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[I ♥ The PC Engine] Makyou Densetsu
Posted on July 9th, 2009 5 comments
Makyō Densetsu
(魔境伝説)
(Legendary Axe)
Maker: Victor Musical Industries
Release Date: 9/23/88
Price: 5200 yen
Media: HuCard (2 Mbit)
Genre: Action
PC Engine FAN Score: 22.28 / 30.00
Another early classic, and (as I griped about earlier) one that NEC-HE USA should have put in the forefront of the TG16′s launch campaign over something like Keith Courage in Alpha Zones.It’s also the first PCE title published by Victor for the PCE; they were at their most prolific from 1986 to 1996 before hitting it big with the Harvest Moon series. Victor’s game-publishing arm was spun off in 2003 and reworked into what is today Marvelous Entertainment.
Some Japanese sources claim that Atlus developed this game for Victor, but those duties were actually handled by Aicom, a freelance contractor that was bought by Sammy in 1990. The designer, Tokuhiro Takemori, is also credited in The Astyanax, a Jaleco arcade/NES game that came out a year after this. Takemori really liked side-scrolling games starring muscular cavemen with magical, rechargeable tomahawks.
Makyō Densetsu, like a lot of other action games from around this era, is all about memorization and execution. You need to learn the pattern for dealing with every type of enemy you run into, and you need the reflexes (and mental stamina) to execute that pattern perfectly every time. A man’s game, in other words, befitting the PCE’s core image. This is true from Zone 1 right on through to the end. To beat bears, hit one, jump and hit again, jump and hit again, etc. To beat title-screen guy, wait until his fireballs boomerang back and hit him with three full-powered swipes. To beat the screen-sized end boss, put the turbo switch as high as it can go and bash away at those lean, mean ankles. And so on. Learn all that and take care not to get knocked off platforms to your death, and you’re gold.
The game is not original gameplay-wise…or, for that matter, particularly great design-wise. It’s solid, but you can tell Aicom was pinched by the two-megabit boundaries. It comes out in the way boss characters routinely become minion-level bad guys in subsequent stages, as well as the horrifying Zone 5, a labyrinth of 23 identical-looking sublevels that loop repeatedly if you take a wrong turn. There’s also a boss which is a giant, apparently sentient rolling boulder. Don’t ask too many questions. We live in legendary times.
Maybe this is nothing you couldn’t get on the Famicom at the time, but Makyō excels in all the extra details. Despite the two-mega limits, the graphics are extraordinary — you can tell where they didn’t have enough variety in graphic tiles to make very good-looking trees and water, but all the same everything’s extremely colorful and varied. In its own way, the visuals here are even more impressive than R-Type’s because of how much more of the PCE’s palette gets exercised at once.
Even more impressive is the soundtrack. It’s by Jun Takema Chikuma, a lady who did some work for Hudson around this time — mainly under the pseudonym Atsushi, an alternate reading of the character that makes her first name. She wasn’t super-prolific in games (her day job is composing and playing Arabian music on the ney flute), but her contributions — Adventure Island, Faxanadu, all the Bombermen until the 32-bit era, Nectaris, even Jaseiken Necromancer — are all amazing pieces of chiptune work, and she deserves a great deal more respect in the West for this short, but extrenely high-quality, side career she had.
<a href=”http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm301087″ mce_href=”http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm301087″>【ニコニコ動画】PCエンジン 魔境伝説 (1988)</a>
There are a lot of short clips of Makyō on YouTube, but instead I want to link to the above Nico-video, a 35-minute tour of the game, because it demonstrates how patterns and the ability to execute them make this notoriously difficult contest seem like Baby’s First Axe Platformer. Have fun watching.
4 responses to “[I ♥ The PC Engine] Makyou Densetsu”
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wow. the US cover, in shocking rarity for an NEC-published game, is probably actually better than the japanese cover.
i adored this game to bits. being a, well, a kid, i bought it mainly cos its title had “axe” in it and i liked golden axe. they aren’t very similar, but they both rule. <3
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Pet peeve: Makyou Densetsu’s sprite designs are generally very nice (the mini-monkeys!) … except for this horrendously ugly “hawk” that appears in the beginning of the third level. I know that I should let it go, but that pixelated blob of a hawk seems so out-of-place in the game. It irks me to no end . Yes, I should seek professional help.
One thing that was neat about Legendary Axe is that a maxed-out, fully charged swing of the legendary weapon really felt satisfying when it connected with something. Visceral. Many games fail to achieve this sort of payoff, but Makyou Densetsu succeeds. Overcoming particularly difficult opponents feels even sweeter when the legendary weapon splits open the heavens.
Unfortunately, in the entire game, there is only one hidden room to discover (under a bridge). There should have been a sequel to Makyou Densetsu with superior level design (branching paths would be neat, and more opportunities to explore for hidden power-ups).
Have I babbled for too long? I’m not done. Sorry.
Perhaps this will encourage some folks to listen to the full Makyou Densetsu soundtrack:
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Stage 1: Warm and enchanting–until you get to that really urgent sequence at the end–which is a nice bit of drama.Stage 2: Too-hip and catchy for its own good. You’ll start snapping your fingers if you’re not careful. Caverns were never this fun.
Stage 3: Rich, soaring and lovely. Too graceful and cultured for Gogan, though.
Stage 4: A break from the more somber undertones in the soundtrack thus far. Initially, this track starts out far too upbeat, cheerful and happy for my tastes. But then its 110% pure, unadulterated catchiness wins me over, every damn. Yeah, it’s that catchy.
Stage 5: Back to a more somber, atmospheric piece… it has a definite marching-band-meets-haunted-cavern vibe to it. I love the “staccato” bass in this. I actually don’t really understand musical terms, so that’s the best way I can describe it.
Stage 6: This is a deliciously catchy, warm-sounding anthem dedicated to a$$-kicking, replete with a frenetic organ. Simply divine. If this song doesn’t make you want to engage in gratuitous violence, nothing will. Notice how the opening drama continues to build and build, only to loop back to the beginning seamlessly to start all over again.
Stage 7: OK, this might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it captures the tediousness of this stage (navigating the maze). For the record, I like this track, but it is one of the weaker ones.
Boss tunes: OK, but a short loop. I especially like the “spooky” vibe infused in the final boss music.
Ending credits: OK, but pretty generic, IMO. None of the flair and unique qualities from the stage music carried over. Oh well.
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I wouldn’t have reposted that last bit without a request.
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I have also always been impressed with the music for this game. A lot of PC Engine games, especially the earlier ones, have pretty “old” sounding music, as loathe as I am to admit it. Lots of FC/NES titles sound rather timeless in their chiptunes, but most pce games didn’t have much depth, and wind up being pretty tinny.
From the multiple voices, to the jittering maracas sound, the soundchip was clearly used to its max capacity here, and that’s why the axe feels so satisfying as well (aside from the fact that it makes you kinda pause, which adds weight too). I’m not sure how they managed to do this and still have a channel left for sound (or was it two?)
Still impressive today!
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I like how surly the bears look. They don’t look fierce, they just look annoyed that you’re bugging them.
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[...] last heard from Aicom about half a year ago (in PC Engine time) when they developed Makyō Densetsu for Victor. P-47 is the first title they ever published themselves; they’d go on to produce [...]
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ferricide July 9th, 2009 at 23:49