Trio the Punch - Never Forget me (Data East , Arcade , 1990)

Trio the Punch is the product of Data East's warped sense of genious . Take a fighting game , strip it of all plot , throw in the most bizarre settings and enemies and you have yourself a cult classic "hit" .

Well , almost .

The main problem with TTP is that it is just too long . And were it simply because it is overflowing with surreal weirdness , I would gladly savour the experience . However.......

Your main three characters . This is one of the rare examples I have experienced where in game graphics are actualy better looking then the character artwork on the selection/title screen . The Ninja is the only with a range attack , the other rely on shorter range attack (the barbarian uses a grill torch , while the gangster/a only uses his fists) . The game consists of many short rounds where mostly in order to fight a boss you need to colect a certain number of yellow hearts (which flash the words "help" when they apear , for.....some reason) . In some levels , you have no hearts to colect , but simply have to walk a bit towards the boss .

After defeating said boss , you play a mini game called lottery , which may increase your life , power up your main weapon (ganster man gets upgraded from fists to a garbage can for example) , sub weapon (a more powefull attack you may use only once per level) or.....power them down . This is sort of nice for the first few minutes , but after doing it more then twenty times , it wears on your nerves .

Speaking of which , the enemies : they range from Karnov (star of the NES/Arcade title of the same name , courtesy of Data East of course) , to zombies , thugs and the like . The first boss you face is a giant statue of Karnov carried ny mini Karnovs that shoots fire out of it's toe .

This seems like a promising start but it's just sprinkles on a giant banana shake gone bad two weeks ago . Nobody wants to down the whole thing , but that is what you have to do here .

In this case it is basicly fighting random bland enemies as stage bosses numerous times . Oh sure , you fight a disembodied hand , foot , some.....bizzare looking ghosts , your chinese master Mr. Chin ,and a ....pink sheep but this variety does not stay throughout the game . Particularly the last section of the game . The feudal Japan stage was prety repetitive , with it's three colour swaped ninjas , acting even as bosses , but that has nothing on the future/space ship setting . The whole section basicly has you fighting one enemy type . Blobs . Green , blue , red and yellow blobs . Sure the yellow ones turn into clay lizard men for a while after being hit , and the red ones have float tanks and take a crapload of time to actualy kill , but they are stil blobs . The blue slimes you start off against in RPG titles . The only other enemy is a robot as a boss , but he is prety boring to look at .

The last stage also becomes increasingly frstrating and tedious . The necessary amount of hearts to summon the boss is very hard to even colect before the 30 second timer shows up , meaning you have half a minute to defeat a boss who hasn't even showed up yet ! And when you do get him to show up and beat him , the robot turns into his second form.....a blob (sigh......) with a new health bar and you are basicly screwed .

This goes on for several stages , and does not improve at all . The entiere futuristic section should have been cut , and it would certainly not have made the game feel any shorter at it's 30 plus levels .

As for the last level and ending.....well I say the decision is up to you whether it is worth the trouble or not .

Trio the Punch recieves 3 out of 5 wife beaters , because the early stages of the game actualy do merrit replaying .

Ai Cho Aniki/Super Big Brother of Love - Masaya/NCS 1995 (PC Engine CD)

Ai Cho Aniki is one of those games that apeared in the 90's , stired up some wind and gave birth to a mostly dying franchise that never achieved the same pinacle as it did with this installment  , at least that is what most people will tell you .

The game itself is so far the only one to fully feature the brothers Samson and Adon , featured on the cover above , as the main heroes . Sure in the PSP version they're there , but as options , like they were in the first game (Cho Aniki) and in prety much any other , except the Wonderswan RPG (which I can't play given it's entierly in Japanese) . Ironic , seeing that these two are prety much the first thing anyone thinks of when the franchise comes up .

For those not fully aware of the nature of this game , a quick wrap up :

The game is a flying horizontal (for the most part) shooter , with a thong wearing man flying through space , killing giant faces and thong wearing snowmen , set to the tunes of classical opera and gregorian choir .

The story is , you have to fight the Neo body building empire . You travel along the four stages , each with three areas , ranging from town streets , space , and forest . The locales may seem a little uninspired like this , but it's what populates these screens that gets your atention . Yes , those two gigantic  , hugging men are enemies in the game .

The game is legendary for alot of imagery that is considered homoerotic . Well , that is sort of true . But certainly that is not the only quirk in the game . It ranges from gigantic stick monsters , to evil snowmen , flying faces of all possible shapes and

This guy . He showed up in the first game too , and is in fact a playable character in the aforementioned Wonderswan RPG title . He even apears in Gynoug , another bizzare , quirky game by the same designer .

It's stil kind of hard arguing against the "gay game" rumours with images like these though :

Stil , the game is prety fun , though criminaly short and I managed to beat it without cheating on my second playthrough . If I only found out how to do that damn men's beam .......

Controls are simple . Attack button fires homing shots , back , forward and shooting fires deadly starts , and you can keep the attack button pressed for continous star sprinkling , but you have to continue moving . There is also the flex attack , which is not that powerfull and I have no idea how to do , and the giant "Men's beam" shot out of your head (that's what the hole is for) , which is extremely powerfull , but no place on the net specifies just how to do it . Your other button allows you to ballet across the screen , avoiding all enemies and projectiles , except for the final boss . However , you can't just skiddle your way through this game on high heels , because you're on a timer , and the bosses recquire quick defeat .

The game itself has no lives system , so you can die as many times as you want as long as you finish the given stage on time . Run out of time once though , even on the last level , and it's all the way back to the begining .

Finaly , the music is just awesome and the tracks themselves are varied and are rumoured to have actualy outsold the game at one point .

Playing this game is almost a must , as it is a near life changing experience .

If I have to rate it , I'd say 4.5/5 Farrokh Bulsaras .