Excellent 10 [Brenner] (FM Towns)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
4 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Team Fiat
Published by Amorphous in 1990

Before shoving the FM Towns Marty back into the box I figured it was a good time to resume exploring the contents of Excellent 10, the compilation released by Amorphous with games exclusively developed with their shmup-making tool Shooting Towns. And true to my initial resolution when I played Beams, the chosen title had to be the next one in alphabetical order.

Even though it shares a lot of aspects with Beams – mainly the poor graphics, the absence of autofire and most of the music – Brenner is of a different breed. With only four levels it barely justifies being called a complete game, yet it doesn't come off as a complete pushover. Difficulty in this case is directly related to the fact that you need to mash button A to survive, and also because Brenner does not hold your hand by granting excessive extends. All you get is an extra life for each defeated boss.

Surrounded by evil fluffy slimy green tennis balls

First of all, we need to make it clear that this is an 8-bit standard game. There's nothing here that could not be done with the same or even better results in an NES, for example, and that seriously hurts the reputation of a 32-bit video game/computer system. Back then it must have been thrilling to finally be able to design your own shmup, but I have already learned that you shouldn't get your hopes up on this system's technical prowess when it comes down to the games developed with the Shooting Towns tool.

That said, Brenner at least delivers something more palatable than Beams. As a simple game that follows a classic mold, players just need to adopt a methodical approach in order to deal with the obstacles and the lack of autofire. Most of the time that weird spaceship that looks like a racing car feels underpowered, especially after dying. The good news is that everything has a fixed behavior and there are no aimed shots at the player, so regardless of how many enemy bullets or fireballs cruise the screen they will always follow the same routine, as will the power-ups released by them. That's the saving grace in a game where button mashing is such a necessity.

The default pea shot can be changed into other weapons according to their respective icons: 2-way (forward + rear shot), 3-way spread, 4-way cross shot, a combination of 3-way and 4-way (best weapon in the game) and the laser (inexplicably the only one with autofire). I don't know what those guys in Team Fiat (the only "developer" in the compilation with a non-Japanese name) were thinking, but the single weapon with native autofire only appears in the second stage. There are no upgrades at all and no advantage is seen by taking successive items of the same type, be it for survival or scoring. Speaking of which, I believe the most difficult part of the plain scoring system is actually reading your score. All fonts in the game are so small they might strain some people's eyes.

From the beginning to the end of Brenner

Although simple, Brenner tries to show a little variety throughout. It starts very outer-spacey, making you fly through a meteor shower and fireballs before facing a series of turrets prior to the boss, then it slowly shifts to a biological theme. In the third stage you'll be surrounded by spores, amoebas and breakable caterpillars. If only the bosses had some minimally interesting design... But no, they're all huge wrecks that bounce around the screen in repetitive patterns. Don't try to move too far up when going around them, the game cuts you off a good stretch before you're able to reach the top of the play area. The final level has no enemies, only a brief escape sequence inspired by the Salamander games.

Note: do not press START once you lose all lives or you'll come back to the start screen. Continues are unlimited but you should always press buttons A or B to restart the level. In order to get back to the OS screen to select a different game you need to reset the console. Whenever you boot one of the games in Excellent 10 on the FM Towns Marty you're given the chance to select between under scan (31,47 kHz) or over scan (15,73 kHz) displays.

My final score for Brenner is below. I managed to beat it on a single life.

Ku2++ (FM Towns)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
5 / 10 Stages (Comical / Scerious mode)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Panther Software
Published by Panther Software in 1993

The FM Towns was never a mainstream computer, nor was the FM Towns Marty, its equally obscure consolized version. Owning one of them is already proof of how much people are capable of cherishing video game collecting, but going after the games can be an even more challenging quest. With a few exceptions they tend to be rare, expensive and above all not language-friendly (unless we’re talking about shmups, of course). On the far end of the rarity spectrum are games like Ku2++, which are so scarce and collector-protected that only surface on the market when Earth aligns with Saturn and Pluto. I happened to be there when one of these events took place, luck and everything else included since I was even able to bypass the ridiculous price these games command these days.

Released for the Sharp X68000 computer as Ku2, the title was soon ported to the FM Towns as Ku2++, down to the way both games on the disc behave. Wait, two games? Yes, Ku2++ actually comes with two completely different games that besides being verticals have only one aspect in common: the presence of a leeching parasite that flies alongside the player and is able to swallow enemy ships to unleash a devastating attack. Having two games on one disc is probably where the double plus in the title comes from, whereas “KU” is supposed to be the name of the alien leech.

As soon as the disc is booted you must select between Scerious [sic] and Comical mode, a choice that can only be reverted by resetting the console. Scerious mode is your classic sci-fi shooter, complete with an extremely convoluted story fully narrated in English/Engrish. Comical mode, on the other hand, is a cute’em up narrated in Japanese with a foolish, exaggerated kusoge style.

Comical mode: the American dream ends in hamburguer rage over the clouds

The long intro for Scerious mode introduces a character named Wayne Shadowick, the heroic pilot of the XF-33V/U001, an advanced spaceship equipped with two of those leeching maggots that fly beside it all the time. The XF-33V/U001 is the last hope of mankind against an evil alien threat called Soridum, and must travel across eight areas plagued by all sorts of enemies, both mechanical and biological. Button B shoots and button A fires the energy accumulated inside the KUs, which change color when absorbing enemies. A pulsating green tint means they’ve soaked the maximum amount of energy, whose blast upon hitting a target results in a big explosion with a skull figure inside – an obvious nod to Truxton. As expected, triggering the bomb with half-full KUs will result in less powerful blasts.

Prior to starting the credit it’s important to go to the options screen first. Besides turning on autofire, you can also choose from three weapon “packs” to be used in the game, each one allowing the ship to use three different weapons according to the letter-coded power up item that cycles as it leaves the screen. Pack 1 is the default and comes with M (homing missiles), L (laser) and V (spread vulcan). Pack 2 comes with M (multidirectional shot), R (ring shot) and H (straight + homing). Pack 3 consists of R (straight), W (winding spread) and P (bending spread). All weapons can be upgraded twice by collecting the same item successively, with speed-ups providing three additional levels of maneuverability (as seen in the overhead display). There are no shields of any kind, but the good news is that your maggot friends are able to absorb all bullets.

Although relatively quirky and strangely cool on the outside, Scerious mode (by all means the main game in Ku2++) is rather bland when it comes to graphics, and doesn’t flow at the frame rate you’d expect from a 32-bit console. Some weapons send the gameplay into a numb/dazed condition where you can’t fire without being affected by very mild slowdown, in a smaller scale than what can be seen in Thunder Spirits for the SNES (in a weird inversion of the norm when it comes down to shmups, homing weapons induce no such slowdown here). Flicker isn’t a problem, but bullet visibility does become an issue in certain areas. The scoring system is as basic as it gets, and sadly totally wastes the potential provided by the KU gimmick.

Since there are no continues or additional difficulty settings in place, the developer tried to address the challenge spikes by handing out extra lives like candy (one at every 80.000 points). The build-up in challenge is okay until you reach stage 6 (Ancient Temple), the hardest and most dangerous area, where all weapons seem to lack the firepower to deal with both ground and aerial enemies. The game gets more manageable afterwards, but remains quite intense and a lot more demanding in regards to the usage of KUs both for defense and offense. Also beware of walls with blurry borders and turrets that spit bullets right in your face. Throughout the journey dedicated shmup fans will certainly spot influences from other games in the genre: Salamander and Dragon Spirit seem to be the strongest sources of inspiration, but there are also echoes of Raiden and Star Soldier here and there. It’s just a bit disappointing that the result isn’t remarkable in any way whatsoever, except for a few pieces in the synth-based soundtrack. The theme that plays on the Alien Ferociousness level is great, for instance.

A full run of the "Scerious mode" on Ku2++ for the FM Towns

And what about Comical mode? I doubt any serious shmupper will be able to play more than two full credits of this travesty. Blame it on the annoying Japanese narrator and the complete lack of challenge. Comical mode draws a lot from Twin Bee in graphics and overall tone, but the gameplay is just marginally better than Magic Girl on the Mega Drive, frame rate included. Instead of two KUs now there’s only one, following the ship around and swallowing whatever comes across its path. Weapons are restricted to three, a forward shot, spread bombs and a flamethrower, all of them activated and upgraded by collecting the appropriate icon that cycles with speed-ups and bounces around before disappearing.

What makes this mode so easy is the same extend routine of one extra life with every 80.000 points and the additional assortment of 1UPs you’re able to pick up. On top of that, an icon that appears every 30 seconds and looks like a fireball endows the ship with a shield barrier that can withstand a good number of hits. Frankly, if you don’t die by boredom after a while you’ll only know your first death when a few enemies start coming from below at the end of the third stage. Bosses are a joke and might surrender instantly when hit by the KU bomb, which at medium or full power materializes as a giant fly swatter. It’s quite fun to do it, too bad it becomes almost impossible to feed the KU parasite once you get all possible speed-ups. Not that it really matters, but you can adjust the speed of the KU in the options between low/middle/high.

With just five stages, Comical mode offers a bit more in the way of scoring, given the fact that every surplus power-up gives you some extra points. The poor gameplay and the astounding lack of challenge hurt it bad though, and the inability to skip that retarded ending to finally see your score forced me to endure one of the most annoying things ever in a video game. Twice.

Pausing in both games lets you turn autofire OFF/ON (button B) and alter other options that don't work at all (palet STOP/FLASH with button A and wait NORMAL/ZERO with ↑). I don't know what this “palet” thing is, but the ZERO wait function would've been nice if it even worked. I suppose these extra switches might have a purpose on a FM Towns computer. The pictures below show my best results on both game modes of Ku2++, with Scerious mode beaten using weapon pack 1.

Excellent 10 [Beams] (FM Towns)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
6 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by ????
Published by Amorphous in 1990

One of the selling phrases of Shooting Towns, a development package released for the FM Towns product line in 1990, is "games people are playing in the 90's are games they are making". As cool as it might have been back then, Shooting Towns unfortunately lacked any sample game so people could know what to expect from the available design tools (an absence that was corrected in the revised release Super Shooting Towns). In order to broaden the appeal of Shooting Towns, soon after it hit the market developer Amorphous compiled ten games developed by common users in a CD titled Excellent 10.

While an extremely rare item these days, going by the quality of the shooters it contains Excellent 10 is more of a collector's prize than anything you'd actually want to play. In all honesty, all shooters in this compilation aren't even close to the standards of a 32-bit gaming machine. It's downright embarassing, especially when you compare this material to what Dezaemon on the SNES is able to offer even though it came out four years later. Most of the games in Excellent 10 present poor frame rate, uninspired graphics, lousy sound effects and an annoying lack of autofire. It's no Action 52, but saying they look like 8-bit games is no exaggeration. In general they've also got subpar challenge levels, even the ones that carry a bizarre nature that's often good for laughs or geek talk. At least each game has and ending, if that counts for something.

Beams?

Let's now take a closer look at Beams. First of all, there's nothing in the game that reflects the title. There's no beam anywhere, neither laser, plasma, fire, smoke, dirt, whatever. Beams is actually insect-themed, but across its six stages the player will not find any noteworthy variation in the enemy gallery composed of small bugs or bug bosses that wander around the screen in banal and repetitive movement patterns. Environments consist of forests, corridors/ravines, skies, outer space, industrial landscapes and something that's supposed to be the bug lair in the final level. Button A is used to shoot, button B has no function at all and it doesn't get more complicated or simple than that.

Weapon selection is performed by taking the icons left behind by destroyed enemies. These icons carry a letter inside, but the game's resolution is so bad that recognizing the letter in those circles is harder than memorizing their color schemes. Here's what you have at your disposal:

• white with purple border (B): forward/backward shot;
• white with blue border (S): 6-way spread, three forward, two lateral, one backwards;
• golden (4): 4-way shot;
• orange (F): 3-way forward spread;
• blue (L): laser;
• full golden icon: temporary invincibility (your insect vessel is painted with gold for a while).

Laser is the only weapon that comes with natural autofire, but most of the time it's just better to go with S and mash the button to cover a larger area of the screen. Each weapon is already in its final form, with no upgrades or any additional bonus gained by collecting the same item multiple times. Speaking of bonus and scoring, this part of the game was seriously overlooked in Beams. Some of the enemies you kill aren't worth anything, and as much as I tried to understand the logic behind this I just couldn't. It seems our developer friend simply forgot to add point values to them. Another hint at this oversight is that no matter how well or bad you play the initial level you'll always reach the first boss with 6.600 points.

"Are you by any chance my big daddy?"

If it weren't for the benevolent distribution of 1UPs (the small purple insect items), Beams wouldn't be such an easy game. I won't say cheap deaths abound, but at times it's hard to see enemies or bullets due to the bad choice of colors. As if the abundance of extra lives wasn't enough, there's also an extend routine in place which I didn't really care about. The maximum amount of lives you can have in stock at any given time is 8, so in the heat of the battle you don't need to get out of your way to collect more 1UPs if you're full of them. For what it's worth, upon dying you can continue at the start of the current stage by pressing SELECT. START will send you back to the start screen.

The catchy nature of a few musical themes and the contrast between music styles and atmosphere has a reason: judging by the re-use of the same tracks in multiple games, apparently most of the music in Excellent 10 was slapped onto the user-developed games by Amorphous themselves.

As you can see, there's really nothing special about Beams. Once beaten, the game stops at a single ending screen and you won't be able to see the extra 20.000 points you got for defeating the last boss. Here's my best result, taken before that ugly head bit the dust.

Notes: whenever you boot one of the games in Excellent 10 on the FM Towns Marty you're given the chance to select between under scan (31,47 kHz) or over scan (15,73 kHz) displays; in order to get back to the OS screen you need to reset the console. Those who're wondering if they should expect at least a little variety in the other titles from this compilation, well... Don't get your hopes up, unless you care about bizarre shooter/racing hydrids and anime pedestrian shooters. But that's another post for another day.

Flying Shark (FM Towns)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
6 Difficulty levels
5 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Toaplan
Published by Ving in 1993

Experienced arcade shooter fans know that Toaplan has an enthralling history. From the early days of Tiger-Heli to the swan song delivered in Batsugun, the company was always present in the arcade scene with trend-defining games, of which Flying Shark is certainly one of them. Known in Japan as Hishouzame and released in some areas around the world as Sky Shark, the game explicitly borrowed ideas from Capcom's 1942 while kickstarting a streak of in-house shmups that's recognized today as one of the most charming old school branches in the genre. It's also the first chapter of an unofficial series which also contains Fire Shark, released in the arcades roughly two years later.

Few systems received ports of Flying Shark soon after it came out. The only mainstream console adaptation is the NES version titled Sky Shark, while all other ports appeared in obscure home computers only. This FM Towns version is one of them, a very close take on the arcade game in both graphical and gameplay merits except for the characteristic screen ratio that turns the playing area slightly into a square. Since the porting job wasn't really optimized for this, the upper part of the screen is partially cropped and the player loses sight of what's going on up there. It's as if we could only view 85% of the original screen even though it seems to have been ported faithfully from the original game. As a result, there are several instances where enemy shots seem to be coming out of nowhere. It's a little disappointing, but at least it doesn't break the gameplay.

Take off every shark!

No frills and straightforward plane shooting action is what defines Flying Shark. Press B to fire your weapon and press A to bomb. If you see a wave of six red enemy planes kill them all to release a power-up labeled as S, take it to add an extra firing stream to your gun and see if you can survive to max it out at five powerful streams (meaning you max out with 4 power-ups). Most of the other characteristic six-plane waves are beige, and by destroying them you get an extra 1.000 points. And if you're lucky you might also come across the light blue wave, which will then release an extra life (1UP). Extra lives are also score-based and granted with 50.000 points and for every 150.000 points afterwards. Lastly, watch out for a red symbol that appears from a few ground enemies, each one of them adds an extra bomb to your stock. 

The overall setting of Flying Shark goes by the book and doesn't veer into anything extraordinary. Jungle, oceans, desert, variations of each, repeat. Small planes of all colors approach in the most different patterns (each color presents a particular behavior), larger planes cruise the screen from time to time and a few huge bombers appear here and there. Tanks, boats, turret-ridden ships and big mean railroad panzers compose the terrestrial resistance, which gets more and more aggressive the closer you get to the end of a level. Despite this humble collection of assets and the absence of regular bosses, the game succeeds at combining them to deliver a fun and challenging experience where natural progression mostly comes from memorization and clever crowd control. And let's not forget about the great music, which in this port received an awesome remix.

Part of the difficulty is directly related to the plane's firepower, since the more powered-up you are the faster enemy bullets will get. It's a rather simple rank system that benefits players by allowing them to predict how aggressive the game is about to become at any time during play. You just need to be careful not to let the power-up go away once it's released because as the icon comes down bouncing it won't return at all if you let it disappear at the bottom of the screen. Note that bombs can't be used as panic relief because they explode in a spiral pattern, blocking only the bullets that are close to the blast radius. Bombs are also a precious source of points because each bomb in stock is worth 3.000 points at the end of the level. No matter how you stand as you collect this bonus, the game will always reset your bomb stock to three before you take flight again.

A credit of Flying Shark on the FM Towns
(courtesy of YouTube user PepAlacant)

Some details in the gameplay can certainly help the player survive longer. For example, each flying enemy that enters the screen will fire a single bullet only and follow its predefined path. There's a safety point blank distance in place for ground enemies (namely small tanks and turrets) where they won't be allowed to fire at you at all, so exploit that whenever possible. The six-plane waves will always appear on the same position and will never shoot any bullet, and if you lose a power-up or die they might switch colors in order to allow faster powering-up. Beware of slow planes coming up from the bottom of the screen and point blank whenever possible to kill them faster. And as a general rule, keep moving while avoiding to stay too close to corners.

Flying Shark adopts the same looping scheme previously used in Tiger-Heli: it disregards the first stage completely and also measures player performance by "areas" reached. As usual, each further loop increases enemy bullet speed considerably. Despite the image cropping issue, Flying Shark on the FM Towns is excellent for a home conversion. Mild quirks consist of brief loading times and an annoying continue countdown screen, where any button on the controller will trigger it. The only in-game limitation is related to a few severe bouts of slowdown, seeing that the game stutters heavily when you bomb at crowded spots (such as the huge plane bomber in stage 2 or the battleship that goes upwards at the end of stage 3). In the options screen you can select between four autofire settings, as well as choose between four display resolutions.

I had a blast playing this, with the results of a lazy relaxing afternoon shown below. I played on Normal with auto shot set to 4 and reached the third stage on the 2nd loop.

Super Shooting Towns (FM Towns)

Horizontal / Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
4 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Amorphous
Published by Amorphous in 1991

In the realm of console titles that allow users to develop their own games, I'm sure some of the most famous ones are those from the Dezaemon series, dedicated exclusively to the classic shooting genre. Throughout history there were other more obscure attempts made for shmups and other genres as well, and in the case of the FM Towns computers/consoles the shooter representatives are Shooting Towns and Super Shooting Towns. Recently I spent some time with the latter, which is much less rare than the first one and is advertised by the developer as a "super shooting tool". Printed in the initial pages of the thick instruction manual is "welcome to the game factory", so if you're able to read Japanese feel free to start building your own shmup with it.

I have already thought about designing my own shooter, but no matter how willing I might get from time to time I certainly won't be using Super Shooting Towns to do that. Not only are the disc and system really old by now, but there's also the language barrier and a handful of hardware details that I'd have to learn prior to starting the journey. Therefore, as a shmupper the fun I could extract from Super Shooting Towns came down to the sample game, a very short demonstration of the engine's development capabilities. This sample game is so bare-bones in its presentation that it doesn’t even have a name, options or any other expected complements such as an attract mode. Just boot the disc and play it. By the contents of the manual I guess you can use the editing tools to tweak this sample game as you wish.

"Are my nice red wings okay, brother bee?" 

The nicest thing about the sample game in Super Shooting Towns is the choice the developer made for the overall design: everything is insect-based. I love insect-based games, and even though this one serves more as a collector’s diversion it’s still a valid entry into a gallery that includes titles such as Insector X. Here the player controls a red beetle and travels through two stages with horizontal scrolling and two stages with vertical scrolling, fighting other insects of varying sizes along the way (use button A to shoot). As a rule of thumb you don’t die by colliding against enemies of your own size, so besides dodging the star-shaped bullets you’re also supposed to avoid large foes.

Multiple planes that move at different speeds are what immediately attract the attention in the sample game. The sheer number of parallax layers creates an appealing atmosphere, especially in the dense forest of the first level. While that’s a neat demonstration of the capabilities of the construction engine, I can’t state the same about the frame rate. The scrolling and the animation aren’t exactly on par with the parallax and the abundance of colors, which results in the gameplay being slow, murky and a little choppy. That said, a couple of bosses are the graphical highlight of the game, even though they don’t get even close to the awesome bosses seen on the Mega Drive port of Insector X. That’s only a hint at how underwhelming Super Shooting Towns is if you consider it’s running on a 32-bit platform. The only aspect in the game that can stand on its own is the music, which is mildly amusing.

On the actual gameplay, soon you notice some bugs are invincible to your firepower. That happens because they’re of the same species as you! Most of the time they cruise the screen in straight lines, bringing power-up items behind them. Just shoot to release and take the items. Distinguishing between them, however, is a task in itself, especially with the upgrades and options: you can either have a forward increase in power or a rear shot, and you can either get up to two fixed options or two rotating options (they look like little versions of the protagonist beetle). Finally, a heart-shaped icon is equal to an extra life (plus there's also an extend for each defeated boss). Dying strips you off everything, but thankfully it’s easy to recover firepower. In fact, the whole experience is extremely light and should only offer proper difficulty for children.

Super Shooting Towns - complete game
(courtesy of YouTube user PepAlacant)

As of now I’ve never been able to see what Shooting Towns is about, so I still can’t assess which is the “best” one. As for Super Shooting Towns, I’ll probably never be able to confirm if it’s actually a “super shooting tool” as the developer puts it, and since it’s far more worth as a collectible than a proper game real players won’t be missing much by avoiding it. In any case, FM Towns fans who dig oddities might feel compelled to check a disc called Excellent 10, which was published by the same company and includes ten games developed with the tools available in Shooting Towns and Super Shooting Towns.

Below is my final score for the sample game in this one. If it had been harder it would've been more fun, but alas... It's more of a collector's pleasure anyway!

Scavenger 4 (FM Towns)

Rail shooter
Checkpoints OFF/ON
1 Difficulty level
4 Stages
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Psygnosis
Published by Psygnosis in 1994

Though the name might seem a bit strange some people may already know Scavenger 4 because this game is none other than Novastorm, also released for the Sega CD, Playstation, Panasonic 3DO and PC (MS-DOS). I like both names equally, they’re cool and evoke something along the lines of a badass sci-fi suicide mission. Scavenger 4 is actually the codename of the ship you pilot, and is even mentioned in the opening of all other versions. It's the last hope of mankind in the quest to destroy an evil computer that gained intelligence and has taken over several planets in the solar system.

Scavenger 4 is the natural evolution to Microcosm, which practically pioneered the use of full motion video (FMV) as the basis for video graphics with instant action, which is a lot different from the more famous uses of FMV in interactive games such as Night Trap. Scavenger 4 changes the original formula a bit by ditching the inside-the-cockpit view and allowing the player to see the spacecraft as a whole, thus turning the game into a genuine rail shooter (the Sega CD version of Microcosm does this as well, unlike the original FM Towns game).

One interesting detail about Scavenger 4 on the FM Towns is that the lengthy intro animation has English dialogue with Japanese subtitles, probably due to the fact that Psygnosis was a UK based company. It’s always great to see developers taking the next step and dipping their toes into foreign enterprises, so I salute Psygnosis for doing that, regardless of financial success or legacy.

The first big boss, a bird-human creature

In line with the purity of the genre, basic inputs are pretty simple: shoot and bomb. While there's no continuous autofire, for each press of the shot button you fire a concentrated stream of bullets. Intricacies appear in the way power-ups are handled, in timeouts during boss encounters and in the way FMV is used to create obstacles that must be avoided. It’s important to mention that even though the main animations and stages are the same, each version of Novastorm/Scavenger 4 has specific details on gameplay that make them all different from each other. Sprites for bullets, different mid-bosses and power-up schemes were generally altered from one version to the next, so the experience never feels exactly the same even though you’re playing the same game.

The four stages take place in different planets with their own specific motifs: fire/lava, desert, ice and enemy headquarters. Each stage is divided into four sections where you fight three mid-bosses and a main boss, with a series of enemy waves in between. Prior to each section every boss is presented with stats on their firepower and additional info such as estimated time of arrival (ETA), which is rather cool. Brief FMV animations are seamlessly inserted within and between the sections, showing a little more of the environment and the enemies and providing a cinematic feel to the whole game. The only problem is that it’s impossible to skip them, so if you’ve seen your share already and want to speed things up you just can’t do it. There’s also the fact that all cut scenes shown between stages are completely silent. We all know outer space is a vacuum void, but a little music wouldn’t be that bad, would it?

All items/power-ups appear at predetermined points in the game, floating for a few seconds before disappearing. Sometimes the game will confuse the player by throwing four items at once. Not all of them are that useful, so you must be fast to choose the best possible option. There could be some randomness in how a few power-ups are granted, but in general they will all come in the same order for every credit you play. Regarding firepower, the available items are: double shot, triple shot, 3-way split shot, 3-way spread shot, wave shot and cannon. Temporary options come in three flavors: trailing, rotating and side/homing. Unfortunately they last only for a little while and revert firepower back to the single shot while active. The same applies for the temporary invincibility. The remainder of the items are speed-ups (S), extra bombs, shield recovery (+) and 1UPs.

It takes a while to get used to the power-ups. Not only are they initially hard to be distinguished, but they also vanish pretty fast. The fact that you get to preserve your weapon once you die is a good thing though. It kinda compensates for the traps the game sends your way, such as making you get rid of a good weapon by suddenly throwing an item for the default single shot. The best weapons are the triple shot and the wave shot. Bomb stock is reset to three if you die, so bomb away if you’re about to be toasted. This way you might just be able to kill the boss and preserve the current life, since the shield gets fully replenished for every section you beat.

Cut scenes, a burning horizon and a flaming timeout
(courtesy of YouTube user PepAlacant)

Scavenger 4 isn’t that hard for a rail shooter, and that makes it a pretty fun game to get started in this subgenre. There are no continues, but steady progress is somewhat guaranteed by a generous number of 7 lives by default and a scrolling framerate that's smooth as silk. Once the shield is gone you’re respawned right where you die, however there's one type of death that sends you back to a checkpoint. Though it’s not shown anywhere every boss fight is timed, and if you take too long to kill them you'll die in a glorious cut scene and get sent back to the start of the section. Boss damage can be checked on the middle sphere in the lower HUD, which starts red but evolves to green as you land successive hits on the boss's weak point. If the sphere is blinking green then you know it's about to die.

Vertical movement can be inverted and the balance between sound effects and music can be adjusted in the OPTIONS. With no other relevant tweaks available, the game is pretty straightforward in its presentation. Gameplay is fluid but can get on your nerves with obstacles that seem to suddenly shift direction (it’s often safe to be at the dead center to avoid taking too much damage). The dark undertone is counterbalanced by the music, which leans towards techno but still manages to have a quirky uplifting charm, especially during the first couple of stages.

When I got the 1CC score below I was in the last shield bits of my last life!

Raiden Trad (FM Towns)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
3 Difficulty levels
8 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Seibu Kaihatsu
Published by Kid Corp. in 1991

In the huge box the printed name is Raiden Densetsu, but the in-game title appears as Raiden Trad (during the initial loading screen) and also Raiden (during the attract mode). Since this is a port, for the sake of language standardization let's keep it as Raiden Trad. Released for the FM Towns computer in 1991, this was in many ways the most faithful conversion of the original arcade game until the Playstation port came out in 1995. It's perfectly playable in the FM Towns Marty console, and for a few months it enslaved me in punishment as I painfully - but pleasantly - learned my way through it. Pain & pleasure is a deadly combination, one that applies perfectly to what I consider the toughest rendition of Raiden I have ever played. In its default difficulty it even tops the arcade game.

Let's recap the basics: a slow ship, two types of main weapons (red for spread vulcan, blue for straight laser), two types of auxiliary weapons (M for straight missiles, H for homing missiles) and a limited stock of bombs. Weapons are switched/powered up and extra bombs are achieved by taking the appropriate icons from destroyed carriers. Collect medals for bonuses at the end of a stage (bonus = number of medals × number of bombs × 1.000). Eventually a miclus (a blue thingy) might appear instead of a medal, it will count as a medal but also give you a few more points. Uncover hidden fairies by hitting their location, rescue them and an extra batch of power-ups will appear after you die. The maximum number of bombs you're allowed to stock is 7, and all items collected in excess are worth 5.000 points each. Win extends at 150.000 and 400.000 points, get lucky and you might win 1UPs as well.

It wasn't long after I started playing it, there came a time when I thought of giving up on this game. I was being demoralized credit after credit and feeling like shit, and the mere act of getting to the 5th stage was a nightmare.

The blue ship has the power

I started picking up details to try and control rank, and finally came down to something: if you stock more than three bombs enemy bullets will soon become faster. But it wasn't enough, I was still getting crushed in the most horrible ways. Then came the first moment of truth, as I remembered that using the blue mk-IIb ship piloted by player 2 resulted in a different game altogether. Simply put, that extreme rank slope is gone when you use this second ship. There's no crazy increase in bullet speed regardless of bomb stock, and on top of that you fight less enemies. It's as if the alien forces underestimate the blue ship, whereas the red ship puts them in a state of constant overdrive. The trade-off is that when you play with the blue ship it's not advisable to activate the laser weapon. Laser weapon with blue ship equals large bomb stock with red ship, and the result is once again indecent levels of enemy aggression.

Using the blue ship gave me a new hope. I was finally able to consistently get past the 2nd stage without dying. Slowly I came down to reliable strategies to navigate the levels and safely deal with all those sneaky snipers coming from the sides. Success seemed within reach and soon enough I was face to face with the last boss, only to find out he was the second and definitive wall in the game (the first wall is the fifth boss). I lost count of how many times I approached him with five bombs only to fail over and over, no matter what type of missiles I had on me. I even killed him once but got hit by one of the last bullets to emerge from the final explosion - if you've ever experienced such failure then you know this is one of the worst feelings you can have as a shmupper. I was devastated.

Provided you're sharp enough and don't die where you shouldn't, the first loop of Raiden Trad takes roughly more than 30 minutes. Since this version has checkpoints, you can practically kiss your credit goodbye if you die while fighting the last boss. It's virtually impossible to recover. I tried a few more times, but eventually it became too time-consuming to do it. Once again against the ropes, the second moment of truth came to me when I decided it was time to learn about FM Towns emulation in order to practice. Therefore I found and installed UNZ (a great emulator by the way) and trained hard with savestates on the most diverse ship configurations. Only when I was able to better anticipate the nasty patterns of the last boss and 1-life the last stage I got back to the console for more serious attempts.

Quick credit with the red mk-II ship
(courtesy of YouTube user PepAlacant)

Here's the breakdown of my final game strategy: select blue ship with autofire (done in the start screen), stick to vulcan shot all the way, choose M missiles in the 1st level, switch to H missiles when starting the 3rd level, switch back to M missiles in the middle of the last level (8th), reach the last boss with 5 bombs. Stay sharp, stay focused, don't die in stages 5 or 8.

This version of Raiden Trad is extremely tough, with a huge potential of turning itself into a frustrating experience. Thankfully it never felt like grinding, which is the worst thing that can happen to a relationship between the gamer and the game. Vivid colors, an awesome remixed soundtrack and above all a faithful representation of the original arcade design were decisive in keeping the fun factor always on top of things.

Disregarding the cruel use of checkpoints, this version of the classic loses to the Playstation port because of an inexplicable framerate loss that happens during a large section of the 2nd stage (I suppose it has something to do with the parallax). Also noteworthy is the lack of a TATE option, even though the game looks great the way it is. Besides the regular Arcade mode there are also Competition modes A and B, but beyond some very slight color changes and starting the game with just one life I have no idea of the differences between both.

I have to say this is one of the toughest 1CCs I have ever accomplished. It was a long way until succeeding and reaching the 2nd stage of the 2nd loop (NORMAL). The first loop was cleared with no deaths.

Rayxanber (FM Towns)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
1 Difficulty level
8 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Data West
Published by Data West in 1990

The FM Towns is a Japanese home computer released by Fujitsu in 1989. By the time it was still struggling in the market, in 1993 Fujitsu had the idea of launching the FM Towns Marty, a video game console based off the FM Towns hardware and compatible with most of its games. As both PC and console markets grew Fujitsu eventually dropped out of the scene, but its legacy remained thanks to a dedicated community of computer geeks and video game collectors. As you can see from this post, I'm a proud member of the second category, and today I conclude my appreciation of Rayxanber, an exclusive horizontal shooter whose sequels for the PC Engine CD are a bit more famous worldwide.

Rayxanber was, in fact, one the the reasons I eventually tracked down a FM Towns Marty (this "Marty" thing always reminded me of Back to the Future by the way). I guess I'm a bit too stubborn in my idea of playing game series in chronological order, so I had to begin where it all started. And since it runs on the first 32-bit console ever released, it was natural to expect some mind blowing orgy of graphics and sound. This isn't the case though, and it's probably due to the fact that the game was released for the FM Towns PC in 1990. It runs on the Marty due to PC-backwards compatibility. Therefore, as refined and put together as it is, Rayxanber barely exceeds what was being done graphically on the outset of the 16-bit generation.

What to get next? The battle cruiser, the fireball power-up or the spider?

Fans of the methodical shmup school created by R-Type will feel at home with this game. Slow pace, exquisitely crafted stages, good music and... checkpoints. This concept is dead today, but there was a time where it was the cream of the crop in the shmup world. With the exception of stage 6, in Rayxanber there are two checkpoints per level. Fortunately, all stages aren't that long, and recovery is perfectly possible when you die. Of course it takes a bit of practice to get back on your knees, but here it never gets painfully unfair or downright impossible. Blame it on the weapon system, which despite its simplicity is very effective and has a charm of its own.

All you have as a default attack is a measly pea shooter, but a ship that looks just like yours and moves slowly from right to left releases colored power-ups when destroyed. These power-ups come with a dial that keeps turning and dictates how your special weapon will work when collected, that is, in which primary direction it will fire in conjunction with the pea shot. There are three of them: blue (ice daggers), orange (fireball) and green (lightning). Each color also provides a charge attack: blue will fire an 8-way dagger blast, the orange fireball will have a homing ability and the green lightning will turn into a powerful energy circle. You'll know when the charging is ready to be released by checking out the yellow status to the sides of the "dash" bar.

The function of this "dash" bar is obvious: it's there to compensate for the sluggishness of the spaceship. It's true that the fixed ship's speed suits the pace of the game really well, but there are times when a escape maneuver is definitely needed. The second button in the controller is then used for a dash displacement that accelerates the ship through a determined distance. Its use, however, overheats the engine, so there's a limit to how many times you can dash in a row, and this limit is indicated by the "dash" bar.

Selected moments of an intergalactic fight against a bad alien space breed

(courtesy of YouTube user KollisionBR)

Much of the game's design is clearly inspired on Gradius, especially the bosses and their core weak points. All stages have very unique settings that range from wide open space to considerably claustrophobic challenges. The 6th level, for instance, is only a moving maze of seven square blocks trying to crush you. Enemies are presented as an alien race formed primarily of insect-like creatures and organic battleships, frequently arriving in formations that try to overwhelm the player. As for the soundtrack, it's equally diverse and definitely got me in the mood. Just like in all games of its kind, memorization and good positioning are of utmost importance if you want to succeed, as well as a good knowledge of how to effectively use the special weapons (trust in the great homing ability of the fireball!).

Rayxanber is a delightful rarity that will definitely please old school shmuppers, even with its tiny flaws. One of them is that the play field doesn't take the whole screen area - it doesn't bother after a while, it's just weird in the beginning. Another issue is the milking possibilities made available by one of the checkpoints, which unfortunately breaks the scoring system. When fighting the 7th boss you can get points to no end by destroying its several side turrets. Since it's only vulnerable during a split-second between his different turret arrangements, hitting him by accident is nearly impossible. The first time I reached him I think I battled for 10 minutes straight because I didn't know how to take him down. He's a cool boss though, I like to think of him as one of those high noon wild west duels. One bullseye shot and he's gone!

There are absolutely no options in Rayxanber. What you see is what you get: one difficulty, 3 starting lives, one extra life for every 50.000 points and unlimited continues for the sake of practice. So here's my 1CC high score: