Spooky PC Engine games

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

Was thinking about writing an article on this but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna have enough time to play all these games and finished the article before the months over. Maybe next year. Anyway here's all the games I found that fit the Halloween season. If you know of any more feel free to share.

悪魔城ドラキュラX血の輪廻 a.k.a. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood​

大魔界村 a.k.a. Ghouls 'n Ghosts​

(this is technically a SuperGrafx game, but I'm counting it anyway)

Dead of The Brain 1 & 2​

ラプラスの魔 (Demon of Laplace)​

Devil Crash​

源平討魔伝 (Genpei Touma Den) & 源平討魔伝巻ノ弐 (Genpei Touma Den Kannoni)​

Horror Story a.k.a. Demon's World​

百物語 ～ほんとにあった怖い話～(Hyaku Monogatari ~True Scary Stories~)​

地獄めぐり (Tour of Hell)​

奇々怪界 (Kiki Kaikai)​

Renny Blaster​

真怨霊戦記 (True Wrathful Spirit Chronicles)​

死霊戦線 War of The Dead​

Splatterhouse​

妖怪道中記 (Youkai Douchuuki)​

There's a few more but I hit the image limit.

 

[Vexicrypt]

Damn, some of those box arts are very cool, thanks for sharing!

 

[Jellyjamlu]

Definitely going to look into some of these. always on the hunt for the obscure gems.

Thanks as well. cheers!

 

[bjork]

You covered most of what I was thinking. Would the Valis games fit? There are big monster guys but it's not really spooky, I guess

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

You covered most of what I was thinking. Would the Valis games fit? There are big monster guys but it's not really spooky, I guess

I'm more so looking for games that are based on horror tropes or spooky folklore. I wouldn't really count games that just have general monsters.

 

[Danieru-Emanyueru]

Splatterhouse is the obvious choice. (There is also a Romhack for the uncensored Japanese version to add the English text, which is the best version to play since they censored the TG16 release) If you speak Japanese, then Dead of the Brain 1&2 is great, though also ridiculously expensive since it's AFAIK the last official CD-ROM title released for the system. Not sure if there's a fan translation for the PCE version, but there is one for the PC-98 version of Part 1.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

Splatterhouse is the obvious choice. (There is also a Romhack for the uncensored Japanese version to add the English text, which is the best version to play since they censored the TG16 release) If you speak Japanese, then Dead of the Brain 1&2 is great, though also ridiculously expensive since it's AFAIK the last official CD-ROM title released for the system. Not sure if there's a fan translation for the PCE version, but there is one for the PC-98 version of Part 1.

The fan translation for Dead of The Brain on PC Engine translates part 1, but not part 2. A fan translation for the PC98 version of part 2 actually just came out at the beginning of the month.

RHDI

Classic game mods and resources

romhack.ing

Overall the PC98 version is better because of it's higher res art, but the PC Engine version still looks pretty good for what it is.

 

[Danieru-Emanyueru]

The fan translation for Dead of The Brain on PC Engine translates part 1, but not part 2. A fan translation for the PC98 version of part 2 actually just came out at the beginning of the month.

RHDI

Classic game mods and resources

romhack.ing

Overall the PC98 version is better because of it's higher res art, but the PC Engine version still looks pretty good for what it is.

Ok I didn't know that part 2 was out now too, thank you for telling me that.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

Well ... looks like i dive deep into the pc engine hole and get those treasures running . Those you showed looked awesome .

But never knew that Laplace demon was on the PC engine. Are there differences between the PCE-version and the Snes-version ?

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

Well ... looks like i dive deep into the pc engine hole and get those treasures running . Those you showed looked awesome .

But never knew that Laplace demon was on the PC engine. Are there differences between the PCE-version and the Snes-version ?

I actually did not know about the SNES version, I only just found out about the PCE version recently. It looks to be very different. SNES is top down RPG while the PCE is first person dungeon crawler. It looks like the PC Engine version is a more faithful port/remake of the original computer version.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I actually did not know about the SNES version, I only just found out about the PCE version recently. It looks to be very different. SNES is top down RPG while the PCE is first person dungeon crawler. It looks like the PC Engine version is a more faithful port/remake of the original computer version.

That sounds awesome !! I hope its already translated . If not ... i can wait. But still awesome !!

 

[UnDubious]

SNES Demon of LaPlace is a full-blown remake, on PCE it's a port. The SNES game is still a dungeon crawler, it just doesn't look as much like one.

Splatterhouse is the best horror-themed TG-16 game to me. War of the Dead 2 on the MSX2 is cool, but the first one isn't so great. The second Genpei Touma Den came out as Samurai Ghost in the West, it takes a while to get used to the controls but it's pretty decent.

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

SNES Demon of LaPlace is a full-blown remake, on PCE it's a port. The SNES game is still a dungeon crawler, it just doesn't look as much like one.

Splatterhouse is the best horror-themed TG-16 game to me. War of the Dead 2 on the MSX2 is cool, but the first one isn't so great. The second Genpei Touma Den came out as Samurai Ghost in the West, it takes a while to get used to the controls but it's pretty decent.

I actually enjoyed the first War of the dead . Very grindy but i like its concept overall and it had great potential to be a rather demonic horror apocalypse with its own weird and twisted ideas . It had this awesome atmossphere of isolation and loneliness while the music was rather unfitting for its setting and tone , still a great soundtrack nontheless .

The sequel was rather bland and became way too much fantastical and sci-fi for its own good . It explained way too much of its setting and even killed the mystery behind it .

But thats my two cents to the War of the dead games.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

SNES Demon of LaPlace is a full-blown remake, on PCE it's a port. The SNES game is still a dungeon crawler, it just doesn't look as much like one.

Splatterhouse is the best horror-themed TG-16 game to me. War of the Dead 2 on the MSX2 is cool, but the first one isn't so great. The second Genpei Touma Den came out as Samurai Ghost in the West, it takes a while to get used to the controls but it's pretty decent.

I played through War of The Dead recently. The scripting in that game is all kinds of messed up and near the end all the backtracking started getting on my nerves. Despite that I still enjoyed it overall.
I plan to play the MSX versions of 1 and 2 in the future.

 

[UnDubious]

I actually enjoyed the first War of the dead . Very grindy but i like its concept overall and it had great potential to be a rather demonic horror apocalypse with its own weird and twisted ideas . It had this awesome atmossphere of isolation and loneliness while the music was rather unfitting for its setting and tone , still a great soundtrack nontheless .

The sequel was rather bland and became way too much fantastical and sci-fi for its own good . It explained way too much of its setting and even killed the mystery behind it .

But thats my two cents to the War of the dead games.

How I saw it: the first game started out well but after a while all it does is have you travel back and forth all over the map, literally just to get two lines of text at a time. It gets insanely tedious, what with the random encounters and slow walking pace. The second game feels like survival horror before survival horror - it's a fully-realized, 2D action-adventure horror game, this early on. I liked the city setting and the whole "anti-paranormal SWAT team" concept was much more present, reminded me of Parasite Eve in a way.

 

[SecretStrategist]

Paranoia/Psychosis:

 

[CaptainToad]

Jaiseikan Necromancer. Though it's a Japanese-heavy JRPG of some kind. Has an incomplete English patch that I think is just menus or something.

Looking it up I learned it has a DSi remake/port and was also one of the few PC-E games on the Wii U virtual console.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

Jaiseikan Necromancer. Though it's a Japanese-heavy JRPG of some kind. Has an incomplete English patch that I think is just menus or something.
View attachment 119299

Looking it up I learned it has a DSi remake/port and was also one of the few PC-E games on the Wii U virtual console.

This is currently the only PC Engine game I own physically so I don't know how I forgot about it lol. I'm hoping to import a bunch of games soonish. This game might be the first RPG released on the system as well.

 

[therabidfrog]

Good selection. Thank you.

 

[breremarer]

These boxes are sooooo sick tbh.

I need to start really digging into PC Engine emulation, more. Didn't have one as a kid; only started digging this last month or so and it seems like a treasure trove.

 

[88cmflak]

Man PC-98 truly has the best pixel-art aesthetic along with some dos games. Too bad only a few of them gets translated.

 

[KenShjIN]

Nice read though