Posted on December 24th, 2007 in Axel Night, Retro Obscurus by Axel Night
Oh noes, Axel has been reunited with his old NES and SNES cartridges. Now he’s pulled himself away from a Final Fantasy III binge to present a few of his lesser knowns. Today, it’s Strike Gunner STG for the SNES, an early 16-bit shooter that won’t let go of my heart strings. The review, and my first video clip attempt, down in the meat and potatoes.
Strike Gunner was first released in mid 1992, roughly one year after the Super Nintendo consoles graced US shelves. It had a full paged ad in just about every gaming magazine, and almost no copies on store shelves. It was soon a case of "out of sight, out of mind". As of this printing, ebay has a three (not counting the japanese imports), and no one is buying them. Gamefaqs.com has a jumping two reviews, and a single forum topic attempting to praise it, but ends up like the cry of an ant crushed under a spiked heel at a night rave. It’s really one of those rare games that few have actually heard of, and not because it sucks.
The console port draws its ancestry from a generally unknown Japanese arcade cabinet one year its senior. The jump from arcade to console was a good one for STG, actually improving on the options, graphics, and gameplay, a move all too rare in the 16-bit era.
It’s the year 2008 AD, the world is at peace, and all nuclear weapons have been discarded. So, we have that to look forward to soon. Suddenly, an alien force moves in and kicks our peace loving asses around like a room full of superballs. In response, we outfit two of our remaining fighter jets for space travel, strap in our best pilots, and send them on a suicide course for the alien mothership. The eight vertically scrolling levels between here and freedom have our heroes flying over jungles, deserts, the ocean, into the sky, through space, over the moon, and into the mothership herself. To get there, they’ll have to face waves of enemies, big and small, as one would expect in any shooter.
Presentation
While nothing here pushes the SNES hardware to its max, there’s a definite improvement over the original arcade cabinet, with more detail and colors. The arcade title had a drab look to it that thankfully didn’t make it into the port. All in all, everything looks more or less like it should, there’s nothing really painful to the eyes, and slowdown isn’t a huge issue, even when you and your friend are spamming spray missiles over the entire screen.
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| Arcade Version | SNES Version |
Sound effects are basic shooter sounds, with explosions, lasers, and recognizable, classic power-up and 1-up sounds. The music is take or leave. I find the tunes catchy, personally, though more variety would’ve been nice. It’s also one of the earliest titles I have that put the SNES Sony SPC700 sound chip to good use with that synthesized electric guitar that developers would go on to use entirely too much (Mega Man X2 and X3, I’m looking at you).
Game Play
Right off the bat, if you’re like me and b-line to the options menu as your first stop in any new game, you’ll find the challenge variance in STG far wider than its genre normally allows. The game offers four levels of difficulty, and a choice between 1 and 9 lives per continue. On the easiest setting, with 9 lives, the average young child will eventually be able to beat all eight levels in no more than a couple continues. On the hardest setting, no amount of lives can save you from the bullet hell you’ll find yourself in. Both of the middle difficulties are reasonable but challenging, depending on your skill level. On the lower two, you begin each new life with a half-powered vulcan cannon (your main, forward-shooting gun). On the higher two, you begin with a sputtering equivalent to a cafeteria straw and pile of spit wads mounted on your plane’s nose, making special weapons far more important.
Speaking of special weapons, those are the cream that sold me on this title back when its full page ad looked me in the eyes all those years back. At the beginning of each level, each player gets to pick one of 15 widely different special weapons to carry into the fray. Each uses up a portion of a special meter that you’ll intermittently have refilled through-out the level. Some are weaker, but use less energy, while others guzzle it down in a display of force to be reckoned with. All have some tactical advantage that should be considered in each level. Some can destroy bullets in mid-air, some can hit enemies beside or behind you, and an assortment of other uses. (Alright, the adhesive bombs are useless beyond anything I can fathom, but they’re the exception.) Be careful what you pick, as once you use a weapon for one level, it isn’t available for the others you face ahead.
The real fun of the game comes when you torture a friend with your classic game collection, and go at it as a duo. Any shooter is better with two, but STG throws a few little things into the mix in the form of attach modes. Either player can, at anytime, press X or Y to instantly suck the other player over and attach them either horizontally or vertically. Vertically, the second player can then aim and fire a smaller vulcan in various directions, at the cost of some of their special meter. Horizontally, they simple fire, and a vulcan fires in a fan of four directions out in front, again at the cost of some energy. It’s actually not all that impressive, in practice, and I’ve seen the concept done better, but it’s still a fun way to piss off your friend.
Conclusion
All in all, Strike Gunner STG is a classic in my mind, though it won’t ever be known as such. It’s not as flashy as some of its newer cousins like Aero Fighter, but it’s fun. The ability to tone down the difficulty and actually beat it in a casual sitting is a nice detour from the genre, especially since it seems a lot of people who say "I don’t like shooters" are often just frustrated at their obscene difficulty. It’s a rare title, but if you manage to see it floating around eBay, it’ll probably only be going between the 5 and 10 dollar range. These days, it only really holds my attention for a few hours at a time, but it always manages to find itself back in the SNES time after time for another shot at saving man-kind.