The player begins the game by choosing from one of four different forest rangers, each with a different amount of health, attack strength, and jumping height. The game's controls consists of an eight-way joystick for moving the character and two action buttons (attack and jump). The player can perform a variety of different attacks (punches, kicks, and finishing blows) depending on the position of an enemy. By pressing both buttons while surrounded by enemies, the player can perform a special attack that strikes every enemy around him. By pressing both buttons while holding the joystick upwards, the player will perform a longer jump. The player can procure weapons by destroying barrels and wooden crates or disarming certain enemies. There are a total of eight weapons which can be obtained: three melee weapons (a pipe, a sword and a whip), two throwing weapons (knives and hand grenades), and three firearms (a pistol, a machine gun, and a rocket launcher). The barrels and crates can also be picked up and thrown at enemies as well. When the machine gun or rocket launcher runs out of ammunition, these are still wielded by the player as melee weapons. The pistol, on the other hand, is thrown by the player after all of its bullets are used. The player can drop his current weapon by pressing down and attack while wielding it. If a weapon lies on the ground after a certain period, it will vanish completely. There are seven regular stages (called rounds) and a bonus game, for a total of eight stages. The locations include a city, a moving train, a boat, a jungle, a cavern, and the hideout of the poachers. There are six types of enemy characters throughout the game, excluding the final boss (who has two forms). There are also animal helpers that will help out the player after they're rescued from a poacher, such as an eagle, a herd of deer, and an elephant.
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Game bem curto. Finalizei a versão de Mega Drive, mas vou tentar a de Arcade também.
Taito Legends 2 wasn't just great for the late-nineties stuff. It opened the door to a ton of scruffy, weird little games that I now hold very dear. Cameltry, Space Invaders '95: The Attack of Lunar Loonies, Football Champ, and most powerful of all - GROWL.
Can you imagine my delight as I first selected this title, completely ignorant of its contents?
Growl is a four-player beat 'em up (though notably, I haven't owned a version that allowed for more than two players until this week's Arcade Archives release) where righteous vigilantes fight against evil animal poachers. Before you even punch your first baddie, you're offered a fucking Resident Evil 1 rocket launcher.
Everything in Growl explodes. A big man. Chairs. The pub garden roof that inexplicably crushes all the on-screen enemies when you respawn. "SHBROOOM!"
There's an absurd brutality to Growl. Picking up enemies with one hand, as they struggle to regain their strength, and swinging their limp bodies into the ground, back and forth over your head until their skulls are mush. That's what you get for caging a majestic eagle, you villain!
It would be disingenuous to suggest that Growl is actually a good game. It's relentlessly repetitive, irritating, and its enemy spawns would put Heavenly Sword to shame. That's part of the fun for me. How dumb its design is. Minutes before the final boss, the game abandons the established structure and puts you in a spike-filled cave for one of the worst platforming sequences I've ever played. I think this is what some folk get out of Midway trash like NARC and Pit Fighter, but their tone of meat-headed, straight-to-rental VHS didn't resonate with me nearly as much.
Growl is camp 40s kids adventure serials through the lens of early 90s kusoge. A traintop fight against fat Moroccans and American prostitutes. A stampede of cheetah kittens attacking international criminals. A Phantom of the Opera with machine gun claws and a mind-controlling alien worm in his back. Hook it up to my veins.
Rotten game. A must-buy.
Sega really never stops providing the mid beat 'em ups.