Decap Attack (1991)

 

Developer: Vic Tokai

Publisher: Sega

One Player

Originally for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis

 

As much as I believe in preferring the original versions of games, Decap Attack presents a really fascinating case where working around a license issue created an enticing result artistically, so much so this review will not cover the original version, Magical Hat no Buttobi Tābo! Daibōken (1990). Despite the pair sharing almost entirely the same structure as games when put together, personally I think Magical Hat deserves its own review, to also factor in its source as a tie-in game to the animated series from 1989 to 1990 by Studio Pierrot. There is also the factor that, from the get-go, I do personally find Decap Attack had least one immediate advantage as a reinterpretation, in that it is one hit to lose a life in Magical Hat, whilst Decap Attack gives you a small life bar, making Magical Hat a game you need to have patience to work with, not try to cram in as an afterthought to Decap Attack, especially as factoring in its source is fascinating. Decap Attack likewise should be seen as its own game, as this is the kind of title you would like to play, as a platformer, for the Halloween season.

For Decap Attack, we see an island shaped like a skeleton with a sword and shield split into pieces in the pre-opening credits. A demon lord Max D. Cap has threatened world domination with his underworld army, and in an inverse of horror tropes, the mad scientist and his Frankenstein's assistant call forth Chuck D. Head to save the world rather than contribute to the problem. Chuck, a bandaged ghoul who has no head, instead his face in his chest, is sent out to put the island back together, able to run fast, briefly float in the air by kicking his legs really fast, and can acquire a sentient skull that, unless hit and lost, is a projectile weapon whose homing radiate when returning means it can attack in two directions. You will need this as, for a platformer, three stages per world, you are going to have continually hassled by the enemies let alone the stages' own challenges, more hazards in their existence than antagonists, the exception being red punk haired fish who are more a problem when they jump out the water at you than when they come for you underwater. The third level per island adds the additional concern that, even if you defeat the boss, you cannot leave unless you find the special item hidden among gargoyle statues, which also allow one to get potions, bonus level coins, health pickups (and the skull if lost), or a lot of ghosts to avoid.

For a game which was converted from another with only some gameplay changes - no roulette wheel bonus game for lives as in Magical Hat, and the health bar for the later game which changes the challenge - the fact that this instead changed the character designs, the aesthetic look and the music does however lead to a game with a consistent aesthetic attitude. Despite being early in the Genesis / Mega Drive era, it still looks really good. This is a kooky take on horror aesthetics where you are as concerned with dodging ducks flying in the air and members of a stray Ice Capades ice skating troupe in top hats as you are actual monsters. The levels are standard in this genre - traditional Halloween for the first level, a desert one, a fire related one and ice, the last the one exception as an eyeball cave. Personality however is to be found throughout the game in its tone, the sound cues for its world, such as spring pads, and especially with the music, which was completely changed from Magical Hat's in favour of a new one from Fumito Tamayama and Hiroto Kanno. They sadly do not have the larger composition score between them, which is a shame as the jaunty haunted house music fills this production with glee, perfect for the tone and a huge virtue alongside the sound design itself and colourful aesthetic.  

As much as I wish Magical Hat was more readily available, Decap Attack itself truthfully is the more appealing of the pair, its goofy nature that of horror tropes where one of the bosses is nonetheless a giant pink mole. Decap Attack is a really idiosyncratic way to have converted a game for Western appeal, looking like toys being played with between Halloween decorations, far from an insult but a huge compliment from me. Decap itself also brings its own idiosyncratic touches from Magical Hat, such as needing to go item hunting in each third level, which forces you across platforms which collapse, over lava pits and spring pads in deliberately annoying places. Other games, like the Shinobi franchise, brought an option of magical abilities you could select from in a separate menu, but that was a hack 'n' slash platformer, whilst here however you have a platformer in the truest sense where you can go into a menu and choose potions collected on a stage to have brief invulnerability or clear a screen of all enemies, in mind leaving screens means they do re-spawn. The bonus stages too, which the bonus coins allow multiple Chucks to participate in if you get enough, offer assault courses which grant numerous lives if you are lucky in its random choice.

Vic Tokai, as they were originally known as, sadly are a developer who left the video game industry by the late nineties into the fifth generation of video games, a shame as the result here is charming, something which would have been fascinating to have witnessed the tone of enter the polygonal era even if it had been flawed. Ironically for a conversion, whilst Magical Hat is not easily available, neither helped by being a licensed titled, Decap Attack clearly has fans as it continually returns from Sega over the decades in compilations for the Mega Drive and even as a mobile phone conversion. Usually the idea of editing a game for the West has gained ire in the decades past, but there is a humour in a conversion like this which is appreciated and thankfully is worth the continually returns in some form.