Status Chovus Jun 16, 2025
Beat in slow motion mode. This was a very interesting game with a surprising amount of world building, story and dialogue for a NES action game. There were cutscenes and decent characterization too. Even better than some RPGs. The gameplay was divided into 5 distinct types. It started as a side scrolling shoot em up as a land bound drill …
Beat in slow motion mode. This was a very interesting game with a surprising amount of world building, story and dialogue for a NES action game. There were cutscenes and decent characterization too. Even better than some RPGs. The gameplay was divided into 5 distinct types. It started as a side scrolling shoot em up as a land bound drill tank that shot straight ahead and up diagonal at the same time. It took me some fiddling to figure out the controls. 1 button to shoot, and the other button was held down to use D pad to change stuff. Left and right switched to the drill to dig through soft earth. It also switched to better weapons but I never even realized there were better weapons later on. That was probably why i found the final stage brutal. Up and down switched forms and these consumed fuel. Running out of fuel was game over though enemies dropped it fairly often. Hover mode allowed the tank to fly and had another down diagonal shot, while jet mode gave the same angles as bouncy lasers and was much faster and more maneuverable. The tank forms gave better shield regen. For that brutal part near the end I tried using the jet to dodge enemies but the tank proved better for slow and steady healing. Enemies seemed infinite. Some stages had top down shoot em up sequences where there was no solid ground for the tank form. Fuel was a much bigger concern here as I had to kill enough enemies to get drops, and the awkwardness of the hovering tank was much more apparent. The boss of each act switched back and forth between menu based dialogue with the crew and inventory, and 1st person shooting. There were several rounds of dialogue allowed before the combat started and this cycled back around if the fight took too long. The crew gave hints on how to win while also changing yours and the boss's hp (called probability %). They could even lower your hp and "heal" the boss so it was important not to waste time talking to the wrong people. The 1st boss was very easy but I had to check a walkthrough for the 2nd to learn that scrolling left or right until the boss was off screen prevented damage. It was certainly interactive but I never would have thought to try it because looking away from an attack does not normally dodge it. More like the opposite. The rest of the bosses were easy with this knowledge. The final genre was side scrolling platformer where the very sexy protagonist got out of the tank to explore on foot without pants. Or a helmet, or respirator or any kind of protective suit that I would except someone to wear deep underground. This was the weakest aspect of the game. I got lost and used a walkthrough for the 2nd stage and drew paper maps for the rest. The areas were not that large or complex but the maps definitely helped. Enemies were infinite and only 3 types. Kick the bats, duck under the dogs, and kick the reptilians while ducking when they jumped over. Pressing up was kick, which was weird. The 2 face buttons were jump and shoot, but ammo was limited. Enemies occasionally dropped health or ammo but it was not viable to shoot everything. The recurring boss was very easy to defeat with shots so I saved my ammo for that unless there were 2 enemies at once. It was always wander around to find a key item or person to open a door to progress. Not terrible but severely undercooked compared to Metroid.
This was a cool game but it spread itself out a bit too much with the gameplay variety. I think they should have dropped the platformer aspect entirely to focus on the shoot em up, or at least fleshed it out to be on par with the shoot em up parts. I would have liked more shoot em up stages, some kind of indication that new weapons were available, and something to make playthroughs different, like having to choose which weapons to take. The ending was confusing because they were throwing around so many different civilization names that I lost track of which species was which civilization. Had to read a guide with all the text. So millions of years ago the reptiles ruled the surface until some disaster sank their civilization underground. 24 million years ago instead of 65? Ok. Then they found Gaians living under the earth, which looked like humans. No idea if they were or not. Then at some point humans from the moon (they probably meant Mars or even further) settled on the surface of earth until the kingdom of Atlantis sank underground and there was a massive 3 way nuclear war between the 3 civilizations underground. Then somehow the reptiles got the upper hand and planned to conquer the surface, leading to the actual game. I have a lot of questions but this world building was leagues ahead of other shoot em ups. The ending was just a lore dump and the final boss did not even fight back. Could have been done better and there could have been sequels.
7.0/10