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 Information
| Developer: | Sunsoft | | Release Date: | September 1990 | | Rank: | 400 (17 in Nintendo) | | Rating: |
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| Cheats: | None available |
Reviews The game that almost wasn't, September 22, 2008 Rating: 9.0/10 By cward20 from Austin, TX I first learned about this game one night by watching a review of it on youtube, after that I had to get it. It looked great, awesome music, cool weapons, and a decent challenge. On a whim I immediately logged onto EBay and bid on a copy, it took two weeks to arrive but it was well worth the wait. This game is awesome, so why hasn’t anyone ever heard of it? There is an explanation for that: this game was originally meant to the loosely based off of the movie The Terminator, but Sunsoft lost the license. This is probably because at the time “T2 Judgement Day” was being made and numerous Terminator Two games were in the works as well, so the studio probably wanted to focus gamers attention on the new movie. There is evidence in the game that supports my claim, for example: the music in the intro is clearly from the movie, the hero is obviously John Conner, and the final boss is a T-1000. Also, there was even an ad in Nintendo Power for a Terminator game with screenshots of Journey to Silius. Now that you’re convinced (hopefully), Sunsoft must have already finished the game when the studio pulled the license, not wanting to scrap the game; they changed the title and added a hack-meat story to go with the intro cut-scenes. Because of this, I’m going to omit the “story” section of this review. The game was altered further in European version titled “Râf World,” where the main character sprite looks like a poor man’s Robo-Cop; though this was probably due to criticism about the main character looking too childish. Now that you know about the history of the game, let’s look at the game itself.
Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay is comparable to such NES classics as Contra and Megaman 2, it’s a run-and-gun but you have a limited supply of ammo for your special weapons that can be refilled with power up similar to Megaman. The difference is that the only way to get power-ups is by killing enemies. The weapons themselves are cool and fairly Contra-esque, there’s a spreader (shotgun), laser, homing missiles, machinegun, and rocket-launcher. The way it works is at the end of the first four levels there is a mini-boss and once you defeat it you get a new weapon (you begin with the shotgun). The game also has cool bosses, my favorites are the second boss: a giant robot tank similar to the “Gutsman 2.0” boss in Megaman 2; and Skynet: a giant spaceship. Basically, this game is nothing new but everything done right, though it has been criticized. One popular criticism is that the jumping is awkward, unlike most games you can’t change direction in mid-air and if you do a running jump your momentum pushes you forward a few steps once you land. This doesn’t bother me because Sunsoft was going for realism (if you can believe that!), for example if you jump forward in real-life it’s not possible to change direction and land where you took off, still it’s annoying at first.
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are nice for the NES, but some of the enemies are stock and dull looking, for example the bullet-sprinklers, and the generic walking robots. Also, most of the enemies are black and white or gray, giving some stages a dull look. On the positive side, the game does have some nicely detailed backgrounds, especially in the first level.
Audio: 8.5/10
I know what you’re thinking: “what the hell? Is this guy smoking crack? This game has some of the best music on the NES.” All kidding aside, while I agree with the popular opinion that this game has some of the best music of the system, the sound effects and sound quality are not very good. Anyone who was alive and conscious in the 1980’s will recognize that most of the sound effects have been recycled from other Sunsoft games, namely Blaster Master, and Fester’s Quest. The other problem is the balance between the music and sound effects is not very good; most are barely audible over the music. (Of course this could be by design, to hide the fact that most of the effects were recycled.)
Challenge: 9/10
This game is known for its challenge, due in large part to the “unique” jumping physics. This as well as the constant barrage of enemies, is enough to deter some gamers, but once you get the jumping down the game gets a lot easier. Other things that make it difficult are, the scarcity of life refilling power-ups, the fact that power-ups only fill one-fourth of your life or ammo meter, you get only three lives and only three continues, and no extra lives. My only gripe is the lack of extra lives, because it makes the game frustrating at first, especially with the limited number of continues, but this is just me nit-picking.
Replay Value: 7.5/10
Strangely, this game has good replay value, for me anyways, even though the ending is fairly weak, I won’t spoil it but let’s just say there are no surprises. Though games like this don’t need epic endings, the satisfaction from beating a hard but fun game is almost enough to warrant a black screen with only the words “the end,” like in Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars (possibly the worst ending ever). To put it another way, this game is like Super Mario Brothers, it’s hard and once you’ve beaten it even the fact that you’ve come all that way for five lines of text and a butt-ugly princess (in that game at least), it still feels worthwhile.
Overall Conclusion: 9/10
I find it ironic that of all the numerous games based off of Terminator movies made over the years this “un-official” game is the best. With that said, this game may not have the same nostalgic value as other “run and guns” like the Contra or Megaman series, but it has the mystique of being a cult hit, and not being well known makes this game an awesome “stumble-upon.” The best way I can describe its appeal is, it’s like going with a friend to see a band you’ve never heard of before and being pleasantly surprised, and amazed at how good they are. I can’t recommend this game enough, whether you’re a retro-gamer or just have an NES fetish if you’re familiar with old-school shooter/platformers you’ll love this game, and because of its obscurity it can be found on EBay for as low as 99 cents (hell, I only paid two dollars for my copy). In short, this game is friggin sweet! buy it now!
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