TINKERING WITH THE ENGINE
HERE’S A LITTLE LOOK AT THE PC ENGINE MINI’S MENU, TO SHOW OFF WHAT IT CAN DO
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The main menu is themed based on the region of games you’re looking at – Coregrafx for Japan or Turbografx for North America. You can change Japan’s theme to PC Engine in the menu, if you like.
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The title of the game is displayed in this bar, with Japanese titles romanised for your convenience. On the left, the flash replicates the original game’s spine, usually indicating the game’s format.
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PC Engine-kun, the little mascot for the console, walks around in the background of the menu screen. You can turn this feature off if you want, but we’ll consider you a joyless monster if you do.
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You can have up to four saved states per game. If saves are present, you’ll see that the PC Engine icons will have Ten No Koe 2 units attached – a cute reference to an old memory peripheral.
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This little icon represents how many people can play each game – most are one or two, but some games can go as high as five. The system only supports two controllers by default, though.
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Options can be changed here. The most interesting ones are the menu themes, selectable wallpapers and display options, but you can also set your language and view the credits here.
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When you start a game, the Hucard pops into this slot here. If you start a CD-ROM game, the appropriate system card goes in instead, complete with an authentic CD drive whirring sound.
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Cover art for each game is displayed nice and big, right in the centre of the screen. If you’re looking for a game quickly, the row of thumbnails above the full-sized art should help you find it.
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Somewhat oddly, you can only view a single region’s games at any time – you can’t look at them as a whole. To change from PC Engine to Turbografx or vice versa, simply hit this button in the bottom-right. You can choose how you’d like the games to be sorted here – by game format, release date or alphabetically. Unfortunately, there’s no ability to sort games by multiplayer support.
“KONAMI HAS DONE A PRETTY GREAT JOB OF CHOOSING A WIDE SELECTION OF STYLES FOR THE MINI” PAUL WELLER
Of Valkyrie. It’s great that companies are now not afraid to throw in games from different regions although it is a shame some of these choices will just be borderline unplayable.”
As well as taking an unusual approach to regional representation, Konami has included a large number of games – 57 in total (or 58, on the Japanese version), though we’ll give that number a little scrutiny later on. In any case, it’s a selection that hits all the key selling points, offering high-quality games, high-value games and as Paul points out, a good representation of the system’s library. “At a casual glance it would be easy for people to assume that most of the PC Engine library consists of shoot-‘em-ups, and while that’s true to a point, there are so many other genres that are well represented,” he says. “Konami has done a pretty great job of choosing a wide selection of styles for the Mini, as well as picking both early and later games which will give a nice timeline of how developers were able to keep pushing the machine to its limits over the years.” Indeed, the system is a great buy for fans of shoot-’em-ups – there are over a dozen here, ranging from excellent conversions of R-type and Gradius to classic original games like Blazing Lazers and Soldier Blade.
However, the high number of games included means there’s still plenty of variety. “The highlights here are pretty predictable for those with a passing knowledge of the library: Dracula X is the obvious ‘big gun’ in the listing, followed by Lords Of Thunder, the Bonk titles and Dungeon Explorer,” says Paul. “The addition of Ys Book I & II is my personal highlight, as it is my favourite PC Engine title and worth owning for the epic soundtrack alone. It is also very nice to see Star Parodier, which is a superb Parodius-style parody of Hudson’s Star Soldier shoot-’em-up series.”
Another great thing about the PC Engine Mini is the way it comprehensively covers the system’s library. While we loved the Mega Drive Mini and felt that it did a great job of covering the Mega Drive library, it would have been great to have seen the best of the Mega-cd and 32X included on the system, too. The PC Engine Mini goes far further in this regard. “I was surprised to see a couple of Supergrafx titles in there,” says Paul. “Daimakaimura [Ghouls ‘N Ghosts] is really an excellent conversion, although Aldynes is variable in quality. But there really isn’t that much to pick from.” The software included on the PC Engine Mini includes regular Hucard games, games from the CD-ROM, Super CD-ROM and Arcade CD-ROM formats, and even a couple of games for the ill-fated Supergrafx. The only omission is the Laserdisc-based LD-ROM games, which were only available to Laseractive owners. As a result, you can feel confident that you’re getting a taste of every aspect of the PC Engine experience, from the early hits to the games that utilised the system’s full potential.
Of course every mini console has its weaker games, and the PC Engine Mini is no exception, though most of this comes down to language issues rather than game quality. “Given that the selection does vary between regions, some of the inclusions are somewhat mind-boggling,” says Paul. “Appare! Gate Ball is just a dreadful and simplistic game based on croquet, Super Momotaro Dentetsu II relies on so much Japanese as to make it almost worthless for western players, as do some of the Japanese region role-playing games that are included. Snatcher is also untranslated and while it is a fantastic game, it will just frustrate people that cannot understand what is going on. I can’t think why Konami didn’t just replace these (and alternate region duplicates) with more accessible titles, especially adding a few more CD games that really show off the capabilities of the machine.” Of course, as we learned from the Playstation Classic, retro consoles can be defined by what is missing as much as what is actually present, but Paul thinks most of the key games have been hit. “The only gaping hole is Gate Of Thunder,” he points out. “Developed by ex-technosoft staff, this is one of the greatest shooters of the era (and of all time, in my opinion) so I am very disappointed that it is not included.”
For what it’s worth, we found Appare! Gateball to offer a weird novelty appeal, but your mileage may vary. However, the criticism of Snatcher is something we picked up on, and it’s not the only Japanese game that players will struggle with – the likes of Necromancer will also prove difficult. “Snatcher is a very important game in the history of PC Engine, and gaming more broadly, and we felt that leaving this out entirely would be a disservice to the legacy of the console – and to our fans,” says Richard, when asked about the inclusion of such games. “Necromancer represents an interesting turn-based RPG, which showcases another genre that [the] Western PC Engine would otherwise miss out on.”
We came away from our preview session with a positive impression of the system and its games, finding little to complain about. We do have two, though. Firstly, while the PC Engine
Mini does have more games than the SNES or Mega Drive mini consoles, we feel that marketing the system as having 57 games included is a bit misleading. Five games are counted twice as they’re included in both their Japanese and English forms, so it’s really more like 52. The system still offers a great number of games, but it’s not quite as far ahead of the competition as the marketing would have you believe. As Paul has pointed out, you’ll find that some of them are essentially unplayable without Japanese language skills. On one hand, this is understandable as those games never received Englishlanguage PC Engine releases, and it wouldn’t be a simple task to create them. On the other hand, M2 has a reputation for going above and beyond with projects like this, and given that an English script already exists for Snatcher thanks to the Mega-cd version, we’re guessing the budget just wasn’t there to make it happen. The second problem is that M2 has once again used a nearest neighbour scaling approach, which causes horizontal shimmering during scrolling during certain games in 4:3 mode. This can be alleviated with the use of the CRT filter or a different video mode, but we’d like to have had an option for some interpolation.
These slight quibbles don’t detract from the fact that based on first impressions, the PC Engine
Mini is another strong entry into the increasingly competitive retro plug-and-play market. We’re fascinated to see how players will receive it due to its unique position, and we can only imagine what might be possible if it turns out to be a success – there’s every chance that we could see rival products offering more import games, or maybe Konami could revisit its extensive MSX catalogue. As always, we’ll hold off delivering a definitive verdict until we can review a final retail unit, but the PC Engine Mini is definitely one
to watch.