Spriggan (PC Engine CD)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
4 Difficulty levels
7 Stages
Ship speed selectable
- - - - - - -
Developed by naxat soft / Compile
Published by naxat soft / Compile (Nazac) in 1991

After MUSHA became a smash hit on the Mega Drive, the development team at Compile turned to the PC Engine CD and delivered Spriggan, a game that seems to have beeen conceived as an offshoot from the mecha Aleste series. Some people even consider them part of the same family of shooters, which is perfectly understandable even if Spriggan gave birth to a somewhat diverse trilogy that would see its end on the Super Nintendo. Similarities between this game and MUSHA are vivid but Spriggan also adds magical undertones to the mix of mechanical foes, offering a fun ride that undeniably bears its own sense of style.

A “spriggan” is by definition a mythological creature from the English folklore, a fairy bodyguard that’s visually related to hobgoblins and ogres and is able to grow in size and strength. Could that somehow relate to the giant robot that departs to save the world from evil in a fantasy setting where bosses are actually controlled by people who flock in panic into their hulls as they see you coming to exert justice? You’re supposed to be inside that shiny robot suit, bravely arguing with enemies before or after dispatching them into oblivion while in constant comms with a gorgeous lady. Sometimes a few companions will join you in battle, but their failing suits and speed won’t make them much of an aid. These are some of the tidbits of extra ambience in Seirei Senshi Spriggan, another name by which the game is often referred to.

Acts of magic

One of the coolest features of Spriggan is its unique power-up system, which is based on the combination of up to three colored orbs: red (fire), blue (water), green (air/wind) and yellow (earth). These orbs come from bug-like carriers arriving from the top of the screen at regular intervals and always head straight to the current position of the player, disappearing if uncollected. While you can always stick to the same color so that the defining aspect of the selected weapon is maximized, it’s the combination of two or three different colors that often provide some of the best choices in the game. Even more interesting is the fact that each and every weapon combination has a name, just wait and see the tutorial that alternates with the attract mode.

Shooting is accomplished with button II, while button I performs the very interesting act of sacrificing the leftmost/newest orb taken into a powerful bomb (orbs cycle in the weapon display from left to right). Although it’s possible to sacrifice all orbs in successive explosions, this ability is more useful when a new orb is coming and you glance the opportunity to inflict some extra damage on enemies by getting rid of just a single orb, especially once you’ve noticed that bomb blasts are also capable of nullifying bullets. As for the blinking orb, it has a double purpose: instantly exploding for great justice (smart bomb) + providing a 1-hit shield to the robot (indicated by the energy barrier appearing over its shoulders).

If you think you need more or less speed to deal with the hordes of magical creatures, all you need to do is press SELECT to find an ideal setting out of four available choices. During some boss fights I’ll decelerate down to the first setting so that I can safely weave between their attacks, but most of the time I’ll use speeds 2 or 3. Though not a very hard game in its default setting, Spriggan requires some careful playing from stage 5 onwards due to a few intricate bosses. However, no matter where you are in the game there’s always the danger of acquiring a bad choice for weapons, such as that weak homing puff of smoke. In that regard greedy players are prone to suffer more than survivalists, given that every orb is worth 1.000 precious points.

After playing some test runs for weapons I came to a personal strategy I decided to stick to at least halfway into the game: avoid three different colors and stick to at least one yellow orb and any other pair of the same colors. When combined with blue I’d get the “aqua crusher” (two forward thick watery streams), with red I’d have “firebolt” (5-way fireball spread) and with green I’d get the “wind destroyer” (forward shot with green side waves). In my opinion these were the most efficient combos, with a special note to the sheer power of the aqua crusher, definitely my favorite. Note: having 2 yellows and a second color is the same as having only 1 yellow and two other orbs of the same color, the result is the same.

Intro and first stage
(courtesy of YouTube user zwallop)

Stages (or acts) in Spriggan don’t always follow the same pattern and embrace a wider array of environments than your usual 16-bit shooter. The longest ones have midbosses that break the stage in halves that boast completely different settings. MUSHA of course plays a strong inspirational role, from some of the weapons to graphics that seem to have been lifted directly from it, such as the plates that fall into a ravine after you beat one of the midbosses. The game also draws clear influences from the Star Soldier series, from Dragon Spirit (the whole 2nd act) and of all unsuspected sources none other than Battletoads (the carnivorous plants straight out of that famous shaft descent, the giant snakes in the 3rd act).

Closing up on the gameplay aspects, extends are score-based and come at 20, 50, 100, 200, 400, 600 and 800 thousand points. Losing the shield brings another level of tension in the busiest areas of the game, with successive deaths leading to absolutely unexpected credit losses (it happened to me a couple of times). On a side note, Spriggan is the first game released in naxat soft’s Summer Carnival series, created to either compete against or capitalize on the success of Hudson Soft’s Caravan Tournament (which is based on the Star Soldier franchise). As such, the game includes a 2-minute Score Attack option and a Time Attack mode where the purpose is to reach 1 million points as fast as you can. The next titles in the Summer Carnival series are Alzadick, Recca and Nexzr.

Below is my final 1CC result for Spriggan on the default difficulty (Normal). I had to be quick to take a picture of the score after beating the last boss because the end credits halt at the final screen (I heard the pertaining section in the options does save your score though).

The next game in the series is Spriggan Mark 2 - Re-Terraform Project.