A decent action shooter with some leftover visual inspiration from The Terminator.
Jogo bem regular com temática genérica que tenta se salvar na possibilidade de ter sido um jogo da série The Terminator. Os inimigos, de modo geral, são simplórios e fáceis de abater; cada fase tem um sub chefe e um boss final que reforçam a ideia de estarmos em um mundo dominado por máquinas; no geral os chefes são mais tranquilos que os subchefes; ainda mais se você utilizar as armas ganhas ao longo das fases.
A música é um capítulo à parte. É incrível e mostra todo o poder do nintendinho em uma trilha empolgante e muito bem composta.
A música é um capítulo à parte. É incrível e mostra todo o poder do nintendinho em uma trilha empolgante e muito bem composta.
the gameplay is rather dogshit but that sweet sweet sunsoft soundtrack makes up for it
Very forgettable.
One of the more overhyped difficulty reputations of its era, and the gameplay not really close to megaman or contra. Music is great though and its short enough to enjoy for a quick playthru.
This game was originally supposed to be a game based on "Office Space".
I wanted to like Journey to Silius a lot more than I did. For the first few levels, I was genuinely convinced I had found a hidden gem. Silius has a very fun movement system and some rock-solid game mechanics. For the most part, it's a pretty fun jump-n-shoot romp through Terminator-inspired environments and enemies. Unlike, say, Mega Man where you always have full control of your movement, Silius is similar to a lighter version of Castlevania's movement where you have to commit to your jumps. This leads to many tight situations where timing your jumps perfectly is a challenging and fun obstacle in its own right. The player's ability to duck also makes the game feel more dynamic, as now you can avoid enemies in ways more nuanced than some other games. The first few levels are decently designed, rarely feel unfair, and generally require a level of trial and error I find acceptable.
A consistent problem that a lot of NES games have, however, is that the game is simply too stingy with continues. While not as bad as some other games due to its extremely short length, Silius only gives the player one continue (read: six lives) to beat all fives levels, and with a game as difficult as Silius, I feel like it's simply unfair to kick the player back to the first level. The Ninja Gaiden trilogy, considered some of the most challenging of NES platformers, has infinite continues, so Silius doesn't have much of an excuse. I also felt that level four is when the game begins to lose its luster. Some of the enemy placements border on the absurd in ways that make Castlevania's infamous Medusa hallway look like child's play. The boss fights range from decent to terribly unfun, with only the first boss feeling decently designed. The hitboxes of the floating fish-like enemies are also larger than the actual sprite and can hit you even if you're ducking and visibly under them. Don't get me wrong, Silius is still a good bit of fun, but the rough edges become more obvious the more time you put into it.
If people remember anything about Journey to Silius though, it's easily its presentation. The soundtrack is legendary among the remix community, and the hard-hitting drums, distinctive SunSoft bass, and catchy tunes that bend and break the NES's sound chip are easily the highlight of the game among all else. The visuals are also rather attractive, and the first level's vision of an apocalyptic, green future hellscape is distinctive (and almost certainly a remnant of its brief tenure as a Terminator-licensed project). Even backgrounds that would typically be basic colors are given significantly more detail in Silius than even some Super Nintendo games. Jay McCray's sprite animates fluidly and the bosses feature large and detailed sprites. Sometimes, however, tiles from the bottom of the screen can appear at the top, which could look distracting.
Journey to Silius is a game I certainly don't regret playing because I had a lot of fun with its platforming, its first few levels, its detailed visuals, and its phenomenal soundtrack. However, the overly punishing continues system, the questionable enemy placement, and the poor boss fights roughened up the experience for me. I wish the game was put in the hands of more capable developers like Capcom, but as it stands, it's still a decent time despite these flaws. Silius might not be a hidden gem, but it is a diamond in the rough, buried under its own flaws.
A consistent problem that a lot of NES games have, however, is that the game is simply too stingy with continues. While not as bad as some other games due to its extremely short length, Silius only gives the player one continue (read: six lives) to beat all fives levels, and with a game as difficult as Silius, I feel like it's simply unfair to kick the player back to the first level. The Ninja Gaiden trilogy, considered some of the most challenging of NES platformers, has infinite continues, so Silius doesn't have much of an excuse. I also felt that level four is when the game begins to lose its luster. Some of the enemy placements border on the absurd in ways that make Castlevania's infamous Medusa hallway look like child's play. The boss fights range from decent to terribly unfun, with only the first boss feeling decently designed. The hitboxes of the floating fish-like enemies are also larger than the actual sprite and can hit you even if you're ducking and visibly under them. Don't get me wrong, Silius is still a good bit of fun, but the rough edges become more obvious the more time you put into it.
If people remember anything about Journey to Silius though, it's easily its presentation. The soundtrack is legendary among the remix community, and the hard-hitting drums, distinctive SunSoft bass, and catchy tunes that bend and break the NES's sound chip are easily the highlight of the game among all else. The visuals are also rather attractive, and the first level's vision of an apocalyptic, green future hellscape is distinctive (and almost certainly a remnant of its brief tenure as a Terminator-licensed project). Even backgrounds that would typically be basic colors are given significantly more detail in Silius than even some Super Nintendo games. Jay McCray's sprite animates fluidly and the bosses feature large and detailed sprites. Sometimes, however, tiles from the bottom of the screen can appear at the top, which could look distracting.
Journey to Silius is a game I certainly don't regret playing because I had a lot of fun with its platforming, its first few levels, its detailed visuals, and its phenomenal soundtrack. However, the overly punishing continues system, the questionable enemy placement, and the poor boss fights roughened up the experience for me. I wish the game was put in the hands of more capable developers like Capcom, but as it stands, it's still a decent time despite these flaws. Silius might not be a hidden gem, but it is a diamond in the rough, buried under its own flaws.
Back in the late 80s, the company Sunsoft, who were known at the time for Blaster Master and Spy Hunter, had acquired the license to develop a game based on The Terminator, which sounds like it would've been a good game, since they also made the NES Batman game, which from what I heard was good. Unfortunately, however, they ended up losing the license altogether, and this led to another Terminator NES game being made, which from what I have heard is NOT a good game, which is practically expected at this point. Either way, instead of abandoning what had been worked on at that point, Sunsoft decided to rework what they had and released as a completely original game known as Journey to Silius.
So, the only reason I played this is because it was available on the NES Switch Online service (because they love giving you random games nobody cares about instead of other quality titles), and after playing it, I can say it is the most average NES game I have ever played. It's not really bad, but it isn't that good either, but it does have some good qualities that are nice to mess around with.
The story is every single dead-dad-revenge-plot ever put into media, and it is abandoned as soon as it is introduced, the graphics are pretty good, although generic when placed next to other games like it, the music is very nice, as to be expected from a Sunsoft game, the control is easy to pick up, although your movement and jump momentum is very awkward to handle, and the gameplay is extremely standard of the time, but it is still serviceable.
The game is your typical 2D side-scrolling shooter of that era, where you run from left to right, shooting enemies, defeating bosses, and grabbing items, including an assortment of weapons that you can use to take on said enemies and bosses, such as a machine gun, homing missiles, and a grenade launcher, and while the weapons themselves don't really look too different from each other, they are useful in several scenarios. The game can be enjoyable at points, and it doesn't really do anything too bad, but at the same time, again, it doesn't really do much to stand out from other games on the same system.
In terms of issues I have with the game, it's pretty similar to issues I would have with other NES games in general: cheap enemy placement, bosses where they have a TINY weak point that you have to hit, obstacles that can result in instant death, and some instances where it seems like you can't avoid taking damage no matter what you do. Although, with all that being said, if this game did end up being the Terminator game for the NES, I would probably like it a whole lot more, because then I would actually somewhat care about the world and characters.
Overall, while it really doesn't do too much wrong for me to hate it, it doesn't really do anything to stand out, and it is just your basic NES shooting platformer. With that being said, if you have absolutely nothing better to do, there would certainly be worst things you could do other than trying the game out.
Game #103
So, the only reason I played this is because it was available on the NES Switch Online service (because they love giving you random games nobody cares about instead of other quality titles), and after playing it, I can say it is the most average NES game I have ever played. It's not really bad, but it isn't that good either, but it does have some good qualities that are nice to mess around with.
The story is every single dead-dad-revenge-plot ever put into media, and it is abandoned as soon as it is introduced, the graphics are pretty good, although generic when placed next to other games like it, the music is very nice, as to be expected from a Sunsoft game, the control is easy to pick up, although your movement and jump momentum is very awkward to handle, and the gameplay is extremely standard of the time, but it is still serviceable.
The game is your typical 2D side-scrolling shooter of that era, where you run from left to right, shooting enemies, defeating bosses, and grabbing items, including an assortment of weapons that you can use to take on said enemies and bosses, such as a machine gun, homing missiles, and a grenade launcher, and while the weapons themselves don't really look too different from each other, they are useful in several scenarios. The game can be enjoyable at points, and it doesn't really do anything too bad, but at the same time, again, it doesn't really do much to stand out from other games on the same system.
In terms of issues I have with the game, it's pretty similar to issues I would have with other NES games in general: cheap enemy placement, bosses where they have a TINY weak point that you have to hit, obstacles that can result in instant death, and some instances where it seems like you can't avoid taking damage no matter what you do. Although, with all that being said, if this game did end up being the Terminator game for the NES, I would probably like it a whole lot more, because then I would actually somewhat care about the world and characters.
Overall, while it really doesn't do too much wrong for me to hate it, it doesn't really do anything to stand out, and it is just your basic NES shooting platformer. With that being said, if you have absolutely nothing better to do, there would certainly be worst things you could do other than trying the game out.
Game #103
First off, PHENOMINAL, QUINTESSENTIAL ost on the NES. Truly remarkable.
now that that's out of the way, game is pretty good. controls well. good graphics. kinda samey. pretty short. not as good as mega man which is kinda what its tryna do. fascinating little game. worthy of anyone's collection.
now that that's out of the way, game is pretty good. controls well. good graphics. kinda samey. pretty short. not as good as mega man which is kinda what its tryna do. fascinating little game. worthy of anyone's collection.
Banger OST for a pretty good game
I did speedrun this game. Originally a terminator game and it should of stayed that way cause the rest of the terminator games suck. The controls and good, music is great, gameplay is fun. People think this game is hard, what are they talking about. Very short but a good example of how simple it is to make a good run n gun on the nes. You need to have this one is your collection.
this game is fucking mid…
BUT THE MUSIC IS AMAZING!!!
BUT THE MUSIC IS AMAZING!!!
Despite some questionable design choices on the bosses, I think it's a perfectly fine platformer with some really great visuals and an amazing soundtrack. It's no Contra or Mega Man but I think it's decent on its own.
the music is the only thing good about this
I played this almost 30 years after it came out and I loved it. I came for the music (Some of the best on the NES, serious contender here) stayed for the stellar game. Game isn't super long. Only five or six stages IIRC. But each one is well thought out. It's hard but with just a little practice and planning you can make it through. It's a futuristic space game where you can collect different weapons and freely switch between them at any time. Light platforming and waves of robot enemies. It's a hard to sell kinda game on paper but it's awesome. Just play the stage 1/ title theme on loop forever and ever.
Honestly, solid 7-8/10 NES run & gun side-scroller.
A cyberpunk style game that is often compared to Contra, personally I see more Mega Man in it in terms of gameplay and weapon distribution, but can see some of the influence from Contra.
Much of the graphics carry over from the original intention of creating a licensed Terminator game, with many robot exoskeletons present. The soundtrack like many of Sunsoft releases is outstanding.
The levels play out fairly stock, with sub-bosses to defeat to get new weapon upgrades. Which are then encouraged to be used on the actual boss - which resemble more Contra design philosophy of full screen designs.
The only way I could dock it is the difficulty, the game is stingy with health and ammo drops. You’re often preserving both in the hopes of making it to the end of a stage, with some infuriating blind drops where damage is necessary.
You might waste all your ammo on the “sub-Boss” then you’re left with the lousy hand gun to take on the Stage Boss and it’s almost a necessity to preserve life. There’s some code to increase the lives/continues (press B 33 times). But I just used ample rewind.
Surprisingly the last stage and final bosses are the easiest parts of the game.
A cyberpunk style game that is often compared to Contra, personally I see more Mega Man in it in terms of gameplay and weapon distribution, but can see some of the influence from Contra.
Much of the graphics carry over from the original intention of creating a licensed Terminator game, with many robot exoskeletons present. The soundtrack like many of Sunsoft releases is outstanding.
The levels play out fairly stock, with sub-bosses to defeat to get new weapon upgrades. Which are then encouraged to be used on the actual boss - which resemble more Contra design philosophy of full screen designs.
The only way I could dock it is the difficulty, the game is stingy with health and ammo drops. You’re often preserving both in the hopes of making it to the end of a stage, with some infuriating blind drops where damage is necessary.
You might waste all your ammo on the “sub-Boss” then you’re left with the lousy hand gun to take on the Stage Boss and it’s almost a necessity to preserve life. There’s some code to increase the lives/continues (press B 33 times). But I just used ample rewind.
Surprisingly the last stage and final bosses are the easiest parts of the game.
I don't know if I'd call it a hidden gem but it's a pretty fun game if you like Mega Man. Nothing crazy but the enemy design here isn't half bad.
I picked this game for my Run & Gun spot for the Retro Achievements Challenge. This game has always been on a backlog for me to give it a playthrough and I'm happy I was able to finish it. The music is fantastic. But the game does have some big glaring issues and that there's virtual no health drops. It's super rare for them to drop. The other issue is that if you are turning or ducking/standing up and you try to jump, the game prioritizes the turn/duck/stand over the jump and this feels really clunky. It took me three restarts to beat the game. I got to the final stage and thought I had lost for good to be kicked back to the start but I miscounted my continues and was able to pull out the win. In all, a tough but great game.
It was ok. Short game that would have been really annoying if I hadn't played it with rewind on NES Switch Online.
cool poster and great music but the same BS enemy placement that plagues every NES run n gun game
It seems like there's always something that prevents Sunsoft games from being truly remarkable.
In Journey to Silius case, it's how the game handles difficulty.
Let me tell you, we've got a really hard game in here, and the game does not reward the player in any meaningful way, such as by sparing some extra lives. You do get plenty of ammo, but health packs are so rare and heal you so little that it is just laughable. Continues are limited, so once they run out, it's game over, my boy.
Some enemies, specifically the later Stage Mid bosses, are just mindless bullet sponges, and I'm actually not sure you can avoid getting hit, so if you reach one with low health, you are basically dead.
Other than that, I think it's still worth a run. It features tight controls, cool level design, and fantastic music. The presentation is also really good, definitely among the very best in the NES catalog.
In Journey to Silius case, it's how the game handles difficulty.
Let me tell you, we've got a really hard game in here, and the game does not reward the player in any meaningful way, such as by sparing some extra lives. You do get plenty of ammo, but health packs are so rare and heal you so little that it is just laughable. Continues are limited, so once they run out, it's game over, my boy.
Some enemies, specifically the later Stage Mid bosses, are just mindless bullet sponges, and I'm actually not sure you can avoid getting hit, so if you reach one with low health, you are basically dead.
Other than that, I think it's still worth a run. It features tight controls, cool level design, and fantastic music. The presentation is also really good, definitely among the very best in the NES catalog.
One of the best run and gun experiences you can have on the NES. Gameplay isn't arcade level bs, so you can finish it without any annoying amount of deaths or even game overs back to the title screen.
passei a fazer campanha de incentivo a vasectomia quando percebi que se o pai do protagonista não tivesse um filho pra vingar sua morte esse jogo não teria acontecido
gastaram todo orçamento na música do jogo que é boa, sendo o único motivo pelo qual dei 3/10 (uma estrela para a música e meia estrela para parabenizar a coragem de lançarem esse jogo)
gastaram todo orçamento na música do jogo que é boa, sendo o único motivo pelo qual dei 3/10 (uma estrela para a música e meia estrela para parabenizar a coragem de lançarem esse jogo)
A historia dos bastidores de Silius revela que ele tava planejado pra ser um jogo de Exterminador do Futuro, e talvez isso tenha feito que algumas características pensadas para o licenciamento tenham restado no design final.
As mecânicas são ridiculamente simples e limitadas, apesar de que o design dos inimigos leva em consideração as limitações de movimento.
Isso não impede do jogo ter seus momentos maldosos com surpresas feitas para tirar vida do jogador tanto na parte do level design quando enemy design.
Com uma duração de 5 fases e 1h de jogo, é compreensível por que tanta safadeza: fazer ele durar mais na base da dificuldade, seja por meio dessas surpresas, seja pela movimentação agressiva ou timing apertado dos ataques inimigos.
As mecânicas são ridiculamente simples e limitadas, apesar de que o design dos inimigos leva em consideração as limitações de movimento.
Isso não impede do jogo ter seus momentos maldosos com surpresas feitas para tirar vida do jogador tanto na parte do level design quando enemy design.
Com uma duração de 5 fases e 1h de jogo, é compreensível por que tanta safadeza: fazer ele durar mais na base da dificuldade, seja por meio dessas surpresas, seja pela movimentação agressiva ou timing apertado dos ataques inimigos.
Aside from some great music and crisp graphics, it's really boring and not well designed
(This is the 23rd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Did you know? Journey to Silius was originally meant to be a Terminator game. As Sunsoft lost the license mid-development, story and graphics were changed. In more recent news, the game was ported over to Nintendo Switch in 2019 for Switch Online subscribers, in case you're curious.
Journey to Silius is a run & gun video game developed by Sunsoft and released on August 10th, 1990 for the NES. The composor is Naoki Kodaka, and I mention that because he was the composer for a game I reviewed more recently: Batman for the Sega Genesis (I was a big fan of the soundtrack).
Whether the soundtrack is good here too, what the game is even about and whether I liked it I will discuss in more detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
You play Jay McCray, who is the son of a scientist who was responsible for the development of space colony #428 at a time where emigration to space colonies has become necessary due to overpopulation of the Earth. Jay's father dies during development and leaves behind a floppy disk, where he's recorded a message. He says that terrorists are looking to destroy the colony, so Jay sets out to protect the colony and avenge his dad.
This is where the story begins and the storytelling pretty much ends. From here on out, you find yourself on the space colony and kill terrorists / aliens and once you defeat the final boss, a few-second long cutscene plays before the end credits roll. So if you're here for any sort of story, you'll get a setting that is slightly more detailed than usual but nothing beyond that.
GAMEPLAY
This is another pretty average platformer in just about every way. You use a hand gun to start the game and get up to 6 by the end of it, the most unique being the homing missile. There are 5 stages, each side-by-side platforming stages with a boss at the end. That's a formula that has worked very well at that time but it is really simple, not innovative at all and since the game really doesn't have enough features or a fun enough gameplay loop, it grows stale quickly and the reliance on the same formula is not really justified.
The way the levels are designed (I'll crap on that a bit more later) is just so frustrating because it makes it very, very hard to reliably dodge enemy attacks. There are so many of them that just are at spots that you can't reach, which means you will most of the time just tank the damage and move forward.
I also can't say I got much out of the 6 weapons on offer. Once you knew what to do, the hand gun did just fine, but you only knew what to do after suffering through a part multiple times.
In the end, I did beat the game in about 3 hours, and the formula DOES work in that it offers a little bit of fun next to all the frustration. But it would have been a lot less fun without the great soundtrack on offer, as I describe below.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design ranged from OK to good, with the weapons sounding satisfying enough. The soundtrack is great, similarly to what the composer managed to do for the Batman Sega Genesis game. Banger after banger almost throughout. Unfortunately all boss fights use the same track and I would have definitely enjoyed more variety there, especially since the track that exists loops pretty quickly and isn't the highlight of the OST.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good. It was actually designed with a space colony in mind (plenty of games didn't always stay true to their setting among the games I've played so far). The game makes good use of colors, the enemy design is mostly solid (apart from the bosses) and especially the outside stages allow for some great, detailed background work. Unfortunately, some of the boss fights simply took place with a simple black background, whilst the final one for example showed distant planets, stars and space stations. Not sure why they did that.
ATMOSPHERE
The game does a good job here. The way the levels are designed artistically suit the theme.
CONTENT
The game is on the shorter side - it took me roughly 3 hours to beat it - and there isn't much to it. All levels are pretty much: move side to side, choose one of 6 weapons to fire and do some (not so great) platforming until you get to the boss. No other content to mix it up, no power up items or the like and no real story progression. What does exist is fine but this is a fairly skippable game as far as the history of video games is concerned.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's a pretty simple concept as far as the level design goes. A level starts and you have to go through a bunch of enemies, do some platforming and hope you don't die to gravity and then fight a boss. You do that a few times and then you beat the game, but the game is purposely frustrating to make it harder to beat within a rental time, which hopefully leads to the player (or their parents) to buy a copy outright.
The game doesn't shy away from this formula and there just aren't enough features here to justify it being so stale. Also, one of my biggest minor complaints, is that the game requires you to jump down a lot without being able to see what's there. And what's there usually is an enemy, so I very often either would step on them and take damage, or they would shoot a millisecond after I landed and I would take damage from that. It's just bad.
In its whole, level design isn't necessarily bad, it's just bland.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There isn't really anything that I can think of that this game did that you didn't see before. Science fiction as a theme for a platformer, based on my experiences so far, were on the rarer side at the time, so there is that. Plus the soundtrack is definitely well above average and if you check the game's wikipedia page, you can read a bit about how the composer did some different stuff there, but other than that, this is a pretty forgettable game.
REPLAYABILITY
The game doesn't even have a high score system as far as I can tell, so the only reason you would want to replay it is for the sake of wanting to play it again. On its own the game doesn't incentivize this however.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
"Make an average platformer, hire a great composer, slap the Terminator license on it and boom, you got a great seller. Oh but wait, you can't use the license anymore - Crap! Well then just make it its own world and release it." That's what I feel like the game's development looked like. This game is certainly playable and as I said, average, but I doubt many people remember it fondly for being a classic rather than a nostalgic and fun experience, which is fine if that's the case.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Journey to Silius features great graphics and a dynamite sound track. However, in terms of substance, the game doesn't quite live up to the way it looks."
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 14 (Sep 90): "This game is not going to win any awards for being new or innovative, but Sunsoft does manage to introduce some new twists to the standard action/shooting theme." | Steve agrees with my opinion of 30+ years later as far as innovation goes, but I'd like to know what those "twists" are that the game apparently introduces
Did you know? Journey to Silius was originally meant to be a Terminator game. As Sunsoft lost the license mid-development, story and graphics were changed. In more recent news, the game was ported over to Nintendo Switch in 2019 for Switch Online subscribers, in case you're curious.
Journey to Silius is a run & gun video game developed by Sunsoft and released on August 10th, 1990 for the NES. The composor is Naoki Kodaka, and I mention that because he was the composer for a game I reviewed more recently: Batman for the Sega Genesis (I was a big fan of the soundtrack).
Whether the soundtrack is good here too, what the game is even about and whether I liked it I will discuss in more detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
You play Jay McCray, who is the son of a scientist who was responsible for the development of space colony #428 at a time where emigration to space colonies has become necessary due to overpopulation of the Earth. Jay's father dies during development and leaves behind a floppy disk, where he's recorded a message. He says that terrorists are looking to destroy the colony, so Jay sets out to protect the colony and avenge his dad.
This is where the story begins and the storytelling pretty much ends. From here on out, you find yourself on the space colony and kill terrorists / aliens and once you defeat the final boss, a few-second long cutscene plays before the end credits roll. So if you're here for any sort of story, you'll get a setting that is slightly more detailed than usual but nothing beyond that.
GAMEPLAY
This is another pretty average platformer in just about every way. You use a hand gun to start the game and get up to 6 by the end of it, the most unique being the homing missile. There are 5 stages, each side-by-side platforming stages with a boss at the end. That's a formula that has worked very well at that time but it is really simple, not innovative at all and since the game really doesn't have enough features or a fun enough gameplay loop, it grows stale quickly and the reliance on the same formula is not really justified.
The way the levels are designed (I'll crap on that a bit more later) is just so frustrating because it makes it very, very hard to reliably dodge enemy attacks. There are so many of them that just are at spots that you can't reach, which means you will most of the time just tank the damage and move forward.
I also can't say I got much out of the 6 weapons on offer. Once you knew what to do, the hand gun did just fine, but you only knew what to do after suffering through a part multiple times.
In the end, I did beat the game in about 3 hours, and the formula DOES work in that it offers a little bit of fun next to all the frustration. But it would have been a lot less fun without the great soundtrack on offer, as I describe below.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design ranged from OK to good, with the weapons sounding satisfying enough. The soundtrack is great, similarly to what the composer managed to do for the Batman Sega Genesis game. Banger after banger almost throughout. Unfortunately all boss fights use the same track and I would have definitely enjoyed more variety there, especially since the track that exists loops pretty quickly and isn't the highlight of the OST.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The game looks pretty good. It was actually designed with a space colony in mind (plenty of games didn't always stay true to their setting among the games I've played so far). The game makes good use of colors, the enemy design is mostly solid (apart from the bosses) and especially the outside stages allow for some great, detailed background work. Unfortunately, some of the boss fights simply took place with a simple black background, whilst the final one for example showed distant planets, stars and space stations. Not sure why they did that.
ATMOSPHERE
The game does a good job here. The way the levels are designed artistically suit the theme.
CONTENT
The game is on the shorter side - it took me roughly 3 hours to beat it - and there isn't much to it. All levels are pretty much: move side to side, choose one of 6 weapons to fire and do some (not so great) platforming until you get to the boss. No other content to mix it up, no power up items or the like and no real story progression. What does exist is fine but this is a fairly skippable game as far as the history of video games is concerned.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's a pretty simple concept as far as the level design goes. A level starts and you have to go through a bunch of enemies, do some platforming and hope you don't die to gravity and then fight a boss. You do that a few times and then you beat the game, but the game is purposely frustrating to make it harder to beat within a rental time, which hopefully leads to the player (or their parents) to buy a copy outright.
The game doesn't shy away from this formula and there just aren't enough features here to justify it being so stale. Also, one of my biggest minor complaints, is that the game requires you to jump down a lot without being able to see what's there. And what's there usually is an enemy, so I very often either would step on them and take damage, or they would shoot a millisecond after I landed and I would take damage from that. It's just bad.
In its whole, level design isn't necessarily bad, it's just bland.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
There isn't really anything that I can think of that this game did that you didn't see before. Science fiction as a theme for a platformer, based on my experiences so far, were on the rarer side at the time, so there is that. Plus the soundtrack is definitely well above average and if you check the game's wikipedia page, you can read a bit about how the composer did some different stuff there, but other than that, this is a pretty forgettable game.
REPLAYABILITY
The game doesn't even have a high score system as far as I can tell, so the only reason you would want to replay it is for the sake of wanting to play it again. On its own the game doesn't incentivize this however.
PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.
OVERALL
"Make an average platformer, hire a great composer, slap the Terminator license on it and boom, you got a great seller. Oh but wait, you can't use the license anymore - Crap! Well then just make it its own world and release it." That's what I feel like the game's development looked like. This game is certainly playable and as I said, average, but I doubt many people remember it fondly for being a classic rather than a nostalgic and fun experience, which is fine if that's the case.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "Journey to Silius features great graphics and a dynamite sound track. However, in terms of substance, the game doesn't quite live up to the way it looks."
- Steve Harris for EGM, Issue 14 (Sep 90): "This game is not going to win any awards for being new or innovative, but Sunsoft does manage to introduce some new twists to the standard action/shooting theme." | Steve agrees with my opinion of 30+ years later as far as innovation goes, but I'd like to know what those "twists" are that the game apparently introduces
Game's aesthetic is raw as hell for an NES game but otherwise it seems pretty bland gameplay wise? I suck at most of these Megaman esque run and guns anyways so I can't really place my finger on anything in particular.
What if Mega Man didn't have level design
Damn good for the time, reminds me of Mega Man but a bit more...lousy in its enemy placement. I'm not sure a no hit run of this game is possible? It's better a lot of times to not even bother destroying some of them. That's my only real complaint though, it's short enough not to get too irritating and it also has its killer soundtrack carrying it along. Would recommend for Mega Man fans definitely
Music's alright, some bosses are excessive, some stages go on a little long, its solid run and gun