3RRSS Tenchi Gokuraku

The gang of No Need for Tenchi, or Tenchi Muyo arrives on the Saturn
from the folks at Yumedia! But what kind of crazy adventures will they
get into to in this particular title? Will there be epic sword battles and
fantastic space voyages? Or romantic mishaps and zany love
triangles? Oh wait, what kind of game is this? (checks back of the
case). A "quiz" game huh? Oh well let's see what if there will be any
need for this game! Oh and it's got a red label (18+) on the cover...

Upon starting the "game" up, you will be treated to the opening intro of
the first six episodes of the anime series. It's a cool intro, and it was
fun to see it on the Saturn. A little grainy sure, but not as bad as some
other Saturn titles. After that we make it to the main menu which is
simply portraits of seven of the Tenchi Muyo cast members. Selecting
each character will take you to their section of the game. So let's start
off with Tenchi now shall we, and make our way to the center, Washu.

Tenchi's section is the "story" section. In this category you can read
about the original six episode ova series and the specials produced
around that time. Also of note you can also read up on the CD dramas
that were released as well. If you can't speak Japanese then this
encyclopedia like section will not really do much for you. But the main
attraction in the story section is the odd fact that you can actually
view all of the original episodes in fast forward mode. It kind of plays
the episodes at super speed while one piece of music plays. I was a
little shocked to see all of this on one Saturn disk, I mean sure they
last like a minute or so each, but still that a lot of video footage
crammed in there.

One thing I should note here is that you can view the special ending
animation that was on the Mihoshi special. Only now it' not like half
screen like it was on the DVD of the Mihoshi special, it's more like
almost full screen, so it's easier to see everything. A definite plus to
the nerds out there.

Up next is Ryoko's section and it the "collection" part of this disk. It's
got info on all the various released merchandise in the Tenchi
franchise. From VHS tapes to books and back to laser disks, this is a
nice section to see all the old Tenchi items. You can view little trailers
for the video releases when you click on them by the way. These
trailers were also included on the old Tenchi Muyo encyclopedia that
was released in the Muyo box set a few years back in the states. Hmm
interestingly enough, there is live footage of the Japanese voice
actresses singing on stage. Never seen this footage before so that
was a neat little surprise. It's kinda silly though, these Japanese girls.

The compact disc section in the collection is cool. It has pics of the
booklets from the CDs and plays some of the music on that CD. Very
cool to those who are interested in them. Some of these songs I've
never heard before, they were like drama CD or just music CD specific.
Like right now I'm hearing one of Tenchi singing-odd to say the least.
The CD section is definitely another highlight on this fan disk.

Aeka's section is the "character" section. In it there are short
biographies and little videos on the main and sub characters. That's
about it here. Still very impressive to see all of these short videos on
disk, and they aren't too bad of quality either!

Mihoshi's section is the "sound effect" section. If you were ever
curious about all the noises in the first ova series of Tenchi, now you
can hear them all over again! I can't believe they actually put all of this
on disc, as who wants to go through this glorified sound effects test?
Bizarre to say the least.

Ryouki's section is the "voice" section. Here the voices of your favorite
characters as they recite your favorite lines. Ok next section please,
the last two were really lame.

Sasami brings us the "CG" section to look at new pics made for this
collection I think and see the stages on how they were made from
pencil to the different stages of development. There aren't too many
pics in here though, no more then ten; so that was a downer.

Finally, there is the washu quiz: six different quizzes. Test your Tenchi
knowledge. If you can't read Japanese good luck.

For graphics, the game is pretty good considering all of the video
footage on here. The actual menus and layouts are kinda lame and
simple, but the pictures and videos all look really good for 1995 Saturn.

There is no music played during any of the menus, so that sucks. But
the music in the CD section and the music during the videos for the
show are all classic Tenchi themes. Can't fault those one bit! But
here's the nasty part. Whenever you select something it makes this
high pitched beep noise that is totally annoying. And here's where
things really start to fall apart for this game.

The loading times are killer. Everything has to load when you just want
to scroll down one item a menu. The loading makes this game almost a
pain to sit through and get to the treasures, and as such it really hurts
it.

IMPORT WARNING: Well, being almost an encyclopedia, the bulk of the
game is information. So not knowing Japanese will really limit the fun
there. But navigating and selecting things is really easy There is a faq
on gamefaqs that lists the answers to the quiz game, so if you wanted
to do that, you would be set. Overall this game is all about text and
information with lots of videos on the side.

So being the massive Tenchi Muyo fan I am, I can say that some of the
stuff on here was really cool. It was neat to see all the video footage
on the disk, but it pained me to see it terribly hindered by horrible man
eating loading times. As for the 18+ on the cover, that's only because
of the nudity in the actual show; there's no new anime scenes here for
you to partake in (unlike say Tenchi Muyo Toko Muyo, which I reviewed
a while back). Tenchi fans looking for a cool new adventure would
check there for that sort of thing. Die hard Tenchi collectors only
should seek this game. It's really more of a novelty then anything.
Expandable if you already own the show on DVD. Oh well, you can
watch the ending theme song as well, and who doesn't love that?

Review by: Orochi Sonic

Note: Non Tenchi die-hards please remove 30 points from each set of
criteria.