Pasokon Retro is our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist ’80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP.
Seven floppy disks. Seven. Seven.
Illusion City
Dev: Micro Cabin Released: 1991 PCs: PC-98, MSX Turbo R, PC-88VA, X68000, FM-Towns
That’s a lot in any era, but it’s an especially thick stack for a game that debuted in 1991. That was the year double disk Amiga classic Lemmings—the slightly morbid puzzle game which would eventually lead to Grand Theft Auto of all things—was keeping computer gamers very busy, and the Game Boy was one of the most popular portable devices of any type on the planet. Its largest cartridges maxed out at 1 megabyte, less than the capacity of a single 3.5″ floppy.
So what could a whole eight megabytes make possible back then? Walking around Illusion City’s near-future Hong Kong feels a lot like experiencing someone’s custom Shadowrun campaign, Micro Cabin filling the generous amount of storage space with shady corporations to overcome and plenty of demons to kill. Magic and machine guns are equally useful in this stylish RPG’s turn-based battles, and a tightly-written plot ensures the antagonists always feel as directly involved in the story as—and one step ahead of—the likeable main cast.
It was always going to be a good RPG. The story and the setting are too interesting to not draw me in, and the combination of fair battles and dungeons that aren’t lengthy switch-filled monstrosities is always a welcome one.
But it’s the attention to visual detail that makes this game fantastic.
The head-turning intro does an incredible job of setting the tone. It’s all big sunglasses, trench coats, ominous music, and an alluring undercurrent of supernatural danger. By the time it finishes I’m intrigued and on edge—and bracing myself for the change in mood that surely comes after. Just about every half-decent ’90s RPG begins with a fancy opening sequence… and then as soon as it’s over I’m presented with a few rigid little sprites that do very little as endless dialogue boxes open and close at the bottom of a mostly static screen.
Not here. Just this once, that disappointing moment never comes.
The story begins with Tian Ren, professional demon-botherer and eventual hero, sitting up on his sofa. Exciting? N… well yes, actually. Because I can see he’s been snoozing on there fully clothed, under his coat. And when he’s upright the first and only thing he does is reach for a cigarette and start smoking.
Breakfast is served, I guess.
It’s a theatrical performance in miniature pixel art form, an entirely visual representation of the character’s somewhat rough edges and attitude. Later on he’ll ungraciously flop down on other furnishings, arms spread out and legs staying wherever they land, emphasising that this early animation was not a fun one-off but very much an expression of his personality.
This is all deliberately contrasted with the more disciplined heroine’s behaviour in the same scene. Mei Hong gently swivels a nearby chair to face the room before sitting on it neatly, the seat bobbing slightly as she does so. Not five minutes in and I’ve already learned so much about them just by watching the way they move.
The pair eventually visit a club to gather information, and when they arrive the dance floor is filled with people enjoying the show and bopping along to the music, with serving staff milling around the area. It’s a little awkward to navigate all the dancing people and occupied seats to get to the bar, and makes my team look and feel out of place in the process—as they should in a busy place where everyone else wants to get drunk and dance their hearts out.
A later cutaway to the game’s villains takes the time to show vast rows of worshippers kneeling respectfully and armoured guards standing to attention as mysterious figures walk past. And when they do come face-to-face with Tian Ren and friends I don’t need to be told how powerful they are; I can see it in the way my party’s clothes smoulder as they fall to the floor after a single fiery gesture.
Even common enemies have multiple multi-frame animated attacks, and when I do get to fight back I can watch master magicians perform complex gestures that end with lightning strikes called in from above. Defence is more than a nice idea or a button on the UI to press—it’s a physical stance I can see my party members adopt when I ask them to. I don’t need to check the status box at the bottom of the screen to understand what’s happening or what kind of attack a monster’s about to use on my team, because I can always see it for myself.
Illusion City’s animations are almost decadent in places, but never meaningless. These tiny movements, rendered in such low resolution I can pause to count the pixels, help the setting stand out amongst the other RPGs and cyberpunk tales of the early ’90s (and the 2020s come to think of it).
Hover cars, seedy bars, and gleaming companies hiding dark secrets have all been done many times before, but thanks to these details (that even go so far as showing extended startup sequences for the game’s taxi-like transportation service) it’s always obvious that no other sci-fi adventure’s quite like this. Here I’m treated to an endless stream of animated performances, everyone from minor NPCs to major adversaries packed with personality.
Micro Cabin really wants me to believe that this is an RPG—well over three decades old, remember—where individual behaviour and physical expression matter. That this grimy and spiritually besieged version of Hong Kong is so alive it existed before I got there, exists in all the places beyond my limited field of view, and will continue to exist after the story’s played out.
Thanks to the way this game looks, I believe them.
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