/vr/ - Retro Games

I might just order Kogado's The Mars Project package if the company's still alive by summer or fall. Kogado Anon tried grabbing it off Perfect Dark, but met with failure (or I'm remembering it wrong and it's not on there whatsoever). Caught myself thinking of this game while playing the latest A-Train release.

Another lost classic from Japan: The Mars Project, developed and released by Kogado Soft in 1998. Remember when SimMars got cancelled in favor of The Sims? Looks like the Japanese delivered instead.

The game's all about colonizing Mars, which takes the form of a large rectangular region based on map data collected by NASA. You gotta build domed settlements, manufacturing facilities, terraforming ops, &c. to win a specific scenario and avoid disasters like asteroid impacts and solar flares. Most of the city-building is more micromanagement than macro, but you get to build multiple colonies across the Martian region and connect them through trade and utilities. Its two sequels have character-based story modes, since Kogado was breaking into the VN market at that time. Mars Colony: Challenger's the most recent game with this setting, but I bet Kogado was working on this series back in their PC-98 days (pixel art's crisp as hell).

Not many shots of the original, so make do with this: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kaseki_gamer/39946306.html