[played on original Mega Drive hardware]
My only exposure to Decap Attack before this playthrough were the brilliant strips based on it in Fleetway's Sonic the Comic... which ended up having very little to do with the game after the first arc (and even in said first arc, the connections were very tenuous). But enough about 20-year old comics based on an old game, what about the old game itself?
By 1991, the Mega Drive/Genesis had built up a decent library of platformers, and while Decap Attack doesn't reach the highs of something like Revenge of Shinobi or Sonic 1, it's still a super solid time! Everything feels very deliberately designed, and there's a fair amount of variety in the stage layouts; there's levels where you're climbing upwards and auto-scrollers where you're chased, as well as one where you're descending downwards, which was a nice subversion. The presentation ends up capturing a really unique vibe, with the muddy colour palette and soundtrack feeling unabashedly "Genesis" whilst also fitting the horror theme quite nicely.
Overall, I ended up being surprised by Decap Attack more than anything. It's not really a must-play, but if you've exhausted every other great Mega Drive platformer, it's definitely worth a look!
My only exposure to Decap Attack before this playthrough were the brilliant strips based on it in Fleetway's Sonic the Comic... which ended up having very little to do with the game after the first arc (and even in said first arc, the connections were very tenuous). But enough about 20-year old comics based on an old game, what about the old game itself?
By 1991, the Mega Drive/Genesis had built up a decent library of platformers, and while Decap Attack doesn't reach the highs of something like Revenge of Shinobi or Sonic 1, it's still a super solid time! Everything feels very deliberately designed, and there's a fair amount of variety in the stage layouts; there's levels where you're climbing upwards and auto-scrollers where you're chased, as well as one where you're descending downwards, which was a nice subversion. The presentation ends up capturing a really unique vibe, with the muddy colour palette and soundtrack feeling unabashedly "Genesis" whilst also fitting the horror theme quite nicely.
Overall, I ended up being surprised by Decap Attack more than anything. It's not really a must-play, but if you've exhausted every other great Mega Drive platformer, it's definitely worth a look!