1943

Capcom, 1988

Lately I’ve been taking time to really read up (and watch countless fantastic documentaries) on the world wars. The air and sea duel between US and Imperial Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War remains one of the most gripping, dramatic conflicts of the 20^th Century. It continues to stir the human spirit and the imagination of gamers in various forms, but when I was a young’un, 1943 was what got my pulse pounding.

Let me take a moment and assure our readers of something important: I am talking about a video game by Capcom, and will offer no intentional slant either way on a conflict fought long ago by men who have now mostly passed on. All opinions expressed are pertinent to the 1988 NES port of an arcade game, not WWII itself.

With that covered, Capcom made one hell of a riveting action shooter out of this piece of history. The titanic conflict is taken from history to hyperbole, presented in a suitably intense form, and yet it still ends up an easily enjoyable breakneck plane shooter. Your brave little plane starts off as the factory-direct model, but there is some decent opportunity to enhance it along your way, as well as lovely power-ups to wield against your foes in the air and at sea. Levels are divided into high-altitude approaches and the death-defying attacks launched on carriers and other ships. The pacing and nature of the action can give you the feeling of a bona fide flying ace, but be careful… 1943 is war. As you fight through swarms of enemy fighters and outward defenses, you must take great care to keep yourself sharp for the “boss” fights against gigantic destroyers, screen-spanning super planes, and everything the Imperial Navy has to throw at you.

The hottest dog of the hot-doggers, you take on the Imperial Navy all on your lonesome. The grit was never grittier on the 8-bit screen.

The graphics are adequate, with some nice color and detail on the big stuff, which gives the epic feel an extra dose of flavor. The music has its good moments, but none of it sucks; this is after all a Capcom title. SFX takes no backseat either, all of it being at least on par with if not exceeding its contemporaries in the genre. All in all, it is a fine port of a very fun arcade game that I fondly keep in my rotation when I open the emulator and strap on my flight harness.

1943 gets an easy 7 out of 10 for me. It’s an easily approachable but healthy challenge for fans of the shmup genre, with plenty of its own twists and goodies to keep you interested.

Crystalis

SNK, 1990

Not too long after early RPG titles for the NES began enjoying notable success, the idea of combining RPG elements with real-time action game play was tossed about by various developers with varying degrees of success. Crystalis (called God Slayer: Haruka Tenkū no Sonata in Japan) is a title that sometimes gets overlooked. Modern and past reviewers have had mixed feelings about this one, but I feel that Crystalis is one of the more entertaining and effectively-framed RPG style stories that hit the NES.

It’s a game with a relatively detailed plot, so I will avoid revealing too much in case you’ve not played and decide to give it a try. The important part of the beginning story is that you awaken from cryo-sleep years after a nuclear conflict that greatly changed your world. As things progress, you find that you may in fact be the one meant to save this new and dark place you wake up to.

Both your allies in the world’s remaining civilizations and your enemies throughout the spaces between are varied and interesting; your quest will carry you far and wide as you take back the world from the evil empire that has risen in the wake of the nuke war, requiring not only brawn but combat skill as you master your sword and magic. There are also some Zelda-esque puzzles along the way, though none of them are so convoluted that a thinking player will find them insoluble. You gain levels and improve in prowess as the plot unfolds around you, but your efficiency in doing so is mostly dictated by good ol’ fashioned thumb-dancing.

Sure, you do a shit-ton of stabbing during your adventure. But Hell, that’s an action RPG staple!

The graphical presentation is more than appropriate, with familiar tropes and new surprises alike. It’s nothing to rant and rave about, but it’s a satisfying spread. Other reviewers have faulted the game for certain challenges being just “button-mashers,” but I disagree; careful and clever play will not only bear you out of trouble, but prove more efficient in slaying your foes. The music is pretty good, but it suffers in places like underground “dungeon areas” from a bit of repetitiveness. Sound effects come out on a similar plane, being decent but nothing to write home about. In my view, the play itself saves Crystalis from being mediocre or plain. The story (again, trying to avoid too much exposition here) is also an engaging and suitably “RPG-like” tale laced with mysticism and heroism, not to mention some great villains.

Crystalis pulls down a 6 out of 10 from me. I like to play it as an action-adventure game, its depth is reasonable without being too elaborate, and its overall presentation is satisfying if not truly stellar. It’s worth a look for anyone who enjoys the hybrid of action and role-playing.

TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project

Konami, 1992

Here’s the one I shit on, folks. Not even because it’s that terrible… it’s just kind of a letdown. To address the elephant in the room, it’s essentially just more of what we saw in the NES version of the TMNT arcade port. It’s more than playable, but it’s just a reuse of something they did only a couple of years before, Very little effort to add much new dynamism or excitement… I mean, they didn’t release the actual Super Mario part 2 here until All-Stars, for this exact marketing reason. “Will they swallow the same pill twice?”

The answer is yes. We did.

WAIT, THOUGH. Maybe I’m not being entirely fair. In the vein of some other beat ’em ups, this third TMNT NES game allows you to choose whether or not “friendly fire” is a factor in 2-player action. It also allows you to change your chosen turtle in between horrible deaths, and for a second player to join in the game in medias res during a 1-player session. Essentially, it’s an opportunity to make the game more similar to the arcade experience in certain ways.

You tell me, folks. After all, you’re as opinionated as I am. Aren’t you?

I maintain that the formula changed very little and that you’re mostly just getting more levels to play in the style of TMNT II, but is that necessarily a horrible thing? At least the premise is exciting: Shredder has turned all of Manhattan into a floating fortress under his control, and the Fab Four must end their vacation early to return home and put a stop to their arch-villain’s plans once more.

The graphics really seem to have taken a hit, as far as I’m concerned. Things look just a little more goofy, but it’s still enough to get the job done. Just barely. The music… well, it’s Konami. Their taste in (and impressive variety of) BGM composition almost never fails, and this is no exception. It’s good, rollicking, authentic shell-kicking music. Otherwise the presentation isn’t too far from the previous installment in the series, and they even made a pass at a decent intro sequence for TMNT 3.

I’ll soften up and drop TMNT 3 a 6 out of 10. It’s comparable to its predecessor, with some neat little options added in, and if you’re after more of the same, you won’t be disappointed. Besides, even though I’m the final authority (sarcasm) on video games excellence, this ain’t all about me.

NRW Gaming 2019 – STAY RETRO

Keep your eyes peeled in March for another three-parter. Stay Retro!

Since the very dawn of video gaming, ever since the first of countless alien invasions and nameless ninja clan insurgencies, gamers and developers have all agreed on one thing: peace is nice, but it’s incredibly boring. A common theme has emerged throughout electronic gaming, one of conflict and mayhem, where the stakes are never low and neither is the adrenaline level. We crave games of war, and damn it all, the developers and publishers have always been right there with us on the front lines.

This trend, when examined, waxes and wanes; an observer of the timeline can see it ebb and flow from simple sword-fighting between two nameless knights to full-scale nuclear war (and the theoretical after-effects). The mid to late 1980s seemed to hit a particular stride, when Cold War phantoms mixed with constantly more badass-looking real life military hardware to spawn a long list of not only films but video games (sometimes directly inspired by said films). War, we knew, was hell… and as this era burned bright red in celluloid and pixel-screen, we strode happily forward to swim in hellish waters. The devil himself was happy to take our hand, and to point out the price… 25 cents for a dip, $40 per cartridge to buy our own backyard pool.

This trio of games is not meant to be a best- or worst-of list, nor a definitive one. These three titles simply stick out most readily in my mind as examples of the over-the-top gloss we often give military strife through the lens of entertainment. And yeah… they’re pretty awesome.

Jackal/Top Gunner

Konami, 1986

I said this wasn’t a best-of list, but this definitely has to be one of my favorites. Jackal is called Tokushu Butai Jakkaru (“Special Forces Jackal”) in Japan, and was marketed in some regions as Top Gunner. In Jackal you play the role of a Special Forces unit tasked with the noble mission of rescuing POWs behind enemy lines. This kind of work is extremely hazardous, so it’s a good thing the brass gave you jeeps that maneuver like gazelles and are as bloodthirsty as you are.

Red beret, devastatingly precise mustache… Easy to tell who drives the jeep… who’s in charge. There’s a cooler in the back. Help yourself to a martini or some Dom Perignon. This will all be over soon, soldier.

Up to 2 players can play, and that’s the better way to go about it since you WILL be mobbed constantly by both infantry and enemy vehicles. The cool thing about most soldiers on foot is that you can just run them over in cold blood, mangling them under your jeep’s blood-soaked wheels as you laugh. The bad news is that they are rarely alone; not only do soldiers pack weapons that can destroy your jeep in one hit, so do the tanks, gun emplacements, bombers, and jeeps similar to yours that tend to accompany them. That’s why you also have a machine gun and a seemingly limitless supply of explosives.

Your POWs are in little buildings, and you open those buildings safely by blasting the shit out of them. Most of them just file out and climb into your seemingly bottomless jeep, but the guys kept alone in their own little sheds upgrade your blammo-factor from grenades to rockets that upgrade each time you rescue another such prisoner.

The arcade original, not unlike that of Contra, is non-stop, with very little in the way of transitions between areas of strife. Not so for the NES port and some other versions; in those, you even get cool little cutscenes illustrating what a rad time you’re having cutting a swathe of carnage through the enemy. Every version has bosses, though, and they’re no joke… from mammoth war machines to walls of launchers and even hostile rows of statues, each set will turn your life into an exercise in move-or-die.

Guerilla War

SNK, 1987

A big part of what makes this one stand out is its original choice of subject matter, which was hastily and clumsily scrubbed for Western release: in Guerilla War, the two players are supposed to be Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, overthrowing the Batista regime. In fact, the game was called Guevara in Japan. Both the titling and dialogue were quickly altered for release in the USA, in hopes of rendering the entire thing generic… I’d say they did nine tenths of a job.

I CAN STILL KINDA TELL THOUGH, CAN’T YOU? I GUESS IT’S JUST INTUITION.

But whatever. This isn’t an opinion piece or a history lesson. Anyone can agree it’s a ballsy move to make a game about that kind of heated subject, and anyone who’s played Guerilla War can agree it’s a pretty balls-to-the-wall run and gun game that is at least worthy of having such a past attached to it.

The only tactical concern of yours besides not dying when you dismount a quick boat to singlehandedly topple the entire enemy force is not to kill hostages accidentally. This is hard, not only because your enemies are all over the place and it’s hard to tell what’s going on, but because it’s tempting to just fire wantonly into cross-traffic and hurl grenades in front of you to clear a path through the chaos of battle. While this is a viable tactic about 2/3 of the time, it gets risky when there are bound and gagged men from your side nearby. Let’s be realistic: some will die. Rescue the ones that don’t.

In the grand tradition of war-themed video games, this one has no shortage of over-the-top enemy shit. You want to fight a train? Well, get ready to fight a fucking train, Che. All by yourself.

Strider Hiryu

Capcom, 1989

Many of us have played the NES title Strider, and most of us know it’s a far cry from the source material. Strider Hiryu, released originally as an arcade title and gradually ported to tons of systems besides the NES, is based off a 1988 Kadokawa Shoten manga of the same name. Hiryu (which means Flying Dragon) is also the protagonist’s name. Here’s what makes it a war game: Hiryu is an assassin sent to kill the overlord of a Communist dystopia in the year 2048. This game was a taste of sci-fi blended into the familiar orgy of violence, and while the overtones may have been lost on a lot of casual players, they still set an interesting example of theoretical futurism carried across different media. While the Red Menace of Soviet Russia ended up reaching a far different fate in real life, the 2048 of this timeline is still a hell of a place to be a super-assassin.

Yep *hitches thumbs through belt-loops* that there looks purdy Soviet to me, soldier. You know what to do.

As Hiryu, you get not only a plasma-generating sword and the acrobatic skills of a jacked-up gibbon, but you can also call upon three different “option” robots to help you unleash a whirlwind of murder on the Motherland. You also get a grappling hook, which seems superfluous after mentioning the other shit, but it comes in handy. All this gear is good, because your target, the Grandmaster, has spared nothing in defending himself. Be ready for robot gorillas (far larger, of course, than organic ones), elaborate laser traps, and more troops than you can shake a plasma sword at.

Robo-Ivan just got knocked the fuck apart by a sword made out of what’s inside the Sun. Robo-Sergei back there is having one of those moments where you wonder what your robo-life would have been if you’d just stayed in robo-art college and studied robo-cubism instead of joining the People’s Droid Army.

I’m kidding. Shake it at all of them. Leave none alive.

FINAL VERDICT:

Jackal – 7/10

Guerilla War – 7/10

Strider Hiryu – 8/10

One of Jackal’s aforementioned cinematics. See you mid-April for more red-blooded gunpowder action!