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KAITE TSUKUTTE ASOBERU - DEZAEMON
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デザエモン
© Athena 1994
Release: 1994-09-20 (¥12900)
Cartridge SHVC-66
Shooter / Editor Game
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Dezaemon is a vertical shooter editor developed and published by Athena.
This unusual title comes with an already build-in vertical shooter called Daioh Gale,
but this is only half of what's on offer here. Dezaemon allows the player to create his
own vertical shooters - draw all the in-game sprites, design the levels, edit enemy attack
patterns, customize power-ups and even compose the music tracks. Daioh Gale somehow
shows what the editor is capable of, featuring waves of enemy spaceships, power-ups, special effects and
large bosses - and all aspects of this built-in game can be changed and tailored with the editor.
Dezaemon is all in Japanese though, so anyone not familiar with the language
should expect a bit of trial and errors - but the overall interface is almost completely
free of text and relies on easily recognizable and comprehensible icons and menus.
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The Dezaemon game series is little known in the west, but it has been a long-running series
in Japan since then 1990s. The first game was released for the Famicom in 1991. A sequel
(or enhanced version) followed in 1994 for the Super Famicom (version tested here).
Dezaemon Plus was then released in 1996 for the Playstation. This release is more of
an updated an improved port of the Super Famicom version, and it includes ten usergame
shooters (all likely made, except for Daioh Gale, by competition winners). Then Dezaemon 2
followed in 1997 for the Sega Saturn. (Interestingly, Madroms released in 2007 a homebrew
tool called Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager that allows players to copy/transfer Dezaemon 2
user-made shooters onto the Saturn memory card !). Dezaemon Kids! followed in 1998 for
the Playstation and simplified the editor's interface (as a side note, it comes with a second
disk featuring hundred different user-created shooters!). Finally, the last installment (so far) was
Dezaemon 3D released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998.
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Japanese Guidebook
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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Add your Pov here !
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I was first introduced to the Dezaemon series with Dezaemon Plus
for the Playstation, which comes with a large library of fan-made shooters.
This Super Famicom version is virtually identical, only lacking the extra usergame
shooter library. The interface is easy to use, especially the music editor which allows
you to quickly compose and arrange very entertaining and catchy music tracks. Sadly,
a limited amount of data can be saved onto the cartridge (it is not possible to load/export
this data as far as I know). So it seems that the only way to share your home-made
shooter with others is to lend them your cartridge... That is the only caveat,
really, and it must have been rather frustrating back in the days (and
the on-board Ram is rather small). Except for this limitation, the built-in game is very
enjoyable and the editor somehow educational, showing players how 2D games used to be
made. All in all, a unique and fun game, but I'd advice you to hunt down more recent
versions first, such as the excellent Dezaemon 2 for the Sega Saturn.
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