From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Reflections: "Zipang (PC-Engine)

In the last eight to ten years, I've learned a great deal about all of the old video-game systems. I've spent countless hours thoroughly exploring their respective libraries and enthusiastically discovering their most well-kept secrets--their forgotten classics, their hidden gems, and their most surprising ports and sequels--and consequently I've seen almost everything they have to offer. I've seen so much, in fact, that sometimes I feel as though there are no more astonishing discoveries to be made--that there's nothing left that could surprise me as much as, say, Super Mario Bros. Special for the NES PC88 and the Sharp X1 or the Genesis' straight port of arcade Double Dragon.

The truth, though, is that I don't know it all. I'm reminded of that all the time. I'm confronted by that reality every time I stumble upon an undiscovered game whose very existence is so astounding that I'm completely stunned by what I'm seeing.

That's how it was the first time I laid eyes on Zipang.

So one day, about two years ago, I was browsing my Twitch "Following" list, seeking merely to find a stream that could best provide some quality background noise, when suddenly something piqued my interested in a big way: My favorite streamer--Toad22484, a speedrunner and general retro-game enthusiast--was presently taking a deep dive into the TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine library. Since it so happened that I, too, was presently exploring the TG-16's library, I decided that it would be a good idea to check in on his stream and take a look at the games he was playing--to see if he had discovered any games that were so interesting-looking that I'd feel motivated to add them to my "Must-Play" list.

That's when I saw it: Zipang, a game that bore a remarkable resemblance to Solomon's Key--one of my all-time-favorite puzzle-platformers.

Truly I was shocked by what was displaying on my monitor.

"What the hell am I looking at?!" I typed in the chat, feeling bewildered. "Is this a fan-made TG-16 game or perhaps an unlicensed Chinese knockoff?!"

It was neither, the streamer informed me. On the contrary: It was very much an official product! Sometime in the early 90s, Tecmo actually brought Solomon's Key to the TG-16!

Well, sort of.

So naturally I wasted no time in downloading and playing Zipang! And I've been continuing to play it ever since then! All that time, it's been one of the games I've been desiring to talk about on this blog. Well, I figure, there's no better time than now, when I'm once again getting heavy into TG-16 gaming!

So, everyone, say hello to Zipang, an obscure PC-Engine puzzle-platformer. It looks a lot like Solomon's Key, yes. It plays a lot like it, certainly. But, really, it isn't Solomon's Key.

"So, then, what in the world is it?" you ask.

Well, let me tell you.

 So right about now, dear reader, you're where I was back in 2018. You're staring at your computer screen, quizzically, and wondering, "How is it that Solomon's Key, a well-known puzzle-platformer/action-puzzler, came to the PC-Engine without anyone noticing?"

Well, there's a simple answer to that question: The three parties that were involved in the process did everything in their power to prevent anyone from noticing.

It all started when Tecmo licensed the Solomon's Key engine out to Arc System Works, which at the time specialized in console conversions, and then proceeded to completely remove itself from the process. Arc System Works was eager to obtain the license because it had secured the rights to produce a video-game adaptation of a recently released Japanese movie called "Zipang" and needed a ready-made engine to marry it to. And at some point, its executives decided that the resulting product should be a PC-Engine exclusive.

Working with full autonomy, the company made the desired alterations and then shipped the game off to its publishing partner--the Japan-focused Pack-In-Video, which, naturally, published the game only in Japan.

That's why you've never heard of Zipang: It was released in a single market for a specific console and was aimed at fans of some obscure action film. Hell--I don't know if you'd ever find anyone in Japan who has ever heard of it. It was just something that was thrown out there when no one was looking.

 So that's what Zipang is: a strangely-conceived-but-super-interesting conversion of Tecmo's arcade and NES classic.

"So what, exactly, did Arc System Works change?" you ask, still trying to get a grasp on the situation.

Well, mostly its developers made a lot of cosmetic changes, all of which were informed wholly by the movie's setting and visual style. For context: The film's story takes place during Japan's Edo period. It chronicles the adventure of a samurai outlaw named Jikago Gokuraku Mari, who discovers a golden sword and then learns that it's actually a magical item that can help him to access Zipang--a mythical City of Gold that has long since fallen under the rule of the evil Golden King. With this new weapon in hand, Jikago sets out to locate Zipang and does so with the intention of defeating its villainous king and liberating its people.

The game's story closely follows the movie's. From what I'm able to translate, the game's events, likewise, take place during Japan's Edo period, and they're set entirely in Zipang. The City of Gold is ruled by an evil tyrant named Susanoo (the "Golden King," as he's more commonly known), whose dark influence has robbed it of its lustrous shine and caused its decay. Our protagonist is the samurai outlaw Jikago Gokuraku Maru, who is looking to overthrow the evil king and thus revive the city. He plans to do that with the help of a powerful seven-branched golden sword that he created by fusing together two sacred swords: the Sword of Creation and the Rock-Breaking Sword, both of which he obtained during his previous adventures. The only way to achieve victory, Jikago feels, is to infiltrate Susanoo's ten-level golden tower--the source from which his power flows--and break his control one room at a time. He'll have to do this while contending with the king's minions, who will do everything they can to protect the tower.

Or something like that.

Though, this newly adopted story doesn't change anything about how the game is played. Like I said: Zipang's is mostly a visual overhaul. The developers did make some mechanical changes, yes, but none of those alterations were dictated by the game's story; rather, they represent Arc System Works' efforts to shake things up a bit (as we move along, I'll tell you about the ways in which it went about doing this).

 Let's start with the basics.

Our Dana replacement is Jikago, a sword-wielding samurai. He can use his sword to both create and destroy blocks, and he can otherwise shatter blocks by jumping up into them and thereby striking their undersides with his head (it takes two strikes to shatter an undamaged block and a single strike to shatter a damaged block). These abilities combine to form his means of traversal: By creating blocks and using them as platforms, he can travel over to, up to, or down to most any open space and cleverly work his way around enemies. Conversely, he can advance by destroying obstructive blocks and thereby opening up pathways. And he can also use these abilities to manipulate enemies' movements and generally defend against them; he can redirect them, cut off their access, herd them onto specific platforms, block their projectiles, and cause them to fall to their deaths by destroying breakable blocks when they're positioned directly above them (only ground-based enemies can be killed this way).

While you move about a room, you can collect the items that are laying about everywhere. Some are placed right out in the open. Others are hidden behind breakable blocks. And a few are invisible; an item of this type will appear after you create a block on the associated empty-tile space and then destroy it. (I'll talk more about items later on.)

Your main goal in each stage (or "room," as the game calls it) is to procure the key. When you do this, the room's locked door opens, creating an exit through which you can escape. You have to do this in each consecutive stage to complete the game. You can win by keeping it simple--by focusing only on procuring keys and escaping rooms--yes, but by doing this, you'll miss out on a large chunk of the game's content and get a bad ending. To get the best ending, you have to do some extra work; you have to complete additional tasks and thus earn access to secret stages. All told, there are 72 stages (48 normal stages and 24 secret stages).

Earning the best ending entails filling in the game's entire map, which displays during the game's interstitial between-stages scenes. One map portion fills in each time you clear a non-prison stage. If you miss a single room, you lose your chance at getting the best ending.

Zipang contains a number of uniquely crafted stages, yes, but still it's largely comprised of those we remember from Solomon's Key. The familiar stages are, however, arranged in a different order, which, at the least, helps to keep things feeling somewhat fresh.

 The most significant mechanical modifications are those made to the controls and the game's speed. The controls are much looser-feeling, and the movement speed has been increased. This combination of adjustments works to render Jikago a bit more nimble than his Solomon's Key counterpart. He walks faster than Dana (he can move across an entire screen in four seconds whereas it takes Dana five seconds to make that same trip). Since his movement carries more momentum, he can jump farther (his jumps cover a two-and-a-half-block distance compared to Dana's measly two). And his increased motility allows for you to manipulate his jumps with greater degrees of modulation and swiftness.

These adjustments wind up having a big effect on the game's traversal aspect. They allow for Jikago to basically sequence-break the Solomon's Key stages--complete them more quickly and do so in ways that Dana couldn't. This could entail his getting over walls early or his being able to place support blocks on tiles that would be well out of Dana's reach. The result is that Zipang feels more open than Solomon's Key; it makes you feel as though you have more freedom and more room to improvise solutions.

Though, there is a downside to these changes. The increase in speed works to exacerbate Solomon's Key's laggy button-response. If, for instance, you attempt to jump when you're approaching the very edge of a platform, there's a good chance the input will fail to register and you'll simply drop off of the platform; because Jikago moves more quickly than Dana, you have even less time to input the command. So it becomes difficult to be quick and precise at the same time. What you have to do is make it a point to jump earlier--maybe a tenth of a second before you reach a platform's edge.

So, yes, there will be times when you have to approach the action a bit differently--not allow for your knowledge of Solomon's Key's movement- and control-mechanics to have too much influence on your decision-making.

Nothing has changed about the control scheme, itself: You create blocks with the action button (the "I" button, in this case), jump by pressing up on the d-pad, and shoot fireballs with the second action button (the "II" button).

 Though, it's in the area of visuals where Zipang truly distinguishes itself (note that I'm comparing it to the console and computer versions of Solomon's Key, on which it's based; the arcade original is an entirely different beast).

The first thing you'll notice is that its background graphics have their own flavor to them. They speak of a different type of setting--one that was given form not by the forces of "chaos and darkness" but instead by forces of nature. Specifically, Susanoo's tower has the appearance of a cave castle (a fortress built into a mountain or cave) whose cavernous structures are preponderant; over time, you'd imagine, they've come to fully encompass the tower--swallow up large parts of it and thus become its dominant environmental feature.

That's the story you're told whenever you observe Zipang's backgrounds.

The graphical shift is subtle, yes, but quite meaningful.

While it's true that some of its backgrounds exhibit what are clearly artificial constructions (stone tiles, intricately carved symbols, and other works of masonry), the majority of its environments appear to be naturally occurring; they're formed from all manner of rocky, craggy cave structures--this in comparison to Solomon's Key's environments, all of which look strictly-manmade (or demon-made, as it were) with their neatly patterned, perfectly symmetrical stone- and brickwork. Still, though, its environments have that same dilapidated look about them: Oftentimes structures have large cracks in them; some sections of wall have broken off and left behind recessed layers of roughly textured, jagged stone; and individual stones bear nicks, dints and fractures. These and all of the other signs of neglect do well to explain to you that the tower and the cave/mountain into which it's embedded are quite ancient and clearly under the control of a despot who really doesn't give a damn about upkeep.

Oh, and because the city of Zipang is apparently located somewhere in China, all of rooms' on-display zodiac symbols are now of Chinese origin (whereas Solomon's Key's zodiac symbols are of Western origin). So we gaze upon the likenesses not of Taurus, Gemini, Scorpio and the rest but instead the Rat, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Monkey and others from the Chinese set.

Also, Zipang has an enhanced presentation and specifically some cool new bells and whistles: (1) Nicely rendered Asian-style imagery welcomes you to each destination and serves as your lead-in: When you reach a new floor, you're greeted with an interstitial scene in which a scroll unfurls and displays for you the zodiac symbols for which you should be looking out; and right before you start a stage, you're shown a tattered parchment on which the room number and your current life-total are listed. (2) When you start the first stage of a new floor, a curtain raises, introducing the action in style. (3) Each time you complete a stage, you're shown a map of Japan and an animation sequence in which Jikago holds his sword in the air, calls down lightning, and consequently frees a section of the country from Susanoo's control (this is exhibited via a portion of the darkened map being filled in). And (4) when you strike a non-destructible block, it flashes (in a cool animation) to visually communicate that your action was ineffective.

And these little touches go a long way toward helping Zipang to carve out its own distinct personality. "See! This game isn't just a clone!" they eagerly work to convince you.

 Being a 16-bit game, Zipang, naturally, is graphically superior to any of the 8-bit versions of Solomon's Key (and arguably to the arcade original). It has better color depth. Its colors are brighter and more luminous. Its textures are smoother- and cleaner-looking. And its characters move about in a more lively manner and do so using more frames of animation.

Though, these enhancements create not so much an aesthetic difference but rather a tonal one. Zipang's environments, in contrast, have a glow to them--a radiance that speaks not of a world that is filled with darkness and despair, no, but rather one whose luster hasn't yet completely faded; one whose atmosphere is defiantly hopeful. You're not a visitor in some demon-infested nether realm whose gloomy nature can never be changed, no; you're traveling through a suppressed city that you can indeed reshape with your heroic actions!

I'm not saying that either tone is better than the other, no; I'm just explaining how they're different. Each game, though it looks almost identical to the other, gives off a disparate vibe that makes you feel as though its is a radically different type of world.

I just find that to be interesting.

 Zipang's distinctly composed music, too, plays a big role in helping it to develop a unique personality. Whereas Solomon's Key's music focuses all of its energy on defining the nature of game's world, Zipang's seeks only to evoke emotional responses. Its standard stage themes are upbeat and high-spirited, and they have a wonderfully enriching Japanese flavor to them; as you listen to them, you'll surely be overcome with feelings of exuberance and joyful determination. And the action its Mystic and Treasure Rooms is accompanied by classical-sounding tunes whose soothing, wistful note strings are calming and often soul-stirring; they'll surely inspire you to reflect upon all of those old summer days when you and your friends used to get together and have a ton of fun playing unforgettable games like Solomon's Key and Zipang.

So, you see, Zipang's music is more interested in informing your state. It wants for your emotions to provide the game's world its texturing. And that's exactly what will happen.

I don't have much to say about the game's other sound-design aspects. They're all solid; they give you exactly what you're looking for in a Solomon's Key-style game. The only thing Zipang has on Solomon's Key is, expectedly, level of sound quality, though, honestly, that doesn't really mean much to someone like me.

 As you would expect, all of Zipang's enemies are sprite-swaps of existing Solomon's Key enemies. They behave similarly to their Solomon's Key counterparts, yes, but not always exactly like them. Some are slower or faster, and others have specially designed attack animations.

Here's what you should know: The patrolling goblins have been replaced by lagoras, which are standard enemy soldiers. The spinning demonheads have been replaced by moai statues (because this is, of course, a Japanese game, so by rule it has to reference Easter Island in some way). The fireball-spitting wall panels have been replaced by ordinary cannons. The encircling spark balls have been replaced by iron blades. The horizontally-flying ghosts have been replaced by hovering ninjas. The fireball-spitting gargoyles have been replaced by tomari dogs (demonic watchdogs, basically). The flame-spewing dragons have been replaced by serpentine dragon gods (which take the appearance of Ryujin, the guardian of the sea). The vertical-flying ghostly nuels have been replaced by ashras (angry humanoid-like stone creatures). The flame-spewing salamanders have been replaced by iron gunmen, who fire off a short-range shotgun blast when you're in proximity to them. The horizontal-flying wyverns (which are basically faster nuels) have been replaced by paradise birds (Japanese sankocho, which are birds of the "paradise flycatcher" variety). And the spinning chimeras (which are basically faster demonheads) have been replaced by skeletons.

Also, there's a second type of patrolling enemy called Lord Toback (a goon wielding a wakizashi sword), and he's either a mere variant of lagora or a replacement for Solomon's Key's rare earth mage, who functions similarly to a goblin (it's difficult to tell because the game swaps in Lord Tobacks for either goblins or mages, depending upon the room).

And Zipang also brings back the slime enemy from the arcade version of Solomon's Key. Though, slimes behave differently here: Rather than relentlessly pursue Jikago, they simply drip straight down and continue to seep their way through the blocks below until they reach the room's bottom level, at which point they disappear from sight.

The only "enemies" that haven't been changed in any way are the blue and red flames. Both function entirely the same: the obstructive blue flames can never be extinguished, though they can be transported and temporarily tamed--placed in a state in which their hitboxes have been so sufficiently flattened that you can safely jump over them; and the red flames are largely similar to blue flames, though they dissipate when you drop them down a level.

 Most of the items, too, are sprite-swaps.

The fireball-spell-granting Jars of Manda and Jars of Magadora have been replaced by "water crystals with flame" whose colors dictate the type of spell that's granted (blue flames provide straight-moving one-hit fireballs while red flames provide the multi-hit, encircling type). The fireball-duration-extending blue and orange Crystals of Rad have been replaced by rotating blue and red gems. The blue and orange Change Jewels have been replaced by simple blue and red crystals. The time-increasing Medicines of Edlem have been replaced by bamboo tubes (single tubes double your current remaining time while paired tubes quintuple it). The enemy-nuking Medicine of Meltona has been replaced by a simple bomb. The 1up-awarding Medicine of Mapros has been replaced by guard (a fruit from the Cucurbitaceae family). The points-awarding treasure bags, jewels and silver coins have been replaced by assorted coins (Wadokaichin, Keicho Oban, Sekishugin and other ancient Japanese/Chinese monetary units), an inkan (a stamp that looks like a party popper), and typical-looking money bags. And fairies have been replaced by elephant heads; as usual, you'll be awarded an extra life if you rescue ten of them.

Those that retain their appearances function as expected: Constellation Icons (which now bear Chinese zodiac symbols) unlock secret rooms. Scroll items extend Jikago's scroll meter and thus allow for him to carry more fireballs. Blue and red hourglasses reset his timer to 5,000 points and 10,000 points, respectively. And bells (which are now of the spherical variety) release elephant heads from captivity.

That's all you'll find in Zipang. It doesn't contain any of Solomon's Key's "Mystery" items (Solomon's Seal, the Pages of Time and Space, and such); any of its Easter-egg-type items (the Golden Goose, the Magic Lamp, the Tecmo Bunny Icon, Mighty Bomb Jack, et tal.); or any variants thereof.

 There's one other key difference between the two games: Zipang has a unique structure to it, and it does a much better job of communicating to you how said structuring works. Solomon's Key, you'll remember, is quite opaque; it has 50-plus rooms but no clearly discernible structure, and it expects you to somehow infer that (a) these rooms are broken up into sets of four, (b) you have to procure a Constellation Icon in every fourth room to access an all-important secret stage, and (c) along the way you have to locate and collect "Mystery" items to unlock the true final stages and thus earn a chance to get the best ending.

Zipang, in contrast, provides constant guidance. It keeps you informed of where you are, what your current goal is, and how its rooms are arranged. Its structure is easy to understand: There are twelve floors and six rooms per floor. If you hope to unlock each floor's pair of secret rooms, and thus work toward earning the best ending, you have to do two things: obtain the hidden Blue Icon in its second room, doing which grants you access to a secret "Mystic Room," and obtain the standard Constellation Icon in its fifth room, doing which grants you access to the secret "Treasure Room" (the "Hidden Prison" equivalent).

That's all there is to it. You don't have to procure any super-secret items or unlock any "true" final stages; no--Zipang's tighter, more straightforward structuring eliminates all such arcanity. If a room or an item exists, you'll know about it, and you'll certainly be able to find easy access to it.

 The only "downside" to having done all of this research is that I now know what all of Solomon's Key's items do and what measures I have to take to unlock the true final stages. Consequently I can't help but feel as though a lot of the mystery has been sucked out of the game.

Though, to be honest, I'll probably forget most of this information within a few months. But you know what? I wouldn't mind if that were to happen. Really, I wouldn't have it any other way!

 Now don't get the wrong idea: Zipang is not easy game, no; it's actually very difficult. It's just not quite as difficult as Solomon's Key. This is true for a number of reasons: (1) The structuring, as mentioned, is fully comprehensible, so you don't have to spend any time engaging in arcane item-finding exercises. (2) Increased movement speed and motility makes it easier to outrun and slickly dodge enemies. (3) Increased jumping distance allows you sequence-break some of the faithfully ported Solomon's Key rooms and clear them more quickly. (4) Enemy types that continuously spawn from Kameera Mirrors do so at a decreased rate; mostly this results in less flooding. And (5), most importantly, the game has a password system that allows for you to restart right from where you left off, so, in contrast to what Solomon's Key's requires, you don't have to beat it one sitting or rely on an easy-to-screw-up continue code.

What's also nice is that each newly accessed stage's password automatically inputs itself into the continue screen's password box, allowing you to easily zip back to said stage if you Game Overed in it. The only penalty you receive for continuing is a resetting of the HUD values (score, elephant-head total, and scroll-meter length). You don't lose any of the progress that resulted from your procuring of Constellation Icons.

Good deal, eh?

Closing Thoughts

 And all of that amounts to Zipang, a fascinating little PC-Engine port and another one of gaming's lost treasures. If you're a fan of Solomon's Key or puzzle-platformers in general, you should immediately seek it out and give it some play. You'll find that it's one of the genre's best. Hell--you'll find that it's one of 16-bit gaming's best. For certain it'll make a great addition to your TurboGrafx-16 library.

 Now, I'm sure that there are those of you who are shaking your heads and thinking, "Really, what's the big deal? What you describe is just Solomon's Key with a slightly different flavor! Why should I be excited about some obscure reworking of a game I've already played to death?!"

To anyone who's come away with that opinion, I can only say that you're severely undervaluing much of what Zipang has to offer. To call it "Solomon's Key with a new coat of paint" is to shortsightedly downplay what are, as I've explained, its very meaningful differences. The game is worthy of your time and attention because it has over 25 newly added, finely crafted stages; an attractive, truly distinguishing visual style; an entirely new soundtrack comprised of rousing, evocative tunes that work to involve you in the action in a wonderfully distinct way; and some extra bells and whistles that rise above "accessory" and do a whole lot to help it establish its own unique personality. And it's these attributes that make Zipang's feel like a genuinely new experience.

That's what you should take from this piece.

Also, there are three other reasons why you should play Zipang: (1) It's a high-quality game in general. (2) It will provide you hours of fun, challenging platform-puzzle action. And (3) it's a Solomon's Key-style game, and the fact is that any Solomon's Key is good Solomon's Key.

You'd be wise to remember that!

 Zipang has become one of my all-time-favorite PC-Engine games, joining the ranks of Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, Neutopia, New Adventure Island and Boxyboy. It carries that distinction because it plays excellently, it provides me more of the Solomon's Key action I crave, and it's one of the best when we're talking about the ability to exude those wonderfully unique PC-Engine emanations. You know--the ones that somehow capture the essences of both 8- and 16-bit machines and make you feel as though you're playing a game that embodies the finest parts of both.

I'm so happy to have discovered Zipang. It truly is a gem. Hopefully Konami will think to include it in a future PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 collection and give fans of the console a chance to discover and subsequently experience one of the genre's classics.

 I have to hand it to the PC-Engine: This machine never ceases to surprise me. Its library, I continue to discover, is absolutely filled with hidden treasures. Every time I read a PC-Engine retrospective or watch a "Top PC-Engine Games" video," I learn about yet another one of them, and usually I'm astonished by what I'm seeing. That's one of the big reasons why I'm so eager to delve ever-deeper into the PC-Engine's library: I just know that buried in there, somewhere, are more of the most incredibly fascinating games I'll ever unearth. Undoubtedly there are many more Zipangs waiting to be discovered.

 It just goes to show that no matter how much you think you know about a subject, you're probably a long, long way from knowing it all. And there's nothing quite as personally enriching as embracing that notion and making a constant effort to learn more about the things about which you're passionate.

Video-game history, man. What an amazingly wondrous place!