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Having been a pretty big fan of this anime series back in the day, I must say I was rather anxious to get my hands on this game. What Tenchi fan doesn't want to see more of the characters laying around the house and getting into petty fights, only to be suddenly confronted by weirdoes from outer space who are out to get the characters for one reason or another? That's the basic premise for most Tenchi plots, and we'll see plenty of that in this title for the FX.
The first thing you'll notice when you open the case for this game is that it contains two discs. The first of these discs is a remake of an old Tenchi game that appeared on the PC Engine, and before that, on NEC's PC-98 line of personal computers. The second game is an all-new game made exclusively for the FX. It is somewhat of a follow-up to the story of the first game. Basically, this FX title is two games in one.
What can I say about the remake? It was a very decent digital comic long, long ago when I played it on the Duo. It had excellent replay value. You guided Tenchi around the house and got yourself into various scenarios with the female characters. The story centered around a girl named Hakua from the Galaxy Police who ends up on Earth with Tenchi and the gang for a short time.
There were so many different scenarios to find, it was almost impossible to find them all. There was even a mode in the options that allowed you to see what percentage of all the graphics, voices, and text that exists in the game you had found up to this point in the course of your multiple trips through it. There were also three routes you could end up following depending on your decisions you make in the first half of the game. The second half of the game and ending was completely different depending on which route you took. I played through the game three times and found all three routes, but I only found 73% of the graphics, 44% of the voices, and 70% of the text. (I still have my old file saved on my Tennokoe Bank, so these are the actual figures here.) To make a long story short, there is a heck of a lot of stuff in this game.
The PC-FX remake is very true to the original. Various improvements have been made using the superior power of the FX. The first thing you'll notice is that the opening sequence is much smoother and uses the actual Tenchi Muyo! OVA theme rather than a PSG rendition. All of the background graphics are now full-screen, whereas the Duo and PC-98 versions had a border around it. (According to the back of the case, all of the original cells have been taken and re-digitized using the FX's higher color palette.) However, the small faces of the characters (used when the characters talk), sadly look exactly as they did on the Duo. The voices are much more clean and crisp, and the whole game overall runs faster and smoother than the original.
A mode which allows you to replay the scenes you have completed, and also a sound test have been added. The PSG music sounds slightly different than it did on the Duo. It has definitely been improved in fact. Forgive me for my ignorance regarding the FX's hardware, but I've always wondered if the PSG music generator on the FX was exactly the same as that of the Duo or not (they sound so much the same!) After comparing these two games though, I am lead to believe that the FX's music generator has been slightly improved over that of the Duo. It must have a couple of added sound channels or something.
Overall, the remake was exactly what I was expecting, but also very well done overall. I played through it once for nostalgia's sake, and enjoyed it. You may enjoy it more if you never had the opportunity to play it on the Duo.
I was much more excited to play the all-new game though. The new game is about Hakua (from the first game) when she comes back to visit again. It also features the character Kiyone, who was a regular character in the TV series, but wasn't shown much in the OVA series. These games take place within the OVA universe, so it is very interesting to see Kiyone make an appearance here. (You can tell I used to be a Tenchi geek.)
I enjoyed this game thoroughly on my first play through. The game uses music and face graphics taken directly from the original, but other than that, everything is new. The perspective used in the game is very different. Instead of guiding Tenchi around the house as you did in the first game, you are placed in various scenes, playing the role of a different character each time. So you get to see one large story unfold, while being told through various perspectives -- very refreshing. And the story was just hilarious. It's as funny as the anime ever was. The script was well written and entertaining, and that's what makes a good digital comic. Any Tenchi fan would really enjoy this.
One new feature is the so-called "kokuhaku mode". Basically, this is when one of the female characters confesses her feelings to Tenchi at the end of the game (something Tenchi fans have been waiting to see forever). It seems as though you gain points toward each character over the course of the game, and you win that character at the end if you have enough points. I got Mihoshi on my first play through. The game keeps track of which characters you have won, and I guess something is supposed to happen if you get them all.
I anxiously started the game over again, deliberately making different decisions than I did on my first time through. What I found though, is that the decisions have very little effect on the path of the game. You make a different decision and you get a couple lines of new dialogue, but it doesn't affect the outcome of the story at all. So, no matter what you do, this game is basically the same thing every time you play it. It seems an attempt was made to add replay value using the "kokuhaku mode", but it just doesn't do the trick. There are eight different girls you can "win", but I don't know who would be crazy enough to play through the same thing 8+ times in order to win them all.
The new game, while very entertaining for one or two plays through, is relatively short, and lacks replay value. While the original had a few dull moments in it, I think it was a much better game overall. I guess that's why it's been remade twice. At any rate though, if you're a fan of this series, you will probably get some enjoyment out of this FX title one way or another.
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