Popular games for platform PC-FX
Return to Zork: A mesmerizing interactive adventure of danger, intrigue and cunning.
Basically, it alternates between the adventure part, which depicts the interaction with fellow crew members, and the battle part, which controls the humanoid deformable fighter Grywurm (Glühwurm) and shoots down enemy planes. It's easy to imagine a flight simulator or a 3D shooter as a fighter, but in reality it's a command line plus real-time. The depiction is 3D, but PC-FX does not have polygon function, so it is represented by sprites used in FC and SFC and pseudo 3D expressed in BG.
Zoku Hatsukoi Monogatari: Shūgaku Ryokō is a mixture of adventure and "love simulation" - more specifically, first love. The player takes the role of a male student and can choose any time period between ground school to college. Every time period has four different girls that the hero can fall in love with. The player must choose one of those girls as the main love object. The setting is the same in every time period: the class goes on vacation to different places in Japan. Most of the game consists of traveling from place to place, trying to be at the right place the right time and make the right decision. The player must assemble a schedule for each location. It is possible to manage the player character's finances, as well as buy items that can be given to the girls.
Choujin Heiki Zeroigar is an action shooter. The player controls Zeroigar as a plane and as a robot. The player is awarded experience points, depending on his performance during a stage. The Galactic Emperor Zemu is conquering one planet after the other, planning to expand his empire to the known limits of the galaxy. The reason for his success are huge robots who fight in his armies, developed with the technology invented by the genius scientist Dr. Lulu. But the doctor understands herself that her inventions have caused misery and destruction to other nations. She runs away, taking design plans for the giant robots with her. She arrives on the Earth (Japan, to be exact) shortly after World War II, and with the help of local scientists, develops a powerful robot, that alone can protect Earth from Zemu's attacks: Super God Trooper Zeroigar! Zeroigar is the only shooter for the PC-FX system, continuing the legacy of vertically scrolling shooters from the PC Engine (TurboGrafx) era. The player controls Zeroigar as a plane and as a robot (for boss battles). As in most shooters, power-ups appear frequently. Every level starts with the default weapon, which can be enhanced with these power-ups. Secondary weapons (bombs, torpedoes, etc.) can also be found. A somewhat unusual feature of "Zeroigar" is its leveling-up system. The player is awarded experience points, depending on his performance during a stage. After completing a stage (or after a Game Over screen), the player is able to use those points to increase Zeroigar's parameters (health, defense, weapon power, etc.). The player is given unlimited continues, but he has to begin the level from the first screen each time. Anime-style movies advance the story between levels.
Third in the Kendo Rage (Makeruna! Makendou) series; this one's an RPG.
Team Innocent: The Point of No Return is an adventure game with action elements. The game consists of three missions. The player controls Saki most of the time, but other girls temporarily become available as playable characters as well. The heroine must explore a large location, collecting items and solving a few puzzles on the way. The young women can also find and equip various weapons, from pistols to axes. The player can choose one of the four action modes: punching, kicking, shooting, and (in specific instances only) jumping. The girls are navigated from third-person perspective on pre-rendered backgrounds with constantly changing camera angles, similarly to Alone in the Dark games, except for the protagonists being sprites and not 3D models. The game has a few anime-style cutscenes and voice-overs for dialogues.
A role-playing game in the Lunatic Dawn series from Artdink, released for PC-FX in 1995. In spite of its Japanese origin, Lunatic Dawn is in fact much more similar to very old-school Western RPGs than to its Japanese brethren. It has virtually no story and relies entirely on exploration and strategic combat. Set in a medieval world with little to no distinguishing characteristics, "Lunatic Dawn" throws the player immediately into the game world, which is open for him to explore. The player is able to choose the main character's gender, race (human, elf, etc.), class, and even age - older characters are more powerful, but have a more limited play time. Indeed, the entire gameplay process is timed. Traveling to a remote city or dungeon can take up to several game days. The player has to provide sufficient food for his party during this time. Player party consists of pre-generated characters, who have different names and belong to different races and classes, but have virtually no personality. Food and other supplies can be acquired in towns, through which the player moves in a Wizardry-like fashion - viewing locations from first-person perspective and selecting menu commands. When the party enters a dungeon, the view switches to isometric. The dungeons are large and maze-like, with enemies visible on screen. Upon contact with an enemy, a battle initiates. The battles are turn-based but fast-paced, reminding somewhat the Infinity Engine battles from Baldur's Gate series. The participants can freely move on the battle field. The player directly controls only the main characters, but can assign general commands to the party members.
Tekipaki: Working Love FX is essentially an upgraded version of Tekipaki: Working Love for Turbo CD. It adds several scenarios to the main game, which play mostly like a Japanese-style adventure - the player can choose dialogue options or a location to go to. Those scenarios add more background to the personalities of Naomi, Hikaru, and Edalt, the three extra-terrestrial heroines of the game (for example, in one of the scenarios Hikaru's Martian cat escapes from the zoo, and it's the player's job to find him). The PC-FX version of the game also adds an "omake" option, where it is possible to view pictures of the girls.
Our protagonist, Kai, is the prince of one of the countries in the Republic of Kliph. Recently his father has disappeared, and the longtime enemies of the Kliph, calling themselves the "Holy Dark Empire" have staged a coup and taken control of all the countries in Kliph; Led by the ruthless Emperor Götz von Dark they have quickly suppressed most resistance. However, due to an old martial tradition, the Holy Dark Empire holds an annual martial arts competition and this year the Emperor himself is participating. Kai and his friends will defeat him and re-establish peace in their homelands!
Based on the anime series Ah! My Goddess, the game follows the story of a Japanese high-school student named Keiichi, who has accidentally summoned the powerful, yet very lovely Norse goddess Verdandi (mercilessly misspelled Belldandy in the game) and pronounced a wish to stay with her forever. Now the gorgeous goddess has become a part of his life, and the two find themselves involved in constant misunderstandings and comical situations, yet also develop feelings for each other...
Megami Paradise 2 is a sequel to Megami Paradise released by PC Engine in 1994. Megami Paradise was an RPG game, but Megami Paradise 2 is a battle simulation game.
When an army of monsters attacked the castle Camelot and forced the Emperor to resign, the whole country fell under their rule, and the Emperor's son Radius had to flee. But in his heart, the young prince still hopes to reclaim the land that is rightfully his, and to defeat the monstrous conquerors. With the aid of his best friend, the wandering monk Nova, and a female fighter Mirion, Radius begins his quest.
Can Can Bunny Extra DX is the fifth Can Can Bunny game, and is also the first direct sequel within the series. The hero is lonely and is anxious to get a girlfriend. And once again, the benevolent and gorgeous goddess Swatty is here to provide assistance, together with her side-kicks, the Seven Lucky Gods from the Japanese mythology. The interface is still traditional Japanese-style menu commands, but there are many more locations in this game, many of which can be freely accessed by clicking on them while on the main map. Once the player has reached the point where he can begin the physical seduction of the girl, the interface switches to point-and-click, with context-sensitive cursor for touching, kissing, etc.
The game is based on Go Nagai's manga, that was later made into anime TV series. Rather than following the plot of the manga, the game has the player assume the role of a nameless male detective, who is headed to a fictional country called Austral Island in search of a missing girl. When the hero arrives on the island, he soon discovers that there is some sort of a supernatural organization that might be the reason for the girl's disappearance. Then he hooks up with Honey Kisaragi, the heroine of the manga and TV series, who is an android that can assume various combat forms and fight evil creatures. This is an adventure game with simple interaction (point-and-click), the cursor turning blue for looking at objects and yellow for using them or talking to people. At some screens there are multiple dialogue choices. There are no puzzles in the game, but sometimes the player controls Honey in combat sequences, which play like a mini-game that involves pressing a button as many times as possible within a time limit, and choosing vulnerable spots on the enemy's body to execute attacks. There is also a map of the island which the player can navigate the main character on. Unlike many other Japanese adventures, characters are animated on almost every screen in Cutey Honey FX, and a large portion of the game is occupied by anime-style movies.
Long time ago, the First Mother created the world and blessed it with five magical symbols that would keep it in balance. The symbols were hidden deep in a sacred temple, to protect everything and everyone around them. Many years later, an adventurer named Finn was looking for work in the city of Ambrose. There was indeed much work to do: monsters roamed the country, the threat of war was more real than ever. One night Finn was strolling through the city when he suddenly spotted a young girl attacked by a monster. Naturally, he defeated the monster and saved the girl, who turned out to be a princess hoping to restore her father's kingdom. The two decide to work together and venture to the nearby city, that lies in ruins, overrun by monsters...
This is a platform game similar in style to Bubble Bobble and particularly to Parasol Stars. There are two playable characters, both of which are little girls. There is no difference between them gameplay-wise: both use a large blob-like animal to hit enemies from a short distance in a yo-yo-like fashion. It is possible to choose one of them as a single player, or to use them both cooperatively in the two-player mode.
Angelique Special 2 is a Strategy game, developed by Koei and published by NEC, which was released in Japan in 1996.
The sequel to the dating sim that rocked the world (maybe) in 1992! Doukyuusei 2 is a 1995 classic erotic love adventure, a genre that is also referred to as "dating simulations". It has a new location and new protagonist. The aim of the game is the same as the original.
Pachio-kun FX is a pachinko game with fantasy trappings.
The third game in the Galaxy Fräulein Yuna series, Kanashimi no Sirene picks up where the last game ended. After having successfully saved the Earth, Yuna and her new friend, the ever-hungry female android Yuri Cube, return to their normal high school life – or so they think. Because her old enemies will do anything to destroy her, including wrongly accusing her of world domination plans. This draws the attention of a highly ranked female intelligence officer of the Galaxy Alliance, who operated under codename “Sirene” and who pretends to be an exchange student in the Shiraokadai High School, while her true goal is to arrest Yuna… Kanashimi no Sirene plays similarly to the other games in the series, with the main gameplay consisting of being taken automatically to different screen and making dialogue choices. There are also turn-based battles, during which the player has to choose the right attacks at the right time to defeat the opponents. There are also a few mini-games that appear during the course of the game, such as a quiz show and a slot machine-type game with the purpose of getting new clothes for Yuna. There is an extensive “Extras” menu in the game, which features character album, graphical sketches, photos of various material connected to the series (such as magazines or covers of previous games) etc.