Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire

~ SAPPHIRE ~

Hudson Soft

Arcade CD-ROM

1995

It'd been a while since I'd last played this highly sought-after vert. Every now and then, I'd take it off my game shelf and toss it around my house just for the hell of it, but today I remembered that it's an excellent shooter and that throwing discs around is the act of a madman. So I played it and reacquainted myself with its awesome action and visuals.

I'd forgotten just how incredible the bosses and midbosses and plain old BIG-ass enemies are. You never know what this game's gonna throw at you next. In one area, a ring of dark mages summons a gigantic rock monster who breathes fire and hurls enormous boulders. In another, you meet a bizarre monk who transforms himself into a dragon amid a dreary downpour. This is right after you've dealt with a giant laser-firing phoenix and a mechanical serpent.

And none of those things are actual bosses. The boss mecha are multiform BEASTS who leave you little room to maneuver with their impressive attack methods.

People complain that, at a length of five levels, the game is too short; but hell, it delivers enough visual variety and remarkable enemies to serve multiple shooters, let alone one. And it makes for a brief experience only if you credit feed and bomb your way along like a baby. If you leave the default settings alone and try to 1CC the game, you'll find whole new layers of depth and strategy. You've gotta conserve your bombs, memorize enemy blast patterns, and counter the mega-attacks launched by your stout adversaries. To me, the effort seems like a successful melding of 16-bit-era aesthetics and level concepts with modern manic action and strategy elements.

Still, there are those who complain that the four selectable ships are too slow. Well, this certainly isn't a problem with one of the machines, and it really shouldn't be an issue with two others. Heck, I played through the game with the slowest craft and had a blast, and any other player who welcomes challenge will appreciate the alterations in strategy called for when using said craft. When it comes right down to it, if you know what you're doing, the ships don't feel slow because you understand where you need to be and how to make it there.

The only thing I don't like is the wailing music--the end-credits "solo" in particular is high-pitched cacophony. Fans of Lords of Thunder's soundtrack will love it, though. And even I dig the crunchy boss-track riff.

It's kind of pointless to ponder whether or not this famously expensive game is "worth it." I spent a lot of money on it, but I'm very glad I own it, and I've had plenty of fun with it. Weighing things objectively, I'd say Sapphire is the best vertical shooter of its time.

Chiki Chiki Boys

~ CHIKI CHIKI BOYS ~

NEC Avenue / Capcom

Super CD-ROM

1994

Chiki makes for some good, clean platforming fun, but it's the sort of CD game that seems like it could've just as easily been done on HuCard. It plays kind of like a linear, simplistic Dynastic Hero, and it's ridiculously easy (to the extent that it makes breezy Schbibin Man 3 seem as brutally difficult as Gaiares). I completed it on my very first try and never actually felt threatened at any point. There are some good ideas here as far as level and enemy designs go (you'll travel through cloudy combat zones via sliding rope hooks, face Deep Blue-esque shoals of hard-charging sea creatures, bash through brittle doors of sunken-ship cabins, and rush from a crumbling tower while beasts plummet to their doom all around you), but I breezed through the game so quickly and effortlessly that I didn't really come to appreciate any of them, and I wasn't eager to do a repeat run afterwards. The good news? The music during the end credits is very nice.

Chiki features stages that are quite bright and colorful, and it gives you some interesting locations to explore.

There's a good bit of variety in the gameplay, as some stages have you fly or swim instead of doing the usual dash-and-leap stuff.

Some of the bosses are neat in concept, but they're all feeble in battle. The entire adventure comprises a single path of little resistance.

You'll often find that your enemies don't even seem to be paying any attention to you.

On the off chance that they do spot you, remember that they're more scared of you than you are of them.

I just had to prove to myself that it is indeed possible to get hit.

Super Air Zonk (CD Denjin)

~ CD DENJIN ~

RED / Hudson Soft

Super CD-ROM

1993

I knew when I acquired this game that just about everyone considers it to be much worse than the original Air Zonk, so I was prepared for something inferior to the awesome chip shooter, but what really came as a shock was the drastic decline in graphical quality. AZ looks a hell of a lot better than its successor, which can boast of only one brief stretch of backdrop (featured in its sixth stage) that's even remotely impressive visually; the rest of its strips are incredibly flat and not even very colorful. The game flops when it comes to audible elements as well: the soundtrack is awful at times, and even during its best moments, it can't touch its predecessor's sweetest melodies. And the action just kind of lollygags along, as there's plenty of dead space. Don't be surprised if you one-credit this the very first time you play it, with plenty of lives to spare.

It's a shame that the graphics, music, and action took such hits, as some really good ideas went into the design of the game. The new charge attack, which surrounds your avatar with a ring of bombs, is quite handy and enjoyable to use. Chums come under attack and make funny pleas for help before teaming up with you, and they perform admirably in the stages they appear in. Abilities can be developed via a new "level-up" system, and collecting smileys is a blast (as always). A couple of tunes (particularly the TV Stage theme) are indeed nice, and the game actually seems a little less sloppy than Air Zonk (partly because you can really get into a rhythm with your charge attack... but also because there usually isn't all that much onscreen that actually threatens to hit you).

The bad stuff is more obvious off the bat, and I didn't like the game at all initially, but it grew on me a little thanks to its positive aspects. I still consider Air Zonk a much better game, of course, as will most other players. And this probably isn't something you want to spend big bucks on, so go with the JPN version unless you absolutely must have every US release that's out there.

The game feels way too laid back for a shooter, and while not all of its backdrops are unattractive, most of them are disappointingly flat and simplistic.

There's actually a lot going on in the Stage 6 background. Unfortunately, the activity isn't evident in this screenshot, and there's still hardly anything happening in the foreground, which is kind of the important part.

Mmhuh. Statues are nice and all, but this guy would probably be even more "revered" if he had put together a respectable army. He certainly doesn't intimidate anyone on his own...

...at least not when he dresses like this.

You can still team up with buddies to evolve into cool new forms, and mini-Zonk makes his triumphant return.

While most of the bosses here are tame compared to Air Zonk's cool, crazy giants, some of 'em can hold their own.

Bye!

Shape Shifter

~ SHAPE SHIFTER ~

ICOM Simulations

Super CD-ROM

1992

What first made Shape Shifter so alluring to me back in '92 were its apparent similarities, visually and conceptually, to The Legendary Axe, one of my favorite TG-16 titles. Screenshots showed a barbarian fellow wielding a battle axe as he fought off giant spiders and the like in forests and caverns. I figured SS would take the excellent basics of LA and place them in a Simon's Quest-type adventure setting. I was right in my assessment, and the quest lived up to my expectations.

Shape Shifter utilizes its broader theme to explore a wider variety of locales than Axe. In addition to the expected jungles and caves, you also pay visits to an underwater city; an ancient, cannon-equipped sky fortress that houses living weapons and monstrous sentries; and even the surface and interior of the moon.

Of course, the forest sections flanking the first town get the most attention thanks to their stunning parallax. But while the game presents many such beautiful areas to explore, my favorite zone of all is the anything-but-gorgeous sewer system beneath the first town, which not only looks extremely cool in its griminess but also makes you fight awesomely appropriate enemies in sewage serpents and enormous cockroaches.

The makers of the game put a hell of a lot of effort into enemy design. There are lots of interesting creatures to defeat in every new strip you reach. Sometimes a particular beast will simply be a one-off treat; the daunting Triceratops that roams the jungle area is a great example. He's not even a boss; it's just that the designers thought it'd be neat to have a cool creature like a Triceratops come rumbling along from out of nowhere.

The lumbering fellow is pretty easy to take down, but that isn't the case with every creature you come across. Another great one-off monster, a skeletal beast that awaits you in a sky tower near the end, is invincible to your attacks, and you have to pull off a bit of shrewd trickery to get the best of him (check out the bell hanging at the top of the structure's interior...).

Not to be forgotten are the formidable bosses, screenshots of whom provided me with extra incentive to purchase the game back in the day. The giant spider, the dinosaur skeleton, and the infamous mud monster seemed so huge and impressive in the many magazine shots they occupied.

Those are actually early-game foes. While some of the later bosses might not make as much of an impact visually, they sure as hell make you work hard to defeat them. The green blob tinkering with the underwater city's airtubes might not look particularly daunting or even do very much, but the fact that he's in a spike-lined chamber with powerful fans blowing you every which way makes the fight against him both stressful and exhilarating. The giant head ruling the moon's core also plays breeze games as you attempt to batter him.

During most of those memorable boss fights, you'll be treated to an intense musical track heavy with violin and augmented by lines of ominous bass. At other points, you'll hear some great guitar leads (the best of which comes in the middle of the rustic forest theme). Piano-based melodies accompany beautifully melancholy moments, like when you tread past the beggars to the east of the first town.

During that beggar scene, you get to see some evidence of the attention the designers devoted to little touches, minor things that help make Shape Shifter an even greater and more engaging adventure game. You can slaughter the vagrants if you so choose, but if you approach them in peace, they'll simply hold out their cups, in each of which you'll drop a single gold piece. Interaction with the bizarre characters you meet is a very interesting element of the experience. You'll need to transform into a panther to be accepted by the cat-folk and their cunning ruler, but other characters will attempt to hack you up if you take on such a form in their presences.

The forms themselves are much more interesting than those in many other transformation-themed games, and they're incorporated as much more than simple novelties. Unlike Night Creatures, in which you morph into weak-sauce creatures like badgers and owls for no more than ten seconds or so, Shape Shifter grants you the ability to turn into fearsome beasts (a panther, a shark, a rock troll, and a dragon), and requires you to master the use of all of them. The panther's deadly claws and fantastic leaping ability are necessities for surviving the peaks of the Eagle Mountains, while only the shark form will do for the battle with the aqua-lizard, as you must evade the reptile's efforts to blast and impale you while launching timely and accurate shots of your own.

The panther is often the object of criticism because people can't seem to figure out how to avoid falling from platforms with him. The game's controls do require some practice, but once I became competent with them, I found them remarkably smooth, and I was able to one-life the journey. There are few video game characters who are as much fun to control as SS's full-power panther, who lunges ahead at light speed, ripping other beasts apart with his claws. Of course, your human form is no slouch either, and he eventually dons suits of armor and powers up his arrows into energy shots.

If you do master the controls, you'll be treated to some fine dramatic moments, including the cat-ruler's act of betrayal and an encounter with your horrifyingly mutated self. ("An illusion, you say? Can an illusion do THIS?")

Then, of course, comes the confrontation with the Dark Ones.

The last three battles are long and tough, but if you persevere and emerge victorious, you'll be treated to a killer rock song during the end credits and cool old-painting-style cinematics the likes of which the game opens with (and that make for a very refreshing departure from the usual anime-themed event scenes).

Now, I actually do have a complaint or two to make about the game. I don't like the fact that you can save in only one spot. The least ICOM could've done is make it easier to return to said spot from great distances, as Dragon's Curse's respective designers did with that game. Another very minor concern to note is that, while it's cool that you get a fifth undocumented form towards the end, the form itself is a little bit lame and superhero-ish; but again, that's a very minor gripe, and the last few fights end up being enjoyable anyway.

If you're up for a challenge and you're willing to put in some practice, and if the concepts I've described sound intriguing to you, go ahead and purchase the game. It really is brilliant, definitely one of my favorite Turbo titles of all time.

(If you find yourself struggling with any aspect of the quest, you can refer to the walkthrough I wrote.)