playing.

 

Sega CD Quality Percentage: 1/2

 

Sega CD Rankings

 1. Lords of Thunder

2. Panic! 

Ranking List.docx

TurboGrafx CD #2: Lords of Thunder

Developer: Red Company

Publisher: Hudson Soft

Release Date: March 1993

Lords of Thunder will always be one of my go-to games when I am feeling down, although it might not fit the typical mold for feel good gaming. It’s not a cozy, comfort food-type game. It’s not full of familiar tropes and mechanics that make me feel like a kid again. It’s also not a game I grew up with. I never played Lords of Thunder until I was an adult living on my own. It’s not a time I look back on with particular fondness apart from the extra money I had to spend on rare games. Lords of Thunder cheers me up for a completely opposite reason. Sometimes when I am feeling down, I want to play something that is so ridiculous and intense that it destroys all rational thought. Lords of Thunder is one of the most over-the-top horizontal shooters of the 16-bit era. In modern times, horizontal shooters only exist to be ridiculous. In 1993 the genre was more grounded, so a game like Lords of Thunder stood out by the sheer number of enemies and obstacles on the screen. This is not a game that would’ve worked as well on Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis. It certainly made me happy that I spent $500 on that TurboDuo back in 2007. Hey everything else about this game is over-the-top. Of course, the price is going to be as well.

What really makes Lords of Thunder great, however, is that in spite of the over-the-top intensity, it is still a very playable game. It’s not like so many difficult shooters where you’ll only ever see the first minute of the first level and give up. You are able to choose what order you play the levels and one of four elemental-based armors which will provide your weapons. Se even if you are bad, you will at least see what all the levels are like. Different armors are better in different situations, so there are plenty of combinations to try out. I don’t always make a ton of progress when I play, but I always have fun trying different armors in different levels. There is also a store where you can buy energy, shields, elixirs, and perhaps most importantly, continues. I didn’t realize how much Lords of Thunder plays like a Mega Man game until I was writing this review. No wonder I enjoy it so much. It mixes some of the best elements from two of classic gaming’s most important genres.

 

So Lords of Thunder does take some planning upfront, but it still has a great dive-in attitude. It doesn’t have traditional power-ups like so many shooters where a certain icon on the screen will completely change your weapon. I always get into a trap where I find the weapon, I like the most and hold onto it. Avoiding power-ups can become as important as collecting them. Also, one hit in so many shooters will put you back down to your initial peashooter thereby making the game almost impossible. In Lords of Thunder theses are mitigated by a power leveling system. You collect icons that slowly fill a power meter which makes your weapon stronger. Getting hit depletes weapon energy, but it never feels hopeless. With all the power up icons and money on the screen it’s important to try to grab everything. I love being able to collect objects on the screen without having to worry about downgrading my weapon. Lords of Thunder knows what’s really important. It’s all about fighting wave after wave of over-the-top enemy. It’s not the time to be deciding if you should get the homing missile or laser.

 

As you can probably tell, Lords of Thunder is one of my favorites. It’s a game I’ll probably never finish, but I’ve also never had less than a great time playing it. The only complaint I have is the high price that a physical copy costs these days. That, of course, is not the game’s fault. I just hate using this blog to brag about my rare game collection. I really don’t have that many valuable games, and the ones I have were ether found by pure chance or purchased 20-plus years ago when they were still cheap. Sadly, the Wii U shop is now closed, so I don’t know if there’s a way to legally play this one currently without spending a ton of money. If there is a way, I certainly recommend it. Lords of Thunder was even Electronic Gaming Monthly’s Game of the Month for March 1993, and I don’t think they were ever wrong.

 

So how much do I love this game? I’m putting it just under Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! at #12. That makes Lords of Thunder the best non-Nintendo console game I have played so far. There are only a couple of arcade games and a PC game that rank higher. I’m sure that someday a non-Nintendo game will break into the top ten, especially since I’ve barely done any Sony games. But until that day, Lords of Thunder is the champion.

 

TurboGrafx CD quality percentage - 2/2 

TurboGrafx CD #1: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

Developer: Nihon Falcom

Publisher: NEC

Release: November 1991

 

It’s fun to get away from the Jaguar every now and then and talk about a system even more obscure. The TurboGrafx CD had an even smaller US library and like other CD add-ons at the time was prohibitively expensive. $400 is a lot of money now let alone 33 years ago. Despite its obscurity, however, I am a fan of the TurboGrafx CD. They avoided the more gimmicky nature of other CD-ROM consoles of the time and actually churned out some good games. Ironically, the higher quality may be one of the reasons the Turbografx CD is less remembered than Sega CD or Jaguar. There just aren’t as many funny and weird games. There are also several games that have much more well-known releases on other consoles. If you’ve ever played Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, there’s probably a 99% chance that you played it on Super Nintendo. It was also the only game in the Ys series that most American gamers had played up until the 21^st century. Unless you had a Master System and played the mediocre port of Ys: The Vanished Omens then Ys III stood more as an odd standalone release than part of a series. America wouldn’t have another Ys game until Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim in 2005. Fourteen years is a long time between releases, and it’s not the only RPG series on TurboGrafx CD that had a long gap between US releases. It wasn’t easy being an RPG fan in the 90s.

(If you've never played Ys before, Adol is the one that saves the world while Dogi is the one that introduces him in a new town and then hangs out in the inn the entire game)

 

It’s funny that Ys III is the only early game in the series known to most Americans, because it doesn’t play like any other Ys game. Where most of them are more traditional action RPGs with top-down and later 3D worlds, Ys III is completely side-scrolling. Where other entries in the series have you attack by bashing into enemies, Ys III actually has you swinging a sword. The RPG elements are even lighter, but it does have enough leveling and money gaining to still qualify. The game features a single town and several dungeons that are accessed by an overworld map. The use of a sword certainly helps, and the combat is probably the game’s best feature. Series protagonist Adol really swings that thing fast, and there are enough different enemies for the dungeons to always be entertaining. The game had a good rhythm as well. I felt a very natural progression as I made my way through, and never felt like I had to gain too many levels to proceed. However, much like with The Vanished Omens about halfway through the game I was maxed out in both levels and no longer had anything to buy in town. It mattered less in Ys III, however, for reasons I will get into later.

 

Of course, if you are buying a CD-ROM version of a game that also has a cartridge release you want it to be bigger and better. Ys III certainly throws in the bells and whistles. It has some great anime-styled cutscenes and improved music, but most impressively it has a lot of voice acting. It’s seriously hard to think of another game of the era that has so much spoken dialogue outside of FMV games. The quality of the acting is decent for the time, although there are some awkward pauses. I also think it’s odd that Adol isn’t voiced despite being the main character. His dialogue is all text, and even in the closing scene he keeps his mouth shut. It’s an odd choice that I don’t quite understand. I guess they could be aiming for the classic silent protagonist, but he does have plenty of text-only dialogue. Still, it has enough voice acting to make your less wealthy friends jealous. It certainly takes advantage of the new format.

However, there is a serious flaw with Ys III. This game is short. It’s in the running for shortest RPG I have ever played. We’re talking less than three hours, even if you don’t know what you’re doing. Sure, a couple of bosses might hang you up, but even with these roadblocks it is ridiculously brief. The Super Nintendo version takes longer which might be due to the slower speed, so it’s a bit jarring finishing the game so quickly. That’s why I mentioned that maxing out the stats doesn’t matter. By then there’s only an hour or so left in the game. It’s a shame because I could’ve spent several more hours playing Ys III. Actually, all of the first three Ys games are very short. The first two games are combined in another Turbografx CD disc, and the whole thing only takes about ten hours. More recent games in the series are sprawling RPGs full of bonus content that can take over 50 hours. It’s interesting how much things have changed in the last thirty years.

Even with its short length I am going to put Ys III: Wanderers from Ys into the good column. I certainly had fun playing it, and that’s what counts the most I suppose. I was obsessed with action RPGs as a kid, and this game certainly has that old school charm that takes me back to my youth. And let’s face it, if you’re playing this game in 2023 you are probably doing so without paying $600 for the console and $200 for the game. So, if you do have some way to play Ys III or have very deep pockets and want to track down a physical copy, I recommend it. I spend $500 on a TurboDuo back before I had kids, so I won't judge. It’s a quick and fun way to complete 2.33% of the entire US library, and I can’t say that about many games. It actually ended up much higher on the list than I expected. The lower part of the good section probably has some games that don’t belong, but you can blame that on my sunny, optimistic disposition. Everyone knows I’m Mr. Positive. It’s all the way up at #44 just under Tecmo Bowl and above After Burner. It’s a good way to introduce an underrated console.

 

TurboGrafx CD Quality Percentage: 1/1

Ranking List.docx