Zipang

The PC Engine was at its Japanese peak in 1990, and between the action titles and shooters it also carried smaller puzzle games built on one simple principle and a brisk tempo. Zipang, by Pack-In-Video, comes from that group, catalogued as a puzzle game using a platform-style screen layout.

The Japanese puzzle scene at the turn of the decade was extraordinarily productive. After the success of falling-block games, developers hunted for variations, and many of them married a puzzle to an action element: you have to think, but you do not have unlimited time, because something hostile is moving around the screen. Games of this type play well in short bursts and remain legible without any Japanese, which matters on a console whose library is overwhelmingly domestic.

Technically the PC Engine had the advantage in how many colours it could show at once and how it handled sprites. For a puzzle game that means the playing pieces are distinguishable at a glance, and here that counts for more than in any other genre. An unreadable screen kills a puzzle faster than a bad idea does.

On OldGame.cz you can play it directly in the browser, which is genuinely useful for a Japanese title on this system, since assembling a working emulator and image is usually a chore. It is a single-player game. If you are curious about what was happening on the PC Engine outside the big action brands, this is a good sample.