Syvalion (SNES)

Arena
Checkpoints OFF
4 Difficulty levels
5 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Taito
Published by Toshiba EMI in 1992

On the subject of strange video games – shmups or not – here's a serious contender for the most eccentric one: Syvalion. A rather faithful port of an awkward trackball arcade title, it was released for the Super Famicom in Japan and the Super Nintendo in Europe. As a result, it remained relatively obscure outside those regions, known mostly to die-hard Taito fans or those with a deep interest in Darius lore. For Syvalion is a part of the Darius universe. The connection is unorthodox and somewhat obscure, but it unquestionably exists.

Well, unorthodox is actually the best word to describe this game. The first impression can be, quite frankly, a real disaster. From disheartening to downright unplayable, at first glance Syvalion seems to be impossible. Besides controlling a humongous dragon within a tight maze, you're often victim of enemies spawning right below the poor creature to drain its health to oblivion in seconds. Certainly aware of the awful nature of the gameplay, devs were smart enough to provide unlimited continues with no checkpoints at all, so people will at least inevitably reach the end no matter how many times that golden dragon explodes.

Your only way of attack is to breath fire by pressing buttons A or B (R and L make it spin its head only). While it's possible to deflect all bullets with the fire breath (not stationary lasers), aiming is a chore and there is absolutely no other way to inflict damage against waves of sneaky enemies and a series of huge bosses. Not only that, the reach of the dragon's breath diminishes the longer you keep firing, and the only way to recover is to refrain from doing it (moving the dragon helps recuperate faster). Lost health, indicated by the dragon's golden color turning red, might be replenished if you're lucky enough to see enemies release small triangles instead of DNA molecules whose only purpose is to give you points. Health is not recovered between levels, and no panic resource exists to help you out.

In the search for Gigat and Armax

The story of Syvalion is that an alien race is invading Earth and capturing people to turn them into robotic slaves. Then the game unfolds in two different ways: a fixed adventure that works as a training/tutorial mode featuring fixed stages/bosses (basic series) and the main game mode, which contains procedurally generated levels, random bosses and ever-changing story developments that lead to more than 100 different endings (real combat series). The Super Nintendo version also features a time attack mode where the player must get as many points as possible before the timer runs out over the course of a single stage.

I played the Japanese version, so I couldn't understand anything about the story. For those who also do not understand Japanese, the only thing we need to know is that the first option in the selection screen is the basic series, the second one is the real combat series and the third one is time attack. And then, no matter which one you choose, suffering starts. Syvalion will teach players the meaning of claustrophobic navigation and playing under pressure. After all, the game is timed. If you take too long to follow the arrows and beat the level you'll die. If you procrastinate and stay put deadly skulls will start crossing the screen to bring you inescapable suffering and defeat.

But there is hope. Beating the game in a single credit is actually possible. The natural approach here is to play the basic series first, getting used to stage layouts and enemy behavior. After a while the challenge almost feels fair because it's possible to memorize where hazards are located and spawned. When you move on to the real combat mode suffering starts anew, heightened by a vicious AI that cramps all sorts of things in tight passages that require pixel perfect navigation to avoid damage. Bosses are chosen randomly from a gallery that includes three extra enemies: a giant snail, a dinosaur and a couple of variants of Syvalion itself.

Real combat series also includes a feature that's not present in the basic/tutorial mode: random upgrades applied (or not) to the dragon for each level. These upgrades include extra shots provided by trailing options (single shots, several variations of spread shots, exploding orbs, homing shots), unlimited flames or the best enhancement of all: invincibility. Being invincible allows you to cruise the whole level and still pummel the boss without taking any damage. As for the other upgrades, unfortunately you lose them if you die. Watch out for a variation of the auxiliary option in the form of the Silver Hawk, the trademark spaceship from the Darius series.

Look, ma, how tiny my hands and feet are!
(courtesy of YouTube user Now Loading Please Wait)

So the catch to see the ending of Syvalion's real combat mode in a single credit is a mix of two factors: lucky upgrades and swift performance. Swift because the game encourages you to keep moving even at the cost of some health. Enemies with a blue aura are unique in that they're invincible, so the only way to get through them is by navigating carefully. All dragon segments follow the movement of the head, but if you don't move or move too slowly they might drift a few pixels and get you in harm's way. I might be wrong here, but I don't recall this happening in the arcade version. Unfair cramping of narrow passages is another trait that seems exclusive to the SNES port, so there you have a strong hint of which version should be considered the hardest.

Another thing that doesn't seem to be in line with the original arcade game, aside from the different soundtrack, is rank. Sometimes the port just throws very difficult mazes in the second stage already for no reason at all. And the different boss attacks vary wildly. There are three of them: small blue shots, large blue shots and two forms of homing blue shots. Depending on the boss, if you get the homing shots you can kiss the credit goodbye because it's just really hard to deplete them in time. When luck plays such an important part of the challenge it's hard to state that the experience was actually fun, but Syvalion at least succeeds in teasing the player into trying again and again. The game is very short, graphics are crisp and colorful and the occasional slowdown will certainly be welcomed during the most crowded parts of the maze.

In the high score screen the right table refers to the basic series, and the left table shows the best results for the real combat series. Scores for real combat series tend to be higher because the bonuses when completing levels are cut in half in the basic series. That's why it's also harder to get the single extend in the basic series when you score 1,5 million points, an award that's valid for all game modes. Here are my best 1CC results for the main game modes in the default difficulty (Normal):

Hidden options allow you to change the difficulty and practice the game with stage selection. At the title screen press A, B, X, Y, START. For a debug mode with more options go for A, B, ↑, ↓, ←, →, START. These codes are only valid for the Japanese port.

Task Force Kampas (Playstation 4)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
5 Difficulty levels
3 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Cassiopea
Published by eastasiasoft / Red Art Games in 2021

Originally released for the Playstation Vita and later ported to more modern platforms, Task Force Kampas is a vertical shooter with three stages and neverending loops – at least after you've beaten it once, whereby the game ends right there and then. That's the first time I've ever seen this, and I refused to incur in that old mental exercise of trying to figure out what was going on in the minds of the people who developed the game. I could quote Roger Murtaugh once again, but this is (still) a respectable blog.   

To a design naïveté that doesn't even allow wallpapers to fill out the empty space of the widescreen space but offers the usual share of stupid visual unlockables, Kampas adds random enemy generation within stages, in an attempt to make the most out of the extremely poor enemy gallery. Yes, this is another game that desperately tries to give out more than what it has in store. Although not exactly in the same bag, it's sort of in line with some of those quickies released by Panda Indie Studio, such as Red Death and Void Gore.

With that said, what's there to expect from Task Force Kampas? Not so much, really. In a nutshell, it's an endurance campaign with very short loops, a few weird gameplay choices and decent music.

Cocoking doing his coco thing

 

There's just a single input used for shooting: either R1 or □. An assortment of five characters, of which two are initially unavailable, allow some sort of variation in the way you're supposed to deal with the restricted array of enemies. The basic rule of the game is that you only have one life with a single health bar, but this health bar doesn't actually work like players are used to. If you get hit the screen gets tinted red, and another shot in this condition ends the game. In order to get rid of the "damage" status and start recovering health you need to stop shooting. Just remember that recovery can't be done immediately after being hit, but only after a few seconds have elapsed while being at the brink of defeat. The health bar is the one in the lower left corner of the screen. I haven't figured out the purpose of the one to the right.  

Powering up the initial shot happens automatically as you destroy enemies, but can be sped up by taking the icons that appear halfway into the level and prior to a boss fight. D doubles the shots of your firing stream and S increases its power, while H instantly recovers health. Since the screen is empty when these huge alphabet letters appear, picking up the H doesn't make any sense. Some of the destroyed enemies release tiny golden dinosaurs named "coco", whose basic purpose is to give you more points. However, as you make progress they will also endow the ship with options that behave like cocos on a leash, which of course grant the player with a little more firepower. 

The choice of characters/ships is simple. Besides color, they differ in specific aspects that give them some edge over the basic gear. Midori (green) starts with an extra shot, Psychobaby (red) starts with an enhanced/super shot, grandma La Yaya (green) has more HP, Unknown (dark red) has side shots and Cocoking (yellow) has no shots as all. Wait, no shots? Yes. What you get instead is a group of 5 cocos on a leash that constantly fire for you. The problem is that you can't actually control their position (they're always following you around) and their attacks do not reach the top of the screen, which requires getting up close to bosses to actually inflict some damage on them. As for grandma Yaya, she's actually a very good character because it takes two hits to see her enter damage mode.

With very few exceptions, all enemy shots in Task Force Kampas come straight down at the player, whereas small missiles change their trajectory diagonally towards your position. Don't destroy them too close though, their explosion radius is lethal. This little detail becomes very important later on when things get really hectic simply because this blast radius also annihilates enemy bullets, helping you to strategically clear chunks of the screen. Watch out for the huge destruction blast of those large missiles that come at the center of the play field.

Release trailer for Task Force Kampas on the Playstation 4
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher RED ART GAMES)

It's hard to recommend the game by dint of the visual design, which is just simple to the bone. Backgrounds are almost all black, and everything is aimed at heightening the intensity of the foreground action. The music is quite good though, it definitely gets you going if you can crank up the volume a little bit. The three boss encounters are also quite interesting, especially the last one with the colorful energy spreads against the laid back club track. After a while you tend to take the screen shake for granted, an aspect that might be a small nuisance for some people when they start playing. I got used to it after a while.

The game is okay for a few hours of good fun, then it wears off once you've looped it a couple of times and tried a few extra (unlockable) difficulty levels. My favorite characters where the Unknown lady for her side shots and old La Yaya because of her best survival chances. My best score was achieved with her, reaching loop 4-1 in the Normal difficulty. During gameplay Task Force Kampas keeps track of the time each credit lasts, but unfortunately this information doesn't appear in the high score screen.