That's noteworthy because it's been many months since I last purchased a PC Engine game. In fact, I can't remember the last one I bought. Is it possible that it was Gokuraku! Chuka Taisen (read about it here), which I picked up last November? I think it is.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there, is it? Much more relevant to this particular discussion is the pair of PC Engine games I acquired a few weeks ago: Naxat Soft's Star Mobile and NEC Avenue's Splash Lake, both of which can be seen in the photos below.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr6nDNVwABCHykoer2rnpJaJ0WmXRHI72Nuu482EZOR5PQ8c9-ZkqumbIOVRk8fknxyOns4gkakB5Asf7ZGb0eVcs43wpy7VkAAcctf_snGuT86jzO_KfJbsEb0VHw7zHbNGOO/s400/StarMobile_PCEngineCD+005a.jpg)
Star Mobile, a CD-ROM2 game originally released in 1992, has intrigued me for ages thanks to the fact that it's a Zodiac-themed puzzle game that challenges players to stack stars of different weights on a gilded scale without dumping them into the intergalactic void.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3rLAszj_4EXhbSroaz4QE0KFFFdQrX0biY1amVS1qAsSHjkjukAXLod6qhOgH5MqZNsSvANH-hJS-fM4o7aP81KGnuFTqWQXpWvJG6iy4NMaVnwmOWE7Xb5a2QAHDEOpi8TcC/s400/SplashLake_PCEngineCD+006a.jpg)
Splash Lake, on the other hand, is an action-puzzler that puts players in the shoes of a legless ostrich (wait a second...) that's tasked with destroying various bridge planks--by pecking them--and sending each stage's baddies into the titular body of water.
I actually owned the North American version of this game, which hit the streets in Japan in 1991 and jumped the pond a year later, way back when, but I stupidly sold it along with the rest of my TurboGrafx-16 collection so I could buy a Japanese Sega Saturn at launch.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF8q3boYoKJQaL8e2l08YhO7ebF2ql27MxbQJf4KzTIhzRM-yvgFTG8LFw3tRJUTX0sucg37Th-my6-vnudQrSUuSqy18JnLtrXJeBjR6LPDGvRHutWcjqQY6iWgS2HKaRCevV/s400/SplashLake_disc_PCEngineCD+009a.jpg)
I really like the simple-but-cute label that's affixed to Splash Lake's CD, by the way. You can see it in the not-so-stellar photo above, or you can see an appealingly clear scan of it here.
Splash Lake's instruction manual is pretty nice, too--not to mention short--so look for a "Manual Stimulation" post devoted to it to be published sooner rather than later.