Game:

Tengai (1996)

Duration: 1:56:37

17,757 views

218

Ah, Tengai Makyou...a series that, for a time, was very anticipated by gamers in Japan and Taiwan and it is even put up there (popularity-wise) as a rival to both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. The series is rather large, all things considered, but the series seems to be no more, in modern times. TM hasn't been "relevant" for a long time now...but that is actually a shame, because there was a charm to the series that was unique to itself. This particular title is perfect for a Halloween upload. It goes under several names (Tengai Makyō: Daiyon no Mokushiroku, etc.), but most often referred to as Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV.

I don't think DQ or FF when I think TM, because that is a disservice to TM. TM really wasn't trying to be either of those things...instead, TM was a series that banked more on dialogue and goofy characters and some outlandish ideas (particularly on the storytelling side) than far reaching gameplay or orchestral music scores. This TM title in particular is a shining example of how zany the TM series can be!

It deals with fictional America, with "white devils", a young man raised by an Indian who eventually fights the white devils, "666", child possession, an idol singer that basically brainwashes people with cheesy tunes, werewolves, a "Voltron style" robot fusion sequence, the "WTC" (think "World Trade Center"), zombies...so...much...MORE! It is actually a bit difficult for me to explain everything without spoilers, but if I had to compare this TM game to anything, you may be a bit more inclined to think that the general vibe of the game is a lot more akin to the Lunar series (though darker)...

The plot is very creative, in all its lunacy and much like Lunar, it is humorous at times, but also, at other times, it takes itself quite seriously. TMTAIV takes its premise and runs with it and death is actually a central theme and surprisingly not as uncommon as you might expect...the dark case isn't necessarily misleading; the game is dark, but laced with humor and likable characters and what I thought was excellent voice acting.

Some characters are hilariously over-the-top and the voices bring them to life. What I also like is just how wonderfully the devs conveyed the story using anime cutscenes, but also, they DID NOT shy away from using the sprite-based characters for story scenes either and they took great care to animate them in different ways, depending on the scenes, rather than relying on a scant handful of "sprite reactions" to convey things like shock, sadness, etc...the visuals are decent, with some special moves being done with FMV cutscenes, but the real thing of interest is that the devs did not want to "recycle and re-use" enemy models. Music-wise, while not "top class", it is very serviceable. Also, a couple of tunes do genuinely stand out and rock, such as the "Apostle Battle Theme".

Lastly...the gameplay...the gameplay is not the selling point of the game, personally speaking. HOWEVER, it IS functional. One thing that may be a major turnoff is that the pacing of TMTAIV is generally considered to be SLOW...you do not gain skills by leveling up, like you would in many JRPGs. You have to progress through the story and talk to people to find spells and increase max MP (of which there is a "pool" that all characters share from) and other things and that may irk some. Traveling can feel like it drags on for sure. The weirdness of the game is compelling and may make up for the pacing, but it must be said.

The game does have a variety of neat little minigames and things do pick up a bit once you get at least three characters (for a while, it seems like you just do regular attacks endlessly, until you get a little stronger and start to see the benefits of added help with different elemental attacks, not to mention that Rizing, the main hero, soon sees his lightning attacks be cool against groups of foes, etc.). The game later gives you access to combination attacks too and teleportation magic, dungeon escape magic, so on and so forth. Even so, the battles largely feel like Dragon Quest...you have items to heal, boost stats, etc...standard stuff.

That all said, because of the content the game deals with, there was pretty much zero chance of this getting a localization back then, in my eyes, unless it went through "Censorship Hell", but the game touches on parody and such in an intriguing way and I would have loved to play this in English back when it originally released. The game is one of the rare Saturn games to get ported as well; the game was touched up and ported to the PSP and has some added content.

For more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_East_of_Eden

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