"Sadakichi Sebun: Hideyoshi no Ougon" - Turbografx-16/PC Engine

AKA - 定吉七番の秀吉の黄金

Sadakichi Sebun... I have never heard of this in my life. We've now hit those kinds of games. The subtitle means "Hideyoshi's Gold," and I'm going to assume it refers to Hideyoshi Toyotomi, whom we previously saw a playable lord in Sengoku Mahjong.

The English Wikipedia doesn't even have a page for this game, so right away we've got to check out the Japanese one. The Japanese Wiki links to the page for "Sadakichi Sebun," telling us that it's a comedy spy novel series and the title is a parody of the "007" series that you're no doubt familiar with.

The game was developed by a company called "Soffikusu" or maybe "Softix" or something like that if you want to try to localize it-- basically a play on the "soft" part of "software, most likely. They don't have a page either so I have no idea what else they've made...

Apparently the game is based on a novel by the same name. Also, apparently, it is something like an "AVG" or an "Adventure Game," or as we know them, a "Visual Novel." There are plenty of these to come and they're kind of the bain of most western gamers existences, but there's a lot of them in Japan, and a not-insignificant number that haven't been translated, so I'm really trying to do my duty here.

And on that note, let's play it.

The fact that I didn't know either of those words is a bad sign.

----- Playthrough -----

I'm a little unclear, because this game starts out throwing out kanji like it's saturday morning and there's an all you can grab kanji sale on the front porch cutscene, so I'll put a (?) every time I'm unsure about what I've read: the Osaka Dept. of Commerce and Industry has some spies that do spy things, and one day in the stones of Osaka castle they found a very old document that tells one how to find Hideyoshi's gold (?). They split the document up among their spies to keep it safe, and now they want to find the gold (?)-- so they decided to put in a phone call to Sadakichi Sebun and ask him to meet up with them at a... meeting place.

So when you start out the game, you're in the front office of said meeting place, hanging out with Kaneko-chan, apparently the private secretary there, and right away the game sets the tone-- if you 'examine' her the game gives you her body sizes, and calls her a totally 'fine woman':

"Bust: 86 - Waist: 58 - Hips: 90 - Weight: Se-cr-et"

Your first puzzle is to walk around the office and get your job description, as well as figure out where the guy is who will give you what you need to get started. Like all great detectives and spies, it won't take you long to start searching the most important and likely places in the office, and you have to use your greatest spy intuition to track him down as your first test.

-> [Make Laugh]
"Let's stop talking to ourselves."

Once you track down the man of the hour, he'll tell you about the X pieces of the secret document (I forgot how many) that you'll have to go track down, and also inform you that out there in Osaka, there are X secret agents (six?) that you'll have to track down to get their portions of the secret document and put together to find the gold. With no real direction, you're mostly stumbling blind at first, talking to everyone you can find and trying out all your options: [move (locations)], [look (around)], [examine], [talk], [hit], [take], [make laugh], [praise], [search (for X)], [buy], [discuss], and [items].

-> [Take]
"Stealing is wrong. You'll get hanged."

Eventually, through great determination, you'll track down your first man (codename: Masu-yan), and he'll tell you a little bit more about your mission, give you your first piece of the document, and a list of all of the agents you need to find.

Everyone on the list has differing personalities, from having hobbies like collecting charms from shrines, to raising frogs, and you'll have to refer to this list frequently to figure out where to go and what to do with them.

Oh my god, he's dead! *Checks list*
Oh, no, his hobby is just... drinking sake.

I was able to recover 4-ish out of X pieces of the document while playing, but once I started chapter 2, I recovered one more and immediately got stuck. I tried every option on everyone I could think of in every section of the game I had unlocked, but it was no dice, and I was suspecting maybe I was failing to read something correctly... anyway, I lingered on this review for almost 5 days due to being busy so it's definitely time to write it and put it behind me, and perhaps finish it on my own time.

----- Impressions -----

How long did I play?

4 hours

How much did I beat?
I got into chapter 2 of ???

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Intuitive Design: 

How easy is it to intuitively understand the game?

As an adventure game, there's a certain amount of experimentation that's demanded of you, but all your options are pretty much listed out there for you to look at and try. Assuming you can read the language, you really shouldn't need a manual-- I can barely read the language (I'm learning...) and I got on pretty much fine.

Gameplay: 

How rewarding does playing the game feel? Too difficult?

Everything progressed along pretty steadily for me in the first chapter, but the second chapter apparently was too tricky to figure out. Most puzzles I solved were pretty common-sense/intuitive, and it seems the emphasis is really on the comedy rather than on obtuse puzzles, at least here at the beginning where I was playing. I'm curious to see how it develops, but it's hard to say.

-> [Hit]
"Ouch! That hurts, you know! My glasses fell off."

Depth: 

How deep/long is the game?

There's quite a broad amount of interactions for a point-'n'-click game like this, usually there are only 5 or 6 main ones, but this one has twelve options! A lot of them seem like jokes/useless, but there are specific situations where they end up being puzzle solving tools-- for instance using "praise" to get an old granny to lower the price in her shop so you can afford an item you need.

As for how long the game is, I have no way of knowing.

Presentation: 

How's the sound? How are the graphics?

I only heard three pieces of music while playing the game but they were all catchy enough. After playing the game for a couple hours with the street music playing though, I started to kind of get a headache, but I don't think that's really the game's fault-- if it didn't take me so long to read I probably wouldn't have had to listen to it for so long.

Graphically speaking, the art style is likable and the characters are rendered well considering the limitations. Some look better than others, but on average I didn't see any characters that I thought were obviously poorly rendered.

-> [Make laugh]
"The older man grinned broadly. It's a 100-yen smile. He's an Osaka merchant, alright."

Personal Chord: 

Does the game have that undefinable "something" for me?

I think so. I've always liked these types of games since the first time I played Ace Attorney (the first adventure-style game I really enjoyed), and this one has a sense of humor that resonates with me as a player. I'd really like to play more of it, and will probably continue after the review.

Should You Play: 

Is there a reason to even bother with this one?

It's honestly hard to say with a game I finished so little of. I mostly am just treating this as a chance to let you know about its existence and decide for yourself.

You're going to need to be able to read Japanese, but if you can do that, it seems like an amusing way to spend an afternoon, so far.

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