KÛSÔ KAGAKU SEKAI GULLIVER BOY
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(c)1995 Hudson Soft
Release : 1995-05-26 (¥7800)
SuperCDRom²/Arcade HCD5076
Role Playing Game
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Gulliver Boy is a Role Playing Game by Red and published by
Hudson Soft. The game takes place in a fantasy world based around real
locations throughout Europe. The story begins in Venise (Italy)
where two boys, the courageous Gulliver and his friend Edison, are being
chased by weird looking masked creatures. Edison is a clever inventor and the
two friends manage to escape by using one of his latest invention - a flying helicopter bag !
But things do not really go according to plan and they crash head on into a the large
St Mark's Basilica from St Mark's Square. The building collapses and Gulliver
is arrested and sent to a detention magic school. The player takes control if Gulliver
who's first task will be to run away from detention and look for his friend Edison.
Gulliver Boy follows traditional structures from the genre with creative alternatives.
Our hero can visit towns, buy equipment and various items (and later even trade some of them
to other cities for profit), and Inns allow him to replenish his life and save the game's
progress. Trading is an important part of Gulliver Boy (trading centers are
buildings with an anchor symbol on them) and are often the only way to gain money.
Gulliver starts on his own but the team soon counts three characters
(Gulliver, Edison and the cute Misti). A fourth member can join the party
but the player can't directly control him. However, unlike other Role Playing Games, fights are
not random and group of enemies are clearly visible on the screen and
wonder around the map.
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HuVideo was Hudson Soft proprietary video compressor for the PC Engine
system. Despite a low color count, digitized video could be played at a steady
frame rate while keeping the overall picture quality looking decent. They are sadly not full
screen and run in a 192x112 pixels window. Only a couple of CDRom games used this feature
though - the second edition of Galaxy Fraulein Yuna had a bonus CD with a short
HuVideo anime and several illustrations. The second game, Gulliver Boy,
has many HuVideo cutscenes throughout the game.
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Gulliver Boy was first released by Bandai for the Game Boy
system in 1995, a month before the PC Engine version tested here. But this
black and white production isn't a Role Playing Game but rather, and surprisingly,
a puzzle game. A fifty episodes animated series came out in Japan the same year (pictured
on the right) and closely follows the PC Engine's game story - as a guess, I'd say the game was
actually based on those animated series. A year later, in 1996, Hudson Soft released
Gulliver Boy for Sega's Saturn. The game is an upgraded
version of the original PC Engine Role Playing Game, with better soundtracks,
graphics and animations. A Super Famicom version of Gulliver Boy
was released three months later by Bandai. It is however a completely
different action/adventure game.
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Add your Pov here !
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Gulliver Boy is technically perfect and quite amazing (as a side note,
the game certainly reminds the excellent Tengai Makyô (aka Far East Of Eden)
series). Graphics are nice and detailed and sprites quite large on screen. The most
amazing part is certainly the animated cut-scenes FMVs using the Hu-Video
feature. The end result, even if not incredible for today's standards, is hard
to believe especially for a video game system released back in 1987.
Gulliver Boy's story is also full of humor, witty dialogues
(if you happen to understand Japanese) and memorable characters. My only complaint
about Gulliver Boy is about its soundtracks - despite their excellent
quality, most of them use the PC Engine's sound chip. All in all,
Gulliver Boy is one of the best Role Playing Game for the system
and deserves all your attention if you're fan of the genre.
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