Forgotten Worlds (1988)

I'm unsure if I've ever actually done a proper playthrough of this game. I do know that I played it in some form once because I remember when I played it I thought 'hey this is like S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team but better!" (and that's basically a short, simple honest review right there)
Watching a demo is highly recommended. You get a short video that shows you what all the weapons do. Very nice demo indeed!

FW reminds me of some other games i've seen in arcades with similar time travelling themes or settings, which makes for more level variation (why that's a thing I guess) It seems that the arcade controls were more of twin stick shooting, but on home consoles (including the TurboGrafx-CD) this was emulated through a "rotate your gun left" and a "rotate your gun right" button. This gives you a 360 degree (well 8-cardinal directions anyway) of fire. Now, I've played a few top down shooting and run and gun games that have this but not side-scrolling multidirectional shooter! The boss fights seems easier and differ drastically from the Genesis version. Here we actually change to a vertically scrolling boss fight to give the gameplay some zest!

I have to say I do like this gimmicky feeling mechanic. You can just do some cool things with it. (Really liked the flamethrower on the genesis version, you can just hold one of the buttons down to roll flames everywhere around your character, sweeping them of enemies!) The different weapon upgrades really do let you play the game in different ways, much more so than the vast majority of side scrolling shooting games. It also makes the boss fights more interesting at times.

The way the game works is you shoot enemies and some enemies drop money in the form of little blue gems. At least once in a level you will see a big shop appear on the screen and inside you can spend your money to buy upgrades (Aerofighters did this but it was only between levels). Some might not like this 'pay to win' type system, but i do. The help is much appreciated and needed. In addition to cool weapon upgrades you can also upgrade your option's firepower which was actually the main thing i focused on (the weapons get expensive, and to buy the best ones by the end of the game you must save up!) This might be an incentive for additional playthroughs. Either way, nice design all around!
Playing the genesis version first was enough for me to go on to know what the items are in the Jaapnese version. I also used a walkthrough for the items in the final shop.

The game looks a bit cleaner, crisper and cooler on the TGCD over the genesis. It also features a lot of digitized speech, which you can actually have two versions of according to the options but i couldn't really tell the difference) it's all in Japanese so it doesn't matter anyway. (Don't ask me why i'm playing the Japanese version I don't know, but i probably had my reasons) There was some glitching and slowdowns in some parts of the game. TBH, its a very weak TurboCD release that really doesn't add any bang to the buck other than Japanese voicing of the 16-bit scenes. The scenes themselves look similar to the Genesis version. (But the main actual gameplay graphics is better)

I have to say that even though the game isn't amazing, this realy is a must play. I dont especially love the game, but I love how different it is from other games in the genre. The multi-directional shooting works really well the way they designed it. Weapons offer more variety. Level design and overall concept is corny but fun. It's only fault is maybe that it's a one-player game. It also uses the RUN button for turning in one of the other directions (three buttons are needed, and the controller only has two)
I tried to emulate the 6 button controller (there is even an option for it in the game, so it seems to support it) but couldnt get it to work right. Perhaps the silliness of the two main characters is more funny in Japanese voicing, and that alone makes this the best version of the game.