Face, an interesting and overlooked Japanese game publisher

Back in the 16-bit era there was a Japanese game publisher by the name of Face Co., Ltd.
There's very little information online about Face, and what information is out there tends to be buried under search results for a myriad of facially-related subjects.

What we do know about Face is that they were around from about 1988 to 2000, published games for an almost exclusively Japanese market, and tried their best to stand out from the crowd while simultaneously blending in.

So, why am I talking about Face?  Did they make an outstanding game?  Did they have a huge influence on the games industry?  Do they have an amazing back-story with ties to influential developers?

Well... no.

Face was merely a small Japanese game publisher who had a marginal-at-best impact on the games industry back in the day.  Generally speaking though, they made good games; a couple of which were only a few steps away from greatness... but they never did anything that was truly noteworthy.

What I like about Face is that even though they never made a really great game, they did make some pretty darn good games that were full of unique ideas and creativity.


According to my information, Face started publishing games in 1988.
Their first game was an arcade golf game, but after that they focussed on the home console market; mostly for the PC-Engine console, where they produced 10 games for the system over the course of 3 years, all in the Hu-Card format.
After their glory days on the PC-Engine, Face returned to the arcades where they struggled for a number of years before eventually fading away into obscurity.

During their existence, Face worked with several software houses, a few of which are still around to this day and have gone on to become successful companies. (I.T.L. & Arc System Works)

One of the things I really liked about Face was that they seemed to be willing to take some creative risks here and there, and in-turn produced a number of games that had a lot of quirky Japanese charm.

Of course, like many Japanese companies, Face's business model was focussed solely on the Japanese market, and due to this, only 3 of Face's games ever reached in the west:

• Solitaire Poker (Gamegear)
• Time Cruise (Turbografx 16)
• Money Puzzle Exchanger (Neo Geo MVS)

As I mentioned, the majority of Face's games and the height of their business was on the PC-Engine. (Aka the Turbografx-16 in the west)
This is how I discovered Face - through their PC-Engine games, which range from decent to really good.

In the beginning...

Hany in the Sky 3/1/89

Face's first PC-Engine game was Hany in the Sky, which is where their company mascot Hany, aka Hani, Hanii, Haney, or Honey (depending on who's romanizing his name) comes from.

Hany is a haniwa figure, and as such, his name should probably be romanized as "Hani" or "Hanii", but the in-game romanization in Hany on the Road is "Hany", so we'll call him that.

Hany's name uses the same katakana as honey in Japanese, and in Hany on the Road, player 2 is named Lemon (Honey and Lemon, get it?).

Hany stars in 2 games: Hany in the Sky and Hany on the Road, and makes cameos in Mahjong Academy and in the intro of RYŪKYŪ.

*On 11/1/90, Polydor records released a soundtrack CD for Hany in the Sky and Hany on the Road titled "Hanii² - Sky & Road -".
**On 1/14/2009, SuperSweep Co. Ltd. released a new CD titled "Hanii in the Sky Soundtrack" featuring arranged versions of the music from Hany in the Sky.

So, was the game good or not?

Hany in the Sky is a cute vertically scrolling shooter with great music and a lot of unique ideas behind it.  The game is actually quite fun once you figure out that pausing the game and pressing I brings up the shop menu where you can trade your points for power-ups and extra health.  Hany in the Sky's one major flaw is in the controls, which only allows you to rotate hany's gun clockwise, making aiming a bit of a chore.  Like many of Face's games, with only a few small changes, this game could have been fantastic, but in the end was only few steps above mediocre.

Busō Keiji: Cyber Cross 6/23/89

Translation: Armed Police Cyber Cross

This game is inspired by Japanese Tokusatsu programs like Super Sentaii (Power Rangers).  The game is decent, sort of like Irem's Kung-Fu Master with more platform elements and power-up's.  The game has pretty good music, and the character's power-up/transformation animation is absolutely perfect. (You can practically hear your hero shout "Henshin!")
Overall, Cyber Cross is a decent game, but nothing worth writing home about.

*On 4/1/90, Polygram records released a soundtrack (both tape & cd) for this game that featured vocal, instrumental and karaoke versions of the Cyber Cross theme.

Mahjong Gakuen - Tōma Sōshirō Tōjō 11/23/89

Translation: Mahjong Academy Featuring Soshiro Toma

I can't really comment on this one, as I don't know how to play Mahjong, but it seems like a pretty good Mahjong game with several game modes and a password save system.  This game features a story mode that has girls stripping off layers of clothing as you beat them in Mahjong.  If you win enough rounds, you get to see some boobs.  This game seems to have been popular, as it's one of Face's most common games. 
*Apparantly, this game was available in a deluxe package that included a "mahjong drama" VHS that I can't seem to find much info about.  
**A soundtrack (both tape & cd) for this game was released by Polydor records on 4/1/90

Mahjong Gakuen Mild - Tōma Sōshirō Tōjō 6/29/90

This is basically just a re-release of the previous game, but with bikini's instead of full frontal nudity.

Hany on the Road 9/7/90

Hany on the Road is a really fun game that has a nice theme, original gameplay, cute graphics, catchy music, a simultaneous 2-player mode and a difficulty level that's too high for it's own good.  Had they toned down the difficulty a bit, perhaps by giving Hany's kick/flip attack a little more range or adding more checkpoints, this could have been an outstanding game.
This game had so much potential, but never quite reached the level of greatness.
*Fun Fact: you can sometimes find this game erroneously listed on eBay as "Honey on the Lord"

RYŪKYŪ 10/26/90

RYŪKYŪ was originally developed by the Ascii Corporation in 1989 for the MSX2, then ported to the arcades by Sega/Success in 1990, and was ported again to the PC-Engine by Face/Sankindo, and finally to the GameGear as RYŪKYŪ in Japan and as Solitaire Poker in the rest of the world.

RYŪKYŪ is a variation on the solitaire game known as "Poker Squares" or "Poker Solitaire", and get's it's name from the tropical Ryukyu islands off the coast of Japan.

In RYŪKYŪ, Instead of being able to place cards in any space as in Poker Squares, the cards will drop  down and rest atop any other cards below them.  The game also includes a "joker" that acts like a wild-card, which can be placed strategically to increase your score.

RYŪKYŪ contains several game variations that include difficulty settings and time limits, and when you score enough points to win, a drawing of a bikini girl (or parts of it) will be revealed.

If you like games that have you thinking strategically, like Free Cell, you will find yourself addicted to this game.

Fushigi no Yume no Alice 12/7/90

Translation: Alice in Wonderdream

Alice is a really cute game that could have been an all-time classic if it wasn't so damn hard.
There's really not much else to say about this game.  It's good, but far from great.

*This game was previewed in the instruction manual for Cyber Cross, which means that unless they finished the game and delayed it's release, then Alice had at least a year and a half of development time!

**On 12/21/90 Polydor records released a soundtrack cd for this game featuring arranged music.

Cross Wiber - Cyber Combat Police 12/21/90

This is the sequel to Cyber Cross.

This game was made by a different developer, and it shows.  Overall, Cross Wiber looks and plays similarly to Cyber Cross, but with a few changes:

1. The graphics are nicer
2. Your character has more attack moves (crouch kick, jump kick, and a roundhouse kick that uses up one of your health points)
3. There are a few side-scrolling shooter stages.
4. The game is entirely in English
5. You can only transform when your health bar is nearly full (blue) by pressing Select.
6. The transformation sequence isn't as good as in Cyber Cross, and your hero looks more like a mech than a "Power Ranger".
7. The game is slightly easier (except for the stages where you're constantly getting knocked into bottomless pits), and gives you continues.

Overall, the game is of a higher quality than Cyber Cross, but lacks much of it's charm.

Metal Stoker - Neo Hardboiled Shooting 7/12/91

Metal Stoker is an overhead shooter that has you controlling a tank that can acquire a variety of weapons and shoot in any direction.  This game is pretty fun and has a good deal of variety, but I wish the controls would have let you hold button 2 to lock your firing direction and release it to unlock your firing direction, instead of the awkward "Press button 2 to lock your firing direction, and press button 2 again to unlock the firing direction".
This is another example of Face coming close to creating a hit game, but somehow narrowly missing the mark.

Time Cruise II 11/8/91

Oddly enough, this is the sequel to a game that was never released.  The original Time Cruise was previewed in Gekkan Pc Engine Magazine in February 1990 and clearly showed a different game.  How come only the sequel came out?  Note: Time Cruise II was released in the US under the name Time Cruise for obvious reasons.

Anyway, Time Cruise II is a pretty good time-travel themed pinball game with some interesting ideas and features.  It may not be the absolute best pinball game on the PC-Engine, but you can pick this game up for a lot less than Devil Crash and have almost as much fun with it.

Famicom:

Chiyonofuji no Ooichou 12/7/90
Translation: Grand Sumo Champion Chiyonofuji

As far as sumo wrestling games go, this one's pretty good.

Game Gear:

RYŪKYŪ 5/31/91

Released in the west as "Solitaire Poker"  This is a slightly watered-down port of the PC-Engine version that lacks the girly pictures.

Arcade:

Albatross 1988
I believe this was a golf game.  If my info is correct, this would have been Face's first game.

Quiz DNA No Hanran 1992
An arcade quiz game.

Quiz Gekiretsu Scramble 1992
An arcade quiz game.

Sand Scorpion - Sasori 1992

Overhead shooter.

Nostradamus 1993

Overhead shooter.

Digger Man 1994 (Neo Geo MVS) 

Unreleased.  Digger Man is a port of Game Room's "Dangerous Dungeons" (1992)

Gururin 5/25/1994 (Neo Geo MVS)

A puzzle game that has you rotating the playfield instead of the falling pieces.

Money Idol Exchanger 1/17/1997 (Neo Geo MVS) Released in the west as Money Puzzle Exchanger and Ported to Gameboy and PS1 in Japan by Athena Co. Ltd. the same year
*There are rumors that Data East sued Face over the similarities between this game and their popular Magical Drop series.  Supposedly, Face lost the law suit, and went bankrupt because of this.

PC:

Hoshi no Furu Sato (stardust memories) 7/28/2000

As far as I can tell, this was Face's last game.  It's described as an adventure game, but there seems to be no other information about it.

In the end, Face managed to survive for just over a decade as a game publisher.  They jumped into the games industry at the height of the Famicom/PC-Engine era expecting to make a fortune, and even though they had little to no experience making/publishing games, they gave it their all.

Their Pc-Engine games may not have been masterpieces, but they were good games, and (for the most part) had great instruction manuals.  The Hany in the Sky, Cyber Cross, Mahjong Gakuen and Mahjong Gakuen Mild manuals were presented in a magazine format called "Face Press" and had lots of hand-drawn artwork, tips and interviews.
Face even had a fan club called "Face Scramble Club" that gave you opportunities to get prizes like Cooler-Bags, Matchbook-Calculators, Stickers and Videos.  You could even become a game tester through the Scramble Club!

Though, once the Hu-Card era wound down and production switched to CD based games, Face bowed out of the PC-Engine market and focussed on the arcades. As time went on, they began releasing fewer and fewer games, then eventually disappeared.

It seems that Face didn't quite have what it takes to be a successful game publisher, but had they run their business a little differently and polished a few of their games a bit more, they might have still been around today.

In conclusion...

Face tried their best to rock the game's industry back in the day, but just couldn't compete with the visionaries behind Nintendo, Taito, Sega, Konami, Capcom, Irem, etc.

Had they more resources at their command, maybe they could have turned Hany into a successful franchise, ported their games to more consoles, and have been more than just a footnote in the PC-Engine's library.

Here's a timeline of Face's games, and the developers involved in making those games:

Albatross (Arcade) 1988 - Developer: ?

Hany in the Sky (PC-Engine) 3/1/1989 - Developer(s): Sankindo, Arc System Works

Cyber Cross (PC-Engine) 6/23/1989 - Developer(s): I.T.L. (Imaginative Technology Land)

Mahjong Gakuen (PC-Engine) 11/23/1989 - Developer(s): Sankindo, Arc System Works

Mahjong Gakuen Mild (PC-Engine) 6/29/1990 - Developer(s): Sankindo, Arc System Works

Hany on the Road (PC-Engine) 9/7/1990 - Developer(s): Arc System Works

RYŪKYŪ (PC-Engine) 10/26/1990 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Alice in Wonderdream (PC-Engine) 12/7/1990 - Developer(s): Sankindo, Arc System Works

Chiyonofuji no Ooichou (Famicom) 12/7/1990 - Developer(s): Arc System Works

Cross Wiber (PC-Engine) 12/21/1990 - Developer(s): Sankindo, Arc System Works

RYŪKYŪ (Game Gear) 5/31/1991 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Metal Stoker (PC-Engine) 7/12/91 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Time Cruise II (PC-Engine) 11/8/91 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Quiz DNA No Hanran (Arcade) 1992 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Quiz Gekiretsu Scramble (Arcade) 1992 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Sand Scorpion - Sasori (Arcade) 1992 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Nostradamus (Arcade) 1993 - Developer(s): Sankindo

Digger Man (Arcade) 1994 - Developer(s): Minato Giken

Gururin (Arcade) 5/25/1994 - Developer(s): Minato Giken

Money Idol Exchanger (Arcade) 1/17/1997 - Developer(s): Minato Giken

Hoshi no Furu Sato (PC) 7/28/2000 - Developer(s): ?

If this blog has you interested in Face's games or PC Engine games in general, here's a few tips to help you find what you're looking for:

• eBay and Amazon are good places to find PC Engine games, and if you're lucky, you can find a game lot on eBay with pictures but none of the titles listed.  You can always check pcengine.co.uk to figure out what the games are, and you may end up getting a good deal due to fewer bidders finding that auction.
• Another good place to find PC-Engine games is JapanGameStock.com.  You need to be willing to buy multiple games to make the shipping cost effective, but their prices and selection are quite good.
• When hunting for PC Engine games online, you should try searching for "pc-engine", "hu-card" or "PCエンジン".  Though, the latter will give you a lot of results in Japanese.
• You can often find better prices if you buy in bulk from Japanese auction sites like Yahoo Auctions, but you will need to use a bidding proxy service such as Rinkya or Celga to do so.

Thanks go out to the following websites for helping me to research the Face company:

Pcengine.co.uk
Gdri.smspower.org
Gamesdbase.com
Arcade-museum.com
Gamefaqs.com