Another of Bothtec's PC anime adventures. Ranma 1/2 Hiryu Densetsu's user interface makes really imaginative use of the available space. Whereas other adventures display the character you are speaking with in the main 'location' window this game places them on the outside, on the opposite side of the screen to the player's character. With them both positioned either side of the 'dialog' window it gives much more of an impression that the characters are conversing.
Another neat idea is having a separate icon set used for the characters in the room. This means instead of where other games would have you click 'speak' to open a text menu containing the available characters from which to choose the destination you instead simply click on the related person's icon in the character set. A real improvement over all the usual dull sub menus and text.
Of course at it's core, Hiryu Densetsu is the same as any Bothtec (or for that matter any other company's 'click manga') adventure game. The player advances the story by using the mouse to click a small selection of actions, here reduced from the usual stack to just 'Save', 'Look', 'Take' and 'Move'. Allowing the player to click the scenery of their current location is a slight deviation from the norm; bringing the eastern world of 'point-and-click' into the realm or the western 'Look-and-think' adventure.
Obviously none of this really matters if you can't read the test. As you'd expect the contents of the 'dialog' window is always Japanese so unless you have a good grasp of the language or a lot of patience you won't be getting to deep into the story which is a shame as there is much more to this than the average.
Comes on an enormous eight 3.5" floppies! |
