Agerna is a planet rich in Vizorium, the one mineral necessary to space travel. So when a series of mysterious attacks on mining operations has the governments of the world pointing fingers and blaming each other, the World Welfare & Works Association naturally sends in their top agents to investigate. But are the lovely angels up to the task of stopping a mad scientist bent on taking a long dormant alien race to its final evolutionary form? Throw in a thief who's hunting a bottle of World War II-vintage wine and it's a safe bet that nobody on the planet is safe. It's more chaos, more mayhem and even more destruction than ever before as the Dirty Pair take on their wildest case yet!
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Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8
This game is a really bad game, that is only worth mentioning because it features.. TADA! The Lovely Angels! Maybe I’m too tough on the game (it came out over fifteen years ago, for God’s sake), but it certainly doesn’t hold up well in any case. The first stages are just your running and shooting things with your pistol stages. Sometimes you can grab a medallion thing and Kei can come in her little car thing and you can hop in and fly through the stage! And then you will get to the vaguely Metroid-ish base stage and you will get stuck and quit playing. So there.
This game is a really bad game, that is only worth mentioning because it features.. TADA! The Lovely Angels! Maybe I’m too tough on the game (it came out over fifteen years ago, for God’s sake), but it certainly doesn’t hold up well in any case. The first stages are just your running and shooting things with your pistol stages. Sometimes you can grab a medallion thing and Kei can come in her little car thing and you can hop in and fly through the stage! And then you will get to the vaguely Metroid-ish base stage and you will get stuck and quit playing. So there.
Wtf? I’m back writing a review again?? I thought I was done doing reviews, it’s been like what three weeks? Well so much for retirement, doing another bad review. For some reason my mind kept telling me to do this game for a review.
So what do we have here? checks notes OH! Right, a Dirty Pair game. I just finished this anime a couple of days ago and thought it was great. I’m not too familiar with 80s Anime but I’ve wanted to watch this one for years and was really glad I tried it. Though this game is specifically based off of the movie which is…fine. It looks really nice especially stuff like that opening but idk, I felt kind of bored watching it and I swear the sound design in it just feels like the budget gives up near the end. Though as I always say, my Anime opinions are…well Idk what to say without being harsh on myself so let’s move on.
The game was developed by some company named Daiei Manufacturing, it was actually hard to find who worked on it because a lot of sites oddly don’t know. Thank god for some sites actually knowing who it was. There is also a hidden programmer in this game named Yujix Terada but otherwise it seems everyone else went uncredited though maybe some site lists them, I don’t really care enough to check. This game was released very quickly after the movie came out and it’s published by Bandai so that’s never a good sign. I mean just think of how many times this happened with TOSE when they made Famicom games for them.
So let me tell you about the game, I was dreading this but it was good to finally get it out of the way. The first “Scene” that’s what levels are called btw, is like this weird auto scroller action game sequence. I guess you could say it’s like a shmup but you’re on foot as Yuri defeats anything in her way. But man I’m already noticing some issues like you die in one hit AND you don’t have a single checkpoint! Hoho boy this is already turning out great right here! Yep, it's one of those kinds of games. It also has enemies you can’t kill normally, ones that go in weird patterns, and they never go away. They are constantly respawning less than a second after they are down. Hell when you get to the end sometimes they keep spawning at the exit meaning you have to time it perfectly to leave. There’s 4 sections of this too and the scrolling is so slow, even Yuri is slow for some reason. These girls are athletic and they don’t show any of that unless you wanna argue jumping high counts. Kei can also show up if you grab a certain powerup and you can go a lot faster and shoot more bullets but you still die in one hit and sometimes the game just kills Kei but I’m fine?? I don’t get it.
Then you reach Scene 2 and now you’re gonna have to get ready for what true hell is for this game. If the previous gameplay wasn’t enough to have you turn back then this will for sure. You have to go through this maze of rooms finding 8 disks and you also still die in one hit. Sure you have items but with how fast enemies respawn in rooms you won’t get much use, you might as well learn how to defeat them normally. At least you can respawn in the room if you’re in if you die but a game over means back to the beginning and you only have 3 lives! This is so ridiculous like you know what also sucks?? The hitboxes. You see because the hitbox is made with a 2D plane in mind but here it’s a room where you move in the 4 directions in but they never considered the problem of enemies that clearly aren’t touching you will kill you because of this flaw. You will yell from all the BS this will cause and it’s infuriating. By that point I just said screw it and followed a video guide to get me through it.
You know what I also can’t stand about this game? The freaking music, it’s so short and there’s only 2 songs that play in the entire game. I’m not even sure if they’re from the source material because I’m too busy being pissed off that this game exists to even think about it. Another thing I can’t stand is the damn doors. Some of them don’t open and the way you learn how to open them is so stupid. You might need to jump in some spot next to them, shoot the door, or even get a card key. Oh btw you better hope you place it in the right spot because sometimes it just doesn't work idk, IT JUST DOESN’T AND I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHY! At least once you find the exit and have all of the disks then that level is done for thank god and pray you don’t get a disk error when trying to change sides.
The 2nd half of the game is basically the same but are harder and obviously the levels are different design wise. I also notice you just never see Kei again and it confused me like what was she busy with Carson? He’s not even in this game I don’t think. Actually why was Gooley even in the intro for this game? He wasn’t in the movie. In fact this game doesn’t do a good job at all at portraying the movie, you could play this game without knowing the source material and it would barely feel different. The worst kind of licensed game. Actually hmm I wonder if that’s why there’s one hit deaths? Think about it, stuff like a bullet through their body would easily kill them if it happened in the Anime, maybe they were just that dedicated to the source material that they didn’t want fans booing them for inaccuracy! Nah, it was probably just a coincidence. At least Mughi and Nanmo show up though idk what the hell Nanmo does, he just shows up as an item sometimes. Mughi showed up twice for me in the 3rd scene and kills every enemy on screen. Still if you got this far, you’re probably dedicated enough to see the end.
The last scene is just as bad as before and now you need 9 of those disks just great. I don’t really even have much to say tbh. Actually there was that invincibility item, why the hell does it have different timers depending on the level? It’s super short in the odd number levels. There also was a screen nuke item that killed me in scene 3 but never anywhere else so I’m just gonna say the devs screwed up because the game ain’t gonna tell you what you did wrong! There was one guy in scene 4 that I just didn’t interact with because I was too scared to bother. There was also this little ship thing that was in the movie that took all of my hearts, idk what it even does. By the end you see the professor (yeah remember when this was about the freaking movie?) and he goes through the wall, you shoot the thing in the room and you win. Wow cue bad noises here woohoo! Though Gooley fired me after I won, yeah I’m going back in time to stop the two from saving your ungrateful self in episode 26, jerk. You wanna know how to get a better ending? It’s based on your shot accuracy, yeah isn’t that so STUPID?! Who would think of that as the answer??? Bah it doesn’t even matter because it’s just a bit of text, HE AIN’T EVEN IN THE MOVIE WHO CARES! You know I just realized neither of the girls talk in this game. This is so messed up. I’m so mad.
Well I did learn that if you play 2 player, it’s actually a co-op mode and the 2nd player is Kei. Yeah I sure wish I could have been playing her but they’re both awesome so it’s not a big deal. Though don’t even try to play 2 player if you think it improves the game because it’s even worse. Remember how you die in one hit? Well you both share that one hit meaning if either of you get hit, that’s one life gone. Did the devs just try to program the simplest code and share it with things to save time?? You know what I’m not even gonna argue because do I sound like a person who knows how coding works? I don’t even wanna talk about how it looks graphically.
Dirty Pair Project Eden is a decent piece of media that while it won’t amaze you, it can still be a decent time. Then you got the piece of sh*t FDS game which is atrocious in many ways. Look I know there is way worse on the Famicom and the FDS but as a tie in game, it fails. Nothing about this game improves with me knowing the source material. In fact all it really did was anger me more. Did you know this is the only Dirty Pair game ever? It’s such a damn shame and while I don’t mean any harm to the devs, I’m sure this was a low budget small time to make a game and they probably did the best they could. It’s just frustrating and none of it is enjoyable. I could see it being at least a little bad or borderline OK if stuff was fixed but this has to be one of the worst games I’ve ever played. It’s not Athena bad but it feels close at times. All I can really say is just don’t bother and go watch the Anime as it’s way more worth your time. At least some games kind of remind me of Dirty Pair like that Layla game and the Battle Mania duology and those are way better games might I add. Well that's my very angry review, thank you for reading.
So what do we have here? checks notes OH! Right, a Dirty Pair game. I just finished this anime a couple of days ago and thought it was great. I’m not too familiar with 80s Anime but I’ve wanted to watch this one for years and was really glad I tried it. Though this game is specifically based off of the movie which is…fine. It looks really nice especially stuff like that opening but idk, I felt kind of bored watching it and I swear the sound design in it just feels like the budget gives up near the end. Though as I always say, my Anime opinions are…well Idk what to say without being harsh on myself so let’s move on.
The game was developed by some company named Daiei Manufacturing, it was actually hard to find who worked on it because a lot of sites oddly don’t know. Thank god for some sites actually knowing who it was. There is also a hidden programmer in this game named Yujix Terada but otherwise it seems everyone else went uncredited though maybe some site lists them, I don’t really care enough to check. This game was released very quickly after the movie came out and it’s published by Bandai so that’s never a good sign. I mean just think of how many times this happened with TOSE when they made Famicom games for them.
So let me tell you about the game, I was dreading this but it was good to finally get it out of the way. The first “Scene” that’s what levels are called btw, is like this weird auto scroller action game sequence. I guess you could say it’s like a shmup but you’re on foot as Yuri defeats anything in her way. But man I’m already noticing some issues like you die in one hit AND you don’t have a single checkpoint! Hoho boy this is already turning out great right here! Yep, it's one of those kinds of games. It also has enemies you can’t kill normally, ones that go in weird patterns, and they never go away. They are constantly respawning less than a second after they are down. Hell when you get to the end sometimes they keep spawning at the exit meaning you have to time it perfectly to leave. There’s 4 sections of this too and the scrolling is so slow, even Yuri is slow for some reason. These girls are athletic and they don’t show any of that unless you wanna argue jumping high counts. Kei can also show up if you grab a certain powerup and you can go a lot faster and shoot more bullets but you still die in one hit and sometimes the game just kills Kei but I’m fine?? I don’t get it.
Then you reach Scene 2 and now you’re gonna have to get ready for what true hell is for this game. If the previous gameplay wasn’t enough to have you turn back then this will for sure. You have to go through this maze of rooms finding 8 disks and you also still die in one hit. Sure you have items but with how fast enemies respawn in rooms you won’t get much use, you might as well learn how to defeat them normally. At least you can respawn in the room if you’re in if you die but a game over means back to the beginning and you only have 3 lives! This is so ridiculous like you know what also sucks?? The hitboxes. You see because the hitbox is made with a 2D plane in mind but here it’s a room where you move in the 4 directions in but they never considered the problem of enemies that clearly aren’t touching you will kill you because of this flaw. You will yell from all the BS this will cause and it’s infuriating. By that point I just said screw it and followed a video guide to get me through it.
You know what I also can’t stand about this game? The freaking music, it’s so short and there’s only 2 songs that play in the entire game. I’m not even sure if they’re from the source material because I’m too busy being pissed off that this game exists to even think about it. Another thing I can’t stand is the damn doors. Some of them don’t open and the way you learn how to open them is so stupid. You might need to jump in some spot next to them, shoot the door, or even get a card key. Oh btw you better hope you place it in the right spot because sometimes it just doesn't work idk, IT JUST DOESN’T AND I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHY! At least once you find the exit and have all of the disks then that level is done for thank god and pray you don’t get a disk error when trying to change sides.
The 2nd half of the game is basically the same but are harder and obviously the levels are different design wise. I also notice you just never see Kei again and it confused me like what was she busy with Carson? He’s not even in this game I don’t think. Actually why was Gooley even in the intro for this game? He wasn’t in the movie. In fact this game doesn’t do a good job at all at portraying the movie, you could play this game without knowing the source material and it would barely feel different. The worst kind of licensed game. Actually hmm I wonder if that’s why there’s one hit deaths? Think about it, stuff like a bullet through their body would easily kill them if it happened in the Anime, maybe they were just that dedicated to the source material that they didn’t want fans booing them for inaccuracy! Nah, it was probably just a coincidence. At least Mughi and Nanmo show up though idk what the hell Nanmo does, he just shows up as an item sometimes. Mughi showed up twice for me in the 3rd scene and kills every enemy on screen. Still if you got this far, you’re probably dedicated enough to see the end.
The last scene is just as bad as before and now you need 9 of those disks just great. I don’t really even have much to say tbh. Actually there was that invincibility item, why the hell does it have different timers depending on the level? It’s super short in the odd number levels. There also was a screen nuke item that killed me in scene 3 but never anywhere else so I’m just gonna say the devs screwed up because the game ain’t gonna tell you what you did wrong! There was one guy in scene 4 that I just didn’t interact with because I was too scared to bother. There was also this little ship thing that was in the movie that took all of my hearts, idk what it even does. By the end you see the professor (yeah remember when this was about the freaking movie?) and he goes through the wall, you shoot the thing in the room and you win. Wow cue bad noises here woohoo! Though Gooley fired me after I won, yeah I’m going back in time to stop the two from saving your ungrateful self in episode 26, jerk. You wanna know how to get a better ending? It’s based on your shot accuracy, yeah isn’t that so STUPID?! Who would think of that as the answer??? Bah it doesn’t even matter because it’s just a bit of text, HE AIN’T EVEN IN THE MOVIE WHO CARES! You know I just realized neither of the girls talk in this game. This is so messed up. I’m so mad.
Well I did learn that if you play 2 player, it’s actually a co-op mode and the 2nd player is Kei. Yeah I sure wish I could have been playing her but they’re both awesome so it’s not a big deal. Though don’t even try to play 2 player if you think it improves the game because it’s even worse. Remember how you die in one hit? Well you both share that one hit meaning if either of you get hit, that’s one life gone. Did the devs just try to program the simplest code and share it with things to save time?? You know what I’m not even gonna argue because do I sound like a person who knows how coding works? I don’t even wanna talk about how it looks graphically.
Dirty Pair Project Eden is a decent piece of media that while it won’t amaze you, it can still be a decent time. Then you got the piece of sh*t FDS game which is atrocious in many ways. Look I know there is way worse on the Famicom and the FDS but as a tie in game, it fails. Nothing about this game improves with me knowing the source material. In fact all it really did was anger me more. Did you know this is the only Dirty Pair game ever? It’s such a damn shame and while I don’t mean any harm to the devs, I’m sure this was a low budget small time to make a game and they probably did the best they could. It’s just frustrating and none of it is enjoyable. I could see it being at least a little bad or borderline OK if stuff was fixed but this has to be one of the worst games I’ve ever played. It’s not Athena bad but it feels close at times. All I can really say is just don’t bother and go watch the Anime as it’s way more worth your time. At least some games kind of remind me of Dirty Pair like that Layla game and the Battle Mania duology and those are way better games might I add. Well that's my very angry review, thank you for reading.