Koutetsu Sangokushi: Lu Xun Would Strew the Very Ground with His Liver & Brains to Requite His Dear Master's Love

Of the three sides that made up China's Three Kingdoms era, the origin of Eastern Wu is probably the most interesting, mainly because it was very heavily based around family. Allegedly claiming to be a descendant of the legendary general Sun Tzu, the attributed author of The Art of War, Sun Jian was the patriarch of the Sun Family when the Yellow Turban Rebellion started in 184 AD/CE & was also part of the later coalition that formed in an attempt to dethrone Dong Zhuo from his tyrannical reign. During the attempted coup Sun Jian found the imperial seal, which had been hidden away after Dong Zhuo's forces left then-capital Luoyang, and felt that this discovery was proof that it was his family's destiny to eventually rule over the land. Unfortunately, Sun Jian would later be killed by the forces of Liu Biao in 191 via an ambush, upon which his oldest son Sun Ce took command at only the age of 16. It was Sun Ce who would conquer the lands of Jiangdong & Wu throughout the 190s, which is where his nickname of "The Little Conqueror" would come from, before he himself would be killed in 200, though the exact circumstances of his death are debated; Romance would take a more supernatural path via the sorcerer Gan Ji. Command would then go to Sun Ce's little brother Sun Quan, who would eventually go on to found Eastern Wu in the region that Sun Ce had taken control of. Decades later Wu would be the final kingdom to fall when the Jin dynasty conquered it in 280, at this point (poorly) ruled by Sun Quan's grandson Sun Hao, bringing an end to the Three Kingdoms era itself. While Sun Quan is technically the central figure of Wu & is contemporary to Liu Bei & Cao Cao, in truth Wu is very much a story about the Sun Family as a whole, and the friends, family, & allies they accumulated to get to that point.

In that regard I can sort of see why, whenever anime adaptations of Romance were made back in the 80s & 90s, the focus was put primarily on Liu Bei & Cao Cao, as those two made for the perfect "protagonist/antagonist" pairing, and Wu would only really get involved when it came to the iconic Battle of Chibi (& Sun Jian discovering the imperial seal, before that). Also, despite their importance in the overall story of the era itself, Wu was kind of doing its own thing for the most part, as once Sun Ce found a proper home for his people before his death they were essentially an uninvolved third party until Cao Cao started encroaching on their territory & Zhuge Liang decided to use Wu to help hold back Cao Cao's ambitions, in order for Liu Bei to properly establish his own kingdom of Shu. Still, there is an interesting story to be found within Wu, and in 2007 a TV anime would be produced that finally put the focus on the seemingly oft-ignored third kingdom. Co-produced by NAS and (of all companies) Konami Digital Entertainment, Koutetsu Sangokushi/Steel Three Kingdoms debuted in late-night on TV Tokyo on April 5, 2007 & was part of a larger multimedia "Koutetsu Sangokushi Project" which included a manga version by KYO that actually came first in late 2006, as well as a radio program that debuted the prior January & aired throughout the entire year, two light novels that acted as both a prequel & collection of side stories, a trio of drama CDs, and even a stage show in June of 2008. Oddly enough, considering that Konami's literal video game division was a co-producer, there was no Koutetsu Sangokushi video game... and this was back when Konami was still very much active in the video game business, as seen the last time Konami was related to an NAS-produced TV anime.

Anyway, I remember when Koutetsu Sangokushi first debuted back in the day & I was admittedly a bit curious about giving it a go, since I super into Dynasty Warriors 5 & felt that it was cool to see Wu be given the focus in an anime, for once. So I gave the show a try via the fansubs as it was coming out, but after a few episodes just never got back to it, partially due to how... different it was; I'll get to that in a bit. However, this show would wind up being the first (&, to this day, only) TV anime adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to ever see an official English release when it was added to Viki's catalog for streaming in May of 2012, alongside Don Dracula, The Three-Eyed One, & Marvelous Melmo; yeah, one of these is not like the others, for sure. However, unlike the modern Rakuten Viki that exists, this was back when Viki almost exclusively relied on crowd-sourced translations for all of its offerings (the first 19 episodes of Koutetsu were subbed as of the ANN news article, but I can't vouch for the rest), and the site itself wasn't really known that much by anime fans in the first place; regardless, it's definitely not streaming anywhere officially in English anymore. Despite how I wound up trailing off of the show back in the day I still always have had some curiosity about Koutetsu Sangokushi, and since this year I decided to watch & review a bunch of anime adaptations of Romance I might as well include this series in the festivities, mainly because it's the de facto Wu-focused adaptation... even though it's easily the loosest "adaptation" of them all.

Obscusion B-Side: Hresvelgr (Formula Highpowered & International Edition/Jet Ion GP): Damn It, Gust, You're an Alchemist, Not a Pilot!

When it comes to video games, it's kind of natural for certain developers to become associated with specific genres & the like, and when they break away from that association it kind of makes the game more notable for that very reason... or possibly infamous. For example, Square is known mainly for its RPGs, which made a shoot 'em up like 1997's Einhänder all the more interesting to see from the company, especially since Einhänder is a rather cool shooter. Meanwhile, a company like Capcom is known for developing within a wide variety of genres, but then you still have titles from outside of their wheelhouse, like racing sims Auto Modellista & Group S Challenge/Circus Drive, or the Finder Love games on PSP, which mixed together dating sims with photography sequences starring real-life bikini models. There's nothing inherently wrong with a game studio trying something different from what they're normally known for, but at the same time there is always that feeling of "They don't tend to make these kinds of games for good reason", even if the game itself actually winds up being really good.

So did the subject of this B-Side manage to succeed "in spite of" being outside of its developer's comfort zone, or was it an example of proving people's hesitation right? Let's find out!

Founded on October 1, 1993 in Nagano, Gust was formed as a spin-off of the amusement software development division of Keiken System (which owned Gust until December 2011, when Koei Tecmo acquired the studio) & initially started off as a doujin developer. Gust would make its retail debut in 1994 with The Story of King Aress, a tactical RPG for the PC-98 that notably featured character designs by mangaka Seisaku Kanou, but it didn't take long for the studio to "go legit". Gust would become an officially licensed developer following The Story of King Aress & would make their "official" debut with Falcata in 1995 for the PlayStation, which was another tactical RPG-like title. However, RPGs weren't the only things that Gust would develop in its first few years, as while the studio would eventually become successful with the release of Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg for the PS1 in 1997 (which, in turn, would create a franchise that's still going strong to this day) it also made a variety of adventure-style games, namely the Welcome House duology in 1996, Karyujou/Fire Dragon Girl in 1997, & The Adventures of Robin Lloyd in 2000, all for the PS1 (& Sega Saturn, for the first Welcome House). Gust was even (allegedly) hired to develop a fighting game that wound up never coming out due to publisher Zamuse going out of business... though the TV anime adaptation produced by Toei Animation did actually air in late 1994. While RPGs were definitely already becoming Gust's bread & butter by 2000, the studio was still willing to experiment with other genres.

However, that would all change after that specific year. Five months following The Adventures of Robin Lloyd came out on January 6, 2000, & two months after Windows PC ports of Atelier Marie & Atelier Elie that April, Gust would release its very first "next-gen" title: Hresvelgr: Formula Highpowered. Named after the eagle-shaped jötunn that created the wind seen in Norse mythology, Hresvelgr was released on June 22, 2000, was Gust's very first game for the PlayStation 2 (which Gust would primarily develop for up through 2008), & as a racing game was also a first for Gust. However, it wasn't just your standard racing game, by any means, because Hresvelgr was a rarity by being a futuristic air racing game. Due to it being a PS2 game that came out prior to the console's international launch later that fall it wound up getting some international coverage at the time, with the likes of both IGN & GameSpot giving it rather poor "import" reviews, with complaints mainly being directed at the controls, sense of speed, & lack of any multiplayer at all; the reviews in Japan itself apparently were only marginally better. Gust would seemingly take the reception into account, though, as on December 21, 2000 (only six months later) Hresvelgr: International Edition would see release in Japan, which added in a new track (plus reverse races for all tracks) & two-player split-screen, as well as some tweaks to the gameplay. As the subtitle indicates, this update came about because it was actually planned for an international release, with Crave Entertainment even announcing an English release, under the name "Fusion GT", mere days after the initial Japanese version came out. However, despite that early announcement the only international release would happen in European regions in March of 2002, now under the name Jet Ion GP, with Ubi Soft handling the release there, though Crave was still credited for the localization itself. Hresvelgr would effectively end Gust's efforts in genres outside of RPGs, and aside from life sim Ciel Nosurge in 2012 (which itself was a spin-off of the Ar Tornelico RPGs) & Atelier Questboard in 2014 (a mobile spin-off of Atelier Rorona) the studio wouldn't attempt something wholly new & different from its usual fare until 2015's Nights of Azure, a hack-&-slash game (though still with action RPG mechanics); meanwhile, Hresvelgr remains Gust's one & only racing game in its entire catalog.

Was Hresvelgr truly so bad that it made Gust decide to never make another non-RPG (related game) ever again? Did International Edition/Jet Ion GP actually improve on the original in any way? I've admittedly always been curious about this game ever since it was first previewed & import reviewed back in 2000, so it's time to see how Hresvelgr holds up 25 years later.