Black Tiger, known in Japan as Black Dragon, is a 1987 action game released for the arcades by Capcom. A barbarian hero jumps and fights his way through a variety of colourful, enemy-packed levels. The sprawling, eight-way scrolling, two-dimensional levels are packed with hidden bonuses to encourage and reward exploration. Though a percentage of these bonuses consist of dubious and often self-evident "advice", most come in the form of "Zenny coins", currency that allows the player to buy such items as an upgrade to their weapons and armour, keys for treasure chests, and anti-poisoning potions. Special items that reveal coins, upgraded armour, full vitality, extra lives, extra time, or simply bonus points may be found by attacking certain walls. The player's vitality bar will also increase up to three times as a reward for reaching score benchmarks.
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This feels like it might have been spun off from development ideas from Bionic Commando or vice versa. A decent action adventure platformer.
It's a pretty interesting predecessor to later Capcom "arcade RPGs," with its sprawling vertical stages and various secrets. It can be pretty disorienting and repetitive, but the core platforming and combat are solid, and the dark fantasy theme is fun. Worth a try or two.
Man, Life of Black Tiger fucking SUCKS. While I myself never played it, I can say confidently that it is completely broken, looks like shit, costs too much, and it is a complete disgrace to the entire PlayStation Store. sigh... if only there was a way that we could, y’know, FIX this catastrophe so that it wasn’t a complete piece of trash. Hm… gasp, WAIT A MINUTE. What if we… takes the “Life of” out of the title... oh yeah, there we go! Now, instead of being a horrible game, it is only slightly above average! Now that we got that obvious joke out of the way, Black Tiger is yet another classic arcade title from Capcom that I found when scrolling through the Capcom Arcade Stadium, and based on what I saw, it looked… pretty much like every other classic arcade game from this company. Despite that, I thought that it probably wouldn’t be the worst thing to play through, so I went ahead and gave it a shot, and you know what, I was right. It wasn’t the worst thing to play through, and it is just a good game instead. There isn’t really that much that makes this game stand out from other Capcom arcade games, and it is pretty generic as a whole in terms of setting and characters, but there are some unique elements that it incorporates into the gameplay that was innovative for 1987. That doesn’t excuse them from claiming that this game gets more exciting the more you play though, because that is a complete lie.
The story is the most generic fantasy plot ever, where three dragons are fucking everything up for this random kingdom, and it is up to the Black Tiger himself to take them down and save the land, the graphics are pretty much exactly like every other Capcom arcade title at the time, which is still good, but if you are expecting any huge differences from this game, then you won’t be getting that, the music is enjoyable, having that Ghosts ‘n Goblins feel to it, which I am all for, and it fits well enough with what is going on in the game, the control is… complicated, which I will go into more later down the road, and the gameplay has a typical setup for the time, but it does introduce several elements that not too many other arcade games of the era had.
The game is an action 2D platformer, where you take control of the Black Tiger, take on a set of 8 similar, yet challenging levels, slay every single monster that you encounter along your journey, gather plenty of points, gold, and upgrades along your way to get stronger and have more of an edge against the foes you will face, and take on several bosses that… are neither that creative or fun to face against. Yeah, the bosses in this game kinda suck. Anyway, as for the gameplay itself, it does have a pretty basic setup, but it does differentiate itself from other platformers in several ways. First of all, in terms of general progression, while it is mainly linear, with you being led from Point A to Point B, there are plenty of opportunities to diverge off the path and see what other items, money, and treasure you can find. This is amplified with the optional dungeons that can be found within each level, which can give you more items and points when you traverse through them.
Like with other games later down the road, this game offers the player a proper sense of progression as they keep playing, which is something that I always appreciate when it pops up. Throughout the game, you can save these old crotchety men from their stone imprisonment, and by doing so, they will give you plenty of awards, such as more money, health items, advice for proceeding forward, or… they just say thanks and leave. Yeah, thanks a lot, dick. But not only that, but some of these old men also allow you to enter into their shops, where you can purchase more keys, health potions, and multiple weapons and suits of armor, which will progressively increase your defense and power throughout the game. It may be very basic, but the opportunity to progress like this is always appreciated in platformers. Not to mention, you can upgrade your regular health multiple times throughout the main game, so that is also pretty cool.
While all of that is cool and all, it doesn’t save the game from being really anything that special. It is very impressive for the time with what it does, but it is squandered by its control and that good ol’ disease we all love so much. In the case of the controls, the game feels like it was ripped straight out of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins universe, with the control functioning practically the exact same, and with the way this game sets up multiple platforming challenges and enemy encounters, it can get pretty aggravating to get by because of that. And going back to that disease, it is the one and only arcade syndrome, back at it again for the MILLIONTH TIME, where enemies appear practically all over the place every couple seconds, especially in later stages. It isn’t too big of a deal, especially when you get more upgrades to deal more damage, but it can be a nuisance most of the time.
Overall, even with the addition of upgrades and non-linearity in some aspects, this game was simply just fine, nothing too fantastical or addicting, but nothing that I hated playing as a whole. It has that Capcom arcade feel, it doesn’t take too long to complete, and it does feel satisfying to conquer these challenges, so in the end, it does its job well enough to where I don’t feel like I wasted my time. I would recommend it for those who enjoy these titles from Capcom’s arcade era, but if you are someone who can’t stand those games, including Ghosts ‘n Goblins, then I wouldn’t check it out, and would just look for something else to occupy your time. At the end of the day, I am just glad that we killed Life of Black Tiger, and nobody will ever remember that that game was even a thing in the first place… accomplished sigh... wait… what were we talking about?
Game #341
The story is the most generic fantasy plot ever, where three dragons are fucking everything up for this random kingdom, and it is up to the Black Tiger himself to take them down and save the land, the graphics are pretty much exactly like every other Capcom arcade title at the time, which is still good, but if you are expecting any huge differences from this game, then you won’t be getting that, the music is enjoyable, having that Ghosts ‘n Goblins feel to it, which I am all for, and it fits well enough with what is going on in the game, the control is… complicated, which I will go into more later down the road, and the gameplay has a typical setup for the time, but it does introduce several elements that not too many other arcade games of the era had.
The game is an action 2D platformer, where you take control of the Black Tiger, take on a set of 8 similar, yet challenging levels, slay every single monster that you encounter along your journey, gather plenty of points, gold, and upgrades along your way to get stronger and have more of an edge against the foes you will face, and take on several bosses that… are neither that creative or fun to face against. Yeah, the bosses in this game kinda suck. Anyway, as for the gameplay itself, it does have a pretty basic setup, but it does differentiate itself from other platformers in several ways. First of all, in terms of general progression, while it is mainly linear, with you being led from Point A to Point B, there are plenty of opportunities to diverge off the path and see what other items, money, and treasure you can find. This is amplified with the optional dungeons that can be found within each level, which can give you more items and points when you traverse through them.
Like with other games later down the road, this game offers the player a proper sense of progression as they keep playing, which is something that I always appreciate when it pops up. Throughout the game, you can save these old crotchety men from their stone imprisonment, and by doing so, they will give you plenty of awards, such as more money, health items, advice for proceeding forward, or… they just say thanks and leave. Yeah, thanks a lot, dick. But not only that, but some of these old men also allow you to enter into their shops, where you can purchase more keys, health potions, and multiple weapons and suits of armor, which will progressively increase your defense and power throughout the game. It may be very basic, but the opportunity to progress like this is always appreciated in platformers. Not to mention, you can upgrade your regular health multiple times throughout the main game, so that is also pretty cool.
While all of that is cool and all, it doesn’t save the game from being really anything that special. It is very impressive for the time with what it does, but it is squandered by its control and that good ol’ disease we all love so much. In the case of the controls, the game feels like it was ripped straight out of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins universe, with the control functioning practically the exact same, and with the way this game sets up multiple platforming challenges and enemy encounters, it can get pretty aggravating to get by because of that. And going back to that disease, it is the one and only arcade syndrome, back at it again for the MILLIONTH TIME, where enemies appear practically all over the place every couple seconds, especially in later stages. It isn’t too big of a deal, especially when you get more upgrades to deal more damage, but it can be a nuisance most of the time.
Overall, even with the addition of upgrades and non-linearity in some aspects, this game was simply just fine, nothing too fantastical or addicting, but nothing that I hated playing as a whole. It has that Capcom arcade feel, it doesn’t take too long to complete, and it does feel satisfying to conquer these challenges, so in the end, it does its job well enough to where I don’t feel like I wasted my time. I would recommend it for those who enjoy these titles from Capcom’s arcade era, but if you are someone who can’t stand those games, including Ghosts ‘n Goblins, then I wouldn’t check it out, and would just look for something else to occupy your time. At the end of the day, I am just glad that we killed Life of Black Tiger, and nobody will ever remember that that game was even a thing in the first place… accomplished sigh... wait… what were we talking about?
Game #341
Played on Capcom Arcade Stadium.
Not bad for the year 1987
Not bad for the year 1987
This game was fun as hell.
Hace 30 años
Juegazo y joya oculta de la gran Capcom que estaba por venir en esa epoca. Como unico "pero" es que los bosses se repiten, pero tanto el planteamiento del juego como el ambiente y los graficos son sublimes.
Juegazo y joya oculta de la gran Capcom que estaba por venir en esa epoca. Como unico "pero" es que los bosses se repiten, pero tanto el planteamiento del juego como el ambiente y los graficos son sublimes.