Tengai Makyo Karakuri Kakutoden

Added 12.4.01 | Review by Starbuck

Any pc-fx owner familiar with Hudson’s hyperkinetic, anime-fmv based fighting game Battle Heat (one of the very first games made available on the console) will be right at home with Tengai Makyô, as they both make use of the same engine. Play mechanics remain roughly the same: the player frantically mashes both buttons and D-pad to unleash, among other things, impressive looking special attacks. But it’s in the graphics department that Tengai Makyô really shines compared to it’s younger brother: whereas Battle Heat used choppy, pixellated anime sequences to convey the action, Tengai Makyô, thanks to the PC-FX’s mammoth JPEG facility, churns out impeccable, and highly stylized anime.

Story - 7 out of 10
Tengai Makyô is a fighting game, hence the emphasis on action. The plot here is minimal, functional: witnessing the revival of Yomi, an evil God, the “heroes of legend” gather to stop him. “Heroes of legend” ? Who are they? As this fighting game is kind of a gaiden (side story) to all of the other far east of Eden games (pc-engine super-cd, megadrive, super famicom, sega Saturn, neo-geo…), the cast of characters is largely made of old faces from the Far east of Eden universe: Manjimaru, kabuki danjûrô, Mantô, among others. This excuse of a “story” only serves as a backdrop to the endless pounding that the player will be subjected to once past the introduction.

Graphics - 8.5 out of 10
Players will be amazed, as I was, when seeing the introduction for the first time: it really shows what the PC-FX is capable of. It’s full screen, and full of vibrant colours. High quality stuff.

As for the in game-graphics, it’s a different story. While the anime-FMV depicting your actions and the computer’s are still top-notch, they’re letterboxed. Letterboxed? Too much of a word. Boxed: that’s more like it. This was done, obviously, to save cd space. As with battle heat, your energy gauge, the character’s faces showing different expressions, and the background (Pink, green and blue? What were they thinking?) on which everything sits on, are rendered bitmap style. Now, this is where the graphic cpu’s bitmap facility shows it’s limit: why, oh why, does the resolution seem so low? I’ve seen pc-engine games have much better resolution than this. You will notice that all of the bitmapped graphics look blocky and unpolished. The same blockiness prevails in the options screen, and in the player select screen. This, my friends, makes the game look quite unfinished, and unprofessional.

Why such a high note then (8.5 out of 10)? The FMV. You have to see it with your own eyes. It’s hilarious. It’s crazy. You’ve never seen anything like it, on any system, trust me! Just wait until you see some of kabuki danjûrô’s taunts, and all of those wild moves just waiting to be triggered. Being constantly treated to high quality anime-FMV, the player forgets how poor the bitmap graphics are…

Sound - 9 out of 10
The introduction boasts some excellent redbook CD audio. The orchestrated track does a good job in setting up the mood for the player’s future fight against Yomi and his gang.

The in-game music, PCM based, reminds me of Keita Hoshi’s subtle compositions on the pc-engine (soldier blade, legend of heroes, etc.). The songs overall are of a very good quality.

What struck me the most is the announcer’s voice: very, hem, dynamic, superlative, kind of bears a resemblance to samurai showdown’s equally superlative announcer (Hajime! Ipponme!).

The in-game sound effects and the voices, streamed directly form the CD, are very clear, some of them quite impressive. Hudson Soft, as usual, has done a great job in selecting some top voice actors. They really bring the characters to life in this game.

Gameplay - 9 out of 10
No complaints here. The control is almost flawless. The moves are easy to pull off, and they come out almost instantaneously, there’s no lag time; and considering the quality of the FMV used to illustrate your actions, it’s quite an accomplishment to have been able to program such an engine. The gameplay is similar to battle heat, but it’s faster, and much more fluid (meaning that you don’t have to wait for the pc-fx to “load” the animation showing your attack). The characters have a fair amount of moves at their disposition: recovery (healing) moves, taunts, attacks, special attacks, even counters. The learning curve for this game is not quite as steep as for some of the more “traditional” fighting games out there at the moment (side-scrolling), namely SF Zero 3, or KOF 2001, and it’s for the better: learning the moves is a painless process, the button-pad combinations vary little from character to character…all of this makes the game very, very playable.

Overall - 8 out of 10
In conclusion, the game is very playable (smooth learning curve, good control, and, stangely, the PC-FX pad “feels” suited for this kind of game) ; the in-game music, albeit PCM, does a good job in emphasizing the action ; the sound effects and the voices are streamed straight off the CD, thus they are of a very good quality.

But most of all, this game is fun. And very hard. I’ve yet to see the ending   (or endings) that this game has to offer. Tengai Makyô can get repetitive after a while: no surprise here, as there is a limited set of actions/animations. But I keep coming back for more: just watching the crazy anime is enough for me !

Recommended. Well, if you can find it ! This is one of the rarer games for the pc-fx.
 

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