MAMEmania: Tengai

In this series retro game expert Zac Bentz picks his top ten MAME games. If you’re a casual gaming fanboy MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator and is a software emulator that allows you to play ancient arcade games on modern hardware.

Tengai – 1996 – Psikyo

Side-scrolling shooters are certainly the bread and butter of arcade games. They are fast, simple, and eat quarters like Kirstie Alley on a Twinkie high. The only really thing separating one for another is the window dressing. The graphics and whatever plot they can loosely hang onto them.

Tengai is certainly just another shallow shooter, but damned if it doesn’t look pretty. Plus, it’s not often that you get to use the phrase “mid-evil Japanese steam punk,” but that’s exactly what Tengai is going for.

In the game, you take on the role of one of five priestly fighters. There is absolutely no plot set-up going into the game, but at the end you find out that you’re trying to save the princess, and for once she isn’t in another castle. Well, not exactly, but I’ll get to the on a second.

Anyway, judging from the opening cinematic, the main character is the first on the list, Miko. Her main attribute is her massive knockers, but she also has a weird monkey-like companion. Each fighter has a slightly different weapon and flying buddy, but, not surprisingly, they offer very little difference in game play. Speaking of which, the game is the very definition of straightforward. Shoot and dodge, grab the power up for more firepower and special attacks, and die a lot.

But it’s not the game play that’s interesting. It’s the overall setting and backgrounds the will keep you fighting to the next stage. There are are few bosses sprinkles throughout, and they are all very large and cool looking, sporting various period armor pieces and symbols. There are giant mechanical statues and twisted super warriors with strangely familiar armor. There is almost no dialog, and what there is is the usual over the top posing and threats. The music is largely forgettable, but keeps things moving along.

There are two endings, one where the princess apparently dies, and one where she lives. The ending is determined by which route you take near the end. After thy, you are sent back near the beginning to do it all over again, but this time with much stronger enemies and lots more dying.

Tengai, while just another shooter, is nevertheless a very nice looking one, pulling you into its world and amusing you with a wide range of fun characters and a boat-load of style. Oh, and boobs.

Zac Bentz is a regular contributor to the Japanese culture blog Japanator, runs his own Japanese music review blog ZB’s A-Z of J-Music and plays crazy electro-rock in The Surfactants. He lives in Duluth, MN with his wife, pets and a closet full of adventure.