GOKURAKU! CHŪKA TAISEN
game Cover
game HuCard
極楽!中華大仙
©Taito Corp.
Release : 1992-03-13 (¥6800)
HuCard (4 Mbits) TP03021
Shooter / Horizontal
Gokuraku! Chūka Taisen (also known as Cloud Master) is a very unusual, yet cute, horizontal shooter by Taito. It is the home conversion of their own arcade game released back in 1988 - however, this PC Engine version could easily be seen as a sequel (both games do share a lot in common but levels layout and the overall design are very different). The game features a boy riding on a magic cloud who embarks on a journey to free his cute friend. The poor girl has been kidnaped by some evil magic forces and was imprisoned inside a large crystal ball. Weird mythological creatures and other flying cakes and buns try to stop our hero and prevent him to reach his goal. Thankfully, formation of flying dumplings often hide power-ups which either increase our hero's fire power, get him to fly quicker or just make him invincible for a short period of time. Also, special cloud riding enemies are scattered around each stage and reveal magic doors when defeated. These doors lead to shops where a cute shopkeeper provides free secondary magic weapons. Yes, you read it well, no money involved here, everything is free, but our hero can only use one magic weapon at the time. At the end of each area, our friend flies over the clouds and gets to fight an obligatory end-of-stage boss.
Related
Chūka Taisen (Fc)
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Chūka Taisen - arcade
Chūka Taisen - arcade
The original arcade game, named Chūka Taisen, was released by Taito in 1988 (pictures on the right). As expected, several home versions followed : MSX (1988), Sharp X68000 (1988), Master System (1989) and Famicom (1989).

Chūka Taisen is largely inspired by a very popular 16th century Chinese legend featuring a monkey-kid riding on a magic cloud (see Son Son 2 for more information). This PC Engine version is however very different than the original arcade game and can be viewed as an enhanced sequel rather than a straight port.

Interestingly, the Japanese company Starfish later acquired the rights of the game and released Shin Chūka Taisen: Michael to Meimei no Bōken (aka The Monkey King: The Legend Begins in the west) for the Wii in 2007. This new sequel featured a monkey-girl and an interesting feature where the screen could be tilted with the wii-remote to speed up or slowdown the scrolling.

Game Staff (Copied from the end credits) :

Executive Producer
Takeo Shirasaka

Producer
Yoshio Imamura

Manager
Shoji Takahashi

Director
Harutoki Kume
Graphic Design
Keisuke Miyanaga
Kazuhiro Ohara
Akishi Imai
Hitomi Kusano
Erika Tsukahara
Hirofumi Aizawa
Norio Nakagami
Masamoto Fujiwara
Makoto Kimura
Naoko Kitagawa
Yuji Ueno
Hideko Nomura
Sound
Noboru Koshinaka
Isao Mizuguchi

Bug Checker
Kiyoshi Bandoh
Special Thanks To
Mr. Tanizawa
Mr. Takagi
VG Section
Mr. Itoh
Mr. Horimoto
Mr. Kawano
New Face

Program
Yujix 'JN1KTJ' TERADA

GAME OVER
© TAITO CORPORATION 1992
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


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Gokuraku! Chūka Taisen is based on a Chinese legend made popular in the west by Monkey King and Dragon Ball, which gives the game an extra appeal in my eyes. Graphics and character design are very oriental and enemies can look a bit 'weird' at times - well, thinking about it, 'wacky' would sound like a better suited word though. The best example is probably this flying golden statue found later in the game which smokes a cigarette and blows rings of smoke at you. All in all, Gokuraku! Chūka Taisen is a fun and more than correct shooter with a great gameplay and flawless controls. I personally think this version is way better than the original arcade game. The only down side is its difficulty level - I find it way too hard and frustrating to my taste (hence my final score)... but don't get me wrong, Gokuraku! Chūka Taisen is a fine game with really unique premise and visuals (especially for the genre).




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