After Burner II (1987)

I always sucked at After Burner and getting back on it today I can see nothing changed. To be fair, it's clearly made for sucking money ot ouf your pockets: chaotic, iper-hectic, really hard and it lets you add coins to get more lives, so you don't even have to see the Game Over screen. That's also why it's such a pleasure to emulate it and enjoy it without having to spend your whole weekly allowance. Also, I was able to play it with my HOTAS, which mad it really cool and kinda close to my memories of playing it in the arcades. I'm also sitting on a Varier, so I could move up and down and feel like I was on a cheap version of the old hydraulics powered arcade machine. :D

Anyway, it's still visually really pretty, the Eighties music is adorable and it's a fun game, even though I think After Burner II is a better game. It's not that different, but the graphics are marginally better, there's some cute new ideas and the speed control is actually a smart addition in terms of gameplay. Also, it allowed me to use my full HOTAS setup, the throttle too!

Anyway, these are really simple, spectacular, chaotic and ultimately fun games. Ah, the old times! Ah, I'm old! ah

Odds are you've played this at least once or twice in some form or another. It's been recycled throughout the ages in a variety of formats, It was in the Shenmue games as well as Yakuza (well the original, but there isn't much difference between After Burner I and II though, the ports of it on the other hand are a different story) Even though these games are basically gimmicks that borrow from other games (Space Harrier is just Marathon World Runner with guns!) Sega is proud of these games and they should be. The original arcade game featured a rolling cabinet and a flight joystick in cabinet to resemble a cockpit. The sequel featured more levels, but the main difference was the ability to speed up and slow down (with the joystick) that seems small but it made a huge difference. Interestingly enough, all the ports seem to have this ONE element of slowing down and speeding up. It's as if they said 'well that's the one thing that makes it better so we will have it in the ports!' But in terms of gameplay it doesnt seem that relevant. I imagine everyone plays the game like sonic himself would, and just go fast.

Yet the ports have issues, beyond the fact you lack the really cool immersive cabinetry that SEGA had a kick ass reputation for providing, most ports of the game feature significant graphical downgrades as well as audio. The only ports which don't suffer as such are the 32X version and the saturn version. However these ports lack a really wicked feature of the original...

Do a barrel Roll!

For whatever reason, the other ports I've played also don't seem to retain this wild feature. It was very intense in a cabinet that rocks back and forth but even on an emulator its way cooler than even the better ports that forgot to include this feature.

Maybe Nintendo noticed, and out-Foxed Sega?

Whatever the case in my book that makes the ports crap, and the original's secret ingredient is indeed that magic that a rolling cabinet combined with cockpit can provide.

UPDATE: After writing this review I continued to play some more ports of the game just to have a look. And it turns out that the Master System port does let you barrel roll. I found this amusing because it actually is a gameplay feature that adds so much to the game even when that game running below 10 FPS. The TG-16 port also has the feature but unlike the SMS version plays extremely (overly) fast and has a different feel.