Somer Assault

~ SOMER ASSAULT ~

Atlus

HuCard

1992

Ever the iconoclasts, the folks at Atlus presented Turbo players with one of the more intriguing characters ever to appear in a video game. The hero of Somer Assault just happens to be a crafty battle-slinky, one who's going up against a rather ill-intentioned sorceress. Quite the clever evildoer, the no-good villainess recruited the mighty, malicious representatives of the zodiac symbols to help her carry out her despicable plans.

The Somer Assault adventure is divided up into twelve mazelike levels, each of which concludes with a showdown between your slinky and one of the zodiac warriors. The odd little hero is hardly defenseless as he flips and flops his way through each stage: he can fire off shots at various angles (the direction that your bullets fly in is dependent upon the position that our flexible protagonist is in while blasting) and nab icons that will grant him invincibility, extra cannons, and additional speed. There are various contraptions contained within each level that can help or hinder your efforts at exploration, including teleportation blocks that warp the slinky to distant locations. While you’ll encounter a fair share of hostile creatures, the main challenge will be solving the mazes before the time you're granted runs out.

In keeping with its astrological theme, Somer Assault requires you to enter your birthdate whenever you begin a new game. When you encounter the boss creature that represents your zodiac symbol, you’ll receive quite a "birthday present" (a veritable smorgasbord of power-ups). Obviously, your journey will be a lot less strenuous after this encounter; but considering that the day you enter determines when you'll receive the present, putting off the party for a while by entering a late-in-the-year date is basically like upping the level of difficulty.

Somer Assault appealed to me instantly, as it's both exciting and refreshingly original, and it just doesn't get old. The mazelike levels are enjoyable if simplistic; the novelty of playing as a slinky never wears off; the music is nice; and the graphics are appealing enough, with some pretty backdrops here and there.

Of course, the game reaches its highest points of excitement during the dramatic zodiac-boss encounters. The bronze giants look great and perform some awesome (and lethal) attacks, and the grim music that accompanies the fights is excellent.

SA is definitely a fun game, but there are a few things I would change about it if I could:

The exchange between the slinky and the sorceress at the beginning is quite entertaining. I would've liked to have seen more such exchanges take place.

I wish Atlus had made the levels larger and dropped the time limit so that players could explore the labyrinths and find secrets at their leisure instead of racing against a clock.

More regular enemies would've been nice, as there are very few and they're mostly meek. Some cooler weaponry (so that the slinky could evolve into a true beast of destruction) would've been awesome as well.

The battle with the evil heads at the very end seems out of place and unnecessary. The fight with the Mimickers that takes place right before it would've made for the perfect final encounter.

Beyond Shadowgate

~ BEYOND SHADOWGATE ~

ICOM Simulations / TTI / Viacom New Media

Super CD-ROM

1993

This puzzle-centric adventure game seemed like a sure thing to me. Shadowgate is my favorite NES game by far, and I even like the N64's much-maligned Trial of the Four Towers. Plus, back in the day, I dug Sierra's Quest games (which this title is highly reminiscent of) and the TG-16's similar-in-style Loom. So all the ingredients necessary for success seemed to be in place here.

Well, being that I experienced lots of awesome monster encounters while playing through the first Shadowgate, I've expected subsequent episodes to provide plenty of cool creatures to deal with. Shadowgate 64 let me down in this regard, but BS comes through with a minotaur, a troll, a wraith, and all sorts of other beasts and demons.

I also expect a good bit of humor in my Shadowgate experiences, and once again, BS does not disappoint, as it incorporates lots of creative ways to die, lots of silly situations for the protagonist to stumble into, and plenty of amusing NPC utterances. The humor here involves goofiness as opposed to the wittiness displayed by the original, but hey, funny is funny. The only scene that takes the goofiness too far is that of the final confrontation, as the main character looks absolutely ridiculous and the dialogue is remarkably awful ("He offered me everything a man could want. But... I'm NOT a MAN!").

Of course, more important than monsters and gags in a Shadowgate game are puzzles, and BS's are pretty darn easy to solve. They're preferable to the absurd conundrums that Shadowgate 64 presents, but the first game in the series is just about perfect as far as challenge goes, so it's a little disappointing that this one doesn't deliver a few more cleverly conceived brain teasers.

The "challenge" to be found here basically comes in two forms. You need to be careful about what you spend your gold on and whom you kill, at least if you want to see everything the game has to offer. I'm sure the designers were thinking replay value here, but I like it when a title of this ilk requires you to make all (or at least most) of the right moves the first time through rather than forcing you to take shots in the dark during subsequent journeys. Also, at times, items you can pick up blend in so "well" with the background graphics that you may not even notice that they're there.

But whether the puzzles in a Shadowgate are hard or easy to solve, I like to have good music to listen to while I'm working on them. The original's soundtrack is a classic, a perfect mix of eeriness and catchiness; and heck, great music is probably what saved Shadowgate 64 for me. The tunes here... well... I don't know if I can really say. You see, every time you step into a different strip, the game has to load, so the music stops playing. You often don't spend more than a few seconds on a single strip, so even if the musical track remains the same in the next one, it has to start all over again. It's possible to jaunt along through four or five different segments and hear just the first few seconds of a particular tune over and over again. What I've heard isn't bad, but it doesn't really compare with the music in the other Shadowgates. There are plenty of ominous tracks as well as a jolly town number.

The interminable cycle of stopping and restarting the tunes essentially kills the atmosphere for me. It isn't until the final all-too-short journey through Castle Shadowgate that I really find myself immersed in the adventuring. There's an awesome hall of monster statues; a creepy organ room where you meet a wild elephant man; and of course, a gong-and-ferryman scene that'll stir up fond recollections for Shadowgate vets.

Castle Shadowgate isn't the only place that looks good here. Sometimes, the background graphics are a little too static, so it looks like the hero is walking past a painting rather than treading through a real environment. But there are beautiful woods, quaint rustic towns, and appropriately dead-looking marshlands in addition to the aforementioned awesome castle strips.

Unfortunately, navigating these neat-looking locales can prove tiresome, as the hero traipses along at a very slow pace. The slow walking in and of itself doesn't annoy me much, but combine it with said hero's inability to walk diagonally and the fact that he controls kind of stiffly, not to mention that you have to do lots of backtracking, and BS ends up feeling slow and tedious at times. Also, the interface is cumbersome; an additional button on the TurboPad probably would've worked wonders for it. The occasional punch-ups feel awful with the scheme that was implemented.

All in all, BS is a good game, but I don't like it as much as I do the original or 64. To be honest, as far as this sort of title goes, Loom has proven to be a little more enjoyable for me. One last interesting thing to note is that BS's protagonist was voiced by the same guy who did a great job voicing Lykos for Shape Shifter (but he delivered a finer performance in SS).

KiKi KaiKai

~ KIKI KAIKAI ~

Taito

HuCard

1990

KiKi is an intense little overhead-view shooter somewhat reminiscent of Last Alert in its "free roaming" style. It's the type of game you'll gradually feel yourself getting more and more awesome at as you put in practice. The later levels are quite challenging, as they present you with lots of projectiles and small, quick enemies to worry about in tight spaces.

The boss fights are also fairly difficult. It feels great to figure out effective methods for getting through them.

Repetition is definitely an issue here. The levels all look alike aside from a bridge here and a graveyard there. The same few enemies show up over and over again (though they do get more aggressive as the adventure goes on). And a single stage song is used repeatedly. It's an awesome tune, to be sure, but at some point, enough gets to be enough.

The repetition doesn't bug me, as I appreciate the action, the boss fights, the cartoony-Japan setting, and the rewards reaped from putting in practice. That is not to say that you should spend forty dollars on the game, but if you can find it cheap, snatch it up and enjoy.

Legendary Axe II

~ THE LEGENDARY AXE II ~

Victor Musical Industries / NEC

HuCard

1990

A kick-ass hack-and-slasher in the vein of its widely lauded predecessor, LA2 is unique because of its atmosphere: I've yet to experience another game quite as dark and brooding and melancholy as this one. The overhanging feeling of despair isn't conveyed through cinematic events; instead, it's established via elements of in-game presentation. The music is so grim and somber; the enemies, so bizarre; the stages, so bleak and unforgiving. And there's no new dawn to look forward to, as even the concluding sequence is completely fucked up. I know a fellow who doesn't enjoy playing the game because it depresses him. I understand why he feels that way, but I can't say I'm similarly repelled by the darkness. In fact, said darkness is what draws me into the adventure.

The soundtrack plays a major role in establishing that compelling atmosphere. It's received so much praise over the years that additional commentary probably isn't necessary, but I must note its effortless segues from quiet sadness (Stage 2) to strong, heavy riffage (Stage 3) to outright creepiness (Stage 5).

And speaking of Stage 5... what a wonderfully crazy level it is. Within the grotesque "innards" constituting the level's boundaries roam fire-breathing ostrich monsters, slithering worm creatures, and slime men who attack via glorious limb-splitting suicide. It's utter madness, disgusting and eerie and outlandish... and absolutely awesome.

A stormy tower ascent follows the memorably abominable Stage 5 and precedes the game's biggest surprise of all: a high-tech, maze-like final stage, which would be difficult to pass even if its complex layout were your only concern. But you'll have to deal with the brutal robots who inhabit it as well.

Those robots are sure to knock you around quite a bit, but you won't take any particularly harrowing falls during your encounters with them. However, earlier levels that require you to make lengthy climbs to their peaks (2, 4, and 6, specifically) host plenty of enemies and traps that can send you reeling back to their starting points, and steps and leaps must be retraced against tight time limits.

Dark and weird are clearly the running themes here, whereas the first Axe explored a broader spectrum of concepts. I wouldn't change Axe 2 for anything, as I love the uniqueness of it, but I do prefer its multifaceted predecessor overall. Still, this one has its advantages: it provides you with three main weapons to wield as opposed to one and pits you against a giant mega-bastard of a final boss.