TORA E NO MICHI
( Tiger Road )
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虎への道
©1987 Capcom
©1990 Victor Musical Industries, inc.
Release : 1990-02-23 (¥6700)
HuCard (3 Mbits) JC-63004
Action / Platform game
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Released in America as
TIGER ROAD
( TGX030044 )
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Tora e no Michi (aka Tiger Road in the west) is a side
scrolling action game by Capcom and conversion of the arcade
game of the same name originally released in 1987. Lee Wong is a
young monk and a student of the Oh-Lin school of martial arts. He's
also a master of the legendary Oh-Lin Tiger techniques. One day,
the warriors of the Dragon God went to rob the four secret scrolls
from the Oh-Lin temple and kidnapped all the children from the village.
The bald and axe-swinging monk doesn't have much choice; he must now go
through five long areas, and save the children and reclaim the Oh-Lin
scrolls. Lee comes equipped with an axe - a weapon of limited range
and accuracy. However, more weapons can be collected along the way by
cracking open treasure chests and statues. The two other available weapons are
the Mace (weak but covers a large area) and the Spear (fast but short range).
Other special items are also
available for the taking - Health Bottles, Invincibility Crystal Balls,
Lives, keys (to unlock special doors) or
Capcom's trademark POW icon which upgrades Lee's
current weapon. Each area is divided into sub-levels and some even branch out and
allow players to fight different bosses. Interestingly, each area ends with a
small training session where the monk can improve his fighting skills and
techniques. There, Lee can gain extra health or learn a new and powerful
Tiger Attack. The monk has few more tricks up his sleeves and parts
of the game feature vertical-scrolling flying stages. Finally, Tora e no Michi
has a save feature and allows the player to continue from the last visited sub-stage, but
a device with built-in backup RAM is necessary (such as a CD Rom unit or a
Tennokoe 2 Bank).
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The arcade game Tora e no Michi was originally released by Capcom in 1987 (picture on the left).
The game was then ported to the Commodore 64 (1988), Amstrad CPC (1987),
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48/128 (1989), Amiga (1989), Atari ST (1989)
and PC Engine (1990). It was later also included in the Capcom Classics Collection Vol.2
released for the Playstation 2 and XBox in 2005.
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The PC Engine version of Tora e no Michi is fairly different from the original
arcade game. Lee Wong's sprite has a cuter appearance overall with a larger head, whereas
he looks more like an adult monk in the arcade version (picture on the right). Enemies are also different, the arcade
game features human-looking foes whereas the PC Engine port uses demons and other creatures.
Levels are completely different too, the original game doesn't start in a forest but right
outside the Oh-Lin school and stages significantly change thereafter. The American
arcade game also allowed players to pick their preferred path at the beginning of the game.
Finally, a short introduction sequence explained the plot of the game and a map
showed the player's progress before entering a new area - both were omitted from the
PC Engine version.
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Teaser text from the American version:
You are the deadliest master of the most powerful of all martial arts,
the Tiger Technique of Oh-Lin. Now your warriors have been annihilated,
your secret stolen, and the children of Oh-lin kidnapped by your blood enemy,
the fighters of the Dragon God! You must battle tye mighty dragon armies and
their fearsome bosses to recapture the secret scrolls. Only then can you
use the awesome Double-Headed Tiger Fighting Technique... your only hope
to defeat the Dragon God himself and save the children!
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Game Staff (Copied from the end credits) :
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STAFF
Program
Tohru Tsuyuki
Kiyohito Takahashi
Naohisa Kurosawa
Yasuhiko Chikuda
Noburu Fujisawa
Design
Naoyoshi Nakazato
Sayuri Kasuya
Reiko Haketa
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Sound
Osamu Kasai
Masaaki Harada
Shinji Nakayama
Executive Producer
Satoshi Honda
Producer
Harunobu Komori
Director
Masaru Yoshioka
Game Director
Takeyuki Kasakura
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Sales
Katsumi Arai
Ryuya Shimoda
Promoter
Kouki Minami
Package Illustration
Sayuri Kasuya
manual
Page 1
Etsuko Matsuoka
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Special Thanks
Hiroshi Miyazaki
Hisashi Nishimura
Masaharu Fujino
Eiji Matsuoka
Akira Arai
Planning
Takashi Wachi
Presented by
Victor Musical Industries, Inc.
1990
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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I'm not a big fan of Tora e no Michi. First of, it is completely
different from the arcade game. It's not really a bad thing per say, but
it won't definitively be a bang for the buck for gamers looking to relive
the original game. So how does Tora e no Michi stands up as a
'remixed version' of the original ? It definitely has the spirit of the
original - good graphics, a lot of level variations and a catchy soundtrack - but
it also shows some serious flaws of its own. Infinitely spawning enemies will drain
your sanity, the poor hit detection only serves to frustrate and the weapons' annoyingly
short range will just discourage even the hardened gaming veterans... It
is a shame because Tora e no Michi looks good and can be fun to play, but
the countless gameplay flaws and the brutal difficulty level just ruined it for me...
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