[I ♥ The PC Engine] Bikkuriman World

Bikkuriman World
(ビックリマンワールド)

Maker: Hudson
Release Date: 10/30/87
Price: 4500 yen
Media: HuCard (2 Mbit)
Genre: Action
PC Engine FAN Score: 19.76 / 30.00

Largely, a port of Wonder Boy in Monster Land with characters from the Bikkuriman series of anime, tradable stickers, and other bits of 80s merchandise shoehorned in. The retail price is the same as Shanghai, although that game’s half the ROM size.

This is a remarkably faithful port of Westone’s original arcade game. Almost. There’s a trick in the arcade game where, if you flicked the joystick left and right on top of a point where money appeared, you’d sometimes be awarded with 68 gold, which made your shopping a remarkable deal easier. Apparently this was a bug, not a feature, ‘cos it’s removed here — and what’s more, the game seems to be stingier with money overall, so you’re pretty much always short unless you reconsider your shopping pattern fully.

Other than that (and some cut-out animation and an extremely simplified ending), it’s a perfect port and not a terrible showcase piece for the PCE at the very beginning. A kind of obscure showpiece, but…

US gamers, if they were introduced to Wonder Boy in Monster Land at all, got their intro through the Sega Master System port released in 1987. That version (along the computer ports Activision released in Europe) actually lacked a lot of the arcade game’s soundtrack, which is a shame ‘cos there’s a lot of good stuff in there. My favorite tune in Bikkuriman is the desert theme — one that got used in about half of the SMS port’s levels, but is far rarer in the original.

Part 2

Here’s a guy beating Bikkuriman World without dying or even using the life potion you start out with. Things start to get hairy starting midway through. I forgot that the game doesn’t even give you the chance to buy armor until Round 3.