#5 Thunder Force II

  

Ok Not even joking? Probably the most bad ass cover art so far. 

 Confused about whats going on? Let me clear it up for you - You're Boned.

For many retro gamers, the "shooter" genre is their bread and butter. I've always found this a bit odd. Mostly because it suggest they had been playing these sort of games for a long time. As a kid I had around 50 genesis titles - and not one of them was a shooter. I think I was vaguely aware that such games existed, but how I am not certain. Even my Genesis playing friends and family did not seem to own any such games. I think I did play one on the NES once, maybe, but it's the most faint and distant of memories now. I didn't come into the genre at all until the retro craze hit. At first I loved these kinds of games...Now I am no longer sure what I think - especially of these Genesis installments. MY  bread and butter was side scrolling action games and beat-em-ups, which may be why despite the lackluster opinion many people have of it, I rated Altered Beast so high.

But I will soon have a more clear opinion of genesis shooters as there are going to be a boat load of them. The first is this launch title - Thunder Force II. I can't tell you this is my favorite shooter, but then again it isn't quite ordinary by shooter standards.

The first Thunder Force is rather obscure and appeared on platforms like the Sharp-X1.....Yeah don't feel dumb I've never even seen one.

Until now!

It was a shooter from an overhead perspective that, unlike most games in the genre, allowed for scrolling in any direction. This sequel follows a similar routine - half the time. Every odd level is an overhead level where your mission is to destroy a series of ground targets scattered about the very large map. The even levels are more standard shooter fair from a horizontal perspective in the vein of Gradius and R-type. This is kind of an odd but interesting evolution of the series. Thunder Force II feels kind of like a half man half ape missing link, as later installments would drop the overhead levels entirely and focus only on the horizontal side scrolling shooter style of game play.

Perhaps this is with good reason. The overhead levels in my opinion are a major pain in the ass! I really wanted to like them. I like overhead other stuff, and they look pretty. They definitely show off the infamous parallax scrolling of the Genesis well. But the way you move....Its hard to describe without you trying it. Understand it is still a shooter. And like all shooters you are always moving. But unlike most shooters in this one's overhead levels you can move in any direction. That means break neck awkward 180 degree flip arounds that are too jerky to be enjoyable. Enemies come at you from nonsensical directions and half your weapons will be useless against ground targets. Add to this the fact that the maps for these levels are, I'll admit impressively, very large, and you're in for a frustrating experience as you run around aimlessly looking for your target with nothing to indicate correct direction of travel except for very good muscle memory. 

 

Even after locating them, the ground base targets required to complete overhead levels aren't going down without a fight.

The side scrolling levels would fair a bit better. But only a bit. The first one was actually a blast and I really enjoyed it. Later on though, the deaths seemed cheap and the difficulty curve a bit ridiculous. Understand though I am not a bullet hell savior. The most appealing thing about this genre to me is the huge community that has built up around this one style of game-play. The internet is full of forums and YouTube videos of deathless play throughs on insanely difficult settings for even the most obscure shooter titles. It's all very impressive! I'm just not even close to that skilled .

   

 There is something to be said for tradition. Although there are some cheap deaths the sidescrolling fare was much more enjoyable. Note selectable weapon options on the top HUD.

Truth be told this is probably the most technically competent game I've played so far for this blog. It just isn't quite my thing. That isn't to say I'm passing judgement on all shooters. This one is so unique in some ways that its hard to compare it with others. The weapon switching may appeal to many shooter fans. I think a major problem I have with shooters in general though is that so many of them are focused on that very community I mentioned that they are designed so that if you don't have a perfect run you might as well not play. Dying eliminates all your weapon upgrades and as the game progresses you very quickly find survival may even be impossible with a standard shot alone.

 The overhead maps are enormous! Its impressive on such an early title, but frustrating when you get lost.

  

Please don't think I'm  a pansy ass whose favorite Genesis game will turn out to be Barney's Hide and Seek Adventure. I told you my bread and butter is side scrolling action - just wait till we get to games like Chakan or Comix Zone and I'll make you eat those words, but I would prefer it if these kind of games gave me one or both of two options:

1. Quit taking away my power ups at death. At least not until I have hit continue. For the hardcore gamer you can make this a toggle switch option, but I'm not a shmup god, I would prefer to finish the game with an average level of challenge. If I must be a shmup god though -

2. Cut out extra lives and continues entirely. I know. One extreme to the other. I actually went into the options menu for Thunder Force II with exactly this in mind but it could not be arranged.

Why? Because in this kind of game extra lives are completely pointless. After the first couple of levels I can't survive without my power ups no matter how hard I practice. The only chance I have at completion is a perfect game. So don't make me waste my time or burn out my reset button. If I die once, just start the game over for me with as little loading time as possible. No extra lives. No continues. No going back to the title screen, just back to the beginning of level 1. "Initiating...ladder...good luck." (or whatever he says at the level start screen. That's what it sounds like to me.)

Ultimately this is a technically impressive game and may even be the best of the launch titles. Had I bought my Genesis on launch day out of the option available here in north America this would have been the best option to companion with the Altered Beast pack in. There are still a couple of launch titles left to review but I think most of you will agree with this sentiment when you try them. It just isn't going to make it into my favorite games list any time soon. It caters to much to the hardcore shooter fanatic - something that if I have any potential to become I haven't reached that point yet and this game isn't going to get me there. But if that describes you well than I definitely suggest giving Thunder Force II a run.

#4 Space Harrier II

 "Aye! The giant metal snake woman came to this giant checker board with me and that's who she's leaving with, disembodied samurai armor!"

 "I have had over half my animation frames sucked out of me and now I seek revenge!!"

I don’t want to talk about this game. Lets talk about Sin and Punishment : Star Successor! 

 Wii Ages! 

Man, I wish I still had a copy of that game! I should dust my wii off and grab one next time I see it around. I absolutely loved the story and the game play was addicting. I always say with arcade style games that I’m going to try to do a bunch of replays and get a really good score. I almost never actually do this. But Star Successor had me hooked enough that had I not gotten rid of that first wii I definitely would have tried. 

If you haven’t played it, Sin and Punishment : Star Successor is a third person rail shooter with serious attitude released on the wii. It is a sequal to the first Sin and Punishment, which was a Japanese exclusive N64 title before it was released finaly on the virtual console. If I had to compare it to something it would be Space Harrier. . . But that might be part of the reason for this game seeming a bit bland.

 But I thought it was gonna fall into crisis later?

We have to face facts – try as we might retro game reviewers live in the ages they live in. We write these articles because we love video games and even though we might claim to have a favorite classic console I sincerely doubt many of us play our games in a bubble. We might not be 100% up to speed due simply to time constraints but we do, at least occasionally if not frequently, play modern games alongside our retro favorites. If we could play in a bubble it might drastically change our opinions; but unfortunately how well a game stands the test of time will always be a factor a retro gamer must consider.

I bring up Sin and Punishment because while it vaguely has the aesthetic of Space Harrier - rail gun shooter about a guy hovering around jet pack style that can also run on the ground blasting bizarre enemies  with a rapid fire energy weapon - it definitely does not have Sin and Punishments level of involvement, re-playability, or charm. It is an interesting title to be sure – but not one I see myself returning to just for kicks. 

 

I’ve always felt that the PlayStation 1 along with its competitors was the crossing point to 3D gaming but that crossing point does not necessarily mean older style genres are dead. In general they fall into three categories. The first is genres that are superior in 2D format. In my opinion beat em ups and definitely run n guns fit the bill here. Understanding that my equivalent to a 3D run n gun is the third person shooter, I simply think 2D run n guns were a lot more fun. Then there are games that work really well in either format though the mechanics may be different. Fighting games and plat-formers fit in here. Then there are genres that just genuinely are superior on modern consoles. First Person Shooters, racing games, and though often over looked, rail shooters, definitely fit into this category.

The rail shooter got a second look on the wii and I think to great success, at least in terms of fun if not commercially. 

So enough about the wii and star successor, what about Space Harrier, does it hold any weight? 

Well like many early genesis titles this was sort of an arcade game – only not really. Space Harrier II is actually the console only sequel to the popular arcade game Space Harrier. But it doesn’t feel like any effort was put into making the game a competent home console game as opposed to an arcade novelty. In the Arcades I’m sure the first space harrier was fine. It was big and flashy with interesting controls and the environments then really were fantastic looking. It probably blew the cabinets on either side of it into obscurity. But it doesn’t translate at home because of the nature of the game play. The game is fun for about five minutes. But there are twelve levels followed by a boss gauntlet and a final boss. That’s a long time for a game that literally has you doing the same thing over and over. You just fly in a circle and shoot. It’s the best possible strategy you can implement.

 There would be better strategies except that the frame rate in this game is horrendous and that is its biggest critical flaw.  It feels like there is roughly two frames of animation before a projectile reaches you sometimes. 

The projectile is far away.

The projectile is close.

You're dead.

I'm sure this will turn out fine. 

So flying in a circle is your best shot at survival because when you die there is no health bar. Get hit once and your character plummets to the ground, followed by the “get ready” voice synth you will learn to hate with a passion. Your punishment for death is the fast paced flow of the game play gets broken up. This might be incentive for some masochistic players who loved games like R-Type to want to master this title, but it won’t be enough. Most deaths are not caused by enemies but by running head first into obstacles that skip jump through the terrible frame rate before you have time to react. 

I did beat this game. And I will say this, the ending genuinely surprised me. Mostly because this was an era when just putting “congratulations!” on the screen was considered a legitimate way to end a game. But for all the ways it feels shoddily made, Space Harrier II managed to actually have a story line ending. Don’t beat me up when you see it and are disappointed. I’m not claiming it was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald or anything, but it's there and its got a bit of thought to it. The fight with Dark Harrier, the final boss, even got me excited for it again for a second but the  repetitive gameplay and cheap deaths and frustrating frame rate just kill any chance of me coming back to the game “just for fun.” 

This game might be enjoyable to people who like other rail shooters from the era. It is certainly not the least playable of the bunch….oh... that is still to come…  But for me what it did more than anything was make me realize how much better this genre is now.

#3 Last Battle

Obvious product placement.

 "That's not your purse!"

Here we have another weird conundrum much in the same vein as Alex Kidd – a truly terrible game that shows evidence, if one scrutinizes closely enough, of having at least someone on their development team with an idea, just a glimmer of a thought that could have worked. It doesn’t work, not even a little, but what makes both games bad is the presence of possibility that there could have been something to this.

The first thing that gave this title some promise was its license.  Last Battle was actually Fist of the Northstar. Not to be confused with any other game of the same name. This is certainly not a port. No one would have elected to repeat this on more than one console after seeing the results. From what I understand, the Fist of the Northstar license could not be obtained in the States, so they decided instead to base it off the final Narnia book by C.S. Lewis….

Not really. Just wanted to see if you’re still awake. But a bunch of kids dying on a subway at the beginning might have given this game a bit more appeal.

If I had to take a wild guess I might say Taxan could have had something to do with the lack of license for this release. I am sad to report Sega is directly responsible for this particular abomination and my understanding is that the Taxan game for the NES was actually not bad. In its original format Last Battle is based on the second Fist of the North Star anime series. The names have been changed – both for legal reasons and to not slander the franchise by having this game attached to it. I’m not totally sure how similar the plot is, but the characters have all definitely had their names swiped. This doesn’t really evade the obviousness of the license to anyone familiar with it. The one thing this game has going for it are some pretty well designed sprites for some characters including Kenishiro who is now known as Aazark (?).

I didn’t know much about Fist of the North Star until just recently. One of the things I am going to be doing here with this blog is experiencing the licensed material that goes with licensed games. Whenever we run into a game based on a movie, series, book, or comic I would like to read or watch at least some of it, if I have experienced it before or not. While technically it has lost its license the one good thing to come out of Last Battle was that it gave me an excuse to finally watch some of Fist of the North Star, a series I have been aware of for a long time but never personally experienced. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s a cheesy, mad max like post-apocalyptic martial arts story with a bit of fantasy sprinkled in. It’s a real blast of an ultra-violent 80s anime and I plan to keep watching the series despite how bad this game is.

The worst part actually is that the anime had all the elements to make a really good game. I haven’t played the Taxan game for NES but I hope they made much better use of the license.

 So much wasted potential. This license could have made an amazing game.

So what exactly is wrong with Last Battle?

To put it simply it just isn’t fun.  The game kind of feels like it wanted to be a more complex version of Altered Beast but it isn’t even close, do not assume from that statement that if you like Altered Beast you will like Last Battle, they couldn’t be further apart. It’s a slow moving left to right oddball action game. When you punch or kick most enemies, they just go flying off the screen, which is pretty entertaining at first. The gimmicks with this one are an over world map in which you can pick which level you want to go to next and a sort of leveling system. The map is important mainly because it allows for repeating a level multiple times which is helpful for leveling up. Everyone loves built in grinding right?

 Pick your poison....again....and again...and again...

Leveling makes you beef up in a somewhat Altered Beast like fashion. You can then do some of the moves Ken does in the show like rapidly punching several times in a second. You also have no shirt which is good I guess, it looks like it might be hot out.

The basic left to right levels are just bland, not horrifying. It’s the boss fights- which consist of weird random button mashing and odd timing- that take you out of the spirit of the franchise that is the real problem. They just feel very poorly done, like a broken fighting game. When I beat the first boss I was very disappointed by the localization changes as well. He bubbled up all over. I had just finished watching the pilot episode for fist of the Northstar so I knew what was happening and was pretty excited. In the anime, Ken has a secret kung fu technique that causes his enemies flesh to bubble, and then their heads explode. All that was taken out of the western version and all we got was the bubbling followed by a cartoony cheap 16 bit shump style explosion. Not a good one either. No decapitation. I know I sound like a sick freak right now but the magic of these old anime franchises was how over the top they were. If they weren’t going to give us dynamic gameplay they at least could have spared us some franchise flavor.

 "Consider this and everything that follows it a warning shot!"

The labyrinth levels are even worse, with traps you really aren’t very well equipped to deal with given how slow and clunky Aazark moves. The other big problem is how difficult it is to gain life if you’ve lost it. The labyrinth levels allow you to do this by fighting enemies. This isn’t to tough but the labyrinths are dangerous, it’s easy to lose more than you gained and you only get one life- die and its back to the beginning of the game. A step penalty, considering how much of the game consist of grinding for levels that take too long to reach for a game of this type. While I’d have liked to see what could be done at the last upgrade I couldn’t find it in me to care enough to continue after reaching my two hour requirement. I decided to pass on mastering this one.

The dialogue though? The dialogue is spot on. 

Last Battle may be worth it for a Fist of the Northstar fan who has to have every related product but I don’t really think there is a market for it among people looking for a fun Genesis experience. Another bad launch game down the tubes.

#2 Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle

 God look at him. He's one of those guys that actually SAYS "You mad bro?"

 Don't let this mildly interesting scene fool you. Alex Kidd is a blight on our heritage.

When you love a game company that has fallen through the cracks, become defunct, gotten a bad rap, or dropped out of a market, especially the console market, it can really help the apologetics of your blind faith to have good reason to love its franchises. If the franchises a publisher releases are of high quality your allegiance has an aesthetic basis for argument. 

For the sake of the Sega faithful therefore…. I say we destroy every copy and ROM of any Alex Kidd game ever made.

It’s not even that they are bad games as games go, when we take into account the sum of all games.  It’s what Alex Kidd claims to represent that makes him a heretic.

 When Sega released the Master System to a worldwide market it faced a problem, especially in the North American market. Not only did Nintendo have exclusive licensing agreements with many important publishers, they also had a growing repertoire of original characters and franchises to pull from that were already wildly popular in both Japan and the States. Not the least of these was Mario, and Mario needed to be answered on the field of marketing battle…. But he never was - certainly not by this big eared twerp. Alex Kidd would never even come close to the plumber’s popularity and by the time the Genesis dropped Sega was already well aware of his short comings. This was his swan song. Mario would not get a real answer from Sega until 1991, from you know who.

The franchise, in my opinion, has always had problems of not being very interesting despite trying way too hard, among other issues. For this review we will focus only on its last installment, the Genesis launch title, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle.

The first question I had is why was this a launch title at all? Sega had pretty much already decided to take its new product in a different direction, appealing to an older demographic and focusing on celebrity endorsements and arcade ports. None of these things lasted consistently but in 1988 / 1989 that was Sega’s mentality. My guess is they needed to pad out the library at launch. Essentially every console launch does this. Alex Kidd was an easy in. He started his life on the Master System which, while poorly received in the states, did well in Brazil, Europe, and to an extent even Japan. Alex Kidd was a welcome launch title in those regions and frankly Sega needed the quantity to sell consoles and software at launch day to prove this console would have US support. It was not all that hard a move to slap a North American clamshell around Alex. The fact that I am probably spot on about the decision process here would not upset me were it not for the fact that they had this mentality with Alex Kidd but not later European and Japanese releases that might have actually fared well here.

But I digress. For good or ill, Enchanted Castle came with the coming of the Genesis, “In the beginning” so to speak. As such I must now attempt to explain what is wrong with Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. This is not as easy a task as it should be because what is wrong with him has just as much to do with what is right with him as it does his flaws. Ultimately it comes down to a few major points:

1.     

         This does not feel like a first party game. It feels like a very low budget 3^rd party game. It feels like shovelware. It controls like a wisdom tree platformer, all of his games do. This would not be so bad and in fact some shovelware has enough camp value to be forgivable. For shovelware, Alex Kidd is quite good. In that regard it would be a respectable game, were that the case. But it’s not shovelware. It’s not an obscure 3^rd party game developed in a Taiwanese sweatshop. It’s a 1^st party title and not only a 1^st party title, but a 1^st party title staring the hairy little bastard who has the audacity to claim mascot status for both console and company, at least at the time. There is no excuse for this.

The basis for this comparison is in the weird physics. Mario gained momentum and it felt natural. Alex feels like he has wax on his shoes. He slips and slides everywhere. He jumps like a crack head on the moon. It just doesn’t feel tightly made.  The environments seem minimalistic as well. They are bright and colorful but lack detail that even these early launch titles tended to possess.

2.       The gimmicks that should have made the game interesting come off as useless first, annoying second, and cheap in the finale.

Namely items.  One of the first things that looked interesting about this game was a large inventory of interesting looking gear you could acquire. I’ll get into the how in a second.

The problem is none of it is all that useful with very few exceptions.  I will tell you this right now – get the bracelet ASAP. Get several. Before the game ends get the pogo stick. Everything else is basically useless crap. The motorcycle has a level you can use it on effectively but it’s not very fun and the level is actually more interesting without it. The helicopter is an even worse offender as it’s downright annoying to control. It requires constantly tapping C in very rapid succession which would be less of a problem if not pressing it resulted in a slow and steady descend rather than dropping like a rock in water. There is also a cape that makes you temporarily invincible but the cost of it doesn’t make it very useful in most instances. There is a cane to make you levitate which may be helpful at some points but not really necessary, and the necklace…Just…Give me a minute I’m working up to that little gem. 

 Each item represents a broken fragment of my shattered life.

All you really need is the magic bracelet which makes your attack projectile. This is essential because one hit will kill you. The pogo stick allows you to jump very high which will make some puzzles later in the game easier.

Now… Regardless of absolutely ANY redeeming quality this game could have, here is the nail in the coffin that dooms it to my own personal hell for all eternity:

3.  

           Every freaking boss in the game….are you sitting down for this? Every single *^^%^$ one…is fought….by playing rock paper scissors. I don’t mean that like people do when they talk about Pokémon or Fire Emblem with elements that counter each other and such. I mean you literally pick rock, paper, or scissors. Alex makes the symbol with his hand. The “boss” does the same. And in that instant you win or you die.

Completely unacceptable. There is no cutesy backstory in the world that would ever make this ok.

You do this in other places too. It’s how you acquire items. And I’m ok with gambling for items. That is fine. You pay a bit of gold to play and if you win rock paper scissors you get the item. This isn’t all that creative but it’s acceptable. A boss that kills you if you don’t win a game of chance is not. The necklace allegedly allows you to read their minds but what you find out in trying this is that they are still very indecisive. What’s worse to me though than the fact that it’s basically pure luck if you actually finish the game or not, is the fact that they robbed you of fun. Look at the boss fights in the first two Super Mario Bros., both of which were out by now. How could Sega have looked at those and then decided instead a game of freaking rock paper scissors’ was an acceptable alternative?

 Clearly not. I have to play this piece of crap.

There is one final thing I want to point out. The title would seem to suggest the game takes place entirely in an Enchanted Castle. In fact the castle is only the final level of the game, but the funny thing is it really SHOULD have been the whole game. The platforming levels before it were as bland as bland can be. The only redeeming factor this game has, in fact the only part of the game that feels like it has any design effort put into it at all, is the final level in the castle in which Mega man style scrolling screens reveal individual rooms each with a kind of platforming puzzle to solve. This was the only part that was any fun at all and should have been the basis for the entire game not merely the unappealing climax. Just when the puzzles are starting to get really interesting, you have reached the end, it’s over, and your treated to – you guessed it – more rock paper scissors’ action!

***SPOILIER WARNING***

The black blocks make you bounce. The puzzles in the last level remind me of modern retro games like Super Meat Boy. If only the whole game had consisted of these one screen puzzles. 

 ***SPOILIER WARNING***

As a final slap in the face to the player, the game ends with you discovering that your father, who you have come all this way to rescue, was never really captured to begin with and was screwing with you for shits and giggles this whole time. So…you give him a hug. I kid you not. That’s it. That is how they ended this franchise and with the exception of a couple of cameos Alex Kidd would never be heard from again.

GOOD RIDDANCE!

This game is best for people who hate themselves and want to feel like they are already dead. I can’t really recommend it to anyone except those wanting every taste of Sega history. The most insulting part isn’t even that the game is that horrid or unplayable, it’s that the whole franchise was supposed to be Sega’s flagship, and it’s now our greatest embarrassment.