This game was originally released as Water Margin: The Tale of Clouds and Wind when it was first released on the Sega Mega Drive. When QuByte acquired the publishing rights from Piko Interactive for the re-release, the title of the game was changed to The Tale of Clouds and Wind, dropping the game’s original title.
Having reached out to Piko about this, the name change was in error and it is not known if it will be updated to reflect the original release.
Story:
The story in the game is that you play one of three outlaw heroes that help the regional army to defeat the onslaught of the invading forces. The game’s story is based on a book of the same name with both the game and the book it’s based on being an exclusive release in Hong Kong.
Gameplay:
The game is a side-scrolling beat ’em up that plays similarly to other 16-bit games of the era. You can choose to play as one of three different heroes, each with their own unique moves. You can collect power-ups that help aid you through the game as you fight waves of enemies and progress from stage to stage. Featuring different endings depending on the character chosen and the difficulty, you can have fun either solo or couch co-op trying to work through the game to see each one.
Graphics and Performance:
Graphically there isn’t anything too taxing given that the game is a 16-bit game that was originally released on the Sega Mega Drive back in the 90s. However, what is presented here looks very good either in handheld mode or when playing docked. Character and enemy movement, animations, and the models themselves are all being given an HD/upscaled facelift. Just like with previous QuByte Classic releases, you can change the aspect of the screen before or while playing the game and choose between stretch, fit, or normal. Regardless of the aspect ratio, they all look good even stretched looks decent playing in handheld mode, though may want to avoid it if playing in docked mode depending on the TV being used. Even the text that is displayed for both the story cut scenes and character dialogue have been upscaled for this release from its original format. Making the text look crystal clear and very easy to read.
Performance of this game regardless of how you choose to play it looks and feels very good while playing. There isn’t any slowdown that you might expect from a game like this when played on a modern platform. Everything in this game feels and performs like it’s a modern release and not a re-release of an old-school title and is a pleasant surprise when playing it for the first time.
Sound:
Each stage in the game has its own music track that is heavily inspired by the culture and time period that the game is based on and is different with each stage as you progress through the game. Sounds from characters and NPCs, item pickups, and breaking objects all sound good. They also don’t get too repetitive and the stage music is balanced in such a way that it doesn’t even drown them out like you might find in other similar style games.
Conclusion:
Making its worldwide release on the Evercade in its original Mega Drive format was a great addition to the library. So this isn’t the first time this game has seen a release outside of Hong Kong but it’s the first time that we are getting an HD release of this game and I am very glad that even more gamers can get the definitive edition of this game on the platform of their choice.
I highly recommend picking this game up if you’re a fan of beat ’em-up games. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre but want a fun and unique game that you can play either solo or cooperatively, this is definitely worth picking up.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided