Wireframe - #25 - 2019

wfmag.cc \ 51

Disc Station
When Compile finished work on a little horizontal shooter called
Aleste in 1988, it was left in a bit of a quandary: the game easily
fit on a single MSX2 floppy disk, so what else could they do
to make use of the space? After a few calls to other studios,
Disc Station was born: a magazine-software hybrid that soon
became a major part of Compile’s history. Published between
1988 and 2000, Disc Station crammed an assortment of games,
demos, and music onto a disk (or, later on, a CD). Some of
Compile’s more famous names began life here; aside from
Aleste, the long-running Madou Monogatari debuted on Disc
Station in 1989. Despite the latter edition’s high price – around
$40 – it was a big seller, according to Niitani.

the MSX version emerged in 1986, was
among the best shooters available for
the system – a blistering demonstration
of what Compile could do on hardware
that wasn’t exactly known for its ability
to throw dozens of fast-moving sprites
around the screen.

BEYOND SHOOTERS
For fans of shoot-‘em-ups, it was the
start of a spectacular run of form.
In 1988 came Aleste for the Sega Master
System and MSX, which marked the
beginning of a cult franchise; Gunhed
(released in the west as Blazing Lazers)
for the PC Engine in 1989, and in 1990,
what might be its finest entry in the
genre: Musha Aleste for the Sega Mega
Drive. Released in America as M.U.S.H.A,
it offered an audio-visual blitzkrieg of
synth-metal music, relentless 2D action,
and some seriously cool enemies: a
gigantic tank disguised as a medieval
Japanese fortress; a flying vehicle
bristling with laser guns and capped with
a smiling Noh theatre mask, to name

but two. It was heady, nerve-jangling

stuff, and Compile’s status as a maker

of cult action classics would have been

assured if it had simply stuck to the

shooter genre.

It would be remiss, though, not

to point out just how diverse and

imaginative Compile’s output was in its

heyday. There was The Guardian Legend

(1988), a hybrid of shooter and top-

down action-adventure that was, for its

time, a novel collision of game styles.

There were the slick pinball games that

it made for other companies, often

without fanfare; a licensed Ghostbusters

spin-off for the Mega Drive, which

Compile worked into a jaunty platformer;

and Madou Monogatari, a light-hearted

RPG series. The latter was barely heard

of outside Japan, but slivers of the series

did make it to the west in one form;

in 1991, Compile took some of the

characters from Madou Monogatari and

used them to decorate their tile-match

puzzler, Puyo Puyo. First released in 1991

for the MSX2 and NES, Puyo Puyo was

arguably Compile’s biggest mainstream

hit; the studio’s answer to the likes of

Columns and Nintendo’s Dr. Mario, the

later ports’ two-player competitive mode

proved to be a masterstroke, with the

arcade version’s popularity attracting

hundreds of players to live tournaments

in Japan. Designed by Niitani himself,

Puyo Puyo received a slew of sequels,

and emerged in the west under a variety

of guises – the Mega Drive version

was reworked as the Sonic-themed Dr.

Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Despite the continued success of the

Puyo Puyo series, however, trouble

began to loom for Compile as the

nineties wore on. Several key members

of staff left the company earlier in the

decade, while a greater blow came when

a piece of business software called

Power Acty was given an expensive

launch in 1998. Despite the presence

of a few cute faces from Puyo Puyo, the

software failed to sell, forcing Compile to

restructure and, in the process, sell the

rights for Puyo Puyo to Sega. Within five

years, Compile would go bankrupt. It was

a bitter irony, really, that Compile ended

as it had begun – trying to sell business

software that few particularly wanted

to buy. For well over a decade, though,

Compile focused on games – and when

it did, the results were imaginative,

technically dazzling, and thrillingly

diverse. As Niitani once put it, “Back

then, we didn’t have any kind of agenda.

We just enjoyed making stuff.”

“Despite the success of

the Puyo Puyo series,

trouble began to loom”

Interface

Compile \^ Developer Profile

 Compile co-founder Masamitsu ‘Moo’ Niitani,

pictured on a rare day out of the office.

 The first edition of Disc

Station, released in 1988 and

featuring the first appearance

of cult shoot-’em-up, Aleste.

 A more niche franchise in the west,

tile-match puzzler Puyo Puyo was an

enormous hit in Japan, with hundreds

turning up to play live tournaments.