Shooter: Starfighter Sanvien (Sony Playstation)

Shooter: Starfighter Sanvein

Success / A1 Games (2000)

The original Playstation had a lot of games released for the platform so it's easy for this game, or any game for that matter to be looked over or lost in the shuffle. I'm sure I skipped over this game many times over the years. With it's rather bland packaging I can see how many fans of the shmup genre may have never seen or played this game.

Shooter: Starfighter Sanvien is a rather odd game. Not quite a traditional shmup, it's close enough for me. The game has a backstory, but it's not well integrated into the game and thus not that important to enjoy the gameplay.

At the beginning of the game, you get to arm your starship with it's main weapon. You can choose from Gluon, Photon or Graviton weapons. Gluon weapons have a wide spread attack, while Photon are more focused laser type weapons. Graviton has a more explosive type attack.

Once you've chosen your main weapon, you get to select your special weapon. You again choose from the 3 aforementioned types. The Gluon special weapon are homing missiles and I found these to be particularly effective. Photon's special weapon is a large laser and choosing Graviton gives you a land mine type weapon. The latter was my least favorite.

Instead of a horizontally or vertically scrolling game, you are placed in an arean if you will. Each stage is a called a floor and you get to choose what path you take. The menu is displayed with the floors as hexagons, with bosses mixed in each section. You have to choose quick however which floor you're going to tackle as the clock in the lower right corner of your screen is always ticking down. Each ajoining floor you select, you're base firepower will be upped by 1 level (eventually maxing out at level 6). While you are free to select whichever floor and route to the main boss you'd like, you are rewarded by taking more of a direct, connected path.

Your starfighter doesn't have health in this game, but you do have time. Take a hit and you'll lose 90 units of time. Take too many hits and it's game over. You control your ship using the Playstation controller's D-pad or left analog stick. At first you may find the it hard to control your starfighter, especially as you are firing. You get to move all around the screen, think Asteroids, Robotron, or Geometry Wars. Note that this game was released before dual analog joysticks were the norm. As you fire, you'll notice a little kickback to your ship. However it doesn't take long before moving around feels a little more natural. The object is to clear each floor as quick as possible. Usually you only have a few enemies to beat before you get ot move on. Once you defeat one of the bosses, you'll be granted with additional time. Make your way up to the central boss (at the top/center) of the level and you'll clear the area and be moved onto the next area.

Let me say that the game looks much better than what my meager camera was able to capture. While the game won't blow you away with it's visuals, it gets the job done. With the computer looking background and the gridlines, the techno like music fits very well. The game play is simple, but fast paced. I found it to be pretty addictive and ended up playing for about 45 minutes the other day. 

While the gameplay isn't really unique, it is a refreshing change of pace to shooting type games. It may not be for everyone, but it's rather cheap to be had (around $5-$10 on the secondary market) and if you play it you may just find it's better than you thought. I will point out that this game is NOT fully compatible with the PS3. The game will play, but it won't have sound. However if you've jettisoned your PS1 and want to give the game a try you're still in luck. The game is available for download on the PS Network.

Nekketsu Oyako (Sony Playstation)

Nekketsi Oyako

Technosoft (1995)

The beat 'em up genre has always been a favorite of mine, but it seems after the 16-bit generation there just weren't as many games to choose from. While researching this genre for new games I ran across Nekketsu Oyako and was instantly interested. The game was never released in the US, but it was released for both the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Already having an import friendly Saturn I sought out the game, but was turned off by it's high price tag.

  

Enter the Playstation version. Last year I grabbed a NTSC-JP Playstation for cheap and started to look to build my import PSX library. I ran across this game again and was glad to see it's price was about half of what it still goes for on the Saturn. I've actually noticed several games that were released on both platforms always seem to be cheaper on the Sony side.

Nekketsu Oyako comes packaged in the thicker Playstation cases. It seems this was a common move for many of the PS1 games released outside of the US. Some of the Japanese games have the game title in English on the opposite spine, but this is not one of those. My copy of the game didn't come with the spine card either.

Released in 1994 by Technosoft (of Thunder Force fame), this beat 'em up plays and feels a lot like Capcom's Final Fight or Sega's Streets of Rage. At the start of the game you have animated scenes setting up the story, followed by a player select screen. Each character has their own move set along with rankings for Power, Speed and Skill. 

You've got your typical big muscle guy, strong, but slow. You have your female character that is quick on her feet, but not as powerful and then you have your average Joe type character. I chose to go through my first play through with him.

The game has 5 levels total and while you may think that isn't many levels to traverse through, they are of a good variety and of a decent length. Like many games in the genre, there are items that you can break to reveal items that increase your score, replenish your health or weapons to help you take out the enemies. Right off the bat I found my first weapon, a rifle! I was expecting a bat, or chains or something you usually see. This weapon was brought onto the screen from one of the henchmen in the game and was dropped upon being hit. There aren't many shots in the gun and it didn't seem to do as much damage as I thought it would, but it's a refreshing change of pace from the normal weapons found in a beat 'em up.

The first level has you fighting in a park while the second level has you fighting downtown in some city. At the end of each level you fight a boss. None of them really wowed me, but they did whip my butt! This steroid laced woman approaches you on a bridge at the end of the second level, accompanied by a helicopter. If fighting her wasn't enough you also have to contend with the helicopter hovering in the background laying down cover fire.

The third level is where some of the level design charm really comes into play. After you defeat the boss at the end of the second level, you fall to the sea underneath the bridge and are swallowed by a whale, Jonah style! The first part of the third level takes place in the belly of the whale. I had a picture taken, but I didn't realize it turned out crappy so I had to nix it. Inside the belly of the whale you are introduced to our first new enemy, boxing glove wearing bi-pedal octopus. I'm beginning to see why this game never made it outside of Japan!

Once you fight your way through the belly, the whale swallows some water and you are rushed off the screen only to be blown out the blow hole on a spout of water. You land on back end of the whale and are forced to fight on top of the whale now. As I was making my way across the back of the barnacle laced whale, I found a beverage that would replace my health! However when I pushed the attack button to pick it up, I was treated with this 'Adult Only!' prompt. Upon closer inspection that beverage was actually a can of beer! I guess only the big guy character is able to drink beer.

Once you fight this karate looking boss a top the whale, you end up back on land and at a amusement park for the fourth level. About half way through the level you end up jumping onto a roller coaster and are attacked by a lot of the common boxer grunts. With the roller coaster car is going up and down on the tracks and the number of enemies on the screen, this is the first time I experienced some slow down to the game. It wasn't too bad, but having to fight so many guys in such a small space while it was going up and down and all around, it was a little hard to find my character in all of the chaos. 

The roller coaster ends up going off rail and crashing into a mountain. You end up fighting the last part of the fourth level inside what appears to be a volcano and at the end you face the boss, Hammer. He was the most menacing looking boss yet, but was actually a push over.

The fifth and final level starts off on the first floor of a high rise building. Without knowing this is the last level you can kind of sense you are working your way to the final boss just by the look of the building you're in. You do end up re-fighting the level bosses on each floor, but it seems as if they were much easier to take out this time around. When you finally make it to the top, you find this big bald white dude sitting in a chair watching some monitors. The look of this guy really reminded me of the Kingpen from the Marvel Daredevil comics or even a little of Big Boss from the animated/toy series, C.O.P.S.

In typical fashion, he starts off sitting there and lets others do his dirty work. He whistles in large groups of enemies to dispatch and finally after a few waves he gets up to take you on himself. He was a formidable final boss and I actually ran out of continues by this point. This is where I had to quickly change my controller to player 2 so I could continue. This explains my my character changed in the screen shots.

After you finally take him out and start to have that feeling of accomplishment, the final boss reappears dressed in a very 90's comic book type costume. How that rotund boss reappears as a muscle bound character such as this is pretty comical. This guy was tough too and I ended up continuing several times before I finally was able to widdle his health down to zero.

Apparently the building you were fighting in was on floating island in the sky and after you defeat the final boss you are treated to nice little animated scene of the building collapsing and blowing up.

I'm not sure who I rescued and how I got off a floating island and back down to the ground, but the other two characters thought I was dead by their facial expressions only to be surprised/happy to see me walking up over the horizon. The game ends with several more scenes complete with text, but since I can't read Japanese I really don't know what was going on.

In closing I enjoyed this game. The game play is a little sluggish as your character moves fairly slow. There isn't a lot of variety when it comes to your moves or enemies you fight, however I think the level design helps breath a little life into a slightly above average game. The Playstation didn't get a lot of beat 'em ups like this so for that reason alone it's worth adding to your game library. I like the variety of weapons you can pick up, from knives to guns to grenades; my favorite weapon was this bladed hoop that acted like a boomerang when thrown. As long as you weren't punching when the weapon returned, your character would catch it so you could throw it again. I was able to take out 2 bosses fairly easy with this weapon alone.

I haven't researched to see if the game looks or plays any better on the Saturn, but I do know this Playstation version was ported over to the Saturn in 1995. I also know that the PSX version usually can be had for about half of what the Saturn version sells for. Being that I'm new to the Playstation 1 import scene this was an easy selection for me and it's one that I enjoyed. I do look forward to playing through it again as the girl or seeing if my wife will play with me as it is a two player game, however I can the game will have a low replay ability. If you are fan of the beat 'em up genre I encourage you to check this out.