Ugh．．． where to begin． Well Energy (also known as ’Energy Man’) is a little-known action／adventure game developed by Quasar Soft for the PC-Engine in 1989 which is actually a modified version of a PC-8801 game known as ’Ashe’ (or （ASHE) to be more specific) made back in 1988． It’s been edited with additional graphics lower resolution cutscenes and altered to have references to Masiya／NCS products instead of hints on how to progress (as they published the PCE conversion)． You can think of it as being sort of like Kid Icarus or Metroid in the sense that you must explore your surroundings and are sometimes required to find and use certain items before you can progress． The game in theory is not so bad． You can run around and explore backtrack and even find secrets or items which aren’t necessary in order to finish the game． However the game has wonky controls (where your character spazzes out near walls or obstacles which require a jump start to properly pass) strange and slow screen scrolling (just like the original) pretty bad graphics (for a PCE title) and is sometimes vague on what to do (probably because of the Masiya／NCS references)． It was reviewed quite harshly by Japanese magazine publications back in the day and was deemed by some as being so bad that it’s good． About the only thing that really stands out in this game is the soundtrack which is good but not exceptional． Even the way text moves and progresses is strange as you can hit the button only b．．．／b
