This game is loosely based on a japanese TV show that involves playing retro grames, which is called Game Center CX. I say loosely, because I kinda doubt the story in this game is the same as in the TV show. And add to that the fact that you don’t play any actual retro games, but instead you get a bunch of new games made in a retro style, inspiring their gameplay on actual retro titles.

What I’m reviewing here is basically eight 8-bit games, and I’ll also be reviewing the package as a whole. This will be kinda long…

Well, read on!

Story
Game Master Arino, the host from Game Center CX (I think), sends you back to the past in the 80s, and changes you into a kid. To get back to the present, you have to beat video game challenges given to you by Game Master Arino. Once you get in the past, you meet Arino, but as a kid, and he decides to help you out by letting you play his games. That’s pretty much it. No character development (other than Game Master Arino getting pissed when you finish challenges too fast), no setting other than 2 kids talking about games in front of a TV while playing games.

The “story” is really just there to get you to go forward in time to get more games as they come out in the timeline.  But there’s one thing that confuses me… Why does my character WANT to go back to the present time? Being stuck in the 80s wouldn’t bother me much…

Games
So at each game’s release date, you have to do certain challenges in them, in order to go forward in time and unlock more games. Each game takes on a retro game’s gameplay and graphic style, so if some of them sound, look or play familiar, it’s intended. Also, in most of the games, getting 20000 points gives you an extra life, then reaching 70000 gives you another, then each increment of 700000 points gives you another. For points, there’s secrets in the game that give bonus points most of the time, by going through secret passages or shooting certin spots a few times until a “Hidden Character” appears for you to pick up.

In addition to the 4 normal challenges, each game has a “finish the game” challenge, and you can freeplay all of them once you finish the 4 base challenges for each. Just a note, in freeplay your Guadia Quest and Haggle Man 3 saves do not carry over from the story mode.

Cosmic Gate
why hallo thar Galaga. Yup, the first game is exactly Galaga. So that’s a great point here. Added to the usual Galaga formula (being stuck on the bottom of the screen to shoot enemies on top), you get a few new elements. There’s a power up which gives you a piercing bullet every 3 shots, which helps a lot in getting points. There’s also warp points. Those are activated by shooting a blinking enemy without shooting any of the others and then shooting the warp that appears until it swallows you, which makes you skip 3 stages, unless you get to a stage with a special portal that let’s you skip 12 stages. And every few stages there’s an asteroid field, and you get more points if you destroy more asteroid, and extra points by destroying the bigger ones.

This game is really fun if you like really old-school shooters, but sadly the challenges aren’t really… challenging. Beating an early stage, getting warps, destroying a giant asteroid and getting a certain amount of points. Easy stuff, especially if you were a good Galaga player. Also, the game can be finished in like 2 minutes using a super secret cheat you see in the magazine at the end of the story, so no need to go through all 64 stages to get to the end.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man
This time it’s a platformer. Uses elements from Mario, Bobble Bubble and a few others. You can jump, enter and exit doors, throw shuriken and summon allies by gathering 3 scrolls (gathering the 3 scrolls automatically summons an ally, you have no control on that). The goal of every level is simple. Kill each enemy, then kill the boss. All enemies can be killed by jumping on them, and shuriken can only stun them for the most part. Some enemies have different patterns as well. Each stage is a looping section. There are various doors in each stage. Entering them stuns everyone in the vicinity or kills everyone in the vicinity (depending on if they’re already stunned or not). The doors are colored. If you enter a red door, all red doors will spin and hurt things in their general area and again when you get out and the door re-opens, and the door you entered changes color. Getting hit twice kills you just like in Ghosts n’ Goblins.

This game is really a good change from Cosmic Gate and is surprisingly fun to play. A bit easy though, and the challenges aren’t really hard. Killing 2 enemies in 1 jump, reaching a stage without using shuriken, reaching a stage without dying and reaching the halfway point of the game.

Rally King
An NES style racing game, using a overhead view and having kinda meh controls. This takes on the gameplay the R.C. Pro-Am games on the NES, with slightly more confusing controls. You start in 20th place, and you have to catch up to other drivers that somehow already started the race.  Hitting other racers and walls damages you, and you explode when you get too much damage. This game implements some Mario Kart elements as well. You can get a boost start by holding the A button just before (or while?) the number 2 appears in the countdown. Also, by letting go of A and turning, you can drift. holding a drift long enough gives you a boost, which is pretty important to finish the challenges.

This game… isn’t very fun. It’s not bad, if you like this style of racing game. But the controls are too slippery, it’s way too easy to get damaged, and it’s not really that fun. The challenges are incredibly easy too. Drift boost twice, finish races and get a bunch of points (you should get enough by the time you finish the second course, if not before that (getting the panda hidden character in the first race makes it sure you’ll get the needed score in the first course).

Star Prince
This is a top-down shooter ALA 1942. A step-up from Cosmic Gate, from the same “imaginary” developers. There are various powerups this time, like fast shooting lasers, missiles that go in various directions, and an explosion in front of you in addition to your normal shot. There’s mid-bosses and big bosses (the same one in each stage from what I’ve seen) for added challenge. Shooting a powerup 12 times makes it explode, killing all flying enemy on the screen. After the first challenge, Kid Version Arino buys a turbo controller, so you can hold the Y button to shoot faster. You also have a shield by holding A or B, which unleashes a big counter attack all around you. You are not locked to the screen itself. You can more just a bit more to the left and right, and the screen scrolls with you, giving a wider range of movement.

This game is fun. But too easy, moreso when you get the turbo controller. There’s a few hard sections here and there though. The challenges are ridiculously easy as well. Finish the first 2 areas, getting a 1up (either finding the hidden one or getting 20000 points) and getting a certain amount of points. Shouldn’t take many tries to do.

Rally King SP
Now THIS is funny. It’s exactly the same game as Rally King, but it’s a special edition, and has different challenges. It’s funny because it’s a promotional item, full of in-game advertisment. Typical. You get it from winning a giveaway in the Gamefan magazine, so it includes their mascot. It’s really just a mockery of oldschool “special editions”.

Oh well. The game is still the same with added bumps on the road, and the desert is blue. The challenges are still easy, though some can be a bit harder than in the non-SP version.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 2
Yay, more Haggle Man. This takes on the same mechanics as the first game. Just a lot harder, with more enemies, and enemies that spawn after a while in the stage. Added here is a healing item, an hourglass item to give you a time bonus, getting 3 scrolls doesn’t automatically summon an ally, so you can “store” them just in case you need them later. Also, you can “force” the boss to come out before killing all enemies (that’s required for a challenge). I don’t know how to determine what door a boss is behind, but it requires going in another door, and waiting a bit if the boss is revealed for him to come out, them you can fight him. Bosses here are “tougher” as they require 3 hits to die instead of 1.

Haggle Man 2 is loads of fun, better and harder than the first. But since the game itself is harder, well they decided to make the challenges a lot easier! Yeah, weird. The first game required finishing half the game, while this one requires you to finish 4 stages…

Guadia Quest
Dragon Quest? Well, pretty much. This though starts you with a party of 3 characters and you even have a monster-capturing mechanic to add a fourth party member. The basics are just like Dragon Quest. The battles play out similarily, but with the strength of hits change depending on which symbol appears when you attack. You can have multiple opponents in battle as well. Just to really parody DQ, to talk to people you have to press A, then select “Talk” in the menu that appears, hoping the person didn’t move out of range. To open chest, you have to go on them, press A, then choose “Look”. As for equipment, you get a modified version of the DQ menus to equip your stuff and it works really well.
In this game are monsters called “Guadia”. There’s multiple versions of that, with elements and such. And even a Game Master Arino Guadia that’s overly powerful. When you find them, you can try to form a “pact” with them. It makes them stronger when you do that(or so it seemed to me), and you have to defeat them for them to join you. When they do join you, they will progressively get interested/worried about the battle, dish out an attack, and go back to not caring for a little while. The leveling is just like Dragon Quest. Gets your stats up and you get spells and other skills at certain levels. And the graphics are exactly like Dragon Quest.

Overall this is a fun Dragon Quest rip-off/parody. There’s little direction as to where to go, you have to figure that out yourself by talking to people or just randomly exploring. The longest game here if you want to complete it, but still not THAT long. I have the feeling it won’t last the 20 hours XSeed(the people publishing the game here) are saying it lasts. The challenges though are easy stuff. Go to a town, reach level 7, get 1000 gold at once and beat the first boss of the game.

Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3
A complete revamp of the series. Big graphic boost, completely different gameplay, save feature, everything is different. Like the first 2, A jumps and B attacks (if you’re close to an enemy you use a sword, if you’re far you use shuriken) and pressing Up and B does your current special attack. Though here jumping on enemies doesn’t work. This takes on a more Metroid approach with some Ninja Gaiden/Shinobi mixed in. You get big and long stages and an RPG element. Enemies drop nuts and bolts when they’re killed, and you use those to buy stuff in stores. Health, special attacks, gears and gear upgrades. Gears give you special skills. attack power boosts, attack upgrades, high jumps. Each gear takes a an amount of gear power and you can’t go past that, but you can boost your maximum. The gameplay itself is relatively fast-paced and requires a bit of exploring like in Metroid, with various paths to take in each stage to find secrets.

It’s pretty fun. Really different from the other 2 Haggle Man games, but still interesting. The challenges are stupidly easy though. Find a gear, break an obstacle, finish the first level and kill 100 enemies on the second level.
BUT after you’re done with those, you get the final challenge: Beat all the games. Now that’s probably the only kinda hard challenge in there

The package as a whole
This is a fun little package. Graphically it’s kinda “cute”. While playing games, the bottom screen always shows you and Kid Arino, with you not moving at all, and Arino looking fucking bored.

The one really interesting part is the GameFan magazines. They give you tips, tricks, and cheats for the games which is pretty cool, and it’s really humorous. Each, like, 2 issues, the editor in chief changes for completely random reasons, the “in-depth reviews” are funny and really short (you know those short reviews I made of each game? They’re longer than their “in-depth” reviews). And to add to the comedy, there’s the “ask a question”-type section which never really makes sense (and one of the people asking a question is named “Homer Sexual”… funny stuff ). Of course there’s a bunch of references to retro and new games everywhere (Zelda is seemingly a detective game there).

As a whole, this package is really good. Though it’s too easy for the most part, it’s very well done. A throwback at oldschool games, the graphical style is spot on most of the time and the gameplay feels very oldschool as well. Just to make it feel even more like oldschool games, there’s weird grammar errors (probably generated by the engrish translation), like “YOU SHOOTED x ASTEROIDS!” all over the place. You even get access to manuals for each game to get the basic controls and such. Great stuff, and it’s nice to see that the art of oldschool game-making isn’t completely lost (though Megaman 9 proved that last year already). The best games there are definitely the Haggle Man games, though all of them are interesting in their own right. I didn’t like Rally King much, but it’s still fun to see a new racing game in that style.

If you like Retro/8-bit games, you should NOT miss out on this. The presentation is fun, the magazines are great, the conversations are a bit annoying and useless but sometimes quite entertaining and the games are well made.  The games are just a bit easy. But this game will most likely be really hard to find soon, so pick it up as soon as possible.
Now let’s hope the second game in the series, which comes out in Japan this month(maybe I should get it….), comes out here as well sometime, the game lineup is really interesting.

jobocan Games, Review