175. Sukeban Deka III (Shouei, Famicom, 1988)

Another day, another Shouei game published by Toei Animation. This time it's Sukeban Deka III ("Delinquent Girl Detective III"), a game that I've actually already seen the movie of (it was pretty good for being a dumb movie, from my recollection). The story centers around a trio of schoolgirl sisters who are also detective vigilantes who fight with various improvised weapons, including a yo-yo.

The game itself sounds interesting enough in premise: you control the 3 titular sisters, able to switch between them at will to navigate around a top down world fighting enemies, collecting items, and leveling up to gain access to ninja arts. So it's a shame that such a relatively interesting license and solid game ideas do not come together to form anything even halfway decent because of the terrible gameplay.

The action in Sukeban Deka III reminds me of an even worse version of game #150, Shouei's earlier Hokuto no Ken. Enemies come at you 2 at a time, forever, but here instead of just coming from the left or right, they can come at you from any side of the screen, and their attack are much harder to dodge and more damaging, with only a few his until you are dead. Your attacks also feel limp and noodly. Level designs are repetitive with the same buildings and scenery constantly reused.

Just moving around is a slow chore, and the tight corridors of the game world make it very easy to get stuck on corners. I looked up a guide in my desperation to understand this game, and the guide recommended just staying in one corner of a certain building and just grinding out the stream of enemies until each character was leveled up, at which point I decided to move on to a different game.

1/5, terrible action and controls bring down a cool license; just watch the movie