Tengai Makyou: Ziria

Tengai Makyou is the first RPG for the PC-Engine CD-ROM system and was a huge success in Japan. The game features speech for nearly all important NPCs and several nice mini cut-scenes. The cut scenes are not as spectacular as in later CD-ROM games but they get their job done. The monsters and backgrounds of fights are also nicely drawn. Most of the overworld still looks very NES-ish though. The sound is a mixed-bag. Only the title music and very few cutscenes have real CD audio. Most of the time you hear standard chip sound. They are well done, but I expected more in this category from a CD-ROM game.

The story is about a demon lord named Masakado threatening the country of Jipang and the young hero Ziria who wants to stop him and thirteen daimon lords in the different provinces of Jipang (which has a striking resemblance to medieval Japan). On his way the axe-wielding girl Tsunade and the mage Orochimaru join him. What follows is your standard RPG experience. Fight monsters, grind levels, buy better weapons in the next town, speak with towns people, solve some little puzzles and make your way through maze-like castles and dungeons. The game is very linear but not easy although the time you spend leveling is not as long as in other RPGs like in early Dragon Quests for example. The fact that you could speed up fighting (auto melee attack) made life a lot easier when you wanted to grind "just another level".

In 1992 they re-released the game for the Super CD-ROM, but except a new box cover nothing changed.


teran01 # 2007-11-17 21:50:55

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The Super CD-ROM² version of this game was a "not for sale" version that came with some PC-Engine DUO.

dandyboh # 2007-12-10 12:04:22