Games of the Abstract: Jack Bros. (1995)

 

Developer: Atlus

Publisher: Atlus

One Player

Originally for: Nintendo Virtual Boy

 

The Virtual Boy was one of Nintendo's biggest failures. Released in July 1995, the attempt to bring three dimensional virtual realities to the home only lasted for a year before the machine was discontinued. There was an attempt three dimensional Tetris, a Mario game, a Wario game, even a licensed title based on the notorious Kevin Costner film Waterworld (1995), but there were only twenty two games released altogether including the Japanese only releases. Among them, one of the games held in high regard, but sadly becoming one of the most expensive in the retro retail market, is one by Atlus. Atlus is famous for the Megami Tensei series, which spun off into the Persona series which became huge in the West, both franchises of the role playing game genre. They are another case of a developer, like FromSoftware, who understandably focused their minds on the ideas and gameplay styles which were the most successful; like FromSoftware though, who are famous for anything spun off from the DNA of Demon's Souls (2009) and the Dark Souls franchise, I find myself more fascinated by the experiments and one-offs that came along in the past, whether it was FromSoftware during the PS1 and PS2 era of Sony game consoles, or in the case of Jack Bros., a game from Atlus to take advantage of a next "pocket" console even if attempting to lug it around with the head visor on a stand would be ridiculous.

It is not the most adventurous game I can think of from them - making a first person sword battle game for the Sega Dreamcast, Maken X (1999), is very out-there and enticing to play even if there is potential jank involved. Jack Bros. is however very idiosyncratic as a Halloween appropriate twin stick shooter, one which could have been fleshed out if allowed to continue as its own franchise. It is tied to the Megami Tensei franchise too, which could have lead to some interesting future crossovers, and the Halloween reference is apt. Set in that world, it follows a trio of supernatural brothers who on All Hallows' Eve stay out for too long in the human realm and have a severe time limit before the door back to their world closes. Thankfully, a friendly fairy named Pixie shows them a quick shortcut, if with a warning that the route is very treacherous and full of nasties.

The game itself, on the original machine, uses its two sets of directional buttons for its twin stick mechanics, to be able to shot in all directions (as well as in front of where you are) regardless of which direction you are wandering, a style which was codified as far back as Robotron: 2084 (1982) in the classic era of eighties arcade games. This one has a time limit to complete each stage, split into literal floors you fall between downwards, with simple puzzles later on and each stage having a boss battle to conclude them. The game play is very simple, in which with one of the three brothers to choose from, you are dropped in the mazes where you need to collect keys, whilst shooting/avoiding enemies, to unlock the gate that lets you drop down to the next floor. Sometimes shooting the enemies is encouraged as, alongside the power-ups or time boosts they can provide, sometimes they are carrying the keys as moving targets. Instead of health, your time limit is depleted when you are hit, and when you reach zero, you have to restart the whole stage again. You will need to consider this later on as more traps appear in the stages onwards - tiki heads which spit fire, spike floors, wheeled turrets firing lasers - and you eventually have to deal with the puzzles, like randomised teleporters, before eventually facing the boss battles with what time you still have.

It is a really fun concept. I would say later on, the stages do get long, but it is factoring in that this is a short game, for what was meant to be a potential next stage for the popular Game Boy. That means, thankfully, whilst with no save function, this game has unlimited continues and a password system, meaning with time, getting better is practical to actually do. Honestly, barring the weird couple of moments where I could not drop down to the next floor for some reason, the game has a fairer level of difficult that what could be expected from this era, Atlus providing fairness for a short, challenging game. Due to the circumstances with the hardware, you are playing a game whose aesthetic is entirely in red and black. The Virtual Boy however was a pretty advanced system though, and produced some gorgeous machine in terms of the visuals, seeing as well the potential this could have had if it was not a clearly doomed piece of hardware stuck with its two colour palette. This is something you also see with the only other horror themed game, the Japanese only Innsmouth no Yakata (1995), and whilst the selling point of the machine was its ability to have fully three dimensional images, Jack Bros. is more interesting even with its simple level designs, all simple mazes floating space, for its illustrative design style. It has a morbid cuteness to the proceedings, between cat girls running about, earthquake generating trolls, and angels, who Pixie point out are just hanging about being dicks, swinging spike maces on chains from outside the floor platforms you can thankfully shot back to hoist their petards. The animation and character designs, in vast contrast to the minimal dungeons themselves, are really good.

As a twin stick shooter, it fully works as a really ghoulish and fun arcade game. The bosses ramp up the tension the stages already have, such as Dracula with his floor of moving conveyor belts and bats, the most evil of combinations, but alongside the ability to fire in four directions without needing to face enemies, each of your three choices (and a fourth unlockable character, Pixie herself) have their own special attack you can horde power ups for. One has a room clearing bomb, one freezes everyone and one really likes knives, and alongside hoping to get one of the few power-ups if not more time for your clock, like a four piece shield of floating orbs or the brief invincibility dash, you are given help to accomplish these floors and the mazes before time slips away.

The rarity of the game does cement how, whilst a good title, it was as doomed as the console not long for the world it was released on. Sadly Nintendo, with their questionable moments in terms of preserving video game history, shoved the Virtual Boy in a drawer out of embarrassment, not even revisiting these titles when they released the 3DS in 2011, the hand held which had great advancements in terms of stereoscopic 3D without needing the Virtual Boy's infamous visor on a stand. Sadly, Jack Bros. is among the twenty two releases, all casualties, which were locked in the cupboard with the machine.

Games of the Abstract: Darkstalkers - The Night Warriors (1994)

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

One to Two Players

Originally released for: Arcade

 

The history of Capcom's other beloved fighting game is split into two differing origins. One is that, in designing a new fighting game, the team assigned wanted to create a title entirely about monsters, taking advantage of existing ones of folklore and mythology as templates¹. The other original is that Alex Jimenez, a producer at Capcom USA, suggested a licensed game based on the Universal horror movie characters, tied to the iconic creations that began properly with 1931's Dracula with Bela Lugosi². or me personally, I think the truth is within both differing tales, as there is at least detail which suggests Universal horror films were someone's favourite at Capcom, but that the ball was rolling in terms of creating a monster themed game, including knowledge this was explicitly meant to have more yōkai, the Japanese folklore entities, than we got such as a nurikabe, a living wall that would have allowed the developers to create a character which never needed to move and require very little animation¹. Whatever the case was, it feels inevitable with how Capcom started to push for the more fantastique and unnatural in their games, as the technology and the creative teams let their imaginations fly with genres like the fighting or beat-em-up genres in terms of monster and figures that would push their talents throughout the nineties. Also, such a project was part of a huge moment where Capcom, in the fighting game genre, suddenly created the gold standard for the genre and that, with others soon after wishing to create their own successes in its wake, they naturally wanted to follow up with titles to improve on what they did with that game.

That game was Street Fighter II (1991), which was a huge seismic change to video games. Despite the fighting game had existed beforehand as far back as Heavyweight Champ (1976) by Sega, let alone titles which pushed the genre further like Yie Ar Kung-Fu (1985) by Konami in the eighties including the original Street Fighter (1987), the sequel cemented the fighting game genre fully in form, and naturally Capcom wanted to expand on its success not only with that franchise, but with others. Even if the origins are vague, it is not a surprise someone wanted to see a Frankenstein's monster in a fighting game, and thankfully able to be played again 2022 with a Capcom Fighting Collection retro compilation, let alone previous non-arcade releases, the Darkstalkers franchise is also one people wished Capcom brought back, and for good reason. Even non or casual gamers, who are horror fans, would dig even the original 1994 game as, whilst this series would evolve in gameplay style and the beautiful artistic style, we got from the gate already a strong horror fighting game in both aspects.

With new arcade hardware to push, Capcom would also need to capitalise on its advancements in terms of their games too, Street Fighter II changing from its original 1991 version through multiple revisions, until Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1994) looked an entirely different game let alone with new mechanics from the original. That was made for the CP System II arcade board as Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors was, and whilst by its last game it would improve and add to the original template, we were already entering this new territory of a horror themed fighting game with already a strong atmosphere. At a time when the arcade fighting game genre was becoming huge, this even applies to innovations in ideas that seem obvious for the genre decades later, like the ability to block in the air that were introduced in this game. That the aesthetic and presence were already strong helped so much, like Street Fighter in Halloween town but with its personality its own, and it begins and is central to the cast Capcom created for the original game.

A huge factor for me being interested in these games is that Capcom were insanely great for their character designs, and even how they play has made me really start to fall in love with them now I have. From the get-go, one of the really cool touches to the original Darkstalkers game is that each character was designed by their own person, and these designs were figured out with care to work in the final production. Darkstalkers has, even the attempt at a new hero who was quickly rejected after the initial sequel, one of the strongest rosters just in terms of everyone standing out between its three games. How they managed to make characters distinct to each other already in the first game, in terms of gameplay feel and personality, even if later sequels would add more to them including iconic moves and touches, really means a lot. The sense of this still being fleshed out in those sequels, as only the original game follows Street Fighter II in having these figures represent countries, actually makes what was accomplished here more praiseworthy, the choice to follow a horror/mythological/folklore trope, and flourishing each archetype out in really idiosyncratic choices being a masterstroke. The closest to a traditional martial artist in this game is a werewolf, which is where the Universal monsters link feels apt, as he is in the Western localisation named Jon Talbain, clearly after the lead character Lawrence Talbot who Lon Chaney Jr. played in The Wolf Man (1941), and even a character who was not drastically altered from the tropes like Demitri Maximoff, a traditional vampire and original (anti-)hero for the game here, still has a distinct style to him.

The characters mirroring their Universal horror counterparts all have their distinct personalities, both faithful to the icons, whilst having their own clear distinctions. Frankenstein's monster, by way of Victor, is a great example of this for his visual distinctiveness as a natural powerhouse character, the developers pushing for his limbs (even his head) to expand out in his attacks in cartoon stretch-and-pull effect, and that, infamously, this even applies to his ability to use his buttocks to grab and throw enemies. That feels less bizarre for the sake of it but the fascinating mix of grotesque horror, as there is blood and macabre sights in these games, against pure slapstick cartoon touches in the animation. Be it a Sasquatch who is an adorably fluffy and big goofball, to a take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) who is a vain sexy fish man, completely ahead of its time and Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (2017), everyone has something distinct to them. This even is in terms of their attack styles, whether playing the samurai possessed by cursed armour, Bishamon, which is clearly based around needing to counter and using his blade as one would expect from a samurai, to Anakaris being the representation of an Egyptian mummy, the slowest and potentially most awkward character to use, who literally floats slowly in the air, but has one of the most idiosyncratic move sets even in the original Darkstalkers game before he could be expanded upon. Briefly turning his opponents into cute, tiny versions who cannot attack briefly, dropping sarcophagus from the air, and moves which really emphasis the need to choose the special or regular move depending how far or close an opponent is, he because a really cool figure by himself and just one character like him in a game would have left it having fans, let alone a twelve entity roster for all distinct figures.

Tellingly, even the female character of the original game, whilst sexualised, overcame this to be adored, and that shows the real success of Darkstalkers even from the get-go in how its first two female characters became iconic regardless of that initial aspect of the character design. Introducing one of the first prominent cat girls into the West for games, Felicia was not merely marked for her character design, but for her characterisation as a goofy and likable cat-woman entity with blue hair who just wanted to become a huge star in Las Vegas, and by the end of the franchise becomes a nun to help children. And Morrigan Aensland eventually became the true protagonist of this franchise and its most well known character, and likely the one pop culture take on the succubus for many that entirely represents this mythological figure. A frankly problematic and misogynistic figure of lore to some, she completely upturned this with the history that came afterwards, all the cosplayers who have portrayed her over the decades, and becoming a figure of merchandising for Capcom, alongside cameos in other games, that may have even sadly overshadowed other Darkstalker characters, all without any sense that she is a figure that isn't powerful. This is really cool as, as many of us probably don't realise unless you played this original game, she is meant to be Scottish and thus, as one of Capcom's most beloved characters always in the fighting game collection cover art, one of the most well known video game characters from Scotland.

It is a legitimately virtue how none of the initial roster, even if some would not be as popular as others, feels lazy. They all stand out, all with distinct ways in their fighting styles and even in terms of personality, as Capcom embraced both the horror but also overt cartoonish nature of them. Even a character like Morrigan herself, or one meant to be seriously like the final boss, a planet collecting alien named Pyron, will be animated in dumb poses when knocked off their feet, electrocuted or turned into a cute little critter by Anakaris' Royal Judgement attack temporarily. The animation, with its emphasis on these cartoonish flourishes in even how strikes are thrown, is legitimately beautiful with hindsight, and the same is for the character specific locations in both their look and their little pieces of animation. You find yourself fighting at night in the middle of London with Talbain, scenery in the background like wine barrels if you hit the right moves, spotting the iconic "happy" dog that moves about in Bishamon's stage, or ending on a finale in Pyron's unnatural dreamscape made from all the worlds he has destroyed and reassembled into his collection. The music too by Takayuki Iwai and Hideki Okugawa is as distinct, appropriately evocative even when Felicia's stage, set in Las Vegas with all bright lights and cats loping around in the background, is partially set the cat meowing.

The thing that changed over time, when the bar was set this high already, was that Capcom pushed the visuals further, making far more incredibly phantasmagoric stages even if not character or geographically specific. The music would become even more evocative with the time passing, and the characters themselves alongside newcomers would get more personality and even some of their most iconic (and infamous) special moves and animation ticks, like Lord Raptor. Already a cool design of an Australian rock star who sold his soul to Satan, and now is a strange bony zombie with even the ability to move crawling crouching on his bony knees only he can do, future instalments of the games let him be able to literally slam dunk his enemies as basketballs.

And this is all in mind that, as iconic as Street Fighter II, it did come from the original Street Fighter, a game which is not held as a good fighter at all in the modern day, and that Capcom, able to suddenly leap in terms of quality for their iconic blockbuster hit, didn't slouch either from Street Fighter II's success and kept improving themselves, both artistically and in terms of ramping up the mechanics of the fighting game. To even get to the original version of Street Fighter III, Street Fighter III: New Generation (1997), which was seen as a disappointment and even irrelevant when polygonal fighting games were all the rage, it was still a game which would eventually became as acclaimed for the quality of its artistic creativity over its multiple versions, let alone the game play from experts in the genre due to Capcom pushing themselves over and over. By the end of the franchise I am talking of her, you get the magnum opus of this horror fighting franchise Vampire Savior: Darkstalkers 3 (1997), which is an exceptional game, but even if Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors had been tragically just a one-off from Capcom, it would have still been seen as a great game for many including myself for how much it does well let alone how fun it is.

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1) Darkstalkers – 1994 Developer Interview, translated for shmuplations.

2) ‘Darkstalkers’ – The Monster Movie Origins of Capcom’s Fighting Game, written by Luiz H. C., and published for Bloody Disgusting on September 6th 2023.

Games of the Abstract: Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow (2003)

 

Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Publisher: Konami

One Player

First released for: Nintendo Game Boy Advance

 

Aria of Sorrow is my first Metroidvania game - as that genre name suggests, alongside the Metroid franchise from Nintendo, Castlevania codified this trend of platforming with either hack-and-slash or run-and-gun traits, where their key trait is non linear level design where you need to comb through previous locations to reach new territory. Backtracking is common with Aria of Sorrow, as you have one giant map to explore and you return to older sections once you have the tools to reach areas you could not access from before. As my first full play of such a game to its end, it was a distinct change to this entire franchise, which began for Castlevania with Symphony of the Night (1997). After the attempt to bring this franchise to three dimensions on the Nintendo 64, which were not well regarded, the lineage of Symphony of the Night made their home Nintendo's handheld consoles like the Game Boy Advance here, and later the Nintendo DS, becoming the image of the franchise in its two dimensional form from then on.

It is strange, fully knowing I never owned either, there was once an era where we had a distinct section of handheld pocket consoles with their own games separate from those we had in front of the television, usually all Nintendo's as the competition always failed. Obviously, these machines died out when technology allowed the Nintendo Switch to exist in 2017 and made the former examples pointless to have, their main console small enough to carry but with enough graphical and technological capabilities to be plugged into a widescreen TV. It also reflects how that, when once these handheld consoles allowed genres and games ebbed out from the main consoles to still thrive, by the time of the Switch these independent scene for these genres grew and became a vibrant industry within the main one, including the fact that they ran with the Metroidvania genre with glee. As a complete outsider to this era, the nostalgia people have for these handhelds, of their RPGs and other genres, I find myself looking at Aria of Sorrow with delight that at their best, they became almost the follow-through for the 16-bit sprite games in a new era, more so as now that the game was re-released in a Castlevania Advance Collection, this was the third of a trilogy of games and feels like the magnum opus just in terms of production for what gained a fan base on the Advance handheld.

Taking advantage of more player friendly aspects, even without save states on the Advance Collection, this won me over in terms of the game itself. There is a story, but it sits in the backburner for me as a layer to a beautiful haunted house with a fair difficulty path and a great sense of artistic creativity. It is set in a literal haunted castle floating in its own realm in the Moon, as a young man named Soma Cruz with his childhood friend Mina end up during a festival dragged into its phantasmagorical world during a solar eclipse. There is more to this plot, side characters and the issue of someone trying to claim the power of Dracula, so I will not dismiss the plot especially as there is likely lore from previous games involved that the solar eclipse itself is connected to a prophecy of Dracula being reincarnated after his powers were finally sealed into the eclipse by the series' main Belmont clan leads. That there are multiple endings, one intrinsically linked to the gameplay mechanic of capturing enemies' souls, and needing the right ones in a boss fight to even unlock the final stage and boss, so it is emphasis of there being more to the work than just the gameplay. Arguably, it was at that point, becoming aware of this twist, where my interest in said plot fully came in, which I have to praise. [Huge Spoiler] Realising you are the newest version of Dracula, with him literally fighting his own chaos for either a bad ending to become evil if you lose, or win and return home with Mina, is definitely a worthy way to make the plot intrinsic. [Spoiler Ends]

What is central nonetheless is the gameplay itself. Able to unlock and change weapons and equipment, even able (if you can figure out a way to get to it) to access a solitary handgun as a bonus weapon, you find yourself exploring the castle and encountering the denizens of horror and folklore history. The monsters and entities, even before the bosses, stalking the castle are the highlight. Castlevania throughout its history was drawing from our culture and reinterpreting it in a variety of eccentric and/or memorable ways. Succubus disguise themselves as Mina and skeletons thrown their bones, drive horse drawn chariots and are even waiters throwing harmful plates of curry at you. I found myself briefly blanching seeing a cockatrice for the first time in a later section, a mythological entity of English folklore vibrantly depicted in its weird horror, a cockerel headed monstrosity whose gaze petrifies people to stone. As lovingly depicted in the sprite work as a giant chicken creature whose gaze thankfully is just temporary and can be shaken off, it is just one of many incredible monster designs that you also have to figure out how to kill, such as another which caught me off guard underwater with a "Man Eater", giant worm creatures occupying a giant's skull which is never explained as it floats towards you in the few areas they are found, startling in its threat and menace.

This sense of aesthetic ambition has won me over with the franchise. It is not a scary franchise, but its legacy since the original Nintendo Entertainment System games is vital to horror video games for its aesthetic and how even when silly, like the N64 games having polygonal skeletons on motorbikes with side cars with enemies, its use of world folklore and horror storytelling is applaudable, from the turning of these figures into vibrant and creepy creatures, to the vast idiosyncratic locations we go to within one castle. The level progression, with this version of the game following Symphony of the Night in having save locations which heal you fully and rooms which transport you around the castle, means even the cockatrices and giant mechanical men fall with ease as you get more powerful and figure out new solutions. It forces you to level up, hunt for the secret locations on older stages for items to prepare for a hard area, and saving money when you can access a merchant character to stock up on replenishment items.

There are aspects which feel indebted to adventure games which helps in the fairness, all originally from Symphony of the Night like the new weapons you find, which become more powerful alongside ones having different traits which are more effective per enemy, or the health and magical replenish you find or buy from the merchant. The trademark hearts, to replenish your magical abilities which are gained from hitting candles or any fire source, transfers over here alongside the ability to earn money. The modern re-release has save states, but it is telling that I found myself even when failing at times more at ease taking risks, and with bosses who I took on with greater ease having the ability to prepare and horde health potions. Even Death himself, always the difficulty spike as here midway through the game through the franchise, becomes a fun challenge now I could rely on the health and magic potions when my reflexes were not perfect, and also because of the distinct gameplay mechanic of Aria of Sorrow. Before, you had the iconic secondary weapons like throwing axes to holy water you replenished with hearts, but Soma to his surprise, by luck and randomisation, can absorb enemies' powers through the "Tactical Souls" system which you can change through at any time. You can throw dangerous curry, but there are ones which are very useful, and mandatory ones you acquire beating bosses and going into the rooms afterwards required to continue the game, like the ability to walk on water and under it. It is a solid gameplay mechanic, and you see that in terms of Konami wanting to stretch this franchise, they succeeded fully.

I have complimented the aesthetic, but arguably not enough. The last of the GBA games, it is a gorgeous finale to when the Game Boy franchise of handhelds was developing the ability to advance from their origins, all of in mind that the system had its fair share of shovelware too, lacklustre games and questionable music scores which made the games like this which stand out more rewarding. The one here, by Michiru Yamane, Takashi Yoshida and Soshiro Hokkai, is solid enough and only has a shadow cast over it because you compare it to Yamane's own work from Symphony of the Night, and the haunted house comparison is apt, of how this unnatural gothic castle can turn into an underwater reservoir, a clock tower, and a ballroom full of ghost dancers. It is a place where giants are bosses as much you meet something like Legion, a grotesque mass of bodies in the Crypt as an unfriendly reminder this is still horror. The next generation of handheld console, for the DS would see the considerable jump in technology possible with the handheld consoles, but even by this point, you have something which could have been on the 16-bit consoles in terms of quality. If that is in danger of patronising a game worthy of praise without compliments to the home systems of yore, this is still a strong game for any console to have handed, and yes, as my introduction to the whole concept of Metroidvania as a genre, I can see fully with this case why this structure became a fixation of so many, including indie projects like Hollow Knight (2017), that lead to inspired games lionised in their own qualities.

Games of the Abstract: Rez (2001)

Developer: United Game Artists

Publisher: Sega

One Player

Originally for: Sega Dreamcast

 

Finally reaching a game I wanted to play for a good few decades, Rez does live up as a one-off experience. It feels like a labour of love for developer United Game Artists, under the watch of producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Starting off as a member of Sega AM3 working on the likes of Sega Rally Championship (1994), he would later focus his career on games which matched Rez's fascination with music and visuals to create interactive examples of synaesthesia, melding together both the images and the sounds of the games like Tetris Effect (2018). Tellingly, among his many projects included founding an actual band, Genki Rockets, which had a prototypical virtual idol in Lumi as their lead female singer, which is a fascinating transition as someone producing great and fun racing games for Sega's arcade arm, like Manx TT Superbike (1995), which were well made and built with love. Clearly, however, he found a love in the likes of electronica and esoteric New Age influenced ideas that influence the games he would make with his collaborators from United Game Artists to future companies of his like Enhance, Inc.. The irony is that it was during his research to produce Sega Rally Championship 2 (1998) where the seed of Rez comes from, as Mizuguchi took time off in that time to go to Zurich, Switzerland for Street Parade, a huge musical event for electronic dance music where he saw firsthand the transcendental qualities of music that influenced the ideas behind Rez itself¹.

Thankfully, the beginning of this new career, made alongside the original Space Channel 5 (1999), lasted both in quality even if played in its non-high definition remaster, and in terms of being a game that was available to play without old hardware. It became the one cult hit which did not mean scarcity. Certainly, it has had its fair share of forms, as originally this visual-audio experience as an on-rail shooter was possible through Sega's habit of producing magnificently unconventional materials. Sadly, those were not the games to necessarily sell whole consoles, as Rez was originally designed for their last hardware, the Dreamcast, before they left to be a multi-platform software publisher, the end of a dynasty. Released in 2001, it was being released at the same time on the Sony Playstation 2, with them having decided to end the Dreamcast early that year.

The later versions included a new stage taking advantage of virtual reality headsets becoming more readily available, but focusing on that original Dreamcast/Playstation 2 version, the melding on a simplistic gameplay mechanic with audio-visual ambition was perfect from the get-go. Rez being created around the on-rail shooter template was a great design decision to start with, tellingly taking advantage of the fact one of Rez's key members is lead graphic designer Katsumi Yokota, who was an integral part of the aesthetic and tone of Panzer Dragoon², a cult Sega franchise of on-rail shooters which began on the Sega Saturn. On-rail shooters, restricting you to a path but with the difference to light gun games of allowing a form of movement, are a genre I find myself growing in love for and appropriate for the tone set out here. They, like other arcade genres, allow the truly artistic without the issue of full freedom potentially undercutting the design experience for the player.

The genre allows for idiosyncratic art styles, even in mind to the full motion video games which may be dismissed as having limited gameplay in the modern day but, like Novastorm (1993), still fascinate me in their artistic styles in a simple template. Panzer Dragoon itself, with its unique futuristic world encompassing fantasy and even using the language created for the franchise to build its lore, is an apt comparison with those who transferred their skills to this later Sega production. Rez has its own idiosyncratic touch in how, in a tale of a hacker who is going through corrupted firewalls to reawaken and fix an artificial intelligence named Eden, you are not following the tradition of a cursor that fires bullets, but plants bombs instead. This presents an interesting challenge as you can lose levels as regular on-rail shooters, if your form of a health bar is lowered by being hit enough, but you are more encouraged (with six at a time maximum) to set the bombs on enemies in a rhythm, either in a string or pressing the button over and over to cover everyone, pressing the fire button to set the planted bombs off in a cascade of pixelated implosions. The game has enemies who will fire at you, but until the bosses who can (mostly) attack back credibly, most of the enemies are entirely to get the hundred percent clear and points. Important as well, alongside those pickups which increase your health bar or the limited specials, allowing you to cover everything onscreen with bombs beyond your limit, are the cubes you need to spot. You grab them using the bombs, and bomb them repeatedly as a metaphor for hacking codes, requiring hundred percent per level of all of them unlocked to access the final stage.

Visually the game looks gorgeous between the four initial levels and its final fifth one, where you have a wire frame computer aesthetic which was influenced by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, who painted abstract pieces which inspired Mizuguchi in terms of his own form of synthesisia². Fighting unnatural organisms, apt for the computer interface setting but also at times evoking the intergalactic aquatic aesthetic unique to Taito's Darius scrolling shooter franchise at point, this also separates the levels with clear distinctions so they all stand out, be it taking visual cues for one from ancient Egypt to Buddhist temples for another. Even your player character, as you have increased health, evolves with literal emphasis of this. Lose health, and you are a mere fragile orb, whilst as you grow from wireframe man to wholly drawn, you reach floating in a sphere in the lotus position, to a full bright orb of enlightenment, with the final level in the boss battle with Eden starting you off in a stage higher initially, that of a 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) star baby.

The bosses are worth their own praise, representations of the computer system's attempting to crack down on the player. Some do provide challenge, as it becomes a task of figuring which visual pieces of the spectacle are damaging you, and they add the x-factor to the presentation. One, which can easily be defeated, is yet one of the best bosses I have encountered in a video game, Level 4's Running Man who is a spectacle of beauty, chasing this shifting form that turns into a literal giant running man. By its unlockable last level, you go through Rez's one attempt at profoundness in an overt way; with very little exposition or context for the game for the most part, it may be a very heavy handed and earnest run through the theory of evolution and technological singularity, but you will not complain when it is part of a cavalcade of increasingly digital natural landscapes with trees combined with spaceships. The last boss, a female super computer, is a challenging multi-section epic where she shows confusion and self-awareness at what is happening, asking why you are trying to stop her and of her own existence. In another context, it would be incredibly oversimplified but in context of an arcade game at heart, with this vibrant artistry, it is instead a wonderful conclusion by the time she wishes to be freed from her state for a true climatic conclusion.

To talk about Rez also means discussing the music, which is all incredible. Collaborating with both Japanese and Western musicians, from Ken Ishii and Adam Freeland, my first encounters with Rez was a video demo on an Official Playstation 2 magazine demo disc, which gave you a snippet of its score especially for the first level's boss, of a spinning form whose spherical shield can be blown off in pieces to hack the entity within. This is arguably a musical on-rail shooter at heart with emphasis on being a musical game too, where each bomb planted and set off creates a percussion beat. The music is the final touch which made Rez a great game, with an honest-to-God sense of this as video games as art without necessarily needing to have a story and tackle profound themes through a story to get to this. It does have Level 5, which emphasises themes of human consciousness, evolution and spirituality, like a science fiction New Age piece, but for the most part, this is art as pure synaesthesia, something which has sadly been dismissed in arcade games despite the richness to the art form. From scrolling shooters, the silliest of Parodius to the disealpunk aesthetic of Battle Garegga (1996), to even fighting games with their character designs to music, there is a linking of aesthetic, gameplay and music which can be captivating when embraced fully, and in this case, with the critical acclaim Rez got, you see a wonderful example of this.

Rez thankfully lasted in public consciousness. Infamously there was the Trance Vibrator, which emphasised the sense of connectivity with the artistry, but was a vibrating attachment to the human body which can lead to jokes about it generating tingling sensations in strategically placed areas...something even Tetsuya Mizuguchi himself admitted in later interviews could be a misinterpreted use, when it was a "serious joke" reminiscent meant to let the gamers feel the vibrations of the music³. Child of Eden (2011), designed for the Xbox Kinect and PlayStation 3 Move, involving Genki Rockets, is less innuendo ladened, and is a melding of full motion controls with beautiful live action footage mixed with the high definition polygons. (It is though a game I remember was an exhausting experience in trying to do the same bomb planting mechanics with one's arms and body, but that is an entirely different review). The return of Rez in high definition was in 2008, but Tetsuya Mizuguchi clearly wanted to take advantage of the growth of virtual reality being more widely available, which I can respect, leading to 2015's Rez Infinite and its new "Area X" level taking advantage of the technology. The original game, even in its standard definition form, is transcendental in itself, and I have nothing but love and admiration for a game I finally reached as a gamer.

 

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1) Rez retrospective: A look back at Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s early days, written by Polygon staff, and published for Polygon on November 22nd 2016.

2) Tetsuya Mizuguchi: Reexamining Rez and Space Channel 5, written by James Mielke, and originally published by 1UP.com on July 26th 2006. Archived from the original on the web archive on July 11th 2012.

3) Still Shinin': Tetsuya Mizuguchi on creativity, music - and bringing emotion to gaming, feature by Rob Fahey, and published for the Gamesindustry.biz on July 26th 2006.

Games of the Abstract: Time Crisis 5 (2015)

 

Developer: Bandai Namco

Publisher: Bandai Namco

One to Two Players

Originally for: Arcade

 

After nine years from Time Crisis 4 (2006), a new sequel to the Namco lightgun shooter franchise came into being during the Unity engine era. That is neither a pointless reference, as not only was this a Unity engine production, but in 2018, Sega used Unity to resurrect the House of the Dead lightgun franchise with Scarlet Dawn, a moment of both legendary companies reviving their lightgun franchises in the high definition gaming era. Sadly we did not get a healthy crop of these types of games in this mould, nor actual ports either, making it the more tragic when the Scarlet Dawn cabinet, a huge sit-in spectacle cabinet, disappeared from the seaside arcade I found it within, replaced by an incredibly inferior Raw Thrills machine based on the Walking Dead. It meant an immediate must, even if pumping a comical amount of coins into it, to beat the Time Crisis 5 machine when I spotted it in the wild, all in fear it would be replaced by an inferior machine the year after.

Time Crisis 5 is an entry back into this absurd action film created in game form, factoring in that the spin-off Razing Storm (2009), which I have softened onto in hindsight, was escalating this franchise from the original. In the first game, you were rescuing the president's daughter, only to get to giant super robots by Razing Storm and Time Crisis 4. By Time Crisis 4, you had swarms of nano-like insect robots as super weapons, nuclear missiles being threatened to be used, and having to use a literal man-bridge to reach the final boss, which has to be one of the best (and funniest) I have encountered in this genre. By the fifth game, in which your new protagonists, a pair of lovable himbos, Luke O'Neil (Player One) with his beach bum tattooed look, and Marc Godart (Player Two) in the most swagger blue suit top for a gun fight combined with white tiger stripe trousers, are for the first stage already with the spin-offs now to pull lore from, trying to get a briefcase away from a figure named Wild Dog, who appeared as the central antagonist back in the original Time Crisis. It is still as ridiculous as part four as a big dumb action film in pace and tone, though the first prominent aspect, beyond the swanky new graphics, is the twin pedals instead of the one that this series created and set its structure around.

The pedal, and how you could hide behind cover, became Time Crisis' innovation, and this time, alongside wisely ditching using the pedal to switch weapons from Time Crisis 4, brings now a left and right one per player. Barring Level 2, the requisite level having a fire fight in a vehicle, a battle helicopter here, this means you in each area can move around enemies. Dodging their shots, you are able to immediately reload by switching cover, and then stand up and take shots, as well as do as before even if this game really emphasises using both sets than the one from previous games. It makes the legs and especially the feet sore, stood up for the whole campaign, but if Time Crisis 6 ever existed and could run with this, this simple add-on provides so much. Alongside the ability to swing around enemies, dodging bosses attacks with glee and always keeping on them, set up with the larger mini-gun enemies in Level 1 with red targets on their weapon's highly flammable fuel tanks, it also means having to switch between the two hiding areas to be able to hit certain goons without cover hiding them. Bosses, with those visible red targets, move to target you, forcing you to switch sides to flank them, weaving between the rest covers and dodge hazards. This simple mechanic adds so much fun and strategy.

Beyond this, Time Crisis 5 has a very simple story, but as I have come to found, I prefer lightgun games actually having a story even if it is really cheesy, rather than a tech demo gallery shooter as I have found in later advancements like VR Agent (2023). Alongside the Player Two character of Time Crisis 2 (1997) betraying you, which was distinct even without prior knowledge as he spends most of the game as a crotchety veteran who feels too old for this, there is also the fact in mind to the original Time Crisis being released a year before Resident Evil (1996), this clearly took inspiration from the later and the boom of zombies popular culture. Here, as a turn in this game, you eventually fight super soldiers who cannot feel pain, experiments who are effectively melee attack undead who you are encouraged, more so than the regular goons, to shot in the head immediately to quickly dispose of in a cavern level.

Beyond this, it is a series of set pieces. This has an inversion of a set piece from Time Crisis 4, taking pot shots at a boss as they are in a prolonged fist fight with one of your friendly NPCs, here the NPC ultimately the villain, but the boss also an American ninja in a room full of priceless but breakable antiques. There is the first level raid of a hotel for Wild Dog, Level 2 an on-helicopter scene against a train, which changes the pace, alongside Wild Dog's end on Level 3, even is vague enough in the explosion he can return. Then you find yourself in a cave, with a super naturally enhanced street punk as a boss, where whilst he attempts summon a dangerous energy blast, zombies act like a shield you need to switch covers to-and-fro between to hit him. My one disappointment with Time Crisis 5, honestly, is the lack of the ridiculous ending to match the humour of a man-bridge from the previous game's final boss, though this one does have them hiding behind an ED-209 stand-in on a hover platform like a coward, with your female lead saving the day by driving an entire helicopter into a missile, and having to hit precise targets to knock a man off a platform to oblivion after putting many bullets into him already. It is appropriately ridiculous to compensate, and that is the operative word. What separated this genre from a mere shooting gallery was when, however, they were influenced by the likes of American action films as with a lot of Japanese video games of certain genres, and the influence was exaggerated in these absurd but earnest games that I fell in love with as with Time Crisis 5 that could also match this tone with their solid gameplay.

Games of the Abstract: Bangai-O (1999)

 

Developer: Treasure

Publisher: Entertainment Software Publishing [Japan]/Swing! Entertainment Media [Europe]/Conspiracy Entertainment [North America]

One Player

Originally for: Nintendo 64 [But Sega Dreamcast Version Covered]

 

It delights me that Bangai-O originates from Treasure programmer Mitsuru “Yaiman” Yaida, inspired by an old shooter which surprised him for the amount of bullets he saw onscreen, wanting to see with the then-current state of technology how he could get as many bullets as he could onscreen without compromising the processor for a game¹.  This little experiment got the go ahead, in the midst of 3D games being the biggest sellers, from their president with a small development team¹, and thus the result is one of the obscurer Treasure games nowadays, despite being one which got a European and North American release, and two sequels later on. This is a shame as it is refreshing take on the shooter genre. One for its unique take on the twin stick shooter template, and for how Yaiman’s initial experiment became a gleefully strange and funny take on the mechanics alongside how easy to get into the mechanics it is, and interesting to master.

This review is focused on the Dreamcast version, but Bangai-O started as a Japanese only Nintendo 64 release, with changes taking place in-between the versions alongside new aesthetic additions. The fruit for starters, literally coming from Yaiman evoking older games by just wanting the player character to pick up oranges¹, was not just for points originally but charged your shots, and you had access to a shop which was taken out for the Dreamcast version, accessed even by hitting all 100 shots with missiles for a destructive wormhole. All this was jettisoned by the Dreamcast version which revamped the presentation, and was the version which got the global release. The premise is simple, a parody of a yakuza revenge tale taking place on the planet 男星(dansei), literally “male planet” with the female planet jettisoned by Map Editor/Graphic Designer Koichi “Kafuichi” Kimura as an idea in production¹. The space yakuza on this planet hurt your father and as revenge, the young son with a robot stolen from them goes to do good but with his kid sister tagging along. Thankfully she is as integral to the story as he is, as this follows a mechanical idea Treasure has played with a lot, with dual attack functions in their games. Silhouette Mirage (1997) literally made your heroine two faced, split in half into two different colours to match the opposite ones needed to attack enemies of a different colour, arguably a more complicated game play loop for a run and gun then others by them. Ikaruga (2001), whilst a very hard scrolling shooter game, simplified this idea perfectly with the same colour of enemy bullets absorbing them with damage and being able to even charge a power shot with them.

Bangai-O’s take is that the male lead fires homing missiles from the mecha, whilst his sister is linked to energy beams which ricochet off walls and objects, with both fire power types needed and with limited bomb versions. To paraphrase a Samuel L. Jackson quote from Jackie Brown (1997), when you absolutely, positively got to kill every melonfarmer in the room, accept no substitutes but the missiles, and as I will get into there are the rare literal watermelon or two to collect for big points, so they will be useful to use. In the cramped areas as the levels, two dimensional dioramas, can also involve mazes or places deliberately limited in directions to force enemy chokeholds into your way, the energy beams are far more special especially as you can bounce the beams around corners with good aiming when there are a lot of killer robots ahead or laser beam barriers blocking the way. The levels themselves, only until the end when the death traps and laser filled gauntlets start to be labyrinths let alone the bosses who appear at the end of them, are deliberately short, allowing you to experiment with the mechanics of these two fire powers, and find tactics with them and the movement you have. Even the lengthening of the last levels is because the tiny areas are so hazardous and with simple puzzles to figure out that you have to get your wits about it. The puzzle aspect shows the designers playing with the structure, such as the level where you need to get through obstacles, setting off an initial explosion and a few others, quickly to avoid being trapped and having to restart the level, or relish the chaos in the level where you need to clear through all the hazards above, including the generators which spawn robots from above on mass (or even brick blocks in one line), through all the layers to reach the boss.

It emphasizes Treasure’s treasures, forgive the pun, and uses each stage to stretch a part of its simple idea and few objects in new directions, where the time limit of the levels is not a game over if it reaches zero, but that you get all your points confiscated even if you manage to complete that level and now access the new one. Only the sense the last levels punish you with harder gauntlets and then bosses, especially the last, and that you may end up going through them over and over is a sense of a real difficulty curve, as everything is developing over time. Alongside the fact you have infinite continues and ease of access for the time, the game is more accessible to its credit to the point that has to be praised as a huge virtue in its own way. It feels like, and I say this as a compliment, an indie Steam game in design from a time of a well established company was making the game instead, developing for the likes of Nintendo and Sega, but also put a math challenge abruptly in the middle of Mischief Makers (1997) for a gag and could be freewheeling in experimental arcade throwbacks like this one later on.

That simplicity is found in a lot of their games, never overcomplicating their idiosyncratic ideas or their arcade-like game play loops, like Gunstar Heroes (1993) emphasizing the boss rushes alongside the levels, or Mischief Makers being short sharp levels based around a heroine who grabs and shakes objects. The result is a forty plus level game with mostly simple but diverse challenges with its physics and few items. Some barriers are one-way, some refuse to open until you get requirements blown up, and there are things like explosives to breakable blocks which block the way or are for points. (Cars hilariously take longer to blow up, despite having nothing to them expect to mine points, than some earlier bosses if you know what to do). There is also the fact the bomb mechanic has its own tactics, as the risk of being in the middle of a sea of bullets and missiles after you is what you want, as the risk of being blown up can be turned against everyone when the bomb is set off. Over a certain number, you get your bomb meter increased again, as with blowing up enemies and objects, as well as health pickups. If you have over a hundred plus after you, you can live out Mitsuru “Yaiman” Yaida’s original intention for this project, as all those hazards are turned into hundreds of homing missiles or a full radius laser beam of death that decimates everything nearby in a comically cacophony of explosions and noises. All there is left behind after this is the fruit to collect, leading to the oranges as the most common becoming even pears or the elusive watermelons if the bullet number you turned was comically high. It taps into a lizard brain mentality in a good way, especially as with the exception of the final boss who spams two out of spite and reads your moves, bosses who try to pull off the evil waves of bullets in all directions can be kicked in the nuts instantly if you set off the bomb at the right time and decimate their health bar.

Treasure could be serious – Ikaruga is a beautifully somber take on the scrolling sci-fi shooter – but they are also great when they are proudly silly, adding such a personality like here in Bangai-O. The information guide at the start of the earlier levels, who starts teaching you the techniques, eventually has to be found within levels and is there as only an ongoing conversation with a tree woman, a literal tree person who is a mother. She briefly gets ill and even has her ghost daughter take over for a while, just to emphasis this absurdity. Some bosses each level, alongside the ones who are dangerous but can be goofballs in the pre-fight conversations, are merely defenseless power hubs, one or two cats, but others the depressed consciousness of a hub for sick humour. Your revenge is undercut when your father eventually betrays you, fighting him a few times, and marries into the yakuza family you are trying to destroy, and all of this is a wonderful orange slice on the cake here, perfectly contrasting the kinetic joy of the game play and why I admire Treasure as I do. Sequels did come to the game - Bangai-O Spirits (2008) for the Nintendo DS, and later Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury (2011) for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade – I hope for the day this title like Radiant Silvergun (1998) get a lot more interest and rereleased, as this is a strong game deserving to be preserved. At least it deserves praise from originating from that initial experiment, accomplishing that experiment more so as, unlike the Nintendo 64 version, the Dreamcast release managed to have even more bullets on screen and thus more explosions.

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1) Bangai-O – 1999 Developer Interview, originally published in the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine, translated into English and published on shmuplations.

Games of the Abstract: VR Agent (2023)

 

Developer: 3MindWave

Publisher: Sega

One to Two Players

Originally for: Arcade

 

VR Agent, to my surprise as they are not visible on the arcade machine itself, is a Sega distributed work¹, which caught me off guard. The game itself was actually created by 3MindWave, a Hong Kong based developer, though the connection to Sega is there, as Shinichi Ogasawara, who worked in Sega’s AM3 department and worked on machines like the lightgun game The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), is in a Senior Game Designer position at 3MindWave². VR Agent itself is made in an era where you still thankfully get lightgun games but, in an era of new technology, which means that as gimmicked arcade are a timeless part tradition, you have new technology for this to work with. Unlike the curious re-adaptation of Taito's Elevator Action franchise, Elevator Action Invasion (2021), whose entire gimmick was a pair of mechanised elevators doors on the arcade machine, 3MindWave commit to bringing virtual reality to the arcades of nowadays without requiring the full head visor. Released in a time when the likes of the Oculus have been easily available for the home, virtual reality not the dominant format for video games but much more practical than in the nineties, 3MindWave wanted to take this further in a time of full scale VR rides being found in local British sea sides by removing the headset itself whilst retaining the full virtual reality.

The immediate concern is not even the game itself, but how the company even brought this about. You do not have a full VR head set, but attached to the gun itself, which descends down on cables when you start the game by itself, is a pair of goggles attached to the machine. Unlike the Simpsons joke where they do nothing, these work fully in this machine but with the practical issues of VR headsets in general, such as the fact I myself as others wear glasses, or the disorientation if you are not used to them. The former is not that bad thankfully, but would depend on your personal eyewear of choice, the later thankfully just not being used to these machines, and having gone through the entire game’s length, with no concern of nausea or anything of legitimate concern. These one have the additional issue, practically, that the rubber that completely goes around the eyes can be accidentally moved when using them which can distract you from the game in readjusting this, but this is just the practicalities of not having the full headset. The start button is even designed to recalibrate the gun back into focus if you accidentally have lost this, and even without the goggles on, the game plays onscreen too with the full virtual environment onscreen as you move the gun around.

The virtual reality is an achievement, as whilst the practicalities of these machines exists in the home let alone the arcade, this manages to bring it to more simpler equipment and also bring something unique to the light gun game in its simple mechanics, even if it is something as simple as having the proper ability to turn your head around a corner or look upwards diagonally to pick off goons. It does not emphasise the idea of full body motion, such as modern VR or in this genre the experiment by Konami with Police 24/7 (2000) with full body motion cameras, merely focusing on the advantage of turning your head around even behind you. No one tries to shoot you in the back, which is due to the practicalities of an arcade machine not sold as a full VR machine, and as this requires someone to keep an eye on your bag, does means we do not have a full 360 degree game field to play with even though the game encompasses little details behind you. There is enough within what it could practically do, so I found myself looking around the corner in a nice turn for the genre.

Where the game does suffer for me is a lack of personality, so much so a feature to make the game more family friendly actually appeals to me more than the full bloodied version. In the original version, there are grunts you are against and even blood, but the alternative I played turns them into robots, which is odder as they still have the same bodies but only the heads are replaced. With some of these characters wearing suits, it is a game with some of the most dapper robots I have encountered, and that sets up the issue of my personal taste that, with a lot of the modern 2020s games I find in arcades, I appreciate their aesthetic but they are lacking something memorable to run with their aesthetics and new technology. I do not even mind how the levels are generic realistic as that in itself has an almost liminal space nature in context to the virtual reality – barring its final level being a boss battle that is only unlocked when everything else is finished, the game is structured by a series of stages by difficulty between liminal space locations like a hotel to a warehouse that can be played in any order. The issue is that lack of sparkle that a Sega developed lightgun game might have add, and the sense that, for a game with complete emphasis on the virtual reality gimmick, there is no story whatsoever for this, and thus no cut scenes or anything even unintentionally adding a sense of spark to this.  

This is one of my issues I have found going to certain games, which they have all the advancements now in tech, but a complete lack of interest in more than the basic game play as an amusement ride. Yes, the games of the past can be comical in their voice acting and over-the-top mannerisms, trying to bolt simple plots on these lightgun games, but that has actually become one of my favourite things about them, so much so I am looking with regret on my more negative view of some other games in this area. Something like thing like Razing Storm (2008), effectively a Gears of War inspired lightgun game with Five Finger Death Punch music on the soundtrack, and an unintentionally melodramatic dude bro tone for a Japanese game clearly wanting to sell to the West at the time, is now a game I look to with great affection nowadays. There is a sense of personality, where a lot of the lightgun games of the past even when cheesy having mirth to them beyond perfunctory shooting gallery structures. VR Agent has no power ups or health pickups, and gun changing only happens for you in specific level selections, but you have dynamics I appreciated in its core gimmick which could be expanded upon. There is a sense of fun to this, robot headed goons jumping off from large heights with axes directly into the gun sight, or having to search for enemies on high warehouse structures or in driver seats of parked cars, but this feels like a mere template for something grander, making this less interesting to actually ever go back to. 

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1) VR Agent's page on Sega Arcade.

2) Interview: Shinichi Ogasawara and Pang Shy on Sega Amusements, Apex Rebels & 3MindWave, written for Arcade Hero and published on May 9th 2024.