Photograph Boy

Now THIS is a unique game! The old PC Engine was home to some pretty bizarre titles, and this one proves it. It's a damn shame it didn't get an American release.

Photograph Boy has you walking (very creepily, I might add) through various locations taking pictures of all of the weird things, I'm led to believe, happen everyday in Japan. The game begins with the Photograph Boy receiving his assignment from the Boss (not Springsteen), thus sending you into the streets to photograph whatever it was the Boss told you to photograph. That's the biggest problem here: I failed every time I played because I didn't know what my objective was! After repeated failings, I guess I finally took the right pictures and moved on.

It really doesn't matter, though. The fun lies in simply observing all the wacky things going on in this thing! You've got people flashing each other, space ships all over, planes exploding and crashing, people tripping over things. At one point the Delorian from Back to the Future tears through the sky! Very cool! Taking pictures of key events gives you points and more film, so, as the late Bob Saget used to say, "Keep Those Camera's Safely Rolling". That was stupid. I should have erased that ...

The controls are okay, but not the greatest. The D-pad controls your character AND the cross-hairs for the camera. The cross-hairs move faster than your character, which is good, but it can still be hard to get the right picture (I think) while you're trying to dodge projectiles. Random Skateboards and bouncing balls are a constant threat, causing you to lose film and temporarily lose the ability to take pictures if hit. You can either dodge them by jumping, ducking, or taking their picture.

This is the kind of game that should be remade on a new console -- it's far better than Pokemon Snap. A game like this could really benefit from the use of analog sticks; one for the character, and one for the cross-hairs. If you can find it, buy it.