Lords of Thunder (1993)

Everyone seems to agree that the sega CD is an inferior port. Some praise the SEGA CD version's better soundtrack. I downloaded both and ran the sountest from the options. The Sega CD definitely has the kind of soundtrack you would expect of redbook audio, CD ROM games in this era and is a better version. So I played the PERFECT VERSION: Lords of Thunder - SEga CD OST Amplified Hack by Vacant Planets

(available in Project Peacock 2.0)

"Behold the ancient glory to have resurfaced into your mortal realm"

This version comes with the soundtrack from SEGACD. It retains the sound effects from the Turbo CD. (Which is the worst thing about the sega version imo) There were a few hiccups with this hack ( half second pauses at the end of the tracks, and some changes to next tracks) but it still would have to be the best version of this game despite that small flaw.

This Side Scrolling SHMUP is very hard and fast. It's also more complicated and has some weird mechanics that up the ante on difficulty.

You can select from six or so stages, mega man style. Each stage is built around a classic element theme (like water, fire wind earth etc) You pick a 'ship' also built around an element theme. It's not clear what is best. I thought at first that yOu could pick the water Armor when fighting fire, or use the fire armor when battling earth stage. But its not anything like that (From what I could tell) It's just a style of ship attack and nothing more. Overall, I liked fire the most because you get gouts of flame that flicker around as you roll back and forth and do not require as much precision.

But here is the trick: You have a life bar in this game. That sounds great but as your life bar goes down you lose your cool attacks! You have to buy items at the start of the mission to boost your attack back up. Run out of money, lose a level and start again and it's basically game over.

The money is the other bit. You have to collect various power ups (95% is just money) so this is one of those "Retrieval" type shmups that gets off putting you in vulnerable spots. I found myself focused on killing enemies and only picking up like a quarter of things. It's just too fast to get everything and way too dangerous to focus on it.

Visually and Audially this game is astounding. The voice acted animation sequences are fantastic at setting an epic feel to this. It truly looks like something out of the old Heavy Metal Magazine The style of soundtrack is unusual to see in this kind of game but it fits and works well in the levels themselves I think the "First" level (Dezant) is the perfect example of that. (Just check out this crazy Gates of Babylon inspired level theme as you blow up desert creatures amidst an Mesopotamian World heritage site in background)

Also the levels themselves are really gorgeous and embellished. They feature a lot of scenery and moving elements in the background (like water falls or flowing lava) A lot of stuff tends to move in the background making it harder to see those bullets and enemies though unfortunately.

Finally, bosses are mix. I have a tendency to get real nervous and sometimes panic when its time to face a boss in a difficult SHMUP that was hard to get to, and this game is one of those. Bosses follow very very straight forward patterns and dont mix it up. If you learn the pattern you can do it but it can take several tries to get there again to observe. I found one boss to be significantly harder than the others, some not that hard at all. This guy is probably the scariest looking but also easiest boss in this game

Another thing about this game and bosses is it helps to know the game a bit and plan what kind of ship and how likely you are to have a decent attack upgrade by the time (or if) you get to the boss.

So, in conclusion this is a interesting game. It looks great, sounds great, but has a real quirky style of play with many difficulty-increasing facets that didn't really win me over. It seems many of the fans of this game like it cause of its style rather than the way it actually plays. But I think some very good players might love this one because it's different. I am by no means a pro pilot at these games and I think it's best enjoyed by players of greater skill than I. Many aspects of this game are beyond simple action or reflex as you have to plan ahead and be willing to play this game quite a bit to know the levels and bosses at the end of them. That makes it branch into a kind of new territory. This is also a game to be replayed a lot and not breezed through on an emulator in one sitting.