You know what I really like? Giant mech suit robots. There have been quite a fuck ton of these things that have been made and shown off in various games, movies, TV shows and what have you over time, and while some of them can be pretty lame and…….. stupid, most of them either end up being fun or straight up fucking awesome! Not only that, but they can be the solution to any problem that you are having. You need something to make your product more exciting and likable? Giant robot. You need to get rid of some bozo that’s constantly bothering you all the time? GIANT ROBOT. You need to spice up your relationship so that you and your partner don’t end up leaving each other? GIANT. ROBOT. And hey, these things even work in the case of today’s game, because one day at Capcom HQ, while trying to develop new games, I guess they were thinking to themselves “Hmm…. how can we make a beat-’em-up that spices things up and doesn’t just feel like a retread of our previous games?” and the answer to that question was simple: giant robots. They then took this idea and ran with it, creating the forgotten, yet oh so sweet, Armored Warriors.

I had never played this game before, but it was always one of the games from the Capcom Arcade Stadium that managed to catch my eye whenever I would scroll through what was available to choose from. Not only did the game have that look of quality Capcom games usually have, but it was also a beat-’em-up WITH MECHS. How could they possibly fuck up that kind of concept? Of course though, me being me, I waited long enough to play it, so I decided now was a good time to finally give it a shot, and yeah, it is definitely as great as I thought it was gonna be. It can definitely feel pretty same-y at times, especially if you have played Capcom’s other beat-’em-ups, but this game still manages to kick all the ass for most of its run, not only because of its gimmick, but also by just being really fun in general.

The story is somewhat generic for this type of game and genre, where after a long-fought war has come to an end through the use of a ceasefire treaty, news starts to spread that Melkide, the capital of Raian, has been overtaken by a mysterious and malevolent army, so it is up to a group of soldier to pilot their own respective mechs, go take back the city of Melkide, and figure out what is truly going on, which is the kind of plot that I would typically complain about, but I am too distracted by the giant mech action happening to get that upset. The graphics are wonderful, fully carrying that shine of quality that Capcom usually gives to their arcade titles, while also having plenty of fantastic designs, animations, and details given to all of the different robots, characters, environments, and so on, the music is… somewhat of a let-down, definitely not giving off the exact vibe and feel that a game like this should have, but the tracks themselves are still fine and enjoyable enough to listen to, and the gameplay/control is very typical for that of a beat-’em-up, only you, once again, are in control of giant mechs, which makes it all worthwhile.

The game is mostly a typical arcade beat-’em-up, where you take control of one of four different mechs, go through seven different missions that will take you across several locations across multiple planets and the depths of space, take out the many different enemy mechs and soldiers in your way using your mech’s various skills and different powers, gather plenty of different items to get points and heal your mech, along with plenty of different weapons to get an edge over your foes, and take on plenty of larger than life bosses that will test you in how you use your weaponry in many different circumstances. This is the same song and dance we have partaken in with many other games in the past, but again, not to sound like a broken record, but the fact that all of this is done with giant mechs and the benefits that come with them makes this all the more engaging and fun to play through.

One of the best things to come from this game that no other game in this genre has been able to accomplish so far would be with the use of the weapons that you get. As you defeat plenty of enemies, they will drop many different parts, and at points, you can even pick up those parts and attach them directly onto yourself to change up your attack, from a standard punch to a drill to even a laser sword of all things! This also applies to your secondary weapon, which you can swap out for different types of guns like a grenade gun, a laser, and a flamethrower. All of this is already pretty sweet, but then you get to the different types of legs you can swap between as well, which not only gives you a greater feel for mobility depending on what you get, but it also allows you to perform plenty of different special moves that can both change the tide of battle and be amazing to watch play out. If none of this convinces you though, then you may change your mind when I tell you that, if you are to play this game with one or two other people, you can pull a Power Rangers and combine your mechs together to create one GIANT mech that can cause much more destruction and mayhem, with all players needing to control one specific aspect of the mech in order for it to function. This is as cool as it sounds, and I love how it actually requires you and your friends to work together as a team, rather then just simply having one of those “Beat up all the guys so that we can move on already” kind of playthroughs.

With all that being said though, if giant mech suits aren’t exactly your bread and butter (and by that, I mean you are some kind of weirdo), then you probably won’t get too much out of this game that you haven’t seen from other beat-’em-ups in the past, especially from Capcom. If you look past all the cool mech shit, it works pretty much exactly like another typical game from the genre, one that is fun to play, but some could find generic nonetheless. Not to mention, there are several instances where arcade syndrome can peer its ugly head around the corner, making some fights and bosses much more stressful than they need to, but thankfully it is nowhere near as bad as other games out there, and it still manages to be very fun at the end of the day regardless of any complaints I could have about it.

Overall, despite being another typical beat-’em-up under the surface and having some slight difficulty issues here and there, this was a blast to play after wanting to try it out for so long, and it is definitely one of the best beat-’em-ups that I have ever played from Capcom, having plenty of different mech forms and weapons to try out, having explosive and fun gameplay all throughout, and managing to make a gimmick like this work almost flawlessly that’ll make any fan of giant robots wanna try it out for themselves. I would definitely recommend it for those people, as well as those who are big on arcade beat-’em-ups in general, because if the typical means of progression throughout the game won’t do it for you, the combat, visuals, and customization of your mechs certainly will. And hey, it even managed to get a spin-off of sorts just one year later, so it clearly worked out for the best. I wonder what that game is li- AAAAAAAAND it’s another fighting game. Holy shit, Capcom, buddy, I get it, you made a lot of great fighting games, but not everything you make needs to become a fighting game at some point! What’s next, are you gonna make an Ace Attorney fighting game?............ you know, one that doesn’t involve Marvel?

Game #574

For the longest time, I have believed that, in order to get the most out of any video game, you have to experience it in its most true, original form, and by that, I mean you would get the most out of a game by playing it through its original release on its original system. While I don’t agree with that now, I can kinda see where young me would come from with that argument, because after all, having the physical copy of a game to play on the actual system would probably leave a much bigger impact on the player rather than, say, just loading it up on your emulator like any other game and playing it from there. However, now that I am a true pirate at heart, I have come to learn that you can not only experience a hell of a lot more games with the emulation, but you can also hypothetically enhance the experience thanks to all the quirks that come with it. This isn’t even limited to emulation either, as there have been plenty of collections or re-releases of a game out there that do add several features that you would typically see from an emulator, which ends up ultimately making the process of playing the game that much less painful. That became all too clear to me whenever I had decided to play through the original Turrican.

Truth be told, I had no idea that this was a thing for the longest time, as I’m sure most of you probably don’t know what it is either. The only way I ended up finding out about it was when I saw some people logging it on this website a long time ago, and it did somewhat catch my eye, so I looked it up, and it actually looked like it could be pretty fun. So, I went ahead and decided to play the original game… after a long time of waiting (don’t ever change, Mega), and based on what I have played, there are many ways that I could absolutely tear this thing to shreds, as it has a lot of issues. However, at the end of the day, I ended up enjoying it enough not just because of some solid elements that do shine through all the rubble, but also with the way that I played the game that did make a huge difference, and will definitely play a big factor into how you enjoy it.

The story is somewhat generic for the time the game was made, where there was once a peaceful, man-made world in a distant galaxy known as Alterra, which was held together primarily with the help of the MORGUL unit, who all of a sudden decides to rebel against the humans due to a freak accident, so in response, the remaining humans created Turrican, a mutant warrior who is given the sole task of taking out MORGUL and taking back Alterra for them, so he sets out to do just that. None of that is explained within the game itself, and it is definitely one of those plots you can just throw to the wayside with no care in the world, as it is basically just copied and pasted form plenty of other games, just with a few words changed around to make it sound original.

The graphics are good, with Turrican himself having plenty of detail, as well as all of the environments and some of the enemies, but most of it does look pretty generic for a platformer made around this time, the music ranges from being pretty decent to pretty bad, and while I can’t say I really grew attached to any of the tracks found here, there were definitely several tracks that I would much rather listen to over others, and the gameplay/control is somewhat typical for a platformer from the early 90s, but it does mix in plenty of elements that do make it stand on its own, even if those legs that it is standing with are pretty frail and could snap in half at any second.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Turrican, go through a set of thirteen different nonlinear levels through several different worlds, take down plenty of different enemies and get through several parts of the world using any of the weapons that you have at your disposal, gather MANY different power ups that can do a wide array of things, including healing yourself, upgrading your weapons, giving you ammo for said weapons, and so on, and take on plenty of bosses that will surely put your skills to the test, both in terms of how much you can dodge and attack, but also in how much bullshit can you put up with before calling it quits. Like I mentioned before, while a lot of this is pretty typical stuff, there are definitely a lot of combining elements that do make this game stand out from a lot of the others on other systems, even if it is held back massively due to all of its faults.

Starting with the good though, I have to bring up Turrican’s moveset, as he is quite possibly the most versatile video game protagonists that I have ever seen from the early 90s. From the start of the game, you already have access to a ridiculous amount of weapons, and as you keep going, your arsenal only builds from there, with you being able to shoot a regular shot, throw out large bombs, place mines to blow up enemies, shoot a fiery laser, roll into a spikey ball and speed around the place, and plenty of other things I didn’t even mention. That is a FUCK-TON of things you can do right out the gate, and while this may seem like too much at times (which it can be), a lot of these weapons and skills become very helpful later down the road, not only in terms of taking out enemies, but also with getting through several areas, which is really appreciated, along with several areas that change up the type of gameplay you will handle, and thus, how you will go about using these weapons.

What is also pretty noteworthy is how one goes about progressing through the game, as it is basically a mix between your standard action platformer and something like Metroid. You have one clear goal in mind, and that is to get to the end of each stage and/or fight a boss, but a lot of the levels are pretty big, allowing you to explore many different pathways to figure out precisely where you need to go. Sure, there are some levels that remove this aspect entirely, and there aren’t really too many areas that you would want to go exploring in other than the one that takes you to the end, but it isn’t as if exploring around is a complete waste of time, because you can find a MOTHERLOAD of power ups by searching around a lot of the time, making it worth it to go out of your way in plenty of instances.

Despite all of that though, none of that can make up for the game’s problems, because MY GOD, there are a lot of them. In fact, there are so much of them that we are gonna pull a Mega Man 1 here and do a quick lightning round of all of them, because if I were to discuss each point in depth, we would be here all day. pulls out sheet of paper and clears throat............ while the levels are pretty expansive and rewarding to explore, the level design itself is pretty shit, full of plenty of different traps and unfair sections that hinder your progress because of you can’t see everything clearly, you have no invincibility frames, meaning that you can go from having full health to none in the blink of an eye because you didn’t notice that one spike pixel touching your ass, there are several segments throughout the game where you need to navigate through very tight spaces while using your tools to help you go further, and trust me, doing this is much easier said than done, especially when you are fumbling around like an idiot most of the time, you are on a time limit for every stage, where it does give you plenty of time in the first couple of stages, but later down the road, it gets to the point where if you take just one wrong turn, that’ll cost you one life, and finally, the bosses can be a pain in the dick, taking up way too much room and not giving you any sort of fair opening to get shots in without getting hurt yourself, and finally, there are enemies all over the goddamn place, making it so that you will never get out of a fight unscathed, and you will always need to watch around the corner to make sure you won’t die………………. yeah. I’m pretty sure there’s one or two other problems I could’ve brought up, but I think that should be plenty to prove to you that the original version of this game FUCKING SUCKS, and I don’t know how anyone would’ve gotten away with releasing something like this back in the day.

However, note that I said the ORIGINAL version of this game sucks, which brings me back to the point that I brought up from the very beginning. You may have been wondering, if I think this game sucks and have been bitching about it for a lot of this review, why did I still give it three out of five stars? Well, that is because of one saving grace that made this entire game bearable to play: re-releases. I played through this entire thing using the Turrican Flashback collection on the Switch, which not only has several Turrican games included on it, but it also updates in them in a lot of the ways you would typically expect from one of these collections, such as customizable controls, save states, a rewind feature, and so on. All of these features, especially the rewind feature, basically saved this entire game for me, as whenever I did encounter a particularly frustrating section or an obstacle I couldn’t quite clear on my first go, I would just have to hit that rewind button or save state button so that I could give it another shot.

Now, some of you may criticize me for using these methods in order to play this game, and you may question how I can call this game good with those features present, to which I say that, because of these features, the game turned out to be a lot more enjoyable. There are aspects of this game that I did genuinely really like, and there are a lot of aspects here that, if treated with better care, could’ve made the game so much better, but because of these functions, I am able to enjoy the game at a reasonable pace with a reasonable amount of difficulty, to where I never ended up getting too frustrated and I managed to enjoy myself by the end of it. If you aren’t convinced by that, then do yourself a favor, and try to actually play the game as it was originally intended, with no save states or rewind feature whatsoever, beat the whole thing like that, and get back to me on how you feel then.

Overall, despite its many, many, MANY problems, I ended up enjoying my time with Turrican regardless of all that, not just because of that shit that I just mentioned, but also because of all the different weapons you can mess around with, the fun combat whenever you manage to get a proper rhythm going, and some genuinely fun levels that do keep you on your toes to watch out for what comes ahead. I would definitely recommend it for those who are into old-school platformers, but if you do decide to try it out for yourself, PLEASE do so using an emulator, or that collection that I mentioned earlier. It may not be the most official way to play the game, but it will definitely be the best way you can play it, and hey, who knows: you may end up liking it as much as I did. I just hope that, for the sequel, they end up toning down on the bullshit so that I wouldn’t need to rely on that stuff religiously in order to have a good time. Although, let’s be real, those silly 90s devs probably aren’t gonna do that, so I will prepare myself for the inevitable ass-whooping I will get from that game in the future.

Game #575