Thanks to Edia for the review code

Title: TENSHI NO UTA COLLECTION
System: Nintendo Switch
Price: Approx $50 in Yen
Release Date: 09/12/2024

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Story

In this collection of two PC Engine CD RPGs, you embark on a quest spanning over 100 years! In the first Tenshi no Uta, Kearu has to go on a quest to rescue his love and investigate an increase in demons attacking the world, while in Tenshi No Uta II, a man named Fate and his childhood friend rescue a captive maiden known as Riana, who happens to hold some secrets that could determine the fate of the world and end a dark conflict once and for all…

While barely at all acknowledged in the west, I’ve had a big curiosity for the Tenshi No Uta games for quite some time now, and compared to the more well known Cosmic Fantasy, these RPGs seemed to have had a more consistent reputation for their gameplay.

Obviously, this import review means I played it in Japanese, and while I’m not anywhere close to being fluent in the language, I was able to understand a decent amount of the story with assistance and self-teaching to get enough of an idea on where to go next and how the tale unfolded. I’d say “wait for the english version later” like I did with my Valis import reviews, but unlike the older collections, this has no English version planned as of the time of this review.

That’s kinda a shame, as while the first Tenshi no Uta has pretty typical RPG fare for the plot, Tenshi No Uta II ups the ante and slowly incorporates nods from the first game in pretty clever ways, while having a better plot with way more cutscenes. Honestly, seeing where the main story was going was enough to get me to really want to teach myself more Japanese to read all the NPC dialogue and learn more about this fun world in general!

Presentation

This time around, Edia goes to OGIX Co to reissue these two games, rather than D4 Enterprise. How does this change the usual wrapper? Not by much, really. You have a very similar wrapper to the other Edia collections, including the usual manual scans, OST/Cutscene players, and control configurations. You even have save states, but no rewind.

Oddly enough, despite the usual screen size options returning, they do not save upon closing a game in the collection. You’ll have to change the screen size again and again each time you go back into a title, which is pretty irritating. I also noticed an annoying bit of horizontal shimmering in the Pixel Perfect display mode while walking around in these games, which is an aspect I seldom notice in retro reissues hardly at all; I was still able to generally enjoy the games despite this aspect, but I do wish there was more customization to the screen size to reduce the shimmer.

Like in Valis Collection 3, you even have a few bonus videos, although just two this time around, and both relate to the first Tenshi No Uta. Tenshi no Uta II gets nothing, not even any material covering the mysterious DARK LEFT game, which, more on that in a bit.

For the games themselves, they both look odd in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. The first Tenshi No Uta starts off with a pretty solid cutscene, albeit with some odd character art in it, and the actual game is a top-down RPG with what might just be the most ant-sized proportions I’ve seen in the entire genre, since everything is so tiny! Navigation is still easy to do though, and the battles are in your typical first person Dragon Quest style, albeit with limited animation and not much in terms of fancy effects. The cutscenes are fairly rare in the first game, and visually it doesn’t do much to stand out. The music on the other hand is immensely catchy and pretty darn good, even if it does shift from CD audio to PSG tracks every now and again, and said PSG tracks can get pretty grating.

Tenshi no Uta II on the other hand really ups the ante. The sprites are still somewhat small, but no longer ant sized. The battles are still first person DQ style, but with way better enemy sprite art and more animation from time to time. Most significantly, the good music from the original game has been evolved to what might be one of the most epic OSTs on the entire PC Engine CD; seriously! Even the PSG tracks are really darn good this time around, with a main battle theme so incredible despite running on the internal PC Engine sound, and some of the boss/dungeon themes being outright breathtaking. Add in more cutscenes and a prettier looking game, and you have a damn good presentation.

Gameplay

Like with Cosmic Fantasy Collection, we have two games this time around, and I’m going into them untranslated; still, I was able to understand enough of the story text and gameplay to get a good way through these, so there’s more to discuss here than you may think from an import RPG review!

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TENSHI NO UTA– The first game, and also one of the very first PC Engine Super CD games. Ultimately, this is a pretty typical Dragon Quest clone with not much to note about the gameplay, since you mostly just go from town to town, learning the next objective while beating up a whole bunch of monsters and leveling up along the way, while fighting in first person battles. Pretty typical stuff.

With that said, Tenshi no Uta does do a few things to make it stand out a bit from the crowd. For starters, there are occasional sidequests and odd events that’ll happen in certain places, whether that be a fetch quest to help someone in need or chasing down a money thief, sometimes you’ll manage to get a nice EXP bonus out of it. There’s even a day and night system, and some events can only happen at one part of the day, which leads to some pretty cool optional moments if you go looking for them.

Thankfully, the game isn’t too hard, at least not like Cosmic Fantasy 1, and the encounters, while frequent, are at least quick enough to not feel too annoying. That being said, if you end up rushing through areas and avoiding battles you will run into the famous “new area has monsters that’ll obliterate you in no time” issue, so fighting through the random battles to level grind and being careful in new parts of the map is the key to progress.

Otherwise, you have your usual assortment of items (with very, very limited equipment space, to the point that the early part with you by yourself makes it really tough to carry anything besides your equipment!) and magic spells to make use of to defeat the bosses, which are pretty darn simple compared to some of the enemy spikes you end up dealing with as you open up more and more of the world and eventually get a ship. Ultimately, a pretty decent RPG, but nothing I’d call too outstanding for those unaware of it.

TENSHI NO UTA II – The bigger and better sequel in every way. OK, it still is a pretty safe Dragon Quest style game, but wow did they improve the flow and pacing of this one. Battles are faster, there’s now an auto battle system, and your party grows far quicker with a lot more variety in party members than the limited amount you had in the first game, and the game is just a lot more fun.

Dungeons have better designs, the bosses are more engaging, (Though you can still buff yourself and steamroll them pretty easily) the inventory space issue is completely gone, and the pacing is much better. The sidequests return, as well as the day and night system, and while this game is a bit too fetch quest heavy for my liking, I did appreciate the day and night system continuing to add variety to the RPG mechanics, along with some dungeons having light puzzle solving to play around with. Still, the battles are pretty easy at the end of the day, and the Auto battle system helps makes grinding a lot quicker, so whether or not you enjoy the encounters depends on if you don’t mind just mindlessly defeating weak groups of enemies over and over again until you move onto the next area and repeat.

The party changing throughout the game at least keeps you on your toes long enough to not get too comfortable with the same formation, and ultimately this game is just flat out better than Tenshi no Uta I in almost every way. It’s nice to see plot points from the first game mentioned here and followed up on, but I definitely would pick this one as the game to fully complete to the end (and hell, if only one game could get localized into english, make it this one!) without hesitation. It may be a RPG with a simple battle system, but it’s an incredibly fun one at the end of the day, and one I’m happy to have spent a good chunk of time with, moreso than the first game.

Last but not least is an odd bonus hidden on the game select menu for this game. Labeled as nothing else but DARK LEFT, this button takes you to an incomplete, 3 stage shooter by Telenet that was hidden away on the Tenshi No Uta disc for over two decades. It doesn’t have music or even much of a game to play, being a very early prototype, but it does manage to be a cool little bonus that’s way easier to access now.

While I think finishing Dark Left and making it into a full shmup was probably outta the question for this release, I would have loved for some sort of bonus context to what this thing even was to have been thrown in; either an interview with someone who worked on it, a scan/trailer that mentioned it at some point, or even any kind of key art would have helped! Alas, we only have the prototype here, but what a cool bonus regardless.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Tenshi no Uta Collection is an odd game to review. I, someone who knows enough Japanese to fumble and get by a lot of games, had decent fun with the first Tenshi No Uta, and got way more engaged and hooked on the sequel. Sure, they’re both Dragon Quest style RPGs ala Cosmic Fantasy, but I consider both Tenshi No Uta titles to be a lot more fun and balanced than the two Cosmic Fantasy titles I covered earlier this year.

The sequel in particular is just an absolute joy to play. I’ve dabbled in a lot of PC Engine import RPGs as I started collecting for the thing, but Tenshi no Uta II might just be one of the most fun ones I’ve played from the entire console; sure the game is simple like its predecessor, but everything is way more polished, fun and engaging with a huge presentational upgrade to boot! Of either game in the set that’d be worth importing this for, Tenshi no Uta II is absolutely the one I’d recommend without hesitation.

Now is this set worth importing if you don’t know any Japanese? Probably not, to be honest. The limited amount I can read and understand by hearing in the cutscenes was enough to get me through plot objectives without having to look up a guide. but if you don’t recognize any of the text, you’ll get stuck incredibly quickly, especially when the game tells you to wait for a time of day to do something or to go off the beaten path. But for those who know a little or way more than I do, I definitely recommend these two RPGs, especially the sequel! You have a simple pack of RPGs here, but the sequel in particular is an absolute PC Engine gem, and one I’m very happy to have played.

Honestly, I truly hope one day Tenshi no Uta II gets the localization it deserves. But as of now, we just have this JP only reissue to try it on, and I still think that for those who able to enjoy RPGs in the Japanese language, you’ll get a good time out of the sequel, and a decent if tedious time out of the original.

I give Tenshi no Uta Collection a 7 out of 10.