Dezaemon series
By John Szczepaniak
(If possible, put hyperlinks to relevant sources for some of the games in the second paragraph. Please make sure the Japanese names appear correctly using
Unicode.)
From the moment videogames were commercially available it is indisputable that players dreamed of making their own. From the early 1980s, once technology allowed it, there were games which featured built-in level editors and also numerous dedicated ‘game creation’ titles – all of which continue in popularity today.
One of the earliest, if not the first, was <i>Pinball Construction Set</i> (1983) for home computers, by Bill Budge. Later there was <i>Adventure Construction
Set</i> (1984), <i>Adventure Creator</i> (1984), and <i>Graphic Adventure
Creator</i> (1985), all by different people for different systems. Continuing the adventure theme, in 1988 ASCII released <i>Mamirin</i> on PC-8801, which would later evolve into their <i>RPG Maker</i> series, which saw Western release on the PS1. For shmup fans there was <i>Shoot‘Em-up Construction
Kit</i> (<i>SEUCK</i>) released in 1987 for C64, Amiga and ST, by Sensible
Software. Plus it seems like every fifth Famicom/NES game had some kind of editor in it, from <i>Excitebike</i> to <i>Nuts & Milk</i>.
Fast forward to today and we have Kenta Cho’s <i>Blast Works</i> on Wii, which allows users to design their own levels and enemies based on <i>Tumiki
Fighters</i>. While games such as <i>Little Big Planet</i> continue the trend of user-created content. For computer users there’s also ever-diversifying software to get your creative fix, from <i>Gamer Maker</i> through to <i>Minecraft</i>.
One respected series which never left Japan though, until now, was Athena’s
<i>Dezaemon</i>. It was, much like <i>SEUCK</i>, a shmup development tool – with later releases proving extremely versatile, and allowing users to move (slightly) beyond the genre. With the recent American PSN release of
Dezaemon Plus by Monkey Paw Games, it’s about time the entire catalogue was covered.
Game Designer Yusei Soft – Dezaemon
デームデザイナー養成ソフト「絵描衛門（デザエモン）」
Famicom (September 1991)

Athena’s first <i>Dezaemon</i> was released on September 13th 1991, well over halfway into the Famicom’s life cycle. It was priced at Y9800, one of the most expensive titles released that year, with only two other games eclipsing it – one of which was an epic Nobunaga strategy RPG. To put this into context, that year’s popular <i>Rockman 4</i> was only Y7800. Many other games were even less, meaning <i>Dezaemon</i> was nearly double the price of some games. It came on an oversized cartridge in an oversized box, and promised limitless replay value as players could design their own shooters, comprising three stages, complete with custom background, enemies, bosses and music.
Except, in the context of prior creation software, not to mention other shooters available at the time and its pricing, it was a fairly awful start for the series.
Konami’s phenomenal vertical shooter <i>Crisis Force</i> was released just one month prior on the Famicom, priced at only Y6000, and stands as one of the best shooters for the system. Anyone hoping to recreate something similar would have been extremely disappointed, since you’d struggle even to replicate
Tecmo’s <i>Star Force</i> (1985) using the first <i>Dezaemon</i>.
It’s clear that the first <i>Dezaemon</i> was crippled by its antiquated hardware.
Though considering how commercial developers complained about the difficulty of making games for the Famicom, it’s still kind of miraculous what
<i>Dezaemon</i> does achieve. You have three stages to play around with, and are able to create a scrolling background for each based on 16 customisable tiles.
The catch is you’re limited to only three colours (a palette) for each of these tiles, with up to a maximum of three palettes for all of them (one colour in each palette is always black/transparent). This means drab background designs and no parallax. Also, it only supports vertical shooter creation, not horizontal, so put thoughts of Gradius out of your mind. The reason for omitting horizontal shooters is baffling, since Gradius and its sequel had been popular on the
Famicom – sadly it would take a further three instalments for the series to go hori.
For enemies in each level you can create four single-tile enemies with four animation frames each, one 2x2 tile enemy without animation, and one 3x3 tile boss. With a little effort the single-tile enemies can be placed on the scrolling background in a way that implies a larger spaceship. Simple formations are possible through tweaking numerical stats. Your ship is one tile and has left/right animations, while weapons are pre-defined (three varieties, plus options, each twice stackable). You can customise weapon visuals, power-up icons and explosions.

The graphics editor is reasonable: you can mirror sprites both vertically and horizontally, plus rotate at 90 degree increments, but it’s still incredibly cumbersome to use. There’s also a basic music maker. Due to the outdated nature of the hardware you’ll really struggle to create anything decent, leaving the original Dezaemon as little more than a good history teacher on the
Famicom’s limitations and what real developers had to deal with. Suddenly
<i>Crisis Force</i> seems even more incredible, doesn’t it?
The <i> coup de grace </i> though is that <i>Dezaemon</i> also uses some kind of bizarre S-RAM set-up, and none of the NES emulators we tested were able to run the [!] ROM without corrupting all save data after exiting each design section. The fact that not <a href=“FC/trans1.png” target=“_blank”>one</a> but
<a href=“FC/trans2.gif” target=“_blank”>two</a> translation patches were made is baffling, since the game is absolutely useless without its save function.
You can play the Sample Game (EDIT), but being made with <i> Dezaemon <i>
’s limited toolset it’s extremely boring – they didn’t even bother giving it a proper name!
The emulator problems are unfortunate, since some Japanese owners were able to do reasonably interesting things with it, as noted by <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZeJy2GjoMw” target=“_blank”>Lynx Atari Fight</a>, which sees a Lynx handheld scaling
Nintendo’s office building and later fighting Space Invaders. A video of its creation is <a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onAL8uq4o_o” target=“_blank”>HERE</a>.
Dezaemon / Dezaemon Plus
デザエモン / デザエモンプラス
Super Famicom (September 1994) / PS1 (May 1996 / November 2010 on PSN)
It was to be another three years before Athena released a sequel on the Super
Famicom, called simply <i>Dezaemon</i> again. Two years after this they released a slightly updated version for the PlayStation 1, calling it <i> Dezaemon
Plus </i> . The two titles are so similar, with only one significant modification for the PS1, that it’s best to examine them together. The SFC game was fantranslated, but really you needn’t bother corrupting your ROM when there’s so little Japanese text to begin with, and there are decent <a href=”http://www.monkeypawgames.com/games/dezaemon-plus/” target=”_blank”>online guides explaining everything</a>. In Japan Athena released a guide book explaining how to make best use of Deazaemon Plus,

titled: <i> Super explanation! Dezaemon PLUS 7 Days Master Technique </i> .
( 超解説！デザエモン＋ (PLUS) ７ days マスター術 )
The improvements over the original are phenomenal, with more colours, more animation, a more streamlined and versatile graphics editor, more memory to create things, hugely overhauled music editor with a wide selection of instruments and, best of all, plenty of pre-made graphics to play around with.
For anyone who used Mario Paint (1992) on the SNES, both the graphics and music editors should seem very familiar. You can also use a mouse on both the
SFC and PS1 versions, which improves things as you would expect. The one downside is that both the SFC and PS1 release are still both vertical oriented only – though as we’ll show, there is a crude workaround for this on the PS1.
You can customise your fighter with three frames of animation (left, middle, right), along with the graphics for the six pre-defined weapons and shields plus their power-up icons. This is probably the game’s biggest weakness, since you’re still shackled to Athena’s pre-conceived notions of what constitutes standard weapons. With only a limited number it can lead to different games feeling mechanically the same, unless the author has put major effort into the environments and enemies. On the plus side you’re at least given power bombs this time round – though they’re again pre-defined and based on whatever the current held main weapon is. You can also define two varieties of enemy projectiles, plus small and large explosions.
Enemies themselves are expanded and for each level you can create 16 varieties of single tile enemies (4 animation frames) and two tile enemies (vertical or horizontal, 2 frames). You can also create eight varieties of 2x2 tile enemies (2 frames) and four varieties of 3x3 tile enemies (1 frame). Each enemy can be attributed one of 20 different movement patterns, with eight selectable speeds, along with one of 20 firing patterns with eight speeds of firing. The clever thing here is that you can set any enemy to be an enemy generator, firing not projectiles but instead another enemy with its own design, movement and firing type. The sample game Daioh Gale doesn’t do a good job of showing the potential of all this, and neither do the competition entries in the PS1 game, but with clever tinkering you can set up some epic enemy formations. Forget danmaku, how about zakomaku? All enemies can also be given power ups to drop along with a specific damage strength and points scored.
Bosses meanwhile are made from 32 tiles (4x8), in either horizontal or vertical format. Each can be given three basic movement patterns, along with speeds, plus firing patterns. It’s a fairly restrictive system until you start playing around with enemy generation, in which case the bosses can prove quite formidable.
Enemies and bosses are placed on the scrolling map-conveyor-belt, and can be

introduced with a variety of screen warping special effects. The maps themselves can only be placed in pre-made horizontal bars, so while you can draw them down to the last customised pixel, you’re forced to do some clever jigsaw placement with the resulting horizontal sections. After this all that’s left is to choose music for each aspect of the game, from the title screen and stages through to Game Over.
<b>Dezaemon SFC Satellaview</b>
One of the most intriguing connections to the <i>Dezaemon</i> series are a group of what appear to be – possibly – titles for Bandai’s Satellaview add-on.
Due to the system having long since closed, and the transient nature of its Japanonly content, very little is known about these. Most information has come from
NicoNico users who have uploaded personal videos. One of Youtube’s
Satellaview experts, Kiddocabbusses ( http://superfamicom.org/blog/ ), explained what he knew:
<i> Looking at various Satellaview news archives, there appear to have been a few stand-alone Dezaemon games put up for download that could be played via
BS-X. A concept similar in style is the ‘JEWEL OF LIVE’ video which I actually recorded from a ROM dump Matthew Callis released a bit ago. That one was a game made in RPG Tsukuru SUPER DANTE.
Three videos were uploaded to NicoNicoDouga with the ‘Satellaview’ tag which were the footage of these Dezaemon games and, well, one of them even stars
Satebou as the player! So I believe these were three of the releases in question –
I do not know if I got them all. Most of the references to Dezaemons on
Satellaview I see refer to ‘BS-X Shooting’, which is likely the Satebou-starring one, and ‘Sugoi Shooting’, which could be one of the other two, or neither of them.
The Collective on NND is coined the ‘Satellaview Shooting Trilogy’. Not sure if that's an official title or not.
</i>
BS-X Shooting http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2269297
Sugoi STG http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2269427
Crystal Guardian

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2270170
Crystal Guardian’s soundtrack http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3504557
For more info on these games, and the Satellaview in general, it’s worth checking out Kiddo’s SFC blog.
(http://superfamicom.org/blog/2008/04/examples-of-download-game-satellashooting-trilogy/)
<b>PS1 changes</b>
In being updated for the PS1 there some changes. Firstly, the SFC’s six available levels have been downgraded to only five, though with the improvements everywhere else this isn’t a problem – it’s a nice round number anyway. As a result the sample game on the PS1, <i>Daioh Gale Rev2</i>, is now a bit shorter. There were also subtle changes to power-up appearances and weapon firing, altering game balance. The music editor was also altered, with a lot of sounds being resampled.
The most significant change though is the ability to scale the size of sprites and rotate them, for spectacular results. This is also the aspect which makes the SFC game redundant, since there are so many possibilities once you allow for sprite manipulation. Any enemy sprite can be set to rotate in a specific manner at a certain speed, as well as change size – two sizes smaller than standard, and three sizes larger for a total of six. The effect this has is most noticeable in <i>Daioh
Gale</i> sky stage, where on PS1 massive clouds expand over the player’s ship.
Enemies can be made to shrink, expand, and vary between the two depending on screen proximity and a timer, allowing for some versatile effects. There seems to be no limit to the number of sprites either, and it’s quite possible to flood the screen completely. Collision detection can also be removed, thereby making them harmless, and it can be set so the player’s ship appears either above or beneath the sprite (in this way it’s possible to create an effect of the ship passing beneath bridges and such).
With Athena running a series of competitions for the SFC version, the PS1 game also offers a selection of the better entries: 9 playable games plus a few videos of non-playable entries. We’ve included a gallery below. Unfortunately only a couple of them attempt anything really interesting and, bear in mind, they were based on the earlier SFC version which lacked sprite manipulation. Still, despite

their simplicity, it does mean there are 10 immediately playable shooters on one disc.
Finally, two hidden sample games can be unlocked in the PS1 version. When accessing the Sample Game icon (top icon) hold either L1 or L2 to load one of the two games. The first is the SFC version of <i>Daioh Gale</i> before it became Revision 2, and the second game is a short two-stage shooter called
<i>Omake Power Storm</i>.
<b>PSN re-release</b>
In 2008 in Japan and 2010 in the US <i>Dezaemon Plus</i> was re-released on
PSN. In the latter’s case it was published by <a href=”www.monkeypawgames.com” target=”_blank”>Monkey Paw Games</a>, retailing for $5.99 as a download. They also rather handily made an <a href=”http://www.monkeypawgames.com/games/dezaemon-plus/” target=”_blank”>English language guide</a>, which proves more than adequate to get you started.
What’s excellent about the PSN release, besides the fact that it marks the first time a <i>Dezaemon</i> has officially reached the west, is that trading your creations is now extremely easy. Not only can you create an infinite number of virtual PS1 memory cards on the PS3, but a simple USB key will allow you to back up the save file and distribute it online, without need to tinker with
Dexdrives.
The one negative is that while the game supports PS1 Mouse control, we were unable to get the PS3 to recognise a USB mouse while in PS1 mode. The PS3 will work with a USB Mouse, and it’s possible to scroll through icons and even load up <i>Dezaemon Plus</i>, but once loaded it ceases to recognise the mouse and no amount of tinkering with controller options was able to rectify the problem – if there is a workaround for this, email us at the usual address, or post in the forum feedback topic.
<b>HG101’s side-scroller - and now, a word from our author</b>
Not put off by the restrictions of a vertical only system, I was determined to create a horizontal shooter. The trick to making it was clever use of enemy generators and sprite enlargement. It’s official name: <i>Hori</i>.
To achieve the illusion of horizontal movement I went with a blank background so you don’t see the scrolling. Then I placed a series of invisible enemies along

the far right of the screen, moving down and firing horizontally. Because they’re on the far right you shouldn’t notice that they’re firing in both horizontal directions. Instead it gives the illusion of a star field. I also placed a few enemies shooting fireballs. I used the graphics editor to rotate a pre-made enemy, making them appear horizontal, and I did the same with the main ship and the boss. So all in all it gives the impressions of flying along horizontally.
I also started work on an incomplete second stage featuring harmless clouds, again spawning from a line of invisible enemies along the right side. I tweaked the movement and firing speed of the spawners so they fired only at the bottom of the screen. Then I had the enemies which they spawned undergo enlargement and fly horizontally. There’s only about three horizontal flight patterns to choose for enemies, and none of them fly precisely straight, so it took a while to get a seamless run of clouds. Next I set some cloud enemies to spawn on their own near the top and, here’s the clever bit, had them spawn further clouds which homed in on the player. Since most players hang by the left side of the screen, this would most of the time create the illusion of harmless clouds floating to the left.
Apologies for the poor screenshots, the game was created on the PSN release of
<i>Dezaemon</i> and we were unable to convert the save file to a format useable by emulators. The save file, in case you want to tweak your own horizontal shooter, can be downloaded HERE (HYPERLINK) , while you can read more about the game on HG101’s blog
(http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2010/12/dezaemon-plus-dezaemon-onpsn.html).
<b>Daioh</b>
It’s worth briefly mentioning <i>Daioh<i> separately, since the first was an
Athena arcade shooter released in 1993. <i>Daioh Gale<i> is a kind of semifollow-up, superseded by <i>Revision 2<i> in <i>Plus<i> and then by
<i>Daioh-P<i> on the Saturn, which is kind of a pseudo-polygon remake.
Connected to it are the <i>Shienryu<i> games, developed by ex-Athena staff
Warashi. The entire disjointed family of games deserves their own HG101 article, which will be forthcoming in the future.
Dezaemon 2
デザエモン 2
Saturn (October 1997)

Regarded by many as the definitive in the series, <i>Dezaemon 2</i> makes several significant improvements. The biggest, finally, is the ability to create dedicated horizontal shooters. In fact you now can create a 10 stage shooter (up from 6/5), mixing and matching horizontal with vertical as you please – which is perfect for any <i>Axelay</i> fans out there. In addition to defining stages as either horizontal or vertical, you can also set to them be ‘effect’ stages, to create cut-scenes and cinemas. Another major addition is the ability to make 2-player games. The only slight disadvantage is that a back-up RAM memory cartridge is mandatory to save anything – since the internal RAM just won’t cut it. And not one of those 4-in-1 cartridges either, an official first-party memory cartridge is needed. In Japan Athena released a book titled: <i>Athena Official Dezaemon 2
Last Capture Reader</i>. ( アテナ公式デザエモン２最終攻略読本 ).
Regarding graphics design it’s very much like its PS1 predecessor, albeit better.
Whereas the PS1 port of the SFC game was still shackled by the SFC’s palette limits for individual sprites (16 colours plus one transparency), the Saturn sequel allows for four times as many colours per sprite. Your main ship can now have six frames of animation instead of three. You also have slightly more freedom over your available weapons, with the ability to mix and match from a preexisting pool: your main attacks, subs/options, bombs and charge shots.
Enemies now have an additional size of projectile, and come in a wider range of sizes themselves (seven, up from four). You now also have 2x4 tiles and 4x2 tiles (both 2 frames), plus a 4x4 tile enemy (one frame). The variety of boss sizes has also increased, allowing for four different types. Enemies now have 32 types of movement pattern (up from 20), with eight speeds, while their firing patterns have undergone modification too. So have sprite enlargement effects, allowing more versatility when stretching or rotating, plus the option for fading.
For those who have trouble drawing sprites manually, there’s also a 3D polygon snapshot option. It doesn’t allow you to create 3D models of craft, rather it contains a selection of pre-rendered polygon items, which you can piece together, rotate, stretch, resize, recolour and adjust the lighting on, to then take a
2D snapshot of and save to your sprite bank. It works remarkably well, and is great if you’re in a hurry but don’t want to use the selection of pre-made sprites from the Sample Games. Along with giving your games a faux-CGI/polygon effect, with a bit of clever tweaking to the colours and positions you can create some cool and unique sprites.
Background design is similar to the previous release, and building horizontal levels works much like building vertical ones. The biggest addition is the ability to warp the shape of the background, to give it a tunnel effect. Previously you

could only add different kinds of ripples, but the tunnel option allows for some very slick 3D-looking effects and parallax! Music generation is also similar to previous, except now instead of two sound channels you have four, and you can also do wacky things like have the sound of an instrument extend while altering its note value (see screenshot). All in all, it’s similar enough to remain intuitive for anyone who used the previous SFC or PS1 release, while at the same time allowing enough extra freedom to do some extraordinary things. There is a FAQ available online for help with menu translations (GAMEFAQS LINK? http://www.gamefaqs.com/saturn/580940-dezaemon-2/faqs/30095).
<b> Sample Games</b>
Three sample games are included. <i>Biometal Gust</i> showcases the new horizontal option, and is a follow-up to Athena’s SNES shooter <i>Biometal</i>, featuring some very cool tunnel backgrounds. The second is <i>Ramsie</i>, which is fairly dull but would see a sequel on <i>Dezaemon 3D</i> on N64 and
<i>Kids</i> for PS1. The third is <i>Daioh-P</i>, presumably a ‘parody’ of
Athena’s <i>Daioh</i> games. It’s more of a remake, showcasing
<i>Dezaemon 2</i>’s ability to create sprites using its 3D snapshot tool, so everything has a swanky CGI look to it. It’s possible to load any of these in the editor and play around with them – but it doesn’t seem possible to mix and match the games’ components.
There are also two hidden games. If you hold the L and R buttons and access
<i>Biometal Gust</i>, it’ll load <i>Super-hard Shooting Vexsarsion</i>, which uses the same background but with some interesting enemy designs. Doing the same while accessing <i>Ramsie</i> will load <i>Elfin</i>, a vertical fantasy shooter where you need to kill friendly-looking NPCs. Like <i>Ramsie</i>, this saw a sequel in <i>Dezaemon Kids</i>.
<b>Dezaemon 2 Game Database</b>
While a brief skim of the above features wouldn’t imply a lot of creative freedom, looking through the Dezaemon 2 Game Database reveals a trove of actually quite spectacular creations, featuring some very outside of the box thinking. For anyone thinking of trying <i>Dezaemon 2</i>, it’s worth investigating the homebrew Save Game Manager
(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,d2sgm,,Dezaemon-2-Save-
Game-Manager-Madroms.html) , and the second volume
(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,d2sgm2,,Dezaemon-2-Save-
Game-Manager-Vol.-2-Madroms.html) which was released. Together they grant access to nearly 200 user-created games, some of which are amazing.
Information on the database is available in English on Satakore

(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-complete-dezaemon2,,1,,0.html) . As they explain:
<i>The Dezaemon 2 Save Game Manager (D2SGM) allows you to copy
Dezaemon 2 save game files from CD/Backup Cartridge/FDD to Backup
Cartridge/FDD. It is a homebrew tool for the Sega Saturn (so you need a mod chipped Saturn or need to perform the swaptrick, it also works on emulators like
SSF).</i>
Some of the games in the database are worth mentioning.
Burnin’ Lover ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXr8mMVGkNY ) is a racing game which plays a bit like Bump n Jump. More info HERE
(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,burninl,,Burnin-Lover-
Shilfy-Yo.html) .
Drill Sp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PBemavEpv8) is a strange reverse shooter where you need to drill deeper into the ground. More info HERE
(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,drillsp,,DRILL-SP.-
IGK.html) .
GoGo Tank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hohoOkRcE1Y) manages to replicate a Battle City style tank game with very impressive results. More info
HERE ( http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,gogotank,,GOGO-
TANK-Shigatake.html).
UshiGoroshi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4goZwCkqQL8) meanwhile abandons the traditional shooter stages in favour of one where you need to prevent cows reaching your side of the screen. More info HERE
(http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-dezaemon2,,ushigoroshi,,UshiGoroshi-
HITOSHI.html) .
And there’s nearly 200 more worth checking out (including some maze games).
Below are a sample of screens taken from Satakore’s database.
(LIST OF 50 WITH SCREENS)
Dezaemon 3D
デザエモン 3D
N64 (June 1998)

With the N64 regarded as a 3D powerhouse back in the day, it makes sense that
Athena capitalised on this by making their next <i>Dezaemon</i> entry entirely focused on it. As you would expect, the addition of an extra dimension makes things exponentially more complicated. Annoyingly they also changed the non-
3D components, making everything less intuitive.
Besides 3D other major additions include time trial options for all stages, with you able to set the best time. There’s also now a speed change option for your ship and an overhauled weapon system which allows for lock-ons, giving the chance to make games which play similarly to RayStorm. There’s also small voice samples for use when editing music, though unfortunately they overhauled the entire music creation process, making it exhaustively difficult to navigate.
To ease people into their new polygon rendering role, there’s a comprehensive tutorial explaining everything in detail and with the CPU actually going through the motions. Being in Japanese this will be of little use to importers though.
There’s also a series of pre-made 3D models for you to tinker with, and the game tries to make things easy by allowing you to liberally attach pre-made parts to each other. Even so, there’s no denying that Dezaemon 3D has even greater emphasis on deferred gratification than previous instalments – you’ll be spending a long time working on this before having something to show for it. As a reflection of the extra work needed, the Saturn’s 10 stage limit has been reduced back down to only 5 stages for this. Map creation and enemy placement is similar enough to feel relatively familiar, and there is still a 2D image editor for when you need it. There’s a few <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPDsPpHUIHc” target=”_blank”>Youtube videos</a> which show things in action.
The biggest problem though is the omission of save-pak support – you are limited to the cartridge to save your data, making it impossible to trade creations, and rendering the game mostly useless. Which would explain why there’s no fan community like there is with the other versions. For those tempted to emulate and trade save files, <i>Dezaemon 3D</i> has some serious issues under emulation, resulting in the 3D modelling sections being off-screen (rendering them impossible to use) and certain textures either being overly opaque or not showing up at all. Which unfortunately leaves the game as something of an evolutionary dead-end.
Still, the N64 had a serious dearth of 2D shooters, so three reasonably OK premade ones, on just one cartridge, does make it worth hunting down. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll come with a user’s reinterpretation of
<i>Radiant Silvergun</i> on it.

<b>Sample Games</b>
There are two main Sample Games, and one hidden. The first is <i>Solid
Gear</i>, which has nothing to do with <i>Metal Gear</i> and is instead a sort of mediocre <i>RayStorm</i> clone. You need to speed change, fire and lockon to enemies in a 3D environment. There’s also radio chatter between characters, each of whom has their own portrait.
The second game is <i>Usagi San</i> (Mr Rabbit), and has you blasting anthropomorphic rabbits as they ride motorbikes and get chased by sharks. Not a bad little shooter, it mixes vertical and horizontal shooting, with stage 3 being a reverse vertical shmup (ie: you fly downwards, not up). One problem though is that everything is too large, making manoeuvring difficult.
The third game has to be unlocked and is apparently a follow up to
<i>Ramsie</i> on the Saturn. Athena’s website gives instructions on how to access it, but it’s so convoluted we never managed to get it working. We’ve included a TXT file with Babelfish translation for those wishing to attempt it
(HYPERLINK RAMSIE.TXT) . There are also Youtube and NicoNico videos online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qGOETEPhvw http://www.nicovideofire.jp/watch/sm1169550
Dezaemon Kids!
デザエモン Kids! ( キッズ )
PS1 (October 1998)
Re-released: SuperLite 1500 シリーズ 〜 デザエモン K ids!
PS1 (August 2000)
Released only a couple of months after <i>Dezaemon 3D</i> on the N64,
<i>Dezaemon Kids</i> was likely developed concurrently, and quite probably by a different internal team. This ‘different team’ theory seems all the more likely after trying it, since Athena radically changed absolutely everything found in previous games. It returns to the 2D formula and considering the near perfection of <i>Dezaemon 2</i>, this must be the most frustrating case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater in videogame history. It begs the question: why didn’t they simply port the Saturn version? Roughly two years after the release of <i>Kids</i>, Athena released a Superlite 1500 Series budget

version of <i>Kids</i>. According to unconfirmed online Japanese sources, the save data created with the two titles is incompatible, thereby making the rerelease kind of useless. An official book was also released by Athena, titled:
<i>Athena Official Dezaemon Kids! Official Guidebook</i>. ( アテナ公式デザ
エモン Kids! オフィシャルガイドブック )
As conveyed by the title, <i>Kids</i> attempts to appeal to a younger audience.
It does this by featuring massive bright graphics, and allegedly a more ‘kid friendly’ set of design tools. Unfortunately and ironically, for a game aimed at children, <i>Dezaemon Kids</i> is the most complicated, obfuscated, confusing and unintuitive entry in the series – more so than the N64 game. And not because of some Japanese language barrier, but rather because you have no idea what the significance of a puppies and giraffes are. To follow this example: it took some time before there was realisation of what mice, puppies, giraffes and whales represented.
You see, in the designers’ minds a mouse is small, so represents single-tile enemies. The puppy is in fact a sausage dog, so designates the long thin enemies.
Giraffes are tall, so represent tall two-tile enemies. Which is a ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated system, since in all prior games these were represented by easy to interpret square symbols. Even worse, you only see the heads of the animals, so the icons for the enemy types don’t even visually match what they are – it appears more like a police line-up of Disney character faces.
As for what ship wheels, radar towers, and a whole menagerie of other incomprehensible pictographs mean, we’re not sure. It’s doubtful any child would have been able to comprehend any of this.
There is a voiced tutorial section, but it doesn’t help much, and outside of the tutorial Athena’s green rabbit mascot Peron will regularly chime in with voiced advice, quickly becoming as welcome as Microsoft Word’s Mr Paperclip. Even if you dig beyond this and come to terms with the system changes, you’ll find it’s been cut back compared to the Saturn release – presumably this reduction of the toolset represents the ‘kids’ aspect. The number of enemy sizes is reduced from seven to four, while projectiles, explosions, weapon systems and animation frames have all been cut down as well. The music editor has been removed entirely, limiting you to pre-made samples, and a strange option where the game asks you to insert your own music CD. Stages are cut down from 10 to 6 and you’re no longer able to mix and match horizontal with vertical stages. You can still do horizontal stages, but unless we missed one of the wacky zoo people buttons which allowed it, you’re restricted to only one type for the duration of your creation. Gone also is the ability to have ‘effect stages’ for dedicated cutscenes (unless, again, there’s a strange icon for it which we missed). Finally, the polygon snapshot mode for creating sprites is also absent.

Despite these cutbacks there are also several improvements. One major and extremely welcome change is the ability to use the left analogue stick to move the cursor, which speeds things up immeasurably and allows for improved graphic design control if you lack a mouse. The game also comes with a selection of pre-made backgrounds (with their own selectable degree of parallax), which you can layer with your own custom backgrounds for some impressive results. This is actually an ingenious addition. It’s entirely optional, and you can still create your own 100% customised backgrounds, but if you quickly want some parallax clouds or star fields it does make things easier.
Finally, it’s also still possible to create 2-player games.
It’s actually possible to make some rather complex and impressive shooters, especially if you check out the sample games (a combination of horizontal and vertical titles, including a sequel to <i>Ramsie</i> and <i>Elfin</i> on the
Saturn). Each of the six also unlocks a further game, <i>Elfin</i> becomes
<i>Thrash</i> for example, making for a total of 12 sample games to play around with (there doesn’t seem to be any noticeable difference regarding
<i>Chupacabre</i> alternative though). To unlock them, click on one of the available six games so that Peron the green rabbit gives his warning message.
Then quickly enter the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right) and push Select. If done correctly the screen will shake and an explosion will ring out and the game title will change. Then click to accept Peron’s message and start the same game as normal. After exiting it you can then access it in the design section.
The problem with <i>Dezaemon Kids</i> is that in trying to make the process kid friendly Athena ended up making it needlessly difficult. Which is a shame, since it was the final entry in the series and there’s been little quite like it for consoles in the 12 years since its release. It also saw re-release on Japanese PSN.
It’s reasonably priced, especially since the real reason you’ll be buying it is
DISC 2 which comes bundled alongside (for PSN buyers, click the Home button, choose reset and select DISC 2).
<b>DISC 2</i>
In a similar way that Athena included a series of games in <i>Dezaemon
Plus</i> which had been made on the SFC release, for <i>Dezaemon Kids</i> they included a second disc featuring 102 games developed with <i>Dezaemon
Plus</i>. That’s right, 102 user-created shooters on a single CD. They’re not all of retail quality, and in fact some of them are terribly designed, but there’s enough decent games alone to warrant purchase.

The first on the list (translated: Shadow Wolf) is especially impressive, featuring a demon flying through medieval Japan and fighting other demons. It’s full of subtle details, such as the dead bodies of fallen samurai in the river stage, and has some epic, originally designed bosses. By itself it’s almost worthy as a standalone title. Other highlights include #4, <i>Side</i>, which is a clever attempt to make a horizontal shooter in the skin of a vertical one. Game #101 meanwhile features an impressive stage based on <i>Castlevania</i>, complete with turning clock-gears.
What makes this collection especially good, is for the majority of games you can download their save data onto your memory card to then be loaded with
<i>Dezaemon Plus</i>. It gives you access to countless sprites and music tunes, some of which are very good. Some games, like the aforementioned <i>Side</i>, don’t allow you to download the save data, but there’s more than enough other games to provide hours of tinkering. Another cool feature is that you can mix and match the levels of any game, to create your own Dezaemon remix title.
You’re also allowed to choose which of the 102 characters sprites you want to use in it.
The only slight negative is that with every game using the same standard weapons system, some of them do tend to feel alike. Also, we’re disappointed no one attempted a horizontal shooter like the kind we made in <i>Dezaemon
Plus</i>.
Below you’ll find a gallery with an image for each of the 102 games.
102 GAME IMAGES HERE
<b>LINKS</b>
Athena official website http://www.athena-game.co.jp/
Massive Japanese fan-site http://dezagarou.ame-zaiku.com/
Satakore http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-complete-dezaemon2,,1,,0.html
Satellaview blog http://superfamicom.org/blog/

Shigatake’s Japanese Dezaemon Page http://shigatake.web.infoseek.co.jp/deza/M-deza.html
The Gamer’s Quarter forum topic http://www.gamersquarter.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1849
ADD OTHER LINKS IF YOU CAN THINK OF ANY