Wireframe - #34 - 2020

(Elliott) #1

Interface


wfmag.cc \ 53

PC Engine \ System Profile

Toilet Kids
HuCard 1992
A top-down shooter in the mould of Konami’s
TwinBee series, Toilet Kids was, we’ve been
informed, intended as a send-up of a certain
kind of childhood learning book available in
Japan. Wherever the idea came from, the
game’s lavatorial humour – seriously, there are
dollops of cartoon poo everywhere – makes it
one of the weirdest action games ever made.


Jackie Chan
HuCard 1991
Arcane licensing issues might be behind this
title’s absence from the PC Engine Mini’s roster.
This is a shame, because Jackie Chan (aka
Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu) is a cracking
platform beat-’em-up, with far more care in its
design than you might expect from a licensed
game of its vintage. Also, Jackie gets to kick
cartoon frogs directly in the face. Outstanding.


Pop ‘n Magic
Super CD-ROM² 1992
The action in this colourful fixed-screen
platformer may be a derivative of rival arcade
games like Bubble Bobble and Rodland, but it’s
still slickly made and lots of fun: you use your
magic wand to zap enemies and trap them in
coloured bubbles; throwing different coloured
bubbles at each other will result in satisfying
showers of items and points.

Mizbak’s Adventure
HuCard 1992
Also known as Liquid Kids, this is one of Taito’s
more obscure arcade platformers, and followed
in the wake of titles like Rainbow Islands and
The NewZealand Story. Mizbak’s Adventure –
starring a water bomb-lobbing platypus – plays
similarly to the latter game, albeit less harsh
in its difficulty. It arguably ranks among the
PC Engine’s most charming titles.

Gekisha Boy
HuCard 1992
For sheer strangeness, this platformer takes
some beating. When student David Goldman’s
parents die in a plane crash, he’s challenged to
take photos by a university dean. The weirder
the pictures he takes – UFOs, Marilyn Monroe,
King Kong – the more points he’ll get. Believe it
or not, the core game behind this premise is
actually quite good.

09


08

10

06 07

Free download pdf