Mega Turrican (Genesis)

I’m quite in mood for Run ‘n Gun game today so I review Factor 5’s Mega Turrican (1994). 

Or ‘Mega πrricav’ as the title suggested. That’s not the only problem with the title screen, the explosion over there is too small to be considered special dramatic effect. I know from internet that Turrican series is quite famous but the only Turrican that I played is the Universal Soldier™ game on SNES. You can tell how rebellious i am. But that’s about to change anytime soon.

As for the story, it’s kind of generic: the evil force that once destroyed and never heard again for eons, is now return. Not only the evil machines are back in business but also they have destroyed dozens planet and enslaved hundreds people. If only those people aren't swayed so much with peace and have some countermeasure against anything that evil just in case.

 

Well, they have one force to fight the evil force or at least the remaining ones. But their leader Bren Mcguire only take a drastic action when he receive a distress call from some anime-ish lady. Although i'm not sure whether people in this universe are drawn in anime art style. The eyes on the female look appropriate but man, those chins! They have all the chins in the universe, i tell ya!

Anyway, Bren Mcguire dons the Turrican [cue the title!] armor and fights the evil machines, and hopefully rescues the damsel in distress.

 

And here's Bren shooting at the robot that looks generic in any horizontal shoot 'em up.  The control is simple. D-pad to move or in case of down direction, to crouch. 'B' button to shoot. 'C' button to jump. While 'A' button to shoot rope that you can use to navigate platforms and terrain.

Quite a distance from there, Bren encounter the first sub-boss: this space caterpillar. It likes to go around in air or crawl on platforms. You can easily predict his movement through light memorization but you have to shoot its head to kill it. Moreover, Bren can't shoot upward or downward no matter how hard i press the up or down button and it's rather baffling as i'm deprived from extra opportunity to shoot its head from above while its circling around. But with enough horizontal shooting (which is a lots), the caterpillar can be destroyed.  

Here's the rope mechanism in action. Most of the stage's part can be attached with said rope but if there's a part of stage with blue circle panel, that's the only bits that can be attached with it. With the combination of holding 'A' button and pressing d-pad, you can adjust the angle of rope shoot. Should you succeed on attaching the rope, you can use it for basic swing rope or you can pull yourself toward the rope end. The jump from rope can be finicky but thankfully you can cling to walls or ledges if you're still attached to the rope.

Please for a while ignore the robot head attached to this pillar that might be Dr. Wily's reject product or that Warhammer 40K Astru Militarum's symbol, as i want to explain about the pickups in this game that you can find if you shoot open this small box. Red orb will gives you -your usual- vulcan with small spread pattern. Blue orb will gives you a unique shoot: a piddly shoot along with 2 bouncing plasma ball to up and down. Green orb gives you big plasma shoot. Heart pickup to refill your health to fullest. That option from Thunder Force III will give you extra firepower in form of homing missile besides your primary weapon. As you can't shoot up or down, this homing missile power up is almost mandatory.

In this descending elevator section, i demonstrate the advantage of having the blue orb weapon and homing sub-weapon. These flying gits come from background and attack me from above and said power up do me a favor greatly in this occasion as i have mentioned before that i can't aim up. I can use the limited screen-clearing bomb by pressing 'X' button (that isn't indicated in control configuration on options, for some damn reason) but that's way too easy and -as always- i'm stingy with number-limited weapon. As you can see on corner right bottom that i have 2 bombs left and i used 1 not in this moment but way before to test whether pressing 'X' button will activate the bomb or not. And the answer is 'yes, it will'. Heavy_specialweapon09.wav

By jump while crouching, Bren will turn into a ball like Samus Aran in Metroid. Correction: he's more like Sonic The Hedgehog as he will immediately rolls forward very fast. It seems the game wants me to go into that small passage by turning into ball form but it didn't work. I can practice more but there's time limit to obey so i choose to move on.

 

Here's the boss of this stage and it's more fun to deal with than the sub-boss. This pile of alien meat just stand still there with occasion to spawn at random on itself: a mouth that can shoot some bullets and eyes that's its weakpoint. All i need to do is: shoot the eye and move to platform where's nearest to the eyes, by using rope. Simple.

Then the game judges me on how well i found the collectibles and let's be honest i'm pretty bad at doing that. 77 Diamonds missed, i can take it because they're just score items. But 4 Lives up missed, is unacceptable. Medic_negativevocalization01.wav

Next stage takes place in space Sea World™. This small robots are equivalent to Koopa Troopa as i can stomp on them twice (but they sometime shoot red bullets at you), unlike other enemy so far that lethal to touch. Moreover, you can use them to boost your jump to reach higher place. Scout_apexofjump01.wav

It seems this space aquarium fail to meet some safety standard as there's periodic waterfall at certain spot and you know what? Bren will get damage if he get washed. What kind of combat suit is this? It doesn't protect you from some trivial potential energy, huh? Engineer_negativevocalization04.wav

Suddenly, lots of leak happen and Bren just stand still there unable to do anything. This is the end of him.

Luckily, none of the waterfall hurts Bren and the water stops at half of the screen. Also he can swim as the combat suit is somehow suitable for that but it can't stand impact of waterfall. I'm still bothered by it. If swimming too trivial for you, you can jump between this rubber rafts that remind me of the one in Gunforce. There's also cousin of spherical serpent from Rocket Knight Adventure here, so watch out!

Then the stage leads me to this underwater section where we can witness the beauty of water creatures/robots such as squid with sharp head, clam that shoot metal at you or the graceful jellyfish with inactive siren lamp on its head. Too bad, they're all hostile.

The boss is this giant octopus who does nothing but swimming around while moving its 4 tentacle and can't shoot any projectile. Through (another) mild memorization, you can avoid it and its tentacle pretty easy. But avoiding alone surely can't secure your victory. You have to shoot its weakpoint: its eye. In this case, the blue orb weapon do me a good favor as i can shoot its eye while swimming over it. After taking lots of damage, its head part reveal some cybernetic part like Terminator and you have to shoot its eye some more. This battle takes forever but fortunately the timer is stop during sub-boss/boss fight.

I though Bren McGuire is the only one who participate in this battle, but it seems his comrades help him by piloting these ship so they provide some transportation.

 

It seems i'm transported to some city in the bleak future where Skynet ruins the world. Instead of sending horde of terminators, they decide to send this T-8190F15T to fight me. I have to point out that some sub-boss/boss doesn't have distinct effect of getting successful hit just like here. Wherever i hit this big thing, collision effect of my shoot is the same with the one where it land on part of stage. Turn out, this giant hand is really damage sponge and you can just hit it anywhere you like.

Then they send this T-FL13R as they can be bothered to send HK-Aerial. Those lazy scraps. As for previous sub-boss, you can hit him anywhere of his part. Also, you have to mind those bullets it send at your head.

After some walking and jumping, i encounter T-64R8463 here that can only hopping around like happy rabbit that finds the love of its live. This one you have to shoot it on the head. It's small but quite viable target.

Next sub-boss is this T-DR3D63R. They decide to send this abomination instead of HK-Tanks because they're all sends to attack John Connor and Co. Anyway, this sub-boss also has the weakness on its head not that clamshell like part. It's the one with red small red screen under flamethrower cannon. You think it will be lots easier to defeat the boss with the homing sub-weapon but in actual it's not. The homing missiles can't hit the weakpoint properly and flying around it instead. To make the battle harder, the sub-boss shoots highly damaging flame spray and that clamshell also packs a punch! I can dodge the clamshell by turning myself into a ball but i realize that there's limit of this ball morph, indicated by thin white line below energy (health) bar. They shouldn't adopt Samus Aran's morphing ability half-heartily. -_-  

After another fight with T-FL13R, i encounter the boss which is...this crane? How disappointing. The crane lifts some junk around here and try to drop it to my head and that's it. Not even the conveyor belt below can't help the boss fight me. Next stage, please!

Oh, i see! Those aren't totally an alien egg and facehugger from Alien™. [Alien-Queen size Sarcasm]

Here, i'm forced to use the rope in tedious way although the idea is simple: shoot the rope, jump to the spot where the rope attached, cling to it, then jump on top of the platform where the rope was on. It will be lot easier if you can jump and shoot the rope at the same time but sadly you can't. I never meet this tedious platforming in Bionic Commando (Arcade). Just saying.

That thing on right doesn't look like Xenomorph alien at all [Alien-Queen size Sarcasm, again].

This flying one is entirely different than H.R. Giger's aliens unless if you compare it with aliens in Aliens Armageddon (Arcade) but according to my memory (of playing it) they're not similar to this flying sod. You probably know what i will say about enemy that attack above me? Yep. The blue orb weapon is useful.

Then the stage takes place on moving train which reminds me of that one stage in Vice Project Doom. This level is fine until some of the car spew fireballs while i'm jumping to it. Not fun!

Next i have to move forward via these creepy catcher pouch poles. They will either bite your mail bag properly or devour your whole hand. Fantastic, isn't? Anyway, my rabid shooting here is entirely useless as there's no flying enemy that will perform "Ninja Gaiden" trick on me but better safe than sorry.

The boss's design is disappointing: it just some creepy head that surrounded by space meatballs and there's not a single hint of the Aliens™ "adaptation". What a boring design. Shoot the meatballs then shoot the head, you know the drill.

Next stage is another maze filled with sinew and flesh with H.R. Giger's style. But there's new enemy: these fleshy helmet that can spit some alien mud at you.

The boss of this stage is definitely Alien Queen but her body is off screen. Maybe she wears some Victorian lingerie there and she's too shy to show it to players. Anyway she can either spit mud or alien rock that rolling around her tail. Her weakpoint is her head or maybe her mouth when it's open.

On final stage, they're back with evil machines and robots instead of Alien™ rip-off. The new enemy here is fat robot that can fly and shoot flames below. Scout_dominationhvy01.wav

On the other hand, the sub-boss here is simple yet interesting. These 2 turrets will spin around the circle rail and stop occasionally to shoot me at the center. Maybe it's lot safer if i fight them outside their rail but their shoot is pretty easy to dodge.

Oh, look! It's the father of those beaked robots. It's angry that i shoot or stomp dozen of its kids and that's understandable. This sub-boss battle is the only one with auto-scrolling screen so if you feel lazy to move you can just stand still at one of the corner.

I thought its weakpoint is in the head, indicated by cracked bits. But turns out, it's the red sensor on top. To get here, you have to jump from his backside but you have to be careful about the flame jet that come out from its backside in some occasion. I know the weakpoint from previous try where i spam the bombs and deliberately sacrifice my lives as it's flashing when it gets hit by the bomb. So there's another use for the screen-clearing bomb: scanning for sub-boss/boss weakpoint. Speaking of the bomb, i don't see any pick up that will increase the stock of it. So the only way to get more bomb is: to kill yourself.

After another rough platforming section, i encount T-5HY. Seriously, he's so shy and refuse to fight me without being behind this hangar door. Maybe he's in the middle of some embarrassing cosplay. Anyway, once every 2 occasion of him closing the door debris will fall but you can see them above before falling so you can predict them. He can also shoot barrage of spotlights from his nose therefore you have to jump to the series of platform on the door but not too fast as his attack here has strong tracking capability. There's also occasion where, he readies his another hand to slap from left or right corner. His weakpoint is his eyes. He's the most interesting sub-boss in my opinion.  

The final boss is Galactus's cousin that command evil machines including terminators (and the "Aliens" happen to tag along with them). He has 2 attacks: 2 lasers that occasionally tracking you within some travel length and 2 orbs that are fast and strongly homing at you. The latter attack is annoying as it's nigh-impossible to dodge. Maybe if i turn into ball and rolling around, i can avoid it but i rather throw my lives instead because i have collected a dozen of them and it's kind of wasteful if i don't use them. Besides this is the final boss, there's no need for extra lives in future. But you can also accuse me as lazy sod.

Unsurprisingly the final boss has 2nd form but unexpectedly much easier than previous phase. He teleports to 3 locations: left platform, right platform, or at the center of stage. Typical platformer boss's routine, i say. He either shoot homing green goops or explosive balls. They're quite predictable to dodge.  

With the not-Galactus destroyed, the universe is saved from the evil forces but not forever. What a cliché. To my surprise, the lady survives this whole time and got name! Soldier_sf13_magic_reac01.wav

Someday, maybe i write a letter to them on why do they draw that inhuman chin on the protagonists. It still bothering me. 

Factor 5’s Mega Turrican (1994) is run 'n gun game made by European so you expect it as janky game or people like to call the term "Eurojank" and i can't deny that. It's proven by the score items that in my opinion is quite unnecessary for run 'n gun genre. You don't see score items in any Contra, do you? But unlike the famous Konami's game, you have health bar system instead of one-hit dead although the post-hit invincibility is kind of short and the health bar depletes quite fast especially if your face got sucked by the facehugger. Speaking of health, the enemies absorb way too many damage even the tiny-itty-bitty facehugger and that doesn't feel right. There's a way to power up your weapon by picking the weapon orb twice but that still not powerful enough. Also there's my complaint about the lack of visual effect when some sub-boss get damaged. The rope mechanism is finicky but very useful if you get used to work on it. At least, it's better than Worms' ninja rope. The music is not so catchy and fit more to RPG rather than action shooter game like this. There's no password but you got 3 continues on reserve and you can accumulate lives fairly easy if you search the stage carefully. The timer tick down pretty slow to facilitate you to do that. Besides the absence of extra bomb pickup, i think the game also need ball morph refill item. 

Mega Turrican (1994) is one of the game that i only play once and never play again. That's quite shame as the game is quite competent but there's tedious feeling with dealing the enemies most of the time. At least, i'm quite sure that Mega Turrican has significant improvements from the prequel Turrican (from what i read in this review) such as: post-hit invincibility, and better HUD. I can recommend you to play this game. It's not bad for run 'n gun game with slow pace. Plus you can shoot Aliens™ and Terminator here. But be warned that you can't aim upward at all and that stills not okay to me.