“When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” And after that,
I suppose it's war! Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead is a 1989 PC Engine Hucard
title developed by Fun Factory and published by Victor Musical Industries, yes, the music company,
that combines action role-playing with what we now label “survival horror.” Speaking of survival
horror, this game actually came out several months before Capcom's Famicom classic Sweet Home, which
is frequently brought up in conversation as the first survival horror game. But the roots of the
genre go back even further, as this PC Engine War of the Dead is actually a port-slash-reimagining
of a 1987 MSX2 title of the same name, which is considered by many to be the first real survival
horror game. A product of the Dragon Quest RPG boom of the era, the MSX2 original looks
and plays quite a bit like Nintendo's Legend of Zelda II, also an '87 release, with its overworld
map and real-time sidescrolling battle segments, though it features more traditional role-playing
elements. And instead of the somewhat upbeat, colorful fantasy world of Hyrule,
the setting is a dreary, apocalyptic landscape inhabited by zombies, monsters, and all sorts
of wonderfully horrible wickedness spawned from some Japanese guy's nightmares. While flawed,
Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead on MSX2 is a really cool game, especially for fans of horror,
and has a unique, yet often overlooked, place in the history of video games. The PC Engine version
improves upon the source in many ways...but is sadly a step down in a lot of other areas.
The game takes place in Chaney's Hill, which has been suddenly plagued by the appearance of
demonic beasts wreaking havoc on its once polite society, isolating the small town from the rest
of the world. Players take control of Lyla Alfon, a member of the Supernatural & Special
Weapon Attack Team, or S-SWAT, a special military squad that deals in the paranormal,
whose mission is to investigate and rescue the surviving residents of the besieged town,
something the army and her fellow squad mates have apparently failed to do. The story and
gameplay are quite similar to the MSX2 version, though the graphics are more colorful as expected,
which could be seen as a downgrade, as it takes away a bit from the spooky atmosphere. One thing
in the original that added to the overall feeling of dread was a day and night cycle, which has been
completely scrapped in the PCE game, where it's always sunny, at least on the world map. Lyla
starts off near a church, the lone safe haven in Chaney's Hill where a couple of survivors
are already holed up. Utilizing this shelter as a base of operations, it's up to Lyla to travel
the treacherous terrain, seeking out anyone who is still breathing, and leading them back to the
house of worship. The survivors come from all walks of life—politicians, teachers, soldiers,
and Lyla's fellow S-SWAT team members—and most of, or perhaps all of their names are nods to
popular figures and characters from horror media. To name just a few, there's Carpenter the priest,
an homage to my favorite film director John Carpenter, Stephen, Peter and Fran, as in
the original Dawn of the Dead trio, one of the best heroines in all of horror, and Cronenberg,
based on another great film director obsessed with grossing his audience out.
Getting these stranded people to join you is rarely as simple as greeting them and
extending a helping hand, and instead require certain conditions to be met first, such as
rescuing another person or completing a series of events beforehand, giving the system a linear,
rigid “fetch quest” kind of feel that was quite common in role-playing titles back then...and
maybe even today, too. The biggest challenge facing the player in tracking down and escorting
these human allies to safety is, of course, the hordes of fiendish enemies on the path,
referred to as “creatures.” Enemy encounters are random and can take place at any location
outside of the vicinity of the church, whether it be on the overworld or in buildings. Battles take
place on a scrolling arena populated by several creatures, and these segments conclude whenever
Lyla reaches either end of the screen regardless of how many enemies remain. There are some pretty
creative and horrid monster designs in War of the Dead for PC Engine, but it sadly lacks in
variety compared to the MSX2 game, with maybe half the amount of unique creature models. The
game relies a lot on palette swaps for more powerful enemies, not uncommon in the era,
but disappointing nonetheless. Lyla is initially equipped with a combat knife and a pistol,
but acquires weapons that pack more of a punch as she discovers new areas and survivors. Ammo
is limited, and all projectile weapons share from the same ammo pool, with better weapons
using up higher amounts per shot, so while the combat knife lacks in power and range,
it will be the player's best friend for a large chunk of the game. Downed enemies
will drop a predetermined item, which include boxes of bullets that add to the ammo stock,
red orbs that replenish player health, called PF for “Power Force,” green orbs that restore MF,
or “Mind Force,” which we'll talk about in a minute, and blue orbs that increase experience.
Collecting enough experience levels up Lyla, bolstering her max PF and attack power. Lyla's
MF will increase via story progression, and is used to temporarily power up her weapons through
her special Psychic Sealing Remedy ability. The amount of MF used up depends on the weapon,
and using PS Remedy is almost essential when confronting one of the several bosses in the game.
Compared to the original War of the Dead, the combat in the PC Engine edition is more fluid and
a little more fun. Some weapons didn't carry over from the original, but others have been added,
like the flamethrower. The encounter rate for this game is odd—sometimes there will be a
short stretch where you get attacked every step or two, and other times you can travel across
the entire overworld map completely battle-free. If you do keep getting into unnecessary fights,
you could always walk left or right to escape, usually without much resistance, but at the very
least getting into random battles here is a lot less frustrating than in the MSX2 game,
where encounters occur even when standing still. Losing all PF spells certain doom for Lyla,
Chaney's Hill and the world, so don't die. But really, don't die,
because then you'll have to face the true horror of Shiryou Sensen on the PC Engine,
its convoluted password system. Just take a look at that—Japanese hiragana, Japanese katakana,
Arabic numerals and Roman characters...and there's no auto continue after dying,
so you have to input your password with every game over screen. This has to rank up there among the
most dreadful password systems ever devised. You can get a password for your current game progress
at the church, and do it often. Or avoid death completely by keeping your PF at high levels.
Aside from red orbs,
there are a couple of other ways to restore health. You can't sleep and recover like
in the MSX2 game, but returning to church resets PF and MF to max. And what kind of
RPG would this be without restorative items? While away from the church,
consuming food and applying medkits restores health, and downing tranquilizer pills replenishes
MF. Lyla starts off with a few of these in her inventory, but they can also be found in one of
the few item boxes scattered across town or received from survivors...use items often,
because if you hoard too many, something VERY unfortunate will happen...which we'll get to soon.
Chaney's Hill is a rather sizable area, broken up by a wide lake in the middle and many small rivers
that limit exploration in early stages of the game, though Lyla will eventually find a raft that
allows her to traverse the entirety of the map. To save the remaining survivors of Chaney's Hill,
uncover the secret past of the town and ultimately discover the source of the creature invasion,
she'll have to search through all sorts of spooky, deserted locations such as an ominous
castle estate, a frightening graveyard and the truly horrifying corporate indoctrination
center simply known as the public school. As she ventures deeper into creature-infested territory,
Lyla discovers that all the death and destruction was ultimately the result of human greed,
unsurprisingly, which inadvertently reopened up an underground portal to the underworld.
Six medallions were created long ago to seal that portal, and it's up to her to find them
and succeed in ending the nightmare. In her quest to find the medallions,
she also learns that her involvement in the events taking place in Chaney's Hill is no product of
mere happenstance...but since this is a short video, you can experience the details yourself by
playing the game. Even if you can't read Japanese, an English fan translation made its way to the
internet in 2017, allowing a bigger audience to appreciate Lyla's trials and tribulations.
So, despite a few complaints, with its interesting history and creepy backdrop, Shiryou Sensen:
War of the Dead must be perfect for fans of RPGs, the PC Engine or horror-themed media, right? Well,
no, not really. Sadly, there are some major flaws that hold this one back from greatness, aside
from the small grievances mentioned already. The most notorious of these flaws are the experience
and item inventory bugs, where if you accumulate over 9999 experience points or over 14 consumable
items, the game breaks. With the former, Lyla will essentially level down to 0, causing her HP to
become 0 out of 0, meaning any brush with an enemy and it's game over. Collecting too many items will
cause their menu icons to vanish, which would have been manageable, but in my playthrough, this made
the raft disappear completely and I was unable to reach the last dungeon...so reset, spend a couple
minutes entering the password, and use up items needlessly to avoid tragedy again. Not annoying
at all. A little pink piece of paper is included with the game, supposedly written by Carpenter
the priest, that gives some tips and warns the player of these glitches, but really, it's pretty
unbelievable that they're even a thing. There are some gruesome sights and sounds in War of
the Dead, however the scariest part of the game is running into either of these bugs, no joke.
Worst than even that, however, is that game progression overall is just tedious,
requiring a lot of backtracking in the same places over and over again, and speaking to NPCs numerous
times trying to trigger the next event to open up. It's a game that I can recommend only to
the most hardcore or those used to the obviously dated style of RPGs from the 80s...but even then,
it may be a struggle to make it to Shiryou Sensen: War of the Dead's end credits.
Personally, I'm glad I made it all the way through, but I admit that I did want to give
up on a few occasions and almost started rooting for the bad guys to end my misery. It's still one
of the cheaper PC Engine releases, and I think most people can complete it in under ten hours,
much less than that if using a guide, so at the very least it's not a huge time or monetary
commitment for those who think they want to dabble in the dark arts. A PC-88 port was also developed
that is supposedly the best version of the game overall, but it's quite rare and even if I owned
it, I don't have the means to play it, well, at least on original hardware, so I can't really
chime in about that one. This game, however, would be the perfect candidate for a modern remake that
updates the game system, gameplay, graphics and sound...I think it would be pretty awesome. That's
probably not going to happen, but if Chaney's Hill could survive an invasion from Hell,
anything's possible, I guess. Anyway, I'm Jimmy Hapa, thanks for watching and take care!