Games of the Abstract: Kyuin (1996)

 

Developer: Media Entertainment

Publisher: Media Entertainment

One to Two Player

Playstation One

 

Among the many obscure original Playstation games, and sadly one that never left Japan, Kyuin interests in how, for a console that was sold on polygons and pushing different genres in this new graphical shift, this is (with some new bells and whistles) what would be an old type of game then. In this transitional period, of the fifth generation of videogame consoles, still came the likes of this, a scrolling cute 'em up shooter, one that is largely 2D. Beginning with an animated FMV sequence, more for the new CD technology of the time, two children, a young boy and a girl, with their sentient vacuum cleaner are busy tidying their home only to take a book of fairy tales off a shelf afterwards. Inside, a fairy comes out of the pages, asking for assistance as an evil sorcerer (in a game which never got an English translation) has taken over and transformed the denizens of fairytale into monsters. His appearance as the final boss suggests he is even taking over the realm of storytelling in general, so these two children are called upon as much to save fairytales in general let alone this one book.  

Yes, you fly on the vacuum cleaner, getting that out of the way, and for a horizontal shooter that has 3D polygonal sprites for the leads, but is 2D for most of its aesthetic, the traditional shooter mechanics have a unique turn because of this quirk. You have multi-fire power collectables, but as well as acting as part of a two part life bar, which you can recover it you collect an icon when it appears, the vacuum cleaner can absorb objects in front of it automatically. Whether playing the boy or girl, whilst not everything can be sucked up and avoided, you can without pressing a button, just moving close to them, absorb not only projectiles but even enemies, all from stars being fired at you to cherubs from the second level, all kept in the cleaner's bag. There is an infinite bag for the contents, but the power up bar you grow by doing this has a limit of three levels. Activating this creates an invincible projectile blast emptying the bag's contents too. It is a cool idea, and a skill to fill up as it is something which will prove a huge help for later challenges.

If anything, it shows a virtue to shooters of any direction in how they can take a simple structure, one you could make back on an early eighties Atari arcade cabinet with only a few sprites possible, and that the personalities and the unique mechanics of each game are what give them their distinctions. The world onscreen too is distinct, a cute 'em up where you find yourself against many denizens of fairytales, mostly with the bosses showing this. This can be the wolf from Red Riding Hood who can extend his limbs and neck in Dhalsim martial arts blows, or a giant Snow White who has cracked open the roof of a winter cabin, there watching on as the seven dwarves are sent out at you as a squadron of shooters and brawlers. Barring the polygon touches, it has also aged well visually.

It also gets harder and more challenging. Cute 'em ups, what if you made a shooter with penguins (Parodius games among other characters) or tea and sweet obsessed witches (the Cotton series), did not have to be easy or even to sell to kids. Instead, arguably in mind that in Japan, cuteness appeals as an aesthetic for adults as much as for children, there was a Japanese audience who loved cuteness to but want to cut their teeth on a challenge, something you get into the modern day, even if with sexier anime girls, in even the modern tributes in the genre. Among the many games for the original Playstation we sadly did not get into the West, one which has greater cult recognition Harmful Park (1997) feels more easier than how this turns, whilst here, you will be grateful regardless of your skill with these games that this has infinite continues and, in a sit-down session, has invisible checkpoints in each level you can reach. This is something which is a life saving function I am surprised and happy to see here, when games did not necessarily have this, in any genre, back then.

The challenges do amount, where even one involving having to move between hazards like an obstacle course, of giant sharpened snowflakes on a winter wonderland stage, has the grace to briefly show the actual hit box your character has onscreen that has to avoid hazard going into, the developers deciding to both help the player out, and also teaching someone new to these games how the invisible hit box works for shooters. The game, and I legitimately believe the develops Media Entertainment knew of the work of Treasure, even has a parody of Gunstar Heroes (1993), the legendary Mega Drive / Genesis run-and-gun game, in how there is a boss here which feels like a parody of Seven Force, one of the most iconic bosses (and moments) from that famous Treasure developed game, in which in normal difficulty you had to face seven different forms of an entity one after the other. Imagine that here but with sentient tomatoes together creating a multi-form boss.

It is one of the hardest moments, as you have to start each time you lose all your lives, but between scissors that fire more tomatoes at you to a literal bullet hell boss form, it is an inspired parody, and I refuse to belief it was not with mind to Treasure, as fans, from Media Entertainment to parody Gunstar Heroes. That it is not even the final boss of the penultimate level adds the cherry to the cake, leading to a far easier and bizarre boss, still to be careful with, of sentient animals playing musical instruments and singing, with their racket firing giant musical notes of death. Based on an obscure Brothers Grimm tale, of the Town Musicians of Bremen, based on older tales, this touch of including a story even I did not know of, of an aging quartet of animals - a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster - who are ignored by their human owners, and deciding the leave and live better lives as musicians, was a very funny breath of fresh air after the harder mini-boss with even a sweet nod to classical literature. The final boss, the big bad who takes up most of the finale, is naturally the most difficult. Its sense of challenge as a game in general though, not even taking into consideration its two player co-op option, is balanced, where even the nightmare of that conclusion, with a life bar in numerical form life an intimidating JRPG final boss, feels least like the epic conclusion the game needs. This is more so, as with the tomato boss, the game in fairness will occasionally even give you power-ups to try to make it easier if you keep hitting a brick wall.

It is a surprise Kyuin is as obscure as it is, never having heard of this until I searched for obscure PSX shooters. Sadly, despite the Playstation 2 having backward compatibility with PSX games, and the PS3 with PS2 and PSX games, Sony's preservation of their back catalogue became an albatross rightly hung around their necks. That in 2022, Sony have set up their own in-house preservation group was poignant in mind to this problem¹, more so when a quote by Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan about seeing Gran Turismo titles of the past looking old graphically helped make the albatross around their necks around preservation of their catalogue heavier¹ whether misquoted or not. Whatever the case, being quoted in saying "The PS1 and the PS2 games, they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?" did not help them at all, and helps no one, regardless of context¹.

The original Playstation, alongside the Sega Saturn, when you get into the Japanese exclusives is fascinating for how many curiosities exists, more so as Media Entertainment, probably not helped by their generic name, are an obscurer publisher/developer from Japan. They have made distinct sounding games - Maze Heroes: Meikyuu Densetsu (2002) is a Japanese only PSX board game/rpg hybrid which sounds absolutely fascinating if handicapped if you cannot read/speak Japanese - but most of their catalogue cuts off by 2003². The Playstation was a beast in success, so just in terms of Japanese exclusives it had a huge back catalogue that is sadly undiscovered and, in many cases, unpreserved even in terms of misguided and fascinating oddities. With Kyuin, this is however a gem worthy of a cult following, and I literally fell over it.

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1) Sony is building a game preservation team, published by Engadget.com on April 27th 2022, written by K. Holt.

2) The GameFAQs page for Media Entertainment.