Flying Gillman

'Navit'

[PS1] [JAPAN] [MAGAZINE, SPREAD] [1998]

So this comic-advertisement tells the tale of one Hirai Hiroto, a frustrated game designer. One day, his girlfriend leaves him in the middle of a traffic jam; afterwards he is inspired to create a game that can design and simulate better road layouts for Japan, which he claims owns 10% of the world's cars despite being on such a small land mass.

Now, no Hirai Hiroto is seen in the credits for this game but maybe someone on the team was influenced like this!

'A.IV.EVOLUTION'

[PS1] [JAPAN] [MAGAZINE] [1995]

"The system established in A Ressha de Ikou III was significantly expanded [for A Ressha de Ikou IV], introducing concepts such as elevated viaducts and multi-level railway interchanges, thereby vastly increasing the freedom available for track laying. Furthermore, the game now allows for the construction of roads and the operation of bus and monorail services. It also addressed issues—such as portions of the map being obscured by the shadows of high-rise buildings—by enabling the camera viewpoint to be rotated in 90-degree increments. The user interface was further sophisticated through the introduction of a concept known as "Height Cut," which allows players to develop the map while viewing the city as if it were sliced ​​horizontally at any desired altitude. The later title A Ressha de Ikou 7 was produced based on the concept of recreating this specific game using modern technology.

Top: illustration in a 2003 issue of the Japanese Nintendo Dream magazine, reimagining one of the murals from the intro to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker with Mario characters instead, swapping Link for Mario, Epona for Yoshi, Ganon for Bowser and the Hylians for Toads as well as Hyrule Castle for Peach's Castle and the Triforce of Courage for a Power Star.

Bottom: the original mural as extracted from the game's files, for reference.

Le patchnote de la version 1.1.0 d’A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism

Artdink propose une autre mise à jour de son jeu A-Train: All Aboard! Tourism sur Nintendo Switch. (more…)

A-Train

While a lot of long-running video game series tend to be fairly high profile for most of their existence, some of them can creep up on you. In the case of A-Train (A Ressha de Ikou), Japanese company Artdink’s railway simulation game, you might be shocked to find that the series has been going since 1985 — 32 years of building a city off the back of the rails. While immensely popular in Japan,…

Title: A.III: A Ressha de Iko 3 / A列車で行こう3

Developer/Publisher: ARTDINK

Release date: 11 June 1993

Catalogue No.: ADCD3001

Genre: City Management Simulation

Format: Super CD-ROM2

Well... it's a real sim game, which is a start. It's a railroad sim, which is always fun. And it is different enough from the other rail sims to make it worthwhile in its own right. Everything about this game is good. Not great... but good. Some nice touches separate it from the rest, like day/night, timetabling, resource, and financial management.

Build up your city with hotels, amusement centers, factories, and the like while keeping a beady eye on statistics, budgets, the stock market, and other very interesting factors. All this is presented in a competent isometric view and will keep any sim-lover occupied for hours, but if you don't understand Japanese then expect to get lost pretty quickly. This is one of few games compatible with the Memory Base 128 save device peripheral and is also one of a handful compatible with the PC Engine Mouse. The game is so complex, though, which is probably why it shipped in a CD case meant to store such a big manual. I also know this game was also released in the west on PC, Mac and Amiga, and it also made its way to the Super Famicom in 1995.

Title: The Atlas / ジ・アトラス

Developer/Publisher: ARTDINK

Release date: 4 March 1994

Catalogue No.: ADCD4002

Genre: Simulation

Format: Super CD-ROM2 + Arcade Card CD-ROM2 Upgrades

Another game that actually saw a Western release on MS-DOS PC, but only in Germany for some reason, though I know that it also saw a conversion to the Super Famicom later on. This is a historical business and discovery simulation game set in 15th-century Portugal. The story is this: You are in a contract with the King of Portugal. For 10,000 gold a year, you have to explore the area 1000 miles south of Portugal within five years. You are allowed to trade with the goods you discover, but all information gathered on your travels is the property of the King of Portugal. I find this genre of game pretty boring to sit through, though I have to mention that using the Arcade Card speeds up the loading times and actually changes the in-game BGM audio tracks from PSG to CD-DA audio. That's cool. The only other game that I know of on the PC Engine that does this is 3x3 Eyes.

Title: Yukyu Gensokyoku 2nd Album / 悠久幻想曲 2nd Album

Developer: Starlight Marry / Chameleon House / Media Creole

Publisher: Media Works

Release date: 26 February 1998

Catalogue No.: T-27807G

Genre: Training Simulation

More of a variety game than anything else. Loads of beautiful art, and voice acting, and actually quite enjoyable to be honest. Features Japanese adventure game elements as well as board game ones. Comes on a lovely color-printed disc.

Below you can see the special key ring that you make by placing the plastic sheet into an oven. It becomes thicker and hardens to form a pretty nice-looking key ring.

Title: Outtrigger Limited Mouse Box Set / アウトトリガー

Developer/Publisher: Sega / AM2 of CRI

Release date: 2 August 2001

Catalogue No.: HDR-0118

Genre: 3D Battle Action Shooting

At first, I hated this game, but just before scanning the cover this afternoon, I decided, what the hell, and gave it another go.  After completing the training missions, I was really starting to enjoy myself.  I found the fast action and tasks that needed to be completed a real challenge which kept me playing for well over two 2 hours even though I originally planned on only having a quick blast.  Outtrigger works with a variety of controls, too.  Many people recommend using the mouse as a sub control i.e.: move the onscreen target cursor and also for jumping and weapon select while using the analogue pad to move.  Personally, I prefer using the ABXY buttons on the pad to move and then using the analogue to move the cursor around while the D-pad selects view and weapons and the shoot and jump buttons are L & R.  The Main reason to buy this game is for its great multiplayer action. Far better than Quake Arena, I think, and yes, it is online compatible with VS or 4-player split-screen play using 1 Dreamcast.

Title: deSPIRIA / デスピリア

Developer/Publisher: Atlus

Release date: 21 September 2000

Catalogue No.: T-14402M

Genre: Mind RPG

DeSPIRIA is a very odd game. From what I've seen so far, I gather that your main character (the woman on the cover) is under the influence of some sort of drug. The story starts as she's traveling on a train somewhere. The next thing you know, she's sniffing some purple slug-type thing up her nose. She then becomes delusional and drops to the floor with blood pouring from her nose. Next, the train crashes, and it's from here that the game starts. It's all set in the typical cyberpunk futuristic setting, which gives deSPIRIA that wonderful atmosphere but unfortunately the game is very heavy in the Japanese text department, making it virtually unplayable to people who can't understand Japanese. I wish someone would translate these types of games so that Western players are allowed to try something new, but since that will never happen, I'm afraid most of you will have to miss out on what looks like a good game.