The NEC PC-FX is one of many consoles that never left Japan. Therefore it has more than a few exclusive titles North American gamers probably never heard of. One such title is Team Innocent. This is a 3^rd person, fixed view, adventure title that features pre-rendered backgrounds with character sprites laid over them. This style will be familiar to gamers that have played Capcom’s Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark by Interplay. The big difference is, those classics used pre-rendered backgrounds with polygon based characters on top. Team Innocent is unique for a few reasons, one being the graphics.

Team Innocent has a futuristic narrative

The Galactic Police discover an evil scientist has been conducting illegal genetic experiments on people and intervenes. Three of these former subjects, Saki, Lilis, and Ariel, are now members of the Galactic Police themselves. This is after the chief of police rescued them. Their goal is to discover their origins. They also want to know exactly what the scientist did to them in that laboratory over 15 years prior. While that is their life goal, they still have to work their police jobs and take on dangerous missions.

There are three girls to control and three main missions to tackle – convenient. Each of these missions has many areas that must be explored and items that have to be picked up. There is also equipment to use so it is not as simple as it may sound.

Stepping out on its own graphically

Combat gives the player the option to use one of three modes – melee, kicking, and shooting.

Graphically the backgrounds look great, they should as they are pre-rendered. The PC-FX is not doing much there. Neither is it doing a whole lot with the player sprites which is where I believe Team Innocent falls short. The sprites are zoomed in as you approach the foreground rather than using more detailed sprites at that point. This gives the characters a rather jarring experience.

The full motion video power of the PC-FX is put to good use here too. There are a lot of animated scenes to check out. Unfortunately, by the time NEC released this console the Full Motion Video fad was very much a dead thing in gaming.

The language barrier is strong here

Sadly, if you don’t understand Japanese then you are going to have a tough time enjoying this one. Team Innocent for the PC-FX is full of Japanese language and audio. For those willing to try, or are completists, check eBay and use our link or grab some gaming goodness off Amazon and get it with Prime. It helps us keep the lights on and costs you nothing.

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Carl Williams

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