REVIEW: Tengai Makyō: Ziria

[RegalSin]

Nahhh I think they made the right decision. They wanted the game to look fun and not be too serious. If EOD was ever serious it would have probably end up being far more violent, and serious.

The clay model had to be made afterwards for them to be featured in the booklet like that. It makes more sense like that then to say "hey look lets make them look, like that instead".

It leaves more to the imagination.

[Black Tiger]

Nahhh I think they made the right decision. They wanted the game to look fun and not be too serious. If EOD was ever serious it would have probably end up being far more violent, and serious.

The clay model had to be made afterwards for them to be featured in the booklet like that. It makes more sense like that then to say "hey look lets make them look, like that instead".

It leaves more to the imagination.

If you look at TMII and Kabukiden, you can see what SD style versions of the anime art looks like. The SD art in TMII's start/load screen and the SD art for Shin Den all feel part of the same style. Ziria's maps and sprites all look like mini clay figure displays. It doesn't matter when those figures were made, the point is that they used a particular unique style on purpose.

[shawnji]

Is there any particular difference between the CD-Rom2 and the Super CD versions of this game?  I keep looking at them whenever I hit up Akihabara, but I can't decide which version I should get or if I should just get both for the sake of collecting.

I'm without a doubt going to have to pick up that PSP port of Apocalypse, though.  I never see it anywhere used so I kind of forgot it existed.  I've wanted to play that ever since I first read Hardcore Gaming's write-up on it way back when.  I would never have known anything about the series if I hadn't been a regular visitor of De-Jap Translations and noticed their section on Zero for the SFC.  Really piqued my interest.

[RegalSin]

I do not know. Ziria is the first game, and the entire system was made entirely for the purpose of that game itself. The fourth game is a Saturn game, and should be played via the Saturn, for full enjoyment, I don't know how a person could in take that in on a PSP, it is not the same.

Zero itself should have been made for the PCE, the SNES had some good things about it, but it just blows Dragon Quest away and that is about it. Every stage in Zero is like, find the missing item, go foward, fight area master, get power up, and that is it. The story itself is really intresting but I think RED/Hudson reused portions of
III/IV inside of it. The intresting thing in Zero is the summon system, and the egg/time system. Which affects how everything looks, and reacts to how long you spend playing this game, like Pokemon GS. I never finished the game, I got tired of the ultimate RPGness of the game itself.

[shawnji]

I do not know. Ziria is the first game, and the entire system was made entirely for the purpose of that game itself. The fourth game is a Saturn game, and should be played via the Saturn, for full enjoyment, I don't know how a person could in take that in on a PSP, it is not the same.

Yeah, I would rather play the Saturn version; but I'm hesitant to pick up a system just for one game since there's not much else I'd be interested in at the moment outside of Panzer Dragoon.  Ah well, I've still got to get through the rest of the series first anyway.  The only one I've played through in its entirety is Far East of Eden Zero.

[termis]

Yeah, I can't remember who looked into the differences between the Super CD-ROM and the CD-ROM versions (Bonknuts maybe?... it was someone quite competent at hacking, anyway), but the Super CD-ROM supposedly used the extra RAM for loading the text in the game or something to that effect.

No one I know has actually said that the Super CD-ROM version feels faster or anything of that sort...  If anything, I recall people saying that they felt no difference between the two. 

This is all going by memory (these posts were from years and years ago), so take it all with a grain of salt.  It would be interesting if someone posted differences loading time differences between the two - if any.

[Black Tiger]

Yeah, I can't remember who looked into the differences between the Super CD-ROM and the CD-ROM versions (Bonknuts maybe?... it was someone quite competent at hacking, anyway), but the Super CD-ROM supposedly used the extra RAM for loading the text in the game or something to that effect.

No one I know has actually said that the Super CD-ROM version feels faster or anything of that sort...  If anything, I recall people saying that they felt no difference between the two. 

This is all going by memory (these posts were from years and years ago), so take it all with a grain of salt.  It would be interesting if someone posted differences loading time differences between the two - if any.

Although I didn't do any extensive testing, I never noticed any difference other than the System Card warning screen, which is very cool. Since the Super CD version was created simply to promote the new format/hardware, I'm guessing that it's the same game otherwise, only there's a flag to stop CD2 systems from playing it.

[Necromancer]

Yeah, I can't remember who looked into the differences between the Super CD-ROM and the CD-ROM versions (Bonknuts maybe?... it was someone quite competent at hacking, anyway), but the Super CD-ROM supposedly used the extra RAM for loading the text in the game or something to that effect.

Good memory! -

As far as the difference between Ziria CD and SCD: the SCD version was recompiled for SCD and the script is compressed so it does use the extra memory of the SCD unit.

[Black Tiger]

Yeah, I can't remember who looked into the differences between the Super CD-ROM and the CD-ROM versions (Bonknuts maybe?... it was someone quite competent at hacking, anyway), but the Super CD-ROM supposedly used the extra RAM for loading the text in the game or something to that effect.

Good memory! -

As far as the difference between Ziria CD and SCD: the SCD version was recompiled for SCD and the script is compressed so it does use the extra memory of the SCD unit.

So does this just amount to shorter load times in the end?

[Necromancer]

So does this just amount to shorter load times in the end?

Yes overall (longer loads but less of 'em).

[grahf]

Probably less wear and tear on the laser, but essentially none.
I picked up the Super CD version myself, just because I liked the look of the case better.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Is there any particular difference between the CD-Rom2 and the Super CD versions of this game?  I keep looking at them whenever I hit up Akihabara, but I can't decide which version I should get or if I should just get both for the sake of collecting.

I'm without a doubt going to have to pick up that PSP port of Apocalypse, though.  I never see it anywhere used so I kind of forgot it existed.  I've wanted to play that ever since I first read Hardcore Gaming's write-up on it way back when.  I would never have known anything about the series if I hadn't been a regular visitor of De-Jap Translations and noticed their section on Zero for the SFC.  Really piqued my interest.

If you want to eventually play it in english, I recommend getting the original version.  The translation patch was going to be for that(including possible subtitles), since it has more free memory to be used.  From what I recall, it is going to be turned into a Super CD & take advantage of the extra space.  Or...to be safe, get both!  I have both, just incase   Ofcoase, the guy working on it(IIRC) is the same that's working on LoX2 right now, so, I have no clue how soon it could be before Ziria is done. :/

[rag-time4]

Hah! Not exactly the best sculpting, but cool nonetheless! I like the lawn.

Ryuichi Sakamoto composed one of the 3 redbook tunes.

Sweetness, I gotta hear that!

Personally, I think the eyebrows over the helmet are a riot!

[gbapalyer]

i started the game 3 days ago and right now i played it for 10 hours. awesome game and my first tengai game ever.
a little bit hard and i died often because of limited item space, high battle encounter rate and some tough enemies. but still an awesome game.

i did beat final fantasy 4 on DS and i will beat that one for sure. i played over 100 jrpgs in my life and it wont be a problem.
if manjimaru and fuun kabuki den are better than ziria i cant wait to get to those ones. yees^^

BTW: does anyone have menue translations (battle+normal menue) for manji maru and kabuki den?

[Black Tiger]

i started the game 3 days ago and right now i played it for 10 hours. awesome game and my first tengai game ever.
a little bit hard and i died often because of limited item space, high battle encounter rate and some tough enemies. but still an awesome game.

i did beat final fantasy 4 on DS and i will beat that one for sure. i played over 100 jrpgs in my life and it wont be a problem.
if manjimaru and fuun kabuki den are better than ziria i cant wait to get to those ones. yees^^

BTW: does anyone have menue translations (battle+normal menue) for manji maru and kabuki den?

I'll add the menu translations to my walkthroughs next time I remember while at home. I also have an English manual for Kabukiden that I've been meaning to scan in and post.