GINGA FUKEI DENSETSU SAPPHIRE

DEVELOPER: Caproduction YEAR RELEASED: 1995 GENRE: Shoot-’em-up

If any game highlights the value proposition of the PC Engine Mini, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire – commonly known simply as Sapphire – is it. As a late release for the system, which required a full CD-ROM set with Arcade Card to boot, it just wasn’t produced in particularly large quantities. As a result of this and its growing reputation, an original copy of this game will cost you hundreds of pounds, and that’s before you even factor in the hardware needed to run it. But while requiring a fully powered PC Engine setup limited Sapphire’s commercial potential, this turns out to be the game’s greatest strength. With the power of CD-ROM and the enormous RAM boost provided by the Arcade Card, as well as years of accumulated coding knowledge, the developers were able to push the PC Engine to display some utterly astonishing visuals. As well as multi-sprite animations that look fantastic, the game features prerendered 3D enemies – a fashionable technique at the time, but one that is used in a unique way here. Although there are some highly detailed enemies that use this technique, the really impressive ones are the ones that use lowpolygon models and loads of frames of animation. They’re so convincing that you’ll believe the humble 1987 hardware is generating real 3D images. Sapphire didn’t really break any new ground in terms of game design, though it does pose a stiff challenge for fans of the genre. However, more than any other game on the PC Engine Mini (or indeed, the PC Engine overall), it shows off just how far Hudson’s hardware could be pushed, and is worth playing for that reason alone.