Games of the Abstract: Planet Joker (1997)

 

Developer: IMP (with collaboration by Yoyogi Animation Gakuin)

Publisher: Naxat Soft

One Player

Sega Saturn

 

Planet Joker, and I will lean in on the terrible pun, is the joker of the pack when it comes to Japanese exclusive Sega Saturn games. Getting into scrolling shooters, and knowing how many were released on the Saturn itself, Planet Joker at first is disarming to its reputation when its anime 2D FMV opening starts, cheaper as a production but still looking interesting, looking to possess charm. I will be positive on Planet Joker, but when you get to the actual gameplay, for a 1997 game of this type, and when its crude polygon appearance is first seen, and the tinny sound effects for the firepower especially is heard, I now appreciate those games in the genre in gorgeous 2D from the time. Even Taito's polygon effort G-Darius (1997), which was stunning pre-HD re-master even from memory of playing it, makes the comparison to Planet Joker an unfair one. Planet Joker feels like a very low budget production struggling with limited resources and making mistakes; especially when independent 2D "doujinshi" games of this type are contrasted against, made by few people but looking stunning, exist that managed to their own limitations decades later, this does deserve pity for the comparisons.

The publisher Naxat Soft, game development division of semiconductor firm Kaga Electronics, and which changes its name to Kaga Create in 2007, is famous for games especially for the TurboGrafx-16 like Devil's Crush (1990), part of a famous "Crush" series of fantastic pinball games, so seeing they published Planet Joker does feel like, without wanting to dismiss Japanese-only releases that may be good, that they struggled with a foothold on the Saturn in terms of well regarded or remembered productions. Whilst released by another publisher in the West, Acclaim Entertainment, the one game we got in the United States and the United Kingdom they published in Japan, the beat em up Battle Monsters (1995), was not well regarded either. They continued for other consoles after the Saturn, but even if the pachinko game they released for Sega's console is underrated, Heiwa Pachinko Soushingeki (1996), their CV for the console is obscure baring infamy.

Thing is, this review is not going to bury Planet Joker either, a game that never achieved the infamy (and sincere love) of Death Crimson (1996), an infamous Saturn only light gun game, though there are numerous mistakes made throughout the game in terms of gameplay. Joker's real issue is its pretty basic and those mistakes, a low budget production that, as likely was to be found on the Sony Playstation and especially on consoles which are prolific in the content they produce, you get these games trying to compete which will look bad in comparison trying to chase the competition and/or try to create a game on hardware which was encouraging small groups to produce for it. Even the Saturn was successful in its homeland of Japan, and as a result you get these games trying to compete which will look bad in comparison, with the added issue being that the Saturn was a difficult machine to produce for technically too. The mistakes aside, which I will get to, the game's biggest problem in existence would have been how conventional as a shooter it would have it is, a seven stage long work in its normal mode, only the first four stages in Easy Mode, that does not stand out were it not for a few aesthetic touches I appreciated.

Nothing is unplayable and broken, which puts this higher than games which likely exist, and it is more the grievances of being unable completely to pause during boss battles or that hit indication on them are difficult to gauge, barring a hitting sound effect, which feels bad game play design. The weapon options is its own issue, but that is for later, and most of Planet Joker is a very standard sci-fi shooter where you have an option of giant mech robots to use, shooting down helicopters, other mechs, combat vehicles and eventually giant bosses. Locations do not vary over a modern metropolis in the early levels, including in what feels like the high street district at night on Stage 3, and the alien forces of the titular Planet Joker in their own mechanical environments. Even some of the best looking shooters that were ported to the Saturn, to an outsider, like Battle Garegga (1996) may be off-putting as it is entirely machine-versus-machine combat within a diesel punk aesthetic, works created fetishising machinery, entirely built as much around the lovingly rendered war machines of the mind, which is not for everyone. Battle Garegga is, however, still gorgeous to look at even in the modern day, to listen to too, whilst Planet Joker feels like it needs a hug because the poor is at an unfair advantage to almost every other shooter from this era in production value. Barring the aesthetic touch that helps Planet Joker, this is a mech versus war machine game whose appearance even at the time would be disastrously flat, and barring a few touches, like inexplicably fighting a giant monster construction vehicle as the Stage 1 boss, this game does look inferior in comparison to others just in visuals, even 3D shooters, but also could have been saved with a few surreal or imaginative touches in what you saw onscreen or even shot at.

The aesthetic this does have, with the anime cut scenes in the few there, does help considerably. I openly admit it feels like a low budget straight-to-video anime (an "OVA") in presentation and tone as a game, which is not a criticism for me as I like those titles a lot. Set on May 17th 2039¹, a mysterious army invades Tokyo, with a special unit of the Self-Defense Forces sent out in bipedal flying combat mechs consisting of three female pilots to fight them off. You as a player are Satomi Takayama, a Japanese member of the team, assisted by Elen Rockwell, an American, and Sahra Huga, an Indian pilot, with Mika Yamamoto your operator and communication manager, and Takao Takasugi, only seen once as an animated talking head before the first stage starts, as your commander of the SDF Special Forces. Ultimately, your enemy is revealed to be run by John Markwell, a man seen only once to deliver a monologue, for a game that is not translated, about "Planet Joker" in an extended cut scene, looking like he is cosplaying as the Phantom of the Opera. That cut scene is the turning point in game play as well as tone, marking when the mysterious army blows up part of Tokyo, if not all of it, and Satomi has to take the battle to his side for the three stages you access in Normal Mode or above in difficulty.

The animation is limited, that extended cut scene after Stage 4 mostly moving mouths, but any level of production value like this helps Planet Joker not come off as one of the worst games ever made for at least having a personality. Even the most low budget of straight to video anime, really notorious ones like the videogame adaptation Mars of Destruction (2005), from the decade later and seen as bad for anime fans, managed to get a J-pop end song, as this one does over the end credits. Notions of what is bad and good in a game, in mind that the people of developer IMP likely worked hard as they could on this production, should be more constructive as, barring some mistakes, this does work for the most part. Even if in the middle of the stage it will abruptly pause and slowly load a talking head scene of the characters' heads as they talk, the production value is at least an attempt at a personality.

The gameplay is basic, the polygonal models moving forward and dodging attacks where, on-rails, you occasionally stop and your mech robot turns on the spot or, occasionally, scrolls up or down. It feels like a game struggling with its lack of production value, but it is playable. I feel sympathy for developer IMP. More interesting is learning¹, from the credit for animation, it is credited to Yoyogi Animation Gakuin, which is also the Yoyogi Animation Academy, the oldest animation school in Japan², which has also training for a school specializing in anime, voice actors, and manga. This makes their inclusion in Planet Joker even more worth defending. Credited in other anime productions, from Sound Production Assistance on Gatchaman Crowds (2013), to Production Cooperation on Macross 7 (1994-5), a major anime franchise entry and over episodes 8 to 49, the possibility students or new blood cut their teeth on this production first is meaningful in hindsight.

The gameplay, whilst not a bullet hell game, also is a reminder that scrolling shooters are more about hand-eye coordination and dodging bullets more than even shooting the enemies. The game's few issues with these basics are where Planet Joker deserves reprimanding, and one I have left until now is how the firepower you have drastically affects your ability to play stages. Here it is a flaw that - alongside a bomb/wave secondary option, the wave almost useless, and a charge mechanic which really had not weight of usefulness to it - with the option of seven robots to choose from, an additional one unlocked played the game once on Normal or above, they all have three different firepower options, which can be changed or boosted with power-ups you collect, which can scupper your chances badly. Some of the firepower, especially when it cannot fire forwards but only diagonally, is a nuisance to use, and thus even from the character select screen you can make Planet Joker far more difficult for yourself, in a way that is bad game mechanics on the production itself as well as led to me actually dodging power-ups onscreen like they were homing bullets too. You can work around this, and even a superior game like Battle Garegga can have a controversial mechanic, in that case a difficult scale that was so technical (and cruel) it took updated changes to even figure it out over decades, but something like this or the lack of ability to pause on boss battles as a Saturn console release do cross into bad programming.

Beyond this, you can play and beat the game, with Score Attack and Time Attack available, a boss rush option unlockable. You can reach the ending, with a healthy maximum of nine continues possible to add in the options to use, to reach 2D illustrations of the three female leads almost in school pulling pranks on each other and hanging out. Planet Joker still is a bar higher as a game in quality because you can actually play it. The game's worth to preserve, even as someone who believes in preserving everything, is a more downbeat issue as, truthfully despite enjoying the game, this is the kind of work even if you accept its visual limitations which does not stand out. Even in the context of "bad" games, it is not a well known one even for the Sega Saturn, which is why the Death Crimson reference early in the review had to be brought up. Scrolling shooter fans, if they can track this down, or if it ever managed to get a re-release, would find some interest in Planet Joker, but this is definitely the case of a title that I enjoyed but I cannot defend for its limitations.

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1) This is based on the description provided by Sega Retro for Planet Joker.

2) For reference, the Yoyogi Animation Academy's own website, which is available in English too.