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by **Macaw** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:38 pm

This thread is pretty much gonna be random discussion about what I think is the greatest belt scroll action (AKA beat-em-up) series ever. So yeah this will probably turn into a total clusterfuck but who cares, there's so much to discuss!

First an introduction to all the games:

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Denjin Makai (1994, Arcade)
A beatemup with great graphics, lots of special moves, and SIX playable characters showed that Winky Soft were not fucking around, despite this being their first arcade title. Totally awesome game.

Ghost Chaser Densei (1994, Super Famicom)
A SFC port of Denjin Makai with some changes. They added a few new moves for each character, and juggling, however it is still majorly cut down from the arcade version. There are now only 3 characters, the highway stage has been removed, the story is changed and characters say less, and of course the graphics take a major hit.

Guardians (1995, Arcade)
All the aspects from Denjin Makai and belt scroll action games in general taken into overdrive. EIGHT playable characters now, each with such an obscene amount of moves its hard to even comprehend. One of the most freeform and awesome juggling/combo systems of any belt scroll or even VS fighter, and in general just absolute polish. Combine that with incredible art, and the most insane attention to detail I have ever seen in a video game ever (more on this soon) and you have what could easily be called not only the greatest belt scroll action game ever, but one of the greatest arcade games ever.

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So yeah, apart from all this stuff another reason why I love this series so much is just the atmosphere, the characters, and so on. Both games in the series both take place in a futuristic city, and I have just never seen a city so fleshed out and realized. Every screen in both games is just full of such insane little details, the graffiti on the walls and the advertisement billboards, I am still finding new things every time I play. Some people probably know by now I love modern or futuristic cities and nightlife, especially in this genre, so I just cant get enough.

This is especially true of Guardians, which is just crazy how much detail has gone into the game. Background graphics aside, the game just has countless weird and funny shit going on. For example when you enter the room of the first boss, there is a soldier building a card pyramid on a table, and just as he is going to finish it your character bursts through the wall and ruins it, his reaction is too hilarious. Not only that, but RIGHT NEXT to the wall that your character burst through is a door that opens, which they could have easily walked through, this is of course referring to final fight where your character would break through doors to enter the next scene instead of just opening them or something similar, haha. The entire course of the game is filled with details like this non stop, its just incredible how much work the developers put into it.

Also in Guardians, there is a strange squid character which can be found in all the stages but is usually very hard to find or is somehow hiding somewhere. I have no idea what he is supposed to be doing seemingly stalking you the entire game, but its pretty funny.

One strange thing about the series is that while Denjin Makai has a very fleshed out story with pre-stage text, conversations between bosses and your character, and a unique ending for each character, Guardians has no text or character endings at all, making the whole game a bit of a mystery story-wise. I definitely will somehow get the story and character endings in Denjin Makai translated eventually, but as of now I know of a few links between the games...

Zeldia in Denjin Makai is a giant monster, but in its ending a girl with wings comes out of it like a cocoon. This girl is of course the Zeldia in Guardians. Girulian is the last boss in Denjin Makai, but replaces Makai as the hero in Guardians. P.Belva in Guardians is likely the boss Proto Belva from Denjin Makai. Also the 'General' character from Denjin Makai who gives you mission briefings appears twice in Guardians (In the Long Bridge stage and in the ending) Thats about all I know so far. Both games eventually take you to the same destination as the last stage, however in Guardians once you reach the room you fought Girulian in in Denjin Makai, you take an elevator down into a crazy biological area.

Well I'm pretty satisfied with my text orgy over this series so far. I will follow up this thread over time with posts about various aspects of the games (such as the crazy score system of Denjin Makai and the little squid dude sightings in Guardians) but everyone feel free to discuss anything about any of the games in the series.

by **Macaw** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 4:45 pm

Some people are probably aware of how rare the Denjin Makai and Guardians PCBs are, like many arcade games distributed by Banpresto. Guardians seems to be even more rare than Denjin Makai, I recall Shou saying the PCB only shows up once every few years.

It recently showed up on yahoo auctions and went for 22,000. I uploaded the photo the dude took because up until this point I had never even seen instructions/flyer artwork related to the game.

Girulian right in the center, proving he is the main character of the game.

by **JoshF** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:00 pm

Zeldia is the best character in Denjin Makai, right? It's dashing move seems top-notch.

I'd like to play Tulks but his special moves seem finnicky to combo.

by **Macaw** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:25 pm

Its hard to tell who the best character is. I'de say their all good except for Tulks and Iyo, who require you to be a bit more careful.

Tulks is probably my favorite character in the game (bodybuilder wearing almost nothing walking around a city, how can you beat that) so I've put some time into using him. Unlike many of the other characters that have lots of safe moves, most of Tulks' moves leave him open to attack for ages (such as the muscles typhoon and his suplex)

He has good aspects though. Best AB desperation move in the game, and best normal combo string in the game (the hitbox size on its latter hits are totally insane) His forward throw should always be done in a grapple when dealing with crowds due it it being a million times more safe than the suplex. His projectile special sucks compared to Makai and Kurokishi's, but its still decent for poking here and there.

Here a Denjin Makai movelist by the way: http://bbs.emu-zone.org/newbbs/archiver ... 42155.html

by **Gaijin Punch** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 11:49 pm

Very nice post, Macaw. Don't have time to go through it now, but, some questions.

1: Am I high in thinking Denjin Makai isn't playable in Mame? (There's a link to a 1CC in the videos thread, btw).
2: Am I also high in thinking the SFC game is Ghost Chaser Raisei (not Densei). Thought it was 窶披

by **Macaw** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:57 am

Denjin Makai is playable in mame despite still being listed otherwise. Just the sound and score calculations doesn't work (apparently the seibu hardware protection is only used on the score calculations for some bizarre reason, hahaha)

If your referring to the shinjojin vids, they are not a 1cc, just a run through. He continues many times.

For the SFC game, its definitely Densei.

by **Gaijin Punch** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:18 am

So it is... will have to remedy that.

by **dcharlie** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:02 am

Been on the lookout for Ghost Chaser for sfc for a while with no luck (along with iron commando).

It seems to be hiding too

by **Macaw** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:50 pm

Honestly unless your anti-mame or cant play pcb's I don't see the reason to bother with Densei at all compared to Denjin Makai. Aside from less characters and such there are times when Denjin Makai has you fighting about 10 enemies at once, and Densei only ever has 2-3 or so, as usual for belt scroll game console ports. Keep looking for Iron Commando though, that rocks.

by **Macaw** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:03 pm

The Scoring System in Denjin Makai

Dunno if any people here know about this, and considering the score counters in mame are not properly emulated yet proper score competition (well, in mame anyway, doubt anyone except shou has the pcb :roll:

) in this game cant really happen yet, but here is what the score system is anyway.

Basically is has the score system from Gunnail, and considering this game is already pretty damn hard and you only have a single life on a credit, then playing for high score abusing this system is walking an absolute tightrope of risk.

Your health bar has 3 colours. Blue when its full or mostly full, yellow when its around half, and red when you have barely anything left.

If for example a single punch is worth 100 points when you have a blue bar, then it will be worth 200 points when you have a yellow bar, and 400 points when you have a red bar. So x2 all base point values when in yellow, and x4 values when in red.

This system is also in Ghost Chaser Densei, but its a console game and heaps easier than the arcade version, so who really cares about high scores in that.

by **RadiantSvgun** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:07 pm

I agree Macaw, Guardians is probably the best belt action scroller I've ever played. I missed buying it 2x in the past year. $150 each time.

by **dcharlie** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 1:24 am

Honestly unless your anti-mame or cant play pcb's I don't see the reason to bother with Densei at all compared to Denjin Makai. Aside from less characters and such there are times when Denjin Makai has you fighting about 10 enemies at once, and Densei only ever has 2-3 or so, as usual for belt scroll game console ports. Keep looking for Iron Commando though, that rocks.

cool, will give D.Makai a whirl today - though will probably still pick up the snes version, down to a couple of games to complete the collection

Might go trawling Aki today if i can get the mrs to watch the rugrat - or i could fire up mame

by **RadiantSvgun** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:14 am

So about the storyline...

Is Guardians the prequel to Denjin Makai?

by **Macaw** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 3:19 pm

Before I answer that question RadiantSvgun, I will quickly talk about the story of Denjin Makai, which I have recently had a friend with pretty decent skill in Japanese translate for me (well, he translated the intro text for me as well as Makai's and Tulks' endings, and a few of the boss conversations.) The conversation before Girulian (last boss) is quite big and is different depending on what character you are using, so having that translated for all the different characters is too much work for now.

Note my friend is not super pro in Japanese, but is pretty good (has a uni degree) so this stuff might not be 100% accurate, and there are a few details I might have forgotten. These are not exact text translations, just my quick summary.

The Denjin Makai Story

Attract Mode Text

Many years after the third world war, a new country has emerged. This country is not controlled by a god, demon, or man, but by a huge network system, a super computer (the computer has a name but I have forgotten what it was called)

This super computer controls and monitors the city and everyone in it, and no one can ever escape or get by the computer.

Recently there have been people showing up who's actions cannot be seen or monitored by the computer. These people are known as 'Ghosts'. Because of this, the 'Ghosts' have been freely committing crimes across the city.

In response to this a Ghost Police Force (or Ghost Defence Force) has been created, members of this group are known as 'Ghost Chasers'.

So yeah, obviously the playable characters are part of the Ghost Chasers (and considering the attract mode text about this super computer controlling the entire city you already have to wonder who the true bad guys are, the 'Ghosts' or Ghost Chasers. I didn't get translations for all the text before missions, but for the first mission it just simply starts by the Commander of the Ghost Chases (the guy in the green military outfit) telling you that Ghosts were located in a certain area and you have to go bash them. This is probably the premise of most of the stages until you finally get to the last stage where you have to assassinate 'Girulian Eldain'.

In the text before the last stage which I got somewhat translated, some of the characters mention that he is the leader of the recent terrorist activities (and likely the Ghosts). He was also apparently shot and thought dead previously, and is known as the 'devil king' or 'grim reaper' or something.

Makai's ending

Girulian says it was fate that brought him to this point, and that he will not be the only one leaving (implying he will take you with him)

Makai can then be seen standing alongside the Commander of the Ghost Chasers. The Commander says how its over now, but Makai doesn't care much. The Commander asks why he isn't more happy about the situation and Makai responds by saying something about how bad things are likely to happen again in the future due to the super computer or something (my memory is very hazy on the translation of this ending...) The commander then says how Girulian chose to become a demon rather than a God in order to defeat the super computer.

Tulks' Ending

Girulian says it was fate that brought him to this point, and that he will not be the only one leaving (implying he will take you with him)

Tulks jumps out of the building in a parachute. He then holds out a disk he stole from Girulians office and starts talking about he now has Girulians legacy (presumably all of Girulians secrets and crime related info and such on the disk)

It then cuts to Tulks in his office, probably of a company he owns or something (hilariously in addition to the bodybuilding picture he has on the wall, the other picture with the big kanji on it says Love of Muscle) Tulks is on the phone asking someone if the payment has been made yet. He then suddenly gets angry and mentions how sneaky the CIA is, and says to check the disk or something. He then bursts out of his office and reads an email from Makai saying that he has made all the payments, but that he also decided to take Girulians disk. Tulks goes berserk calling him and idiot and wondering how he took the disk.

------------------------------------

Also, everyone's ending is capped off with the same little text message that says shortly after these incidents ghosts slowly started disappearing, and eventually no one could even remember what happened.

So those are the ony endings I have had translated so far, Tulks' obviously much more comical than Makai's, in line with he character designs I guess, hahaha.

So yeah the storyline is pretty cool cyberpunk stuff, and quite fleshed out for an arcade belt scroll action game. Its pretty hard to understand in places though, like in Makai's ending with how they say Girulian decided to become a demon rather than a god, and just all the stuff in general about how the city is run by neither a demon or a god but by a computer. Perhaps if I had a better translation rather than just my overviews from what I remember my friend saying when he was translating the stuff it would be more clear, but hey at least we got a pretty good idea now.

The Guardians story is still a total mystery but in response to the question about it possibly being a prequel I would say no, because as I mentioned in the first post of this thread the Zeldia in Denjin Makai goes on to become the girl Zeldia in Guardians, as shown in Zeldia's Denjin Makai ending. The instruction card of Guardians seems to have little bio's for each character, and who knows possibly a story overview, so I guess seeing those will be the only way to figure out whats happening in Guardians.

Browsing various youtube video's it seems there is always heaps of people talking about the story of this series in the comments and other areas of the internet, I guess that just proves how interesting and charismatic both Denjin Makai and Guardians are.

by **RadiantSvgun** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 5:16 am

Awesome! My biggest question is why do you fight Girualian in Denjin Makai, but in Guardians, he is a hero? Thats what stumps me. I'll continue my search for both boards though.

by **Macaw** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 7:31 am

Yeah that's the biggest mystery. I'm sure once we get translations of the text on the Guardians flyer it will perhaps be revealed.

RadiantSvgun wrote:I'll continue my search for both boards though

You and me both! Will be non stop partytime once I got these games crankin through my supergun.

Anyway I found this review of Guardians pretty entertaining, I think he perfectly captured what everyone who has played the game is thinking, haha

http://www.honestgamers.com/systems/con ... n+Makai+II

Guardians/Denjin Makai II is a mishmash of different playbooks, a selfish, relentless amalgamation of craziness and curiosity that explores every conceivable type of content a beat ﾂ‘em up could.

I do disagree though with what he says about the game not having a consistent, centralized theme. Thats definitely probably due to the game having zero story or explanation of anything that is happening, no in-game boss or enemy names etc, but I think once you play the first Denjin Makai and get exposed to its very fleshed out story, then Guardians and its whole cyberpunk world makes more sense.

by **RadiantSvgun** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 4:23 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc3Hr1dr_NE

by **Macaw** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:03 pm

Oh yeah, there are combo vids all over the net for Guardians, especially Chinese sites. The combo system is just beautiful, although I find the combo's of Girulian using his cheap downwards spiral kick much less awesome to watch than say, combo's from these characters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iPeSILE ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbwDTurMOxA

By the way, doing big combo's does much more than just look fancy or give you a big end of level score bonus... but I will save this information for an upcoming post.

by **RadiantSvgun** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:22 am

GWGAT (Great Western) on ebay had guardians for 150 twice last year. I'm debating contacting him to see if he can get me one.

by **Shou** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:50 am

I have the paperwork for both boards if you want to see them.....

by **Macaw** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:52 pm

Scans/photo's of paperwork related to either of the games will be much appreciated Shou.

Oh and could you give an average price for a complete Denjin Makai and Guardians? (doesn't matter if instruction cards and such are copies) Just so I have a rough idea for whenever I come across the boards (well I know this most recent Guardians went for 22,000 on YAJ, but your input would still be welcome)

by **Shou** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:58 pm

Macaw wrote:Scans/photo's of paperwork related to either of the games will be much appreciated Shou.

Oh and could you give an average price for a complete Denjin Makai and Guardians? (doesn't matter if instruction cards and such are copies) Just so I have a rough idea for whenever I come across the boards (well I know this most recent Guardians went for 22,000 on YAJ, but your input would still be welcome)

I've never seen complete original sets. The one time I saw Denjin Makai in a store in Tokyo, they wanted 70000. I've never seen Guardians in a Tokyo store. I probably paid around 20k for it from Asia. All of the paperwork I have are copies of originals...

by **dcharlie** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:26 am

yeah, gave these a try - after which just picked up the SNES version loose (315 yen! woo!). Might get it later boxed if the price is reasonable.

by **Macaw** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:50 am

Shou wrote:I've never seen complete original sets. The one time I saw Denjin Makai in a store in Tokyo, they wanted 70000

Damn, that's crazy.

by **RadiantSvgun** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:46 pm

GWGAT said they had Denjin Makai II in stock for 168+ shipping.

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