It’s no secret that when it came to SEGA’s systems, the U.S. got
boned on a ton of the company’s obscure and unique game titles. One of
the company’s offerings that has a solid fanbase was the Rent A Hero franchise. It even, made an appearance in the wacky Fighters MegaMix for the Sega Saturn, but unlike the never-before-seen instances in a game such as Super Smash Bros., no attempt is ever made to explain Rent A Hero or garner fan interest in the series. Aside from guest appearances in character (Fighters MegaMix) and spirit (Samba de Amigo), the character did enjoy two full-featured game releases – Rent A Hero on the Megadrive and Rent-A-Hero No. 1
on the SEGA Dreamcast. On top of that, the Japanese Virtual Console has
featured the Megadrive version since 2007. Back in 2004, it seemed like
the Dreamcast version finally had a shot at a U.S. release via a
release handled by Cool, which ported the title to the Japanese Xbox
after SEGA collapsed as a hardware developer. It just wasn’t meant to
be, though, meaning the only way for players to get their hands on the
full Dreamcast title was through the means any red-blooded Dreamcast
owner took part in – they imported the Japanese version.
If Rent A Hero
was such a great title, wouldn’t more people have played it and
wouldn’t SEGA have given it more of a chance to release in the U.S.?
Why couldn’t Nintendo release the imported Rent A Hero on the
Virtual Console? Well, most likely, it stems from the language barrier
presented by the game. While most of what Americans get to see makes
the title seem like a no-frills action title, Rent A Hero, is
more of an adventure, requiring players to embark on fetch quests and
investigation before they get to the meaty parts where they just rock
the faces of injustice with cybernetic fists. Now don’t misunderstand
this – the fetching and investigation do not go anywhere near the
degree of that found in Shenmue, so don’t walk away just yet. Rent A Hero is more of an adventure-like RPG (in fact, the original Megadrive version used the Phantasy Star III
graphics engine), where instead of participating in random turn-based
battles, players engaged in hand-to-hand combat. With this, players
will be talking to a lot of people, meaning there is a lot of dialog to
translate, but the game’s inherent humor, somewhat to the degree of SeGaGaGa
toward the end of the Dreamcast’s life, gives the title some legs to
stand on and creates a unique, quirky identity to the title, which also
allows it to poke fun at SEGA itself among other references.
While both versions of the game share a similar story, the Dreamcast
version presents players with the opening premise: Taro is new to the
neighborhood as his family has just moved in after his father receives
a job in town. The game kicks off with Taro directly in the middle of a
housewarming party, which involves the family’s neighbors, including a
portly fellow who is eating the party’s food faster than Taro’s mother
can prepare it. In a pinch, Taro’s father prompts him to order some
takeout food and when he makes the phone call, a mysterious person
claims Taro has won a promotion that discounts his dinner and throws in
a free prize that is still in its testing stages. Anyone that
understands the concept of foreshadowing should gather that when the
package arrives, it ends up being the game’s trademark hero suit. At
this point in time, in a desperate attempt to liven up the party,
Taro’s father has donned a Godzilla-type costume and when he spots Taro
fashioning his new super hero suit, he gloats and challenges Taro into
a staged fight to entertain the guests. However, after Taro throws a
light, playful jab, the power of the suit sends his father flying
across the room, smashing him into the wall. From this point on, Taro
realizes the suit isn’t just a toy and the events that unfold from here
will shape him into a true hero if he can handle the responsibility.
While
the story premise is fantastic and becomes much more involved while the
player gets into the more serious missions, everything unfolds in text
form, which means if you don’t understand Japanese, a good majority of
the game’s content and charm will be entirely lost on you. Admittedly,
I will say my Japanese is extremely far from fluent and there was a
good bit of context I had to look up, meaning players may miss out on a
few extras by not being able to read the questions there are being
asked in a few of the game’s scenarios. However, this isn’t to say this
a fault of a game developed in Japan, it’s just the standard U.S.
player will most likely be turned away from the experience or become
quite confused as to what they are supposed to do next and without a
concept of dialog, players will miss out on the game’s humor and charm.
By accepting the responsibilities of the hero suit, Taro has now
officially become the Rent A Hero and the game plays out appropriately
based on the title of the game – along with the suit, the Service Café
(or SECA to throw out an obvious reference) has delivered a SECA
Creamcast (there’s two references) to Taro, which he uses to log onto
an online interface to check for people looking to hire him for his
services. As a rookie, though, he isn’t going to receive very many
high-profile missions until he earns the trust of the city. This means
players will get their feet wet handing out promotional pamphlets,
delivering a love letter and delivering take-out food while maybe
getting to take a few harmless punks until requests that ask you to
protect deliveries or assist the police with criminal matters. The game
follows a nice, logical progression with tasks that increase in
difficulty as the game goes on and the earlier missions really allow
for the player to get a grasp on the controls. Even without Japanese
knowledge, the Creamcast interface is pretty straightforward and easy
to use and players shouldn’t have any troubles launching any of the
games missions. A lot of variety is involved with the missions as well
and there are a chunk of optional missions that will provide Taro with
cash, which become important when he becomes an official Rent A Hero
and must pay a rental fee on the suit and purchase other items that
will make him stronger.
The game’s controls are extremely straightforward and if you’re a
seasoned SEGA connoisseur, the fighting engine will feel all too
familiar to you. Players can do the basics such as initiate a
single-button combo string, jump and block, but the variety in Taro’s
moveset stems from a separate button that players hold down until a
charge meter reaches the desired position for more powerful attacks –
yes, this is the scheme used in Spikeout, a SEGA game that
actually did release notably in the U.S in 2005 for the Xbox, even
though low-key arcade versions of the title had been pumped out in the
late ‘90s.
While
the control scheme is simple, this also means there is very little
variation in what Taro can do in a fight as any new techniques learned
must be swapped out – you can only have one combo and a handful of
charge specials at any given time. This will really turn away fighting
enthusiasts who are now spoiled by Virtua Fighter-sized move lists and it doesn’t really help that the fighting mechanics are slightly broken. Rent-A-Hero No. 1
tries to balance out the heavy-hitting techniques a little by having
them drain the battery of the hero suit, but when players get low, they
can use their cash to purchase more batteries (which turns into a
gratuitous plug for Sanyo). However, if you’re keen on exploring every
inch of the fighting mechanics, these broken mechanics really work in
your favor, providing some really ridiculous juggles and cheap
repetition tactics with moves that require no battery usage. While I’m
sure it was unintentional on the part of SEGA, the fighting can get a
little crazy if you mix and match your moves correctly, but, otherwise,
the enemy AI does tend to be a little on the lame side, merely charging
in fist-first to try and land their predetermined combo on you before
you can pull off a move. This makes sense when Taro is taking on a
group of thugs, but it comes off as cheap AI when it’s mano-a-mano.
However, when you boil it down, each button does what it is supposed
to do with great accuracy. There are a few hiccups in having to
double-tap a direction to dash while in the middle of a fight and some
camera angles do not put your fight in the greatest perspective, but,
overall, the fights are well done for what players are given, which,
admittedly isn’t much. Most of the fun in the game revolves around the
campy humor and references the game throws around, which occur outside
of the battles. The control scheme differs just a tad of difference
while not in battle, but this mostly revolves around interacting with
the environment and alternating between Taro and his Rent A Hero form.
On paper, switching forms doesn’t sound like a big deal, but people in
environment will react to you differently depending on which form you
are in, giving you different dialog bits and sometimes the storyline
calls for Taro to be in a specific form.
For the most part, players accept a mission, talk to the person
hiring Taro, carry out whatever task they desire (which is most often
ensuring the safe delivery or protection of something), rough up any
goon that gets in your way and get paid. Even though the game does give
players some freedom in deciding what to do and offers a number of
different areas to explore (with other areas of city accessed by
train), the title’s progress is extremely linear, but players will
still be able to sink a handful of hours into it. The best way I can
describe Rent-A-Hero, really, is that it is a short attention span Shenmue:
There’s plenty of fighting to do, but you’ll have to do a fair share of
footwork, fetch questing and conversation to get there. As I alluded to
before, it’s not nearly as drawn out as it is in Shenmue, but
anyone looking to try and get into this title should be aware that is
equal parts adventure to the amount of action. This could really turn
away a lot of players, most obviously because of the language barrier,
but anyone that sticks with it will find it to be a fairly satisfying
adventure.
I’ve often heard stories about Rent-A-Hero No. 1
being a low-budget title for SEGA and if this shows anywhere, it is
definitely in the title’s animation and sound. While the graphics and
character models are very typical of any SEGA release for the time, the
animation is hardly on par with other titles on the system. Of course,
the Dreamcast can do better than the graphics presented in Rent-A-Hero No. 1
and they are passable, but the animation is noticeably lacking during
most of Taro’s actions, even in his general running animation. There is
no voice acting in the entire game aside from some battle groans and
grunts, so the game puts the characters through some ridiculously
overexaggerated animations to convey the action of conversation.
Players will also probably notice all sorts of clipping and pop-in
quirks with the game as well. Although these do not tend to occur
during fights, they add to the group of nagging elements that are
extremely visible throughout the title.
The audio in Rent-A-Hero No. 1, however, has got to be the
lowest point of the title. There is no voice acting to be had in any
part of the game. While it is fairly understandable that with the
expansive amounts of dialog featured in the game, the disc probably
wouldn’t be able to contain full voice-overs, having important
cutscenes and critical story points pop out with some voices could have
taken the game a long way. Overall, the music is pretty uninspiring as
well, save for the classic Rent-A-Hero theme that belts out
after the first scenario (with the accompanying video providing
references to the game’s Megadrive release). A lot of the sound effects
are just as serviceable and get the job done, but more effects and some
variation would have went a long way for the title. Most of the game’s
audio gets the job done, but the real offender overall is in what is
missing from the title – a little more in the elements of voice, music
and sound could have went a long way here.
Even
though this Dreamcast entry is essentially a remake of the original
Megadrive version, it does take its own liberties, such as introducing
Rent-A-Hiroko (your female “sidekick”), arranging the dialog to bring
the references up to date (Ms. Naomi, for example), so if you have for
some reason played the original title, there is a whole lot more to
experience in this title. Rent-A-Hero No. 1 definitely
carries the allure of a character U.S players could never get their
hands on (unless you are an Xbox pirate with the scheduled domestic
release that got canned; it was reviewed by a few outlets so there has
to be some copies floating around somewhere) and it is one of the more
quirky titles on the system, which makes it a relatively appealing
game. The fetching and language barriers will probably be the biggest
detractor for U.S. audiences, however, but with all of the guides
available online, if you’re looking for a unique experience, Rent-A-Hero should fit the bill, even with all of its shortcomings.
GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5
While you’re going to have to know a decent amount of Japanese or have a guide by your side to fully understand Rent-A-Hero No. 1,
the title is another example of SEGA of America hesitating to pull the
trigger on a U.S. release of a quirky and original concept. That being
said, the title does have its share of issues such as its barely
serviceable visuals, lack of quality sound, severely broken and
repetitive fighting mechanics and sometimes slow pacing. However, the
story and dialog is a good bit entertaining and filled with references
to SEGA and the title really banks on its humor and charm. Even though
the fighting is broken, it does allow for some customization and those
who tinker with it will be able to go to town with some impressive
juggles. There is very little deviation from the linear game
progression, but the wide variety of tasks and characters the player
runs into – from your female counterpart to who eventually becomes your
archnemesis – are interesting, even though there is no spoken dialog.
This title is above average in every single way, but its not hard to
see from its originality, quirky nature and inaccessibility in the U.S.
why it has a cult following.