LUFTRAUSERS

Developer: Vlambeer

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Release: 2014

Platform: PC (played), PS3, Vita, Android

Genre: Shoot ’em-up

Maybe because they were there from the very beginning (from Spacewar! to Asteroids and beyond), arcadey shoot’em-ups could usually beat grievous flight simulators regarding excitement and empowerment with a wing tied back. But dogfighting, specifically, was another matter entirely.

Well, LUFTRAUSERS pulls off that trick effortlessly—or at least it’s very convincing in seeming to do so.

The slick “monochrome with shades” palette (coupled together with a solid silhouette-only depiction of the objects) hides a very well-tweaked physics system, “casual” but still believable and weighty. It’s frequently exhilarating (turning the plane’s motor off and letting it drop while maneuvering and downing enemies never gets old) and at times even redefining when it comes to classic gameplay (ramming through an enemy and shooting it down from inside updates River Raid’s “fuel tank syndrome” in awesome fashion).

Up to a pristine start.

Sadly it starts trading amusement for annoyance when it tries too hard to justify itself as a “retail” game—and a “modern retro hardcore” one, by the way. Goals and missions aren’t bad per se, but when they feel like chore—completing a task just to be asked to perform the very same task again with a different weapon, for instance—things stop looking that bright. Even worse when every single mundane task is mandatory for beating the game—rendering customization and player choices meaningless since each machine setup available must be mastered regardless of the player’s personal preferences and skills.

LUFTRAUSERS is at the top of its game when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Perhaps it’s just the case for players to do the same.

Avenging Spirit

Developer: CP.BRAiN
Publisher: Jaleco
Release: 1991
Platform: Arcade, Game Boy (played)
Genre: Action

We’ve been playing “shapeshift” games for too long now to afford not labeling them the way we do with “metroidvanias”, for instance. From the visionary kick-off Rock Man (where equipping defeated bosses’ weapons changes not only the way the game plays but also the hero’s appearance), to the seminal Altered Beast (where shapeshifting is even mandatory for the game to progress), through Kirby’s embodiment of copycat abilities all the way down to Super Mario Odyssey video games had been messing around with that mechanic for the last 30+ years.

Of course, there are several forms of “evolving” or “upgrading” avatars out there; but games rarely put their balance at stakes by allowing the player to be virtually anything—chances are even slimmer if the change can be made on the fly and outside the borders of a linear skill tree of sorts. (Series like Pokémon or Shin Megami Tensei have a nice way to work around that by allowing you to gather/manage an army of diverse critters without necessarily changing the protagonist—or the main rules that go with it, for that matter—but that’s another story.)

Well, Avenging Spirit was one of the early examples in that particular kind of risk taking that managed not only to be primarily fun but also not game breaking.

Mafia goon, fire-spitting raptor, grenade-throwing Rambo, athletic kick-boxer; all at your disposal.

In the role of a ghost trying to save his girl before the final departure, fun here is inherent to the gameplay premise: to possess enemies (bosses aside, understandably and unfortunately) and use their bodies until there’s no vital energy left in them—or until you stumble into a more interesting/powerful one and decide switching to it. Separate health bars (for both the ghost and the body) ensure you can take full advantage of any vial you decided to inhabit, but also keeps the player from breezing through the level in spectral form since staying like that causes the respective energy to drain out.

That feature alone helps with the balance issue up from foundation, but reinforcements come from an unexpected field too: level design. Strong enemies are either hidden or rare; environment hazards like lasers hurt strong and weak equally; and short-cutting through tricky zones as a ghost can be riskier than facing dangers on foot—it’s all up to who’s in command.

Eventually exploration rewards the player in more than one ways: the “good” ending can only be achieved if 3 keys scattered throughout the game are found—and they actually help overcoming the last fight in a morbid way (no spoilers).

Even if such ideas are still around us in several forms they didn’t evolved from a particularly clear lineage; obviously, that means we couldn’t get to call a game simply a “shapeshifter”. But it can be at least an interesting tag that ties quite a varied fauna together.

Aero the Acro-Bat

Developer: Iguana Entertainment
Publisher: Sunsoft
Release: 1993
Platform: SNES (played), Genesis
Genre: Platformer

“Aero the Acro-Bat” doesn’t sound like a name that could sell games, let alone an entire publisher’s image; but Sunsoft (like everybody else at the time) had their pitch at sporting a cool mascot around their logo, and nothing better than a badass bat in sunglasses—right before the Iguana (also in sunglasses, you may think it was trending in 1993) developer logo—to get the job done. It’s silly today, but actually it already was a bit too goofy for its own good at the time—and the CG character portrait in the game’s cover didn’t help a bit either.

Yes, the game could be called anachronistic, but not only for being wrongly sold as state-of-the-art stuff through last-decade puns, but also for being an early collectathon specimen a good 2 or 3 years before the term was even coined.

Firstly, a good chunk of that explore/collect process is mandatory: every level demands finding/interacting with objects scattered along the huge maps in order for its exit to open. Secondly, exploration is encouraged: level design itself is inviting and bonus lives are afforded to those who perfect ‘em.

Even double-jumping—which became a staple of later 3D exploration games—is a core mechanic here both for maneuvering and combat purposes and fit the premise well.

Meanwhile art direction overall is very cohesive and smart when it comes to making the most of the game’s assets. A spring board mechanic is reused to simulate bungee jumping (another very 90s trend for sure); early tightropes become electric wires later on; repositioned trampolines lend some levels a pinball-ish feel; and so on. Sound design is remarkable too: the game’s music is effective and unique in the same measure (that alone is quite a feat given the contemporary “action soundtrack” cheesy standards) and some sfx have randomized pitch, a technique that wasn’t common back then.

The SNES version took advantage of Mode 7 to great effect.

Unfortunately it suffers from the same “curb your enthusiasm” syndrome that other fast games of the era (Sonic being the most iconic one) did: the ability to traverse the levels at lightning-fast speeds negates a player’s urge to take their time to explore—and vice-versa.

Such a game could benefit immensely of more modern tweaks like revisitable levels, comprehensive maps, some completionist’s inventory or, to say the bare minimum, save files. That said, Aero should be ahead of Bubsy anytime of the day.

Freeway

Developer: Activision
Publisher: Activision
Release: 1981
Platform: Atari 2600
Genre: Arcade

No complex historic event can be traced back to a single kickoff cause (the dinosaur-killing meteor being a fair exception to that rule) but Atari’s skyrocketing success in the early 80s may have happened due to the accessibility of their products. In comparison to the home computers that swiped UK taking a yet-to-be-self-aware hardcore audience by storm it was a no-brainer family-friendly, no-entry-barrier casual investment. (That very same casual, unattached approach may have brought the “fad” down a couple years later, but that’s another story. For a modern similar situation compare Nintendo’s Wii and WiiU numbers.)

If the perfect contemporary arcade experience could balance risk/reward slickly through a single action button (Defender, Donkey Kong, Galaga) what would be the purest form of such an endeavor? A game with no action button?

Back to Pac-Man’s bare minimum standard of using the directional stick alone Freeway aims to craft the perfect couch multiplayer within those restraints. And it quite delivers, even if it’s not on their peers' league.

Chickens crossing a road (a screen-sized one, for that matter) not only for getting to the other side but also for scoring points would be an easy-cracker selling point alone, but it’s interesting how that translates well into a simple gameplay premise. The aforementioned lone directional stick is even ditched of its full capabilities, since going only back and forth works well enough; cars running over the poor things just push them some lanes back in a comical fashion and allows for a quick comeback; Atari's naturally limited sound device was terrible for musical pieces, but worked wonders for simulating some busy traffic; but most importantly, the natural arrangement of the lanes (slower to faster and then back again on the reverse way) offers a light and gentle “difficulty curve” almost anyone can adapt to on the quasi-fly.

Try to arrange a Wii Sports tennis match between a 4yo and their great-grandfather and the thing will work right out of the bat (no pun intended); the same can be true about Freeway—and that speaks volumes on its favor.

Gallery: Year 1

Kuru Kuru Kururin

Developer: Eighting
Publisher: Nintendo
Release: 2001
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Genre: Puzzle

Summarizing Kuru Kuru Kururin as an anti-‘wire game’ (one where the wire itself navigates through passageways, not the other way around) could be a poor attempt at coining a lazy punch line, but not that far from the truth.

Eastern hardcore stuff as that may sound, it goes a long way in easing accessibility to players from any background—often through unexpected routes. The most superficial one—presentation—is nailed from the charming intro cutscene on; the nicely paved difficulty ramp is very well thought, such as the almost completely self-explanatory level design, which demands mastering techniques at a good pace. Other solutions merge with the gameplay unusually well, like the ‘wire’ (an Arkanoid-esque ship, actually) shortening in easy mode in order to keep the carefully put together hazardous environments intact.

But it’s in its simple yet clever control scheme where Kuru Kuru Kururin truly shines. If the task of controlling the ship alone wouldn’t require anything other than the very D-pad (rendering a plethora of extra buttons useless) on the other hand the same GBA D-pad had an inherent built-in issue: not being analog. So this was one of those “a good idea is something that can rather solve multiple problems at once” (quoting Miyamoto’s later statement for the ages) cases, and Eighting delivered: the A and B buttons were used for an incremental speed control, creating another quasi-analog mechanic that made up for the lack of a proper input.

The ship's auto-spin must be used in favor of traversing the environment

As with other Japanese games/tech from the early 00s (Sega’s swan song, the Dreamcast, as an unbeatable example) Kuru Kuru Kururin was a bit too ahead of its time for its own good: the perfect platform for it, the mobile market, was still toddling around at the time. But it still holds up quite well today, even within its elegant limits.

Nervous Brickdown

Developer: Arkedo Studio
Publisher: Eidos Interactive, Success Corporation
Release: 2007
Platform: Nintendo DS
Genre: Breakout clone

“Rise of indies” era games often suffered from the “pre-casual market” syndrome: they usually had the potential to appeal to wider audiences due to their out-of-the-box thematics, artsyles, content, etc. but usually missed the mark because their developers’ classic hardcore mindset was still there when it came to structuring gameplay flow. Gorgeous and human as Braid is, funny and intuitive as World of Goo is, even such games couldn’t possibly be “beaten” by casual players on their own traditional “progress” terms.

The talented guys behind Arkedo Studio could easily fit that classification, and Nervous Brickdown is a classic debut case on the matter.

Presentation is solid in both graphics and sound fronts, and their gimmicky, idiosyncratic twists in the ol’ Breakout formula inform/get informed by the artstyle in a pleasant, organic feedback loop. But the traditional game design rules start to get in the way when they throw more and more tricky situations even when the physics can’t quite cope with the custom bat made by the player with the stylus, or when the mic isn’t a reliable input for controlling the ball by blowing gusts of wind into the play field.

Most of those are passable issues, but the final world (properly called “Retro”) takes away any chances of a persevering casual gamer beat the game. Soon enough the double-pad independent control in the touch screen coupled with a platform game running in the upper screen AT THE SAME TIME will exhaust—if not give a stroke to--even seasoned players.

It surely looks the part, but you better get a friend and an extra stylus if you want to beat this.

Arkedo’s subsequent game, Big Bang Mini, is a better rounded attempt in mashing new gameplay concepts and a more lighthearted presentation together—in fact it’s much more unique mechanics-wise—but it’s still far from being “casually beatable”. Not to say that Arkedo itself messed up, but it was—like pretty much everyone else at the time—mired in the conundrums of its era.