Tokugawa Corporate Forums

I've recently discovered this little RPG gem...it's an RPG heavily influenced by the Guyver and the so-called tokusatsu (japanese superheroic shows, like Kamen Raider, Ultraman etc).
The premise is very similar to the one attending Guyver: a young boy, Shinji, is made a deadly technological weapon by the army: A-Rank Thunder. The game opens with a brief dream sequence in which a mysterious voice calls Shinji A-Rank Thunder and then proceeds into a very cool guyver like OP song. The whole game feels a lot like an aniime, in fact it's written and it develops like one, the story is even divided in episodes!

The graphics are very nice, the music and sound effects are great (very good voiceovers too) and overall the game is very immersive and badass.
The combats are animated very nicely, directed like anime sequences. The developers put a great deal of care in creating and animating special moves and in designing cool monsters and foes.

If you like old school anime and cyberpunk, go for it! It would be very nice to see a translation for this game, one day or later.

Thumbs up!

Game's OP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM-QeRaunVY

Compare it to Guyver's OP (second season) to notice the obvious ispiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k85GSBYNa5g

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Call me Snake...

Ahh yes, I had a little obsession with this game for years.

Saw a tiny preview in EGM which made it sound AMAZING. It described how you wake up in a lab with amnesia, and the little screenshots showed an exploded body and an elevator.

Anyway, for years I saw it incorrectly labelled as the Japanese version of Lords of Thunder. I think it was Sam Pettus, aka The Scribe, who in some attempt to write a full list of Sega CD games incorrectly assumed it was so. Then GameFAQs got hold of this incorrect info, then every website was saying the same thing. I felt like I was trapped in an insane asylum, because everyone online kept telling me: no, it's just Lords of Thunder, there's no such thing as an RPG called A Rank Thunder.

So, years later, Megaupload exists, so does Snesorama, and finally someone puts it online. I feverishly downloaded it and finally got to try it. Spent an entire evening finishing the first chapter - the battle system is weird, but really interesting. It has an intro and outro song for each chapter, just like an anime.

Always, always meant to write a something on it, but never did because the Japanese was too heavy. Took bloody ages to trigger the hidden flag which allowed me to finish the first chapter. I swear I spoke to every NPC about 20 times. The second chapter was in some kind of dockyards, or industrial area.

EDIT:

Here it is!

http://segacd.org/segabase/cd/CD-LordsOfThunder.html

Bloody hell, Pettus. Where does he get this crap information from? For years this has bothered me.

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The David Attenborough of Japanese Game Development

That tells you something about gaming journalism

Telenet/Lasersoft/Riot was a respected developer on the PC Engine, especially known for their exquisite cutscenes (Valis, Tenshi no Uta...). I'm surprised this ARPG was not released on Super CD-ROM.

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NECstasy | Kaminarimon HES Music Archive | VGMRips YM2608 Archive | YouTube Channel

I'd love it if this could get fan-translated. All the voice seems to have corresponding subtitle text. Considering how long they take, and the lack of interest in the Sega CD, I doubt we'll ever see one. Shadowrun has seemingly been in the works for years.

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The David Attenborough of Japanese Game Development

Great! So I'm not the only lunatic who is hunting for this bizzarre stuff!

My Japanese is nowhere good, but from what I'm understanding the plotline is very interesting as well. I'm through the second chapter and things are getting very cool. It seems to echo Guyver (and the classic birth-of-the-hero growup progression: shock, loss of identity, emerging of the dark side, understading and integration of this power, new found consciousness etc) a lot, but it's done really well, with passion and with a lot of guts.
The voices are a blessing since they spell all the kanjis.
I guess this title could be an object of interest for a lot of people outside the hardcore retrogaming scene if only was known a bit more...

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Call me Snake...

Well, take screenshots, write about it, detail the story and the characters, and we can run it on HG101. It would be great to have a series of little character profiles.

Are you emulating? If you take screens, make sure they're not anti-aliased, and are at the native resolution, or multiples of it.

I'll design the page myself.

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The David Attenborough of Japanese Game Development

I don't think that my Japanese skills are good enough to write about the story and characters in deep detail, however I'll be happy to contribute and post some screenshots and thoughts on the game

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Call me Snake...

Well, even if you can't go into major detail, any article is better than no article.

Write whatever you can, and maybe we can run it as a: "this is what we can work out so far" piece. Or ask someone who is fluent in Japanese to give you a brief synopsis?

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The David Attenborough of Japanese Game Development

Ok! I'll try to assemble some infos and comments then...

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Call me Snake...