0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - 3x3 Eyes: Tenrinou Genmu

         

3X3 Eyes - Tenrinou Genmu is an Adventure game adaption of a Japanese Manga titled 3×3 Eyes, pronounced Sazan Eyes, the developed by Nihon Create and published by King Records, and was the second game released on the Playstation 1,  it was exclusively released in Japan on the 6^th of August 1998 it was also released on Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP

The game is a Japanese style Puzzle-less adventure/visual novel the game world is comprised of anime style still shots of locations and characters, with the player interacting with objects and characters by selecting options from a menu such as look, talk, ect, cut scenes in the game are presented as animated sequences.

3X3 Eyes - Tenrinou Genmu is one of the games based on the manga and anime series 3x3 Eyes. It tells the story of Yakumo, a normal Japanese teenager who studies and works as a waiter, and Pai, a girl who belongs to the race of sanzhiyan, the immortal three-eyed people. After having discovered the secret of eternal youth and immortality many hundred years ago, the sanzhiyan could not remain human, and became cruel demons capable of possessing people and turning them into "wu" (Chinese for "nothing") - immortal, powerful, and obedient servants. Pai, who looks like a young girl, but is nevertheless three hundred years old, was terrified by what the sanzhiyan have become, and swore she will find a way to become human again.

She meets Yakumo, whose late father was a scientist who helped Pai on her quest. Accidentally, Pai uses the powers of her third eye on Yakumo, and he becomes her Wu! Trying to regain their lost humanity, Yakumo and Pai are confronted by the evil Benares, the Wu of the sanzhiyan ruler Kaiyanwang. In pursuit of Benares and his henchmen, Yakumo and Pai travel to India, the Easter Island, and many other countries. Will they be able to stop Benares and become human again?  

Like the previous 3 x 3 game reviews are very difficult to find so once again we head to GameFAQs, with a total of 12 user review the game is currently sitting at a user rating of 3.08/5, with quite a spread of rating for the game, 25% of users gave the game a lowly 2/5 this was not the lowest rating however 8.33% gave the game just a 1.5/5,  most however gave the game a solid 3.5/5 with 16.67% giving the game a 3 or 4 out of five.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit five online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific but from a podcast I listen to and  I have heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com as well

So lets get down to business. with Gamedude sadly they do not stock the title which is not a surprise, likewise Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland don’t stock the game either

On to Amazon.com who have a decent selection of used copies of the game available in varying conditions, and with a fair few having free shipping, if you are looking for a used copy from Amazon the lowest you are looking at for a used copy is $9.92, this is one of the copies that comes with free shipping, prices for a used copy do increase in price especially adding in shipping to some of the copies up to a height of $23 to $24, and as always the obligatory over priced copy at $60.

Like the previous game I coved in the 3X3 Eyes series there are plenty of brand new copies of the game on the market and again most offer free shipping with starting prices for a new copy starting at $38.07 which is about £29 in the UK while in the EU it comes to about €32, new copy prices reach a high of around the $55 mark this copy is one of the few that have a shipping costs.

Ebay again unlike Amazon is light on copies of these Japanese only title, with just six copies being on the market at the time of writing this the cheapest is at $9.26 the seller states if no case = $5 off)  same seller as the last game in this series (this guy really needs to keep track of his game cases, the remainder of the copies are priced between $12 and $15..

Written by

P J Gibbon