From: tehkao@ocf.berkeley.edu (Teh Kao Yang)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: Silky-Lip (Mega-CD)
Date: 27 Jul 1992 06:00:55 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: earthquake.berkeley.edu
Summary: Review of great anime-style game

Of all the Mega-CD games I've played so far, Silky-Lip is the one that I've
enjoyed the most. In fact I feel that this is the first game to justify 
buying a Mega-CD. I was really impressed with it.

Silky-Lip is an anime style adventure game. However it doesn't seem to be
based on any anime series I know of. It's either a really obscure series
or the programmers created it themselves. The game is done in a format that
it quite neat. The game is divided into 11 episodes, just like the episodes
in a TV series. There are even opening and closing sequences just like a real
anime series. 

Since my Japanese is bad, this is all I can make of the storyline: It seems
like you are Silky-Lip, a 10 year old sorceress. You live in another 
world where everyone is a wizard. The leader of this world(a mean looking
dude) sends you on a important mission(I still can't figure out what the 
mission is). Anyway he sends you to our world, to modern day Japan. Here
you assume the identity of an ordinary schoolgirl and you live with a
family of strange people. Your main enemy is another sorceress called 
Isabella who continually tries to make your life miserable.

There are short cinematic intermissions throught the game. These cinemas
have the best animation I've seen on the Mega-CD. The animation is full screen,
and very smooth (you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and 
a real cartoon). Too bad that the full motion videos only last for a few
seconds, but it's very impressive nonetheless.

The most impressive feature of the game though is probably the conversation
mode. When Lip talks with another character, the game switches to the
conversation mode. Here the screen is divided in two, with one side showing
your face and the other side has the other person's face. As they talk the
faces animate, showing different emotions. Most of the speech is also 
completely digitized and probably played from the Mega-CD's PCM generators.
The speech sounds very clear, pretty much CD quality. You can select 
different responses to make, and picking the "right" thing to say will
progress your character. 

There is also a battle mode where you and Isabella fight with spells. This
mode also features great animation and digitized speech. ("Riraruru, 
rariruru, rirarururu!" - Lip's spell chant. :))

To conclude, I think that this game would be an anime fan's dream. This
game does a great job in immersing the player in the anime world,
with the great cinemas and totally cool conversation scenes. The music in
game is fantastic as well. The beginning and ending vocal songs are great,
and so are the BGMs in the game. Even though this anime is of course not
famous like Ranma 1/2, I still think the characters in the game look great
and well designed.

This is how I rate this game:

Graphics: 8 (Some full screen, full motion video. Great character designs)
Music: 9
Sound: 9 (Very clear digitized speech)
Gameplay: 8 (Sort of linear and easy, but still a heck of a lot of fun!)
Overall: 8

I hope this game is an indication of the future great games coming to the
Mega-CD. So far Silky-Lip is the Mega-CD game that has made the most use of
the system's awesome capabilities.

-Teh Kao
Newsgroups: rec.games.video