Fire Hawk (Arcade)

What has the shape of a bird and on fire? The legendary Phoenix! Yes, but this time only the answer: fire hawk. Because, today i review ESD's Fire Hawk (2001)!

There's 2 possibility if you see an arcade game with aircraft on the opening: 1) Arcade-y simflight like Sega's Afterburner 2) Vertical/Horizontal Shooter game. Fire Hawk is the latter ones. Don't expect too much from unpopular company like ESD. But maybe there's great distinctive feature on it, right? We shall see!

There's no backstory about the game setting or what's the enemy. We can assume that they're evil organization that on to conquer the world or something like that. But look! Aircraft selection in the start. I reckon approximately 60% of arcade shooter game have that so Fire Hawk stands out a bit. That's something. From left to right we got: Eagle, Fire Hawk, Phantom, Harrier, and Night Hawk. The fire hawk's origin is Korea, that comes unsurprisingly as ESD is Korean Company. Most likely South ones. Because i don't think any Kim Jong will approves fun stuff like arcade game. Unless for embedded with tons of nationalism propaganda. As much as i want to be in The Night Hawk because it's definitely F-117A my favorite for this entire game, i have to choose from Eagle for thorough review. Do remember about the order of this plane as it's important later!

 

Another think that isn't surprising is the gameplay. It's so generic. You got joystick to move your plane and 2 buttons: one for shooting your standard arsenal and the another one for screen-clearing bomb.

By charging shoot button for quite eternity 2 seconds or so, you can unleash special barrage weapon for some duration. In Eagle's case: rapid purple plasma of destruction. Also there's pick-up items like: power-up item, score-up item, or extra bomb. So far so ordinary. But there's icon with number 4 on it, on leftside. Once i pick it up...

...my aircraft become the 4th plane: Harrier. Here's the reason why i told you to memorize the plane's order so you have idea about what you will become if you pick this item. Harrier has wider shoot pattern than Eagle. So i got lucky here.

 

Finally i become F-117A, the "Ghost" of Baghdad and i terrorize this ghost town judging by those creepy mist. Maybe i fly above Silent Hill.

"Warning" signs impending of Boss stage. So generic. Furthermore the color is solid grey. Lame.

 

The boss isn't resemble any kind of conventional aircraft. So i assume it's flying fortress. I put my soul and heart at the right plane as Night Hawk's charged attack is Rocket Hadou Ken as you can see here.     

Surprising to me, the boss has second form. It's faster and more mobile. But with enough bullets (which is dozens of them), it will goes down.

 

Then i got docked on a carrier with sweet elevator music. Thank you, Kaga!

 

On next stage i become the Brazil's aircraft Phantom. This is both good and bad. Good because its weapon has wide pattern. Bad because it shoots Cheetos. That hardly strikes fear to the enemies.  

 

Phantom has the same bomb with Eagle. There's 3 bomb type among the planes: 1) The swirling explosion like this one 2) The common ordinary explosion 3) 2 smaller explosion but "move" forward. There's small difference between type 1 and type 2. I think the former has more duration than the latter but slightly smaller radius. I think i have seen type 1 here before.

 

It's quite resemble with bomb from Raiden Fighters 2! Minus the shrapnel, of course. Now that i look more carefully. Fire Hawk has a number of similarity to mentioned Seibu Kaihatsu's vertical shooter like charged attack and airplane selection. But sadly FH is less fun. The ship selection is lack in number and quality, no option, the standard weapons are lack in visual and impact, the charged attack takes too long time, the graphic is not smooth or slick, and the music is gritty. That's some bad thing that i feel when compared to RF 2.      

 

Oh, boss stage already? Show me what you got! What? You're outdone by 2 bombs. Ok! Nice knowing you.

 

Then i lay barrage on a Pyramid. Not because i'm eager to do vandalism to ancient Egypt's heritage. I do this because the enemies disguised it as bullet launcher. So don't send bad comment on me, please!

 

See that bigger Pyramid? It's the genuine ones. I can't shoot it even i want to because it's just background wonderful ancient heritage that need to preserve.

 

The boss stage is another giant tank but with drills on its front. How adorable! It has slightly more constituent than the last boss. How pity!

 

Another cute thing is these tanks that run on railway. Too bad, they're enemies. So i have to settle them by raining them with these hot Cheetos.    

 

Hey, i know that fortified wall! That's certainly from Age of Empires 2. The enemies lack of stone to build either extra wall or gate to close the fortification. Lucky for them, it's me with aircraft that can be destroyed with single bullet, that attack them instead of horde of paladin, champion, monk, Onager, and crossbowman. But they can't do next to nothing against air warfare unlike me. The monks? No way. They can't survive for long under intense bombardment by the enemy. Let alone converting an enemy. The crossbowmen? Pfft, no! Have you ever heard the thing about bringing arrows to aircraft fight? That's right!  

 

The boss is another futuristic flying fortress. Is that thing consume so many stone to build? I assume so. I notice that the background of this river turn and grounded plane is repeating during the boss fight. It seems ESD start to run out creativity. What a shame.

 

Here's fire hawk itself in action on next stage which is north pole or sort like that. He can shoot pure and thicker Hadou Ken. So it's inferior than night hawk, sadly. Speaking of charged shoot: power up item will boost your charged shoot's duration beside making your standard arsenal stronger.

This stage's boss is something giant on rail in this bridge. Moving fortress i assume. I say the boss design is futuristic and great even though the bosses got nothing beyond have turrets that can fill roughly 80% of the screen with bullets. But, they will be less dangerous if you destroy their part which is nice and reasonable feature.   

 

On the next stage, there's air mines that can shoot bullet. They're no more efficient than manned planes/choppers. At least they don't need pilot's salary to operate.

 

This boss stage is more interesting: airship, like in Final Fantasy IX! But it's annoying to fight in the last moment as you can only hit it in that triple cannon on the most back part, which can be difficult to hit because it constantly sways.

Next stage takes place in river turn with grounded plane, again? At this moment, i fear that Fire Hawk is kind of endless vertical shooter like Varth or Flying Shark with repetitive background. Luckily, no. This repetitive part is only a small portion of this stage.

 

Oh, the game gives me Change power-up and 1UP item before boss fight. How generous! Speaking of changing your vehicle, you can't do that if you use continue unlike -you know- other vertical shooter. The devs must be thinking that selecting player's aircraft when using continue is mundane if you can have power-up that can do the same thing but not fully determined by the player. Good job, ESD! [sarcasm or not, depends on reader]

 

It's bigger and super-up version of F117A. I like to fight it fair and square with the night hawk but alas! I'm stuck with pitiful Eagle.

 

I didn't know that there's boss rush in any vertical shooter game. And here they are. On final stage here, you have to re-defeat boss stage that you have destroy before. Not good feature, i tell you.  

 

At least there's highway above islands and that red futuristic terminal for pretty neat scenery.

 

The final boss is space shuttle along with its rocket. It's quite easier than any bosses so far. Because it's just space shuttle for God Sake. Not even modified with weapons, can make it tremendous threat. I assume the evil organization's leader attempt to escape to outer space but i foil his/her plan along with his/her live. Engineer_specialcompleted10.wav     

 

No epilogue if you finish that damn space shuttle only credit rolls. Figures. At least ESD thanks you for playing this pretty generic shooter game (even with small fonts) and i feel appreciated. Scout_thanks02.wav  

As you probably can guess that ESD's Fire Hawk (2001) is your  generic vertical shooter. It can be in the lump of usual arcade game in 90's. But it came out in 2001, instead. Quite something, huh? The musics are ignorable, except in the Carrier. The graphic is so-so and that AoE 2's walls lives the game a bit. I honestly want more ripped asset in this game more. The gameplay is nothing ordinary except for change mechanism. The standard arsenal are distinctive in visual and powerful even in the lowest power level. But i feel that there's not much different in power among the aircraft. So to me, the best thing is to choose the one who has spread pattern shoot. The charging shoot inflict deadly damage but it takes too long to charge leaving you defenseless. Also once you unleash it you will more likely get decimated immediately, that's my case anyway. The game consist of 8 levels that can be finished within an hour. So it's mercifully short.

My summary: if you are vertical shooter fans/connoisseur or you want simple fun, you can give ESD's Fire Hawk. Though i want you to play Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden Fighters 2, simply because it's much better. Except if you're really curious about it. I'm not gonna stop you. I'm not your parent, anyway.

Contra Hard Corp (Genesis) as Sheena

For quick navigation on Contra Hard Corps review:

·        Part A (Ray)

·        Part B (Sheena)

·        Part C (Fang)

·        Part D (Browny)

Hello and welcome to another my review of Konami's Contra Hard Corps (1994). In this one, i become Sheena, the blonde female and go to 'good ending 2' route. Excuse me if i make same-y conclusion in the end from other. Because -you know- it's the same game and i'm lazy sod.

 

There she is, in character selection. She wear red hairband which quite remind me of Rambo. Given how very shoot-y Contra, my thought about her being female incarnation of John Rambo is appropriate. Suddenly, i recall a lady with the same name in Violent Storm which is another Konami's game. Albeit in different genre: Beat-em-up. Let's compare them!

 

Well, both of them blonde and wear earrings. One are destined to be 'damsel in distress' in post nuclear-apocalypse era where there's lots of brawny guys with mohawk and worn-out cloth, while the other is hardcorps soldier (who can die with enemy's gentle touch) in violent universe filled with bullets and explosions. You can guess who's who. Hey, both of them have fair smile! Good for them.

 

I know that i've made this gif from this scene. But, please! It's amazing and so explosive. Michael Bay really dig this, i believe.

 

Quick remainder on the control: direction pad for aim/move, A button to cycle weapon/screen-clearing bomb selection, B button to shoot, and C button to jump. Pressing A button while holding B button will change your stance. Stance #1 allow you to move and shoot at the same time. While stance #2, will make you stand still whenever you're firing. This will allow you to shoot to any direction without moving. The shot indicator that's near the photo, indicate your current stance. One of the enemy robot standing on top of volatile oil truck. I'm doing him a favor by shooting the truck rather than shoot him directly.

 

The giant Cyclops waves at you. How nice of him. But after that, he shoot deadly laser eye (that can spawn explosion pillars with enough gap that i can slip by) so i have to shoot his eye until he's destroyed. It's purely self defense.

 

At the end of the stage, i meet a manned robot as boss stage. His deed so far: lead robot assault on this city, stomp over a car, slash building beside me, and violent action toward law enforcer (me). Your crime is very big, pal. By the way, each character has 4 weapons: A to D. Sheena's weapon D is perfect for boss fight. She shoots multiple lasers that later bounce to homing on enemy. Very nice!

 

Nah! I choose to face other direction from you. How do you like my ignorance, Deadeye Joe? As i want to go to route with good ending, i must let him go away and save research lab, instead. So my ignoring act here is reasonable.

 

Let's skip about how i end up grabbing on air police's vehicle and jump to where i fight this assassin. He fly using jetpack then he throw grappling hook at heli's landing and spinning around with shadow image effect. Watch out for his grappling hook and himself then shoot in one direction soon he's defeated.

 

But, no. He's back. But this time he keep flying with jetpack and occasionally shoot laser eye diagonally at me. Not exact my position. Just in general direction. While i'm on flying machine's wing but it always heaves so my shooting direction isn't constant. Lucky that i'm resistant to airsick otherwise i'll be dead inside and outside.

 

I know that that battle against this deathplane is intensely difficult. But i admit it's cool as it has 3-way turret on both of its wing and flame sprayer in the center. So it deserve in another screenshot.  

 

Another thing that i want to show you again is this funny hostage situation. I save the professor from his captors by simply run toward them and then they just run away, without waste a bullet on top of that. Heavy_battlecry02.wav

 

"I used to be a soldier like you, then i took bullets in the knee (and then i die)"

 

At the end of the stage, i can't catch up the villains. They got the alien cell and leave this tinker robot to kill me. It can constructs debris from ceiling to be sentient garbage with various pattern depend on its form. Mostly you can cling into left wall to be save from the garbage attack. Or you can sliding pass them safely. Sliding can be performed by hold down and press jump. But you have to be aware that everytime the robot's creation is destroyed he will come down in anger where it's invincible and lethal to touch so you have to immediately hit the ground.    

 

After that, i hunt down the hacker that orchestrated that robot assault as distraction for those soldier to get the alien cell. His name Noiman Cascade and his base in this junkyard. It's guarded by robots and this junk car that hide rocket launcher inside its hood. Amazing, huh?   

 

When i meet the hacker, he dissipate me with disintegrating beam. Well, that suck!

Not really. He transports me to this virtual reality. Then he turn into Taurus (bull with only head and a pair of leg), Sagittarius (who can shoot destructible homing arrows), then Gemini (that can shoot lethal orbs in semi-random pattern). I see that he's nerd that have unusual obsession toward zodiacs, which makes him very unique kind of nerd.

Tired of being mythic embodiment of star formation, Noiman become a small red square. After that he become large box, then jagged tank, and finally this craggy chopper. His last transformation is (unsurprisingly) the most difficult and i still suck at it. His bombardment and his tail propeller that suddenly come down to me, are too much for me. But don't let this discourage you to play the game, i'm just suck at playing Contra.

 

After that, he's really finished. Yes, your game is over, pal! 

 

Noiman spills the bean about who he works for. It's Colonel Bahamut. He is ex-hero who attempt Coup D'état against government but fail. I feel sorry for the legendary dragon with the same name with this coward fool.  

 

I'm not going to make "Guns n Roses's Welcome to The Jungle" joke again, we're too good for that. I like to talk about Sheena's weapon B instead. It's grenade with projectile trajectory unlike Ray's that travel straight. There's pros and cons about this. The pros: you can produce explosion without accurately hitting enemy first, perfect for clearing crowd. The cons: it won't work well/safely if the enemies are in higher ground than you, and it has quite short range but it can travel high enough if you aim directly upward.  

 

A giant statue drop its head and these dragonflies come out from its ear.

 

Oh, look! The proud mother is here too.

 

Then i fight this sphere-bot. It throw its legs which -let's be honest- not good way to kill me because A) i can easily crawl beneath said leg B) make the sub-boss look silly. That's the thing what separate CHC with other conventional Contra. Most of the bosses and/or the sub-bosses tend to never shoot you directly. They have fixed attack pattern or convoluted way to decimate you, that you can memorize so you can do better next time you play the game.

 

After it gets severe beating another one come and latch onto it, making the formation of 2 spherebot like this. They can walk in the manner of drunkard who pretend to do Broadway performance. You can either jump over them or slide pass them. I recommend slide pass them as it's the safest method as they swaying left and right make it difficult to jump over them safely. Also you can damage enemies by sliding pass them. After that the lower orb initiate jet launch, which will make them fly. I don't know what attack they're up to as they're immediately exploding after they aero acrobat above me while i keep shooting. Think you're Wright brother or such, huh?    

 

I try to make the reunion as awkward as i can. Is hanging on the ceiling awkward enough?

 

I skip the battle with Deadeye Joe because it's too long. Instead i show you how smug the treacherous professor if you choose to surrender rather than fight to the bitter end. Feel smug all you want now, prof! You'll definitely pay this soon. You hear me?      

Now how do i get out of this cell without my weapon? There must be a way.

 

"Ba-baka! It's not like i'm doing this for you or anything". The tsundere Deadeye Joe blow my cell's door and give my weapon back. Engineer_thanks01.wav   

 

I missed the day when i was young and pure and don't have any problem with these robot design. Yes, i can imagine that cannon as robot's phallus. It can go worse. Once in a while, they will simultaneously ram their cannon, colliding with each other rapidly. That's the best i can do to not sound like robot porn. Seriously, i'm not making this up. Blame Konami for this revolting sub-boss design! To avoid that melee move you can either jump up as many as you can or you can drop down the platform and crawl. Once you have destroyed one of Robo-dong, the other will lose its cannon and drop down. Then it try to attack you by jumping around on its belly. It wish to have proper leg for lower part instead of long wang cannon. Pathetic.

 

This is something awesome to ease my horrible experience back there. Some of Colonel's soldier riding on bike and try to potshoot with me with handgun. If only they shoot faster, the game will be much harder their badblood idea will be working well and not embarrasses themselves like this.

This sub-boss attack by bouncing everywhere like water hose that wildly spray high-pressured water if you don't grab it. Otherwise, it shoots sphere beam from its muzzle. You can't hit with your weapon. The only way to defeat it: lure the cannon to shoot on its own body then a countdown timer appear, do the second time before the timer reset and it will be gone for good. It's puzzle sub-boss i reckon.

 

I believe there's superhero who stop speeding train like this. Superman, i think. But i remember Heavy doing so in End of the Line (SFM), instead.

 

I can easily crawl under your kick, doofus. Beside this he can 1) lifts train's front and launch bouncing orbs 2) jumping around like Kangaroo on hot asphalt 3) doing Terry Bogard's Power Wave. Once he's defeated he stumbled back and the train crush him.

Get off my train! I borrow that line from Caleb in Blood. Cool, huh?

This is the last battle against Deadeye Joe. He's in that spherical robot or machine. First he stab entire room with its 4 bladed limbs. You can't destroy the main body instead you have to destroy the limbs. Then it re-grow the limbs and spins them around while floating. Again, lay waste the limbs. Finally it slams itself on random location at very high speed. I wonder why the final phase is the easiest to deal with al least that's what i feel.  

 

During Joe's dying state, Colonel suddenly come and stomp him to smithereens with his flying platform. I know he rescued me and such but no need to be so cruel like that, bastard!

 

On the next room. Colonel mad at the professor for no reason and kill him. He's really prick, isn't?

 

Actually, he later turns into this monster. He crawl around and later shoot his web path. The web is harmless but he try to bait you into his crawling path by shooting either an orb that once bounce will homing at you or multi-directional orbs like this. I'm having hard time dodging his attack because i don't like fighting in closed room like this. Even though you can climb wall and ceiling in this situation, i just find this kind of battlefield not do me favor.

 

Finally, i confront the Colonel. He said that he fuses with corporeal form of the alien cell. He will turn into Super Saiyan, right?

 

Or he becomes big naked shaven gorilla. See that countdown number? Once it reach '0' he will charge to the other side in almost sonic speed. It seems the transformation is cunning than i suspected.

 

He can shoot big alien energy across the screen or he jump first then he shoot smaller ones but more rapidly. He reminds me of Akuma/Gouki. I hope he doesn't suddenly execute Shun Goku Satsu next.

 

The Colonel can no longer control the alien power and soon he turns into this two-headed alien turtle. When he's in rightside, he bangs his own head rapidly against the floor then red-blue molecular shaped debris fall from the sky at seems random spot. When he's in leftside he will extends his head in semi-tracking pattern. It's very hard to bait his attack here to create safe space at least that's what i feel. Between those attack he will jump to change side. As for his weak point, it's his face. There are 2 of it, you can't miss them.

 

The final form: heart that surrounded by dozens of head. If you have phobia to bald head, i'm sorry to show you this nightmare. This one is surprisingly easy. If you keep sliding away in corner when this thing approaches you, you'll be fine. All it can do is floating around while expand or shrink the heads layer. The weakpoint is obviously the heart.

 

With the final boss perishes, the castle is crumbled to dust. That's according to 101 Villain's Rule. Just ask Dracula if you don't believe me! Speaking of the prince of darkness, if you give Sheena a whip you can easily mistaken this game as Castlevania. Given, they're both Konami's game.

 

Character review: Sheena is another medium type character with Contra's standard arsenal, some are altered version. Weapon A is more power and bigger version of the standard bullets also with more blue-red colour. they're start smaller and some distance farther become bigge. It may imply that this weapon is less damaging at point-blank distance. But most of the time you can keep distance to enemies with no problem so this special "flaw" is kind of moot in my opinion. You don't need to fire accurately when using weapon B but it's effective if you're in higher ground. I haven't talked about weapon C, that's because it's just dull rapid single laser. But it will pierce through enemies or anything unlike Ray's laser (Weapon A). It's especially useful against Professor's last creation. As i choose to turn myself in, i can't show you that. Weapon D is perfect for boss battle and bit usefull for crowd clearing. Sheena doesn't have proper weapon that cover large area so i conclude that she's more specifically for sub-boss/boss battle than Ray.

Route review: You can witness Deadeye Joe being Tsundere. But there's the Robots with cannon as their genitalia. You can kill professor though not directly as he turns into monster, first. You got to see typical villain's castle destroyed, but you can see your character riding the hardcorp bike. So this is not the best but still good ones. Very good. 

That's Contra Hard Corps (1994). Is it great? Superb even. Is it difficult? Sadly, yes. It has knife-edge intensity of difficult. I can't really enjoy the game to its fullest. You can play it relaxily. You can finished it. But you can't do both. But maybe with rigorous training, you can accomplish that. The musics are very great. The graphic are gorgeous. The gameplay is certainly wonderful, with enough uniqueness on every stages mostly in graphic/visual. The boss/sub-bosses fights are amazing and interesting (except the you know what). And the sub-bosses are plenty too. The branching path certainly make up with replayability font. That's certainly what the classics lack of. The distinction between the characters also good feature. Also that shooting stance. It works very well and slick.

Overall i can surely recommend you to play Contra Hard Corp (1994), especially if you're Contra hardcore fan (unlike me). Do note that Japan version has 3-hit kill system instead of 1-hit kill system like US version that i played. If you don't care much about any reading and want fairer gameplay. You should go for Japan version. Whatever your choice, you can go wrong with playing this game. I mean it has multiple ending, and tons of explosive action. I guarantee you will love this.