No, I did not make this game up. That epilogue was real. Zero4 Champ II is a real game, and is just as unknown to Westerners as the first one!

It was released in 1993 - two years after the first came out.



Unlike the first game, this one sadly does not feature a MR2 on the cover, but it can be forgiven as it does have a NSX, a car notably absent from the first game and the newer generation Soarer and RX7.

Gah. It's taking everything in my power to not bore you incessantly with facts about these cars, but… all in due time…

Now, a forewarning. Like when I first started the Zero 4 Champ LP - I didn't not know much about this game, and this time around I know even less. I've put about 30 minutes into it, to try and see what's up, and will try not to get too far ahead to leave it as a surprise for all of us.

Like the first game, this was released in Japan only on the PC Engine, but, not as a cartridge this time - on a SUPER CD ROM - as part of the PC Engine CD expansion. This expansion gave the console extra storage space for graphics and CD quality audio.

Just look at this crazy thing. It took what was a tiny sized console, and made it the size of something a little more familiar today.



Fun fact, this was the very first console that had CD-Rom. Remember, this was in 1987!

And continuing our reverence for bubble era Japan - let's take a moment to recognize just how futuristic japan was in the 1980's through early aughts. It wasn't just cars - Japan had its shit together when it came to computers and electronics.

As an example, the original Nintendo came out (as the Famicom) in 1983 in Japan. It didn't hit western markets until late 1985, by which Japan already had something more technically impressive like the PC Engine, then the Genesis and so forth. Back in those days, it would usually take Americans 2 or three years to get their own variant, then another year or more for the rest of us plebeians in the rest of the world.

This continues through to the aughts. I distinctly remember people importing cell phones from Japan because holy shit, they had video games and inbuilt cameras.

Sadly visiting Japan today isn't as much a marvel as it was once for technology - it's no longer 'holy shit this toilet plays music, heats up and sprays water up my butthole' - it's more 'holy shit this toilet plays music, heats up and sprays water up my butthole and it's clearly been here for 30 years and it's still working'

So, anyway, this game was released quite late in the PC Engines life (though apparently they were making games for it up to 1999!) but its a great demonstration of the hardware capability, especially compared to the first game. All that extra memory and storage space from the CD Rom add-on is used to great effect. It has much more expansive art, expressive character portraits, more pixels in the backgrounds, more music and animation.

Just check out the badass animated intro of Hiro attacking the mountain pass.



Hopefully that will get your blood pumping for this sequel. It certainly did mine.

Again, love people's providing input and posting - so please keep commenting and tell your friends!