So according to the manual, Pulseman the character only exists because a scientist got so horny for a literal e-girl that he digitised himself so he could bang her.
90s Japan was wiiiiiiiiild-
Pulseman's game design is especially interesting to me - its visual style effectively harmonises both reality and cyberspace as you flip-flop your way past this dazzling palette of vibrant colours that aims to stimulate your brain at every given moment. The backgrounds are astonishingly filled to the brim with detail, with the external environments depicting bright, colourful casinos and skylines, as well as glittering coral caves; while the digital environments have a more abstract feel to them, sometimes depicting a trippy rotating group of trees, and sometimes just displays eerie, pitch black environments occasionally illuminated by abstract shapes that constantly shift in hues. Towards the end of the game, Pulseman really leans into its futuristic, cyberspace aesthetic by thrusting you into the setting of a video game (complete with a credit count!), and then the constantly flickering coloured scanlines of a CRT, and finally plunges you into an area consisting of nothing but pure static at the beginning of the final fight.
Even the level design does a great job distinguishing the blend of synthetic and natural environments, with real environments utilising real objects with uneven terrain and things such as cameras, tree branches and cacti that you can platform on. These areas encourage players to use Pulseman's natural speed and jump to reach the goal.
On the other hand, cyberspace areas take advantage of, well, artificial terrain, with the level design being incredibly blocky and rigid, standardised as a digitalised setting would realistically feel. In these areas, players are instead incentivised to interact with their environment using all of Pulseman's artificial Voltteccer attack to traverse the narrow mazes scattered throughout the digital landscape. This sort of synchronised game design is a sight for sore eyes in modern gaming, especially with Pokemon, so to see Game Freak pull it off in 1994 is particularly astounding.
Of course, this being a 90s platformer, players can always opt to forgo the thematic significance of Pulseman's moveset and instead learn to master the surprisingly intricate mechanics laid within. By double-tapping the left/right directional keys, Pulseman does a dash forwards. More important than the dash itself is the pulse charge that is generated from it, allowing players to immediately get off a Slash Arrow or Voltteccer as soon as their dash animation ends. This little quirk allows for a significant amount of movement optimisation, giving players the chance to think outside the box and find opportunities to use their dashes and Voltteccers optimally to beat the level in the most stylish, fastest way possible. Much like the classic Sonic games, Pulseman movement has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, making full mastery of the game's ins and outs satisfactory.
However, while the game's visuals push the boundaries of the Genesis' hardware, perhaps it was a bit too ambitious for its own good. I'm not sure if its just my emulator, but I noticed a concerning number of frame drops throughout my playthrough when a lot is happening on the screen, which alongside the fact that I can accidentally clip through certain assets (mainly the gears in the Thailand level) tells me that the game could've used a bit more polish.
Between this and Drill Dozer, I find it extremely disappointing how Game Freak now chooses to churn out shitty quality Pokemon games on a yearly basis rather than actual good games. We may never get a game like Pulseman ever again, but honestly? I'm perfectly content with that.
Final score: 9/10
(Partial) Focus: The synchronicity between reality and digital environments in Pulseman's visual design, level design and movement.
90s Japan was wiiiiiiiiild-
Pulseman's game design is especially interesting to me - its visual style effectively harmonises both reality and cyberspace as you flip-flop your way past this dazzling palette of vibrant colours that aims to stimulate your brain at every given moment. The backgrounds are astonishingly filled to the brim with detail, with the external environments depicting bright, colourful casinos and skylines, as well as glittering coral caves; while the digital environments have a more abstract feel to them, sometimes depicting a trippy rotating group of trees, and sometimes just displays eerie, pitch black environments occasionally illuminated by abstract shapes that constantly shift in hues. Towards the end of the game, Pulseman really leans into its futuristic, cyberspace aesthetic by thrusting you into the setting of a video game (complete with a credit count!), and then the constantly flickering coloured scanlines of a CRT, and finally plunges you into an area consisting of nothing but pure static at the beginning of the final fight.
Even the level design does a great job distinguishing the blend of synthetic and natural environments, with real environments utilising real objects with uneven terrain and things such as cameras, tree branches and cacti that you can platform on. These areas encourage players to use Pulseman's natural speed and jump to reach the goal.
On the other hand, cyberspace areas take advantage of, well, artificial terrain, with the level design being incredibly blocky and rigid, standardised as a digitalised setting would realistically feel. In these areas, players are instead incentivised to interact with their environment using all of Pulseman's artificial Voltteccer attack to traverse the narrow mazes scattered throughout the digital landscape. This sort of synchronised game design is a sight for sore eyes in modern gaming, especially with Pokemon, so to see Game Freak pull it off in 1994 is particularly astounding.
Of course, this being a 90s platformer, players can always opt to forgo the thematic significance of Pulseman's moveset and instead learn to master the surprisingly intricate mechanics laid within. By double-tapping the left/right directional keys, Pulseman does a dash forwards. More important than the dash itself is the pulse charge that is generated from it, allowing players to immediately get off a Slash Arrow or Voltteccer as soon as their dash animation ends. This little quirk allows for a significant amount of movement optimisation, giving players the chance to think outside the box and find opportunities to use their dashes and Voltteccers optimally to beat the level in the most stylish, fastest way possible. Much like the classic Sonic games, Pulseman movement has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, making full mastery of the game's ins and outs satisfactory.
However, while the game's visuals push the boundaries of the Genesis' hardware, perhaps it was a bit too ambitious for its own good. I'm not sure if its just my emulator, but I noticed a concerning number of frame drops throughout my playthrough when a lot is happening on the screen, which alongside the fact that I can accidentally clip through certain assets (mainly the gears in the Thailand level) tells me that the game could've used a bit more polish.
Between this and Drill Dozer, I find it extremely disappointing how Game Freak now chooses to churn out shitty quality Pokemon games on a yearly basis rather than actual good games. We may never get a game like Pulseman ever again, but honestly? I'm perfectly content with that.
Final score: 9/10
(Partial) Focus: The synchronicity between reality and digital environments in Pulseman's visual design, level design and movement.