Pasokon Retro is our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist '80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP. One of the most iconic titles from this golden era is "Hydlide," developed by T&E Soft and released between 1984 and 2001 across various platforms including PC-88, PC-98, X1, MSX, MSX2, PC-6601, MZ-2000, and Windows.
The Legacy of Hydlide
"IN OTHER DIMENSIONAL SPACE THREE JEWELS KEPT THE KINGDOM IN PEACE." With this intriguing premise, Hydlide didn't just set standards or raise bars in 1984; it invented them. This groundbreaking "Active Role Playing Game" was the Elden Ring of its day, offering an open-world action RPG experience where half the fun lay in figuring out how to get somewhere and then surviving the journey using nothing but a sword, shield, and wit.
Its head-turning combination of ambition and freedom soon saw the game ported from its PC-88 home to just about every major computer brand Japan had for sale that decade. Each new version of the game was carefully adapted to fit its new home, ensuring that the essence of Hydlide remained intact.
The Evolution of Hydlide Across Different Platforms
On every format, Hydlide is a real-time RPG where Jim runs straight into enemies to attack them and recovers his health by taking a quick break in the sunlight. The overworld layout stays the same, as does the overall goal. However, some of Hydlide's most important details are more subtle.
There are plenty of other details that seemed essential, but somehow the game is no less "Hydlide" if a port altered or even outright removed them. For instance, the game's intro explaining why Jim "TRIED TO ATTACK THE MONSTER TO REESTABLISH THE KINGDOM" is absent in the MSX version, yet the game doesn't suffer for its absence. It turns out the adventure itself really is enough.
So, is that Hydlide then? Nothing more than a mixture of a few things it should and shouldn't have with a few optional extras thrown in, like a recipe list? Yes but…no, not quite.
It was only after spending some time with the Sharp X1 version of the game that I realized what really mattered. Although this particular port appeared around the same time as all the others (1985), it took advantage of the hardware's unique ability to give programmers quick access to all the RAM, all the time to produce something truly spectacular. I'm still Jim and I'm still off to restore peace to the land through physical violence, but here the game's right-angled rivers have been replaced by more organic edges, and the rigid screen-by-screen exploration has been ditched in favor of a smooth free scrolling system. This is without a doubt the most advanced version of the game the '80s ever had.
But it isn't Hydlide. The magic's gone. Enemies here blandly mingle with other types instead of being cleanly separated by the unbreakable edge of the screen, draining areas of both the safety that comes from knowing when I'm standing in a field of weak monsters and the sudden shock of blundering my way into a screen filled with something new.
The detail that's been gained can't match the clarity of what's been lost. Hydlide is supposed to have rules. Order that keeps the chaos confined within each screen, every new view showing me no more or less than everything I need to see at that moment.
