RoboWarrior (1987)

Played a short while before I ran out of time and died. Then I looked up online to find that I had energy tanks to prevent dying from time. From there I was able to beat stage 1. In stage 2 I got stuck and had to restart. I began following online maps and beat that stage. The next stage was dark but I wasted my only lantern before that so had to chug candles. Does this robot cyborg not have on board lights or night vision? I almost got past this stage but saved state right as I died. Even though I had a backup at the beginning of the stage, I was done. This was one of the worst games I have ever played. I liked the shooting, bombing, exploration and items use. The core structure of the game was solid and it was pretty well made. BUT, time limit by way of constantly draining hp. Not only do you have to deal with that but enemy damage and self bomb blasts as well. This one design decision changed what could have been great or better into absolute trash. Time limits and exploration do not mix unless the limit is so high the only way to run it out would be deliberately wasting time. The limited bombs and having to farm them from enemies was also a dumb design choice. It would have been better if the infinite basic gun could mine through obstacles, with the bombs being saved for combat and occasional hard obstacles. The game did have some secret destructible sections in the otherwise unbreakable rock but it took 4 bombs to destroy it without any visual indication of damage being done. Who would ever find that? And I did not like the darkness. It would have been ok if stairs showed up without light, or if the light given by the candle was the baseline or permanent after finding a candle. It was a real shame how badly they botched these mechanics given how good the game looks and the overall production quality.

Tough to rate but I will go 4/10. I was initially at 2/10 until I learned about energy tanks and I feel the 4 is generous.