Game:

Puyo Puyo Sun (1996)

Duration: 53:35

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KO Seiki Beast Sanjuushi: Gaia no Fukkatsu (K.O. Century Beast Warriors: Rebirth of Gaia), or "K.O. Beast" is a reprogrammed version of the game of the same name for PC-98 (back in 1992 by Matrix, NOT the Adventure/RPG hybrid game, "KO Seiki Beast Sanjuushi - Rastak no Joou"), released in 1994 by Pack-In-Video. It is designed to cater more to the PCE-CDs capabilities, but it's definitely not the most ambitious adaptation out there. We uploaded the PC-98 version of the game almost eight years ago, and playing this feels like déjà vu... sure, battles have been re-worked and have a typical horizontal view instead of the isometric view of the original, and the game changed how items and "batteries" work, but the core game is quite similar. There are some added, altered and removed scenes in this version of the game, but the main towns are the same and the NPCs and events that are here are the same and read almost verbatim. The biggest difference is the game's opening; everything is here including their capture at the human facility and escape, whereas the PC-98 game skips straight to before they head into the sewers.

Anyway, for those who don't know, these games are based on the (obscure) original K.O. Beast anime of the same name. The basic overview of the anime is that, in the future, the Earth is split in two halves. Humans control the Southern hemisphere (which, due to the separation, is in another dimension) and various half-human/half-beast or "Demi-Human" tribes control the Northern hemisphere. In the land of the Demi-Humans exists sacred statues called "Jinn", which are said to harbor great power, and the humans, led by Uranus, want to conquer the Northern hemisphere and steal the statues.

Three young warriors of three great beast tribes were assigned the task of protecting the Jinn: Wan Dabadatta of the tiger clan, Bud Mint of the bird clan, and Mei Mer of the mermaid tribe. Our three heroes are also aided by Tuttle (Mei Mer's partner who is with the Mermaid Tribe but is a turtle) and a special human girl named Yuuni, who complete a party of five, though they are sometimes aided by other good or neutral characters (like Liger) as well. Known as the "Beast Three" (Sanjuu) or "Three Beasketeers", they are out to stop Uranus, Uranus' cohorts, and Uranus' three most-trusted minions: V-Darn the mage-knight, V-Sion the warrior woman, and Akumako (V-Darn's wicked imp-like female partner). They are also looking for Gaia, something they believe to be a great treasure that may help bring an end to the conflict between the North and South. This game starts from the beginning.

As far as gameplay is concerned, this version removes all the arbitrary elements of the PC-98 game and is a very standard RPG, for better or worse. High encounter rates, cumbersome menu management (mainly in battle, as you have to carefully manage each character since the option you picked last carries over to the next character... maybe you don't want them all to use magic or defend), loads of backtracking, all the standard RPG traits of the era loaded into a fairly mediocre RPG with a slightly higher than average comedic value (characters like Bud Mint and his grandfather are genuinely funny). The only real quirk is that you can do a beast attack (for some HP which is a little stronger than a regular attack but tends to miss) and you can only raise your max BP with a Power-Up Kit.

It doesn't fail at anything but it doesn't really excel at anything either... the game is not the most balanced RPG (it's usually easy, but sometimes a random enemy will appear in an area that attempts to wipe out the whole party) and the visuals are only average (the music fares a little better) with almost minimal cutscenes, but it does have a few conveniences. You can find areas to charge your BP (Beast Power, which operates on batteries) for free, making it easy to grind in spots, items can help you escape dungeons or avoid encounters, and you can change battle music to PSG audio to speed up loading a bit. It's also nice that enemies have different strengths and weaknesses, so you can't just spam the exact same strategy indefinitely. Otherwise, it's a pretty forgettable licensed tie-in game. I find the PC-98 version a little more appealing.

This is a video of the introduction and moderate gameplay. Enjoy.

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NOTE: Sorry, had to re-upload it. The video was having trouble processing. Took hours to do so.

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