Oh Man the Grafx: TG-16 SHMUPs #3 - Steam Heart's

WARNING: The content ahead is NSFW and contains images not suitable for minors.

Steam Heart's is a game I have mentioned a few times before, but it's the first time I have had a reason to go in depth. So put the kids to bed, turn down the lights and grab a bottle of lotion -- we're about to take a walk on the wild side.

We all know the story of Japan and pornography, well at least we think we do. Something about the censors not allowing audiences to see penetrative sex, the Fisherman's Wife, and finally hentai. To separate the truth from the fiction is a tall order but what we do know is this, hentai is a thing from Japan and more often than not it's pretty fucked up. In North America, hentai appeared when the first Internet connections began rolling out in force in the 90s. There's not a man alive that hasn't seen some cartoon tits and a tentacle or two in their lifetime; and while we did have unlicensed crap such as Custer's Revenge and Beat 'em and Eat 'em back in the Atari-era for video game sex, Japan once again kicked it to a brand new level. What you are about to see is another #terribletuesdays post and one about an officially licensed PC Engine game, and as the namesake says: it's pretty terrible.

Catgirl (?) booty.

At its core, Steam Heart's is a pretty standard space SHMUP -- but it's the story line that takes it to new levels of "what the hell, Japan?!" But before we get to that, some history!

Steam Heart's originated on the PC-98 computer, a system I have tinkered around with. Developed by NEC (the makers of the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine) it was originally designed as a business machine. While it was eclipsed by the more powerful Fujitsu FM Towns and Sharp X68000 personal computers; literally thousands of games were created for the system. The most common of these games being dojin titles; a type of homebrew that's found in games, manga and even anime. While us in the west think of a lot of it as fan-fiction -- a large portion of it was original content. Since this dojin market had no restrictions placed upon it, the PC-98 became home to what are known as eroge games, or in simpler terms: porn.

Pew! Pew!

Steam Heart's is a SHMUP mated with eroge, developed by Giga (home to the Variable Geo series of games as well as a host of visual novels) and published by TGL Planning. As mentioned above, it was originally on the PC-98 and later ported to Windows 95, Sega Saturn and the PC Engine Super CD (making this our first CD entry this week). The PC-98 version is the purest and most disturbing of the lot, because while it does have pixel censoring over the naughtiest of bits, the sex scenes between levels is straight up nasty (for the time).

The story is such, the events take place in the Earth-like world of Westina, a fictional planet that is inhabited by eflike and animalistic people. The Westinans had advanced greatly in technology and had already worked their way up to space travel, so much that they were able to create impressive mechs and even battle ships. There are five main parts to Westina, each of which are ruled by a young and beautiful female guardian. Each guardian treated their part of Westina with a diplomatic peace, but each of them also controlled their own fleet of fighters and had their own custom mechs so if they ever needed to defend their area, they had the power to do so.

Westina's form of foreplay involves giant
mechs. Much like Japan.

One day, each of these five guardians alongside their fleets began to ravage their own areas in a flurry of violent assaults; as they were the leading authority of their areas, there was little to no opposition to stop them. Leaving the chaos, two fighter pilots eventually learned of the center of the guardian's madness: each guardian had contracted a space-born virus that made them go crazy. The two also learned that there was an antidote to the guardian's virus which by an odd twist of fate happened to reside within the semen of the male pilot, Blondia Varandy. So now Blondia and his (apparently) adopted catgirl sister Fallandia set out to save their planet by destroying each guardian's fleet and bringing the guardians back to normal, as well as eradicating the source of the virus.

The girls get turned normal by the "D". Not just from Blondia (who by the way is nicknamed "Blow" in a not so subtle twist) either, Fallandia gets the girls warmed up by way of that hentai staple -- girl penis; or as the pros call it: futa. Oh, and because this is Japan there's the requisite loli character -- the pink-haired Layfang Yurifneuty with ram horns.

"My face is up here!"

As a SHMUP, it's capable. While the PC-98 had troubles due to limited processing power, the PC Engine CD version is smooth. As the game starts up, the characters talk to each other in recorded audio, it also takes place during boss battles with an animated portrait in the corner of the screen. It's actually a nice little touch (even though it's all in Japanese). You have your standard shot that can be upgraded and a speed boost that can get you out of some tight situations -- and this is where we have another version difference. The PC-98 version can be quite punishing at times, but the PC Engine CD has kicked the difficulty in the cat-girl-balls and made it a much easier experience. In actuality, even though the PC-98 version is choppier, this version feels slower. You only have one life, but you ship can take approximately six hits before being destroyed, this is displayed on a large status menu on the side of the screen -- added in just for the PC Engine CD release. Since it's on CD, during this whole time you get the benefit of Red Book audio for music and voices; the music itself being pretty decent.

The money shot.

And while it would be strange to play 2-players (do you like, pass the sock?), the option has been removed and instead you choose to play as either main character (with no real change to the game).

After some bland level details and generic enemies, you finally get to a boss battle. These are actually quite good, with some unique patterns and really rad mech designs. Once you beat the boss, well that's when the porn starts. Since Steam Heart's was released on a major console, it has been toned down graphically. The implied rapey/bondage stuff is mostly cut, and while there's some nipple action going on; the less racy bits are not seen -- even with the traditional censor pixels. But don't think you can plop down and play this during a family gathering, them catgirls can moan like only a Japanese catgirl can. It's like watching an R-rated movie with your parents and a sex scene comes on, everyone is going to get uncomfortable mighty quick (unless you live in one of the lower States).

As promised -- nudity.

Without the porn cutscenes (not animated by the way, just still images with voice-overs), Steam Heart's is a fairly standard space SHMUP. I have played the Saturn version, and while it's quite difficult it adds more to the package and takes out even more of the porn; but in the end it's still just average. The PC Engine has a massive library of SHMUPs, especially space themed ones. Without the added catgirls in heat; it would have been just a cheap, bargain-bin title that no one cared about. Just like Toilet Kids that I talked about before, making something as bizarre as possible doesn't mean it's going to be a good game, or even a cult hit for that matter. If Steam Heart's focused a bit more energy on the visuals while playing the SHMUP portion, added in some tighter game play; even with the hentai this could have been a contender for the likes of Gradius, Darius and other well-known properties.

Okay, maybe not.