A mysterious space station floats in the stars above…wherever RGT is, Pennsylvania?
Anyway, Bakuma runs towards the bridge, doors of thick metal closing behind him with echoes that scream on the lonely station, as the last one closes intense banging starts, the doors pried open by a mysterious force, Bakuma can only press a button and record a message
Bakuma: Hey guys, Bakuma here, it’s been a while since I uploaded a review, right? I’m sorry, I failed you all, this maybe the least thing you see of my face, I am totally not making this one *The door starts to get dented* I want to say, that this may be the last review *Inserts a USB card into a drop pod* This is a necessity, I prefer to die than let an entire planet to be killed, thanks a lot… and stay gold
*The review’s USB falls into RGT terrain, what we are reading being the review, meanwhile in the station Bakuma sighs, ready to pay the full price… as the door finally gets forcefully opened…*
The entity behind the door: *Shows up in a cloud of smoke, revealing mechanical eyes… and a box of takeout* Nice try Bakuma, I have to say, you challenged me *The entity is this game’s protagonist, a robot girl* still, 29 minutes
Bakuma: That’s BS, of course I won’t out speed a robot that killed an entire planet, *annoyed sigh* you win *pulls wallet* I hope my Spring rolls didn’t get mixed with the fried rice like last time
Ah Compile, raise your hand if you know him *few hands are raised* oh, so they are knowers, and people that knows them from outside Puyo Puyo? *some hands are lowered* Ow, well, quick story lesson, once upon a time, before they became known for both Puyo Puyo’s original saga and dying, they released a relatively obscure Famicom game known as Zanac, the game, you need to play it, it’s a great offer to the NES’ shump catalogue, the music is great and it has fun weapons, nowadays the series is only known by its “Offshoot” Power Strike/Aleste, also a REAL obscure MSX called Guardic was released, unlike this one, that was purely a shump
Back to the theme, some folks on Compile had a great idea: What if we combined two games in one: Fast paced shooter action and exploration… with GUNS? And so, in 1988 the game would come to cold reception and being a mere blip
WHAT!?
Oh yes, sadly the game while nowadays seen as a must play, back then only five folks played it, which is a shame since the game had great ideas and good execution of two genres that doesn’t mesh together, interesting puzzles and fun to mess around with weapons, what those that played see on it? Of course, me being one of those, I will tell you now
HISTORY
The Guardian: Such a shame, you failed in your task, but i won't let it be a failure, believe me
The plot is pretty barebones, by the time of release games still had simplistic plots, this game lacks even proper cutscenes or dialogue boxes that explain the plot, fortunately, the manuals exists *hoof snap, the manual spawns in front of him*
To put it in a nutshell, a mysterious alien came to infect a space station named Naju, spawning monsters that killed everybody in sight, including an unknown writer of clues for the self-destruction device of NAJU
A robotic girl soldier, only known as The Guardian, goes into NAJU ready to kick ass and chew thermical paste, ready to activate the self-destruction of the station to prevent it from crashing on Earth, the very first message being the iconic line of this game:
“If you can read this message, I must have failed”
With the last written words of the people of NAJU and the help of blue beings that sell you stuff in your quest; The Guardian is ready to stop NAJU
As I said, the plot is not that great, then again not even Zelda 1, the game that may have inspired the Top-Down portions, also had minimal plot even in the manual, to be fair, the barebones plots were common, after all kids then buyed games for….
GAMEPLAY
For those that played Zanac be on MSX or Famicom, this scene is a rejoice to see
Two games for the prize of one…ish
As mentioned, you have two game modes in your quest: SHUMP and Overworld
Let’s check the Shump section first, the gameplay on that part is no different from usual, move around dodging rain after rain of bullets while shotting your own bullet rain, what makes this game unique is two mechanics, for starters instead of power ups to change your weapon, you can freely swap around your special weapon, to compensate you have a limited but steadily increasing capacity of Chips, other thingy unique is the health system, granted, it maybe because the Overworld portions would be unfair if they did the one-shot=death usual thing, but here your ship can take various shots before perishing, both life and Chips can be replenished by spawning boxes that when shot can give you either health or Chop refills, the Shmp parts are no cakewalk, but those changes make them fair enough
Now the second part, the one that makes this game shine: Exploration
As it turns out, the Guardian is not the pilot, she is in fact the ship herself, when on foot, she keeps her at the time small but deadly fast peashooter, moving in eight directions and able to use most of her ship mode weapons, those squares that refill you in the corridors also appear, but not as frequent, to be fair is easier to dodge while not going at breakneck speed, the main exploration consist on finding rooms that tells you a vague clue to open a Corridor’s door, find hidden power ups and even meet cute blue aliens that either sell you stuff (You use chips as coins, the same ones you use to fire your special weapons) or receive your password
Oh yes, the password system, must be a big deal to be part of the cover art, right? you see, while some non-RPG games had battery save, most games, especially of small companies, couldn’t afford said technology back then, so most games still used passwords, despite that the passwords were seen as the main draw against the game back then, come on, it can’t be that baSUPUTAMADRE
*Glassbreaking.mp4*
I am writing a NES password or the chant to summon an Old One?
To make it worse it’s not only a 32 CHARACTER PASSWORD, it could be fine if it was a simple ABC, but they included those dotted letters too! worse, like was common back then the Zero and the upper/lower case Os are literally indistunguishible, thanks god there is a SRAM patch aviable and that emulation has blessed us with Save states, but if you (Fricked) writing the correct symbol… might as well play it all in a sitting and pray no power outage happens
Well, after venting the most known but sadly not the only flaw of the game, let’s explain what is this “Corridor” thingy
The game has ten overworld zones, in each new zone you can find a vague clue to open a door and go to a shump zone, beat a boss and get either a “Key” or a neato power up, the game has 21 corridors, but perse you only need to clear the ones that cover 1-10, that said I REALLY recommend the 11-20 ones for the powerup, can range from a new weapon, an upgrade for an already collected one or even permanent attack and defense boosts, level 21 is the final mission BTW, a cool feature I haven’t mentioned is the fact that the game has an hybrid of Score and EXP, as you reach a certain threshold of points, you earn a small life boost, I heard that if you are too good and reach a certain score it overflows and your game (Flipping) dies, but I was a noob and only won with the basics, so I was good
The puzzles to open the “Main” sections consist of some antic you have to do in the corridor’s room to open it, no block pushing nor candle liting or snubbing, some of the doors open with simple rules (Like shooting the door itself) While some goes obscure (One of them consist of shooting the actual word “Corridor” in the room, as in the letterboard above the room! Good luck figuring that with no internet)
Overall, the Overworld map didn’t feel like filler, it meshes together with the shump potions, the game’s challenge is flawless? The answer is a rotund yesn’t
DIFFICULTY
The Guardian: Hey little buddy, you don't see that ba... *Gets destroyed by a fast moving enemy that hits hard and requires quirurjic accuracy to dodge, and is just area 4*
What would a Shump be if it was easy? The game’s challenge is good for most of the game but often it gets real Unfair at times, for starters while you have a life bar they either forgot or didn’t care to tun the Invincibility frames, a small enemy in the Overworld can shave your life in early game, making the game cheap until Corridor 2 more or less, Fortunately even if you don’t write the Shakespeare shopping list that is the password they serve as checkpoints, but that means you keep the chips you had when you die if you pick continue, meaning that if you were dry of chips at time of death, start farming mate, mercifully the Chip Refills are relatively frequent and enemies respawn if you leave the area, so farming is more like an annoyance
You can more or less tame said difficulty if you buy some weapons of the alien circles, that said choose REAL carefully, they will only sell you once, even if you don’t leave the room, and some weapon upgrades only can be done a certain number of times, so if you don’t use a guide to plan your upgrades, you may end the game with a useful weapon at upgrade 3 permanently stuck as inventory filler, the overworld’s enemies are relatively easy and while you can face some minibosses, only like 3 or 4 will be a wall
It's the shump portions where all goes to absolute (HECK), as if the no Invincibility frames issue was not enough, some enemies will seriously throw attacks as if they were paid for, some the most annoying attack I remember is a long laser that hits like trucks and you can’t dodge, the fact the enemies that uses it (Alongside some EARLY bosses) gives you zero breathing room makes it real annoying, to make it worse, while a butterfly’s wing graze sends The Guardian to ER, the bosses, even when you hit them in their weak spots, seem to drink your ammo or pull some Agent Smith BS because your attacks fail unless you hit them in arbitrary ways, the final bosses being guilty of this, including the final boss
Mercifully you can more or less tame said difficulty, your main peashooter can be updated with a full chip count, not only influencing attack, but speed and range too, the auto fire is so fast it is actually faster than turbo button commands, I mentioned it a lot so here is what I mean with sub weapon upgrades, you get a huge array of sub weapons, some of them are weak, your very first one is a smol orb that barely damages more than your main gun, late you will find another pickup for said weapon making it a faster and slightly bigger orb and the last pickup will turn it into a rapid fire Hadouken, game’s moral? Never underestimate your fine toys, heck, some weapons are already nuking as soon as you get them and master them, one of the weapons is a grenade that if aimed properly can make the foes taste your own lack of Invincibility frames, or a neat sword-like beam that while short ranged, can tear foes apart, granted, compared to the grenade, it shines more in Overworld parts, but that means mothing goes to waste
You can also upgrade your life and defenses finding certain hidden power ups in the form or red version of the aliens that help you (Granted, AFAIK some guides mention you need to reach a certain score count but either I got said point quantity already or it is placebo since simply finding them was enough) not only that, but the Shump missions, especially the last ones tend to raise how many life and chip pickups you get, mercy from the developers, or byproduct or said pickups spawning of breakable bullets that by that point the game rains on you? You decide
MUSIC
Gameplay flaws sorted, let’s talk of some nice tunes, the tunes veer more into the “Atmospheric slow sci-fi” fitting for a game where you are alone in a desert station where aside of you all life is machines or monster up for your blood, the title screen itself gives us this epic tune
And once your adventure begins, you get this tune to set your trigger fingers in “Shoot anything that moves” mood
Something careful, to signal one of the few safe spots in NAJU, if you have enough chips, this will also symbolize you are about to get new toys
If despite the difficulty you manage to get by, your stress is lulled away with your Hi-score, a photo of The Guardian and her slipper and above she flying back home looking like she came to be: A Shooting star granting a wish of hope
The tunes fit the theme and mood of each sector, some of them are too short or too high pitched, bur overall it is a nice OST
GRAPHICS
The Guardian: *Transformer Noises*
The pixel art is pretty, just look at The Guardian going from ship to waifu in the intro, the Overworld levels are also nice and detailed, the nature themed ones manage to look surreal since you are in an alien world, while the mechanical ones feel futuristic but oppressive, a nice detail I found is the fact that while the game fills you with lots of objects in the screen, I haven’t found that many slowdowns in the shump sections, the game was smooth from prologue to credits
The overworld section is no slouch, allowing you to see the surface of NAJU in all its detail, a nice sightseeing before it had to go Samus Aran Style, the enemies are also unique, some that said variety isn’t that great, you will find some bosses repeat under new colors and mobs repeat between Areas or Corridors, but at least they are distinct enough you always know what they do, while repeating that said, the bosses are uniquely creepy, get used to seeing many eyes because when not looking like a toy robot, the bosses are a mishmash of killer multi eyed aberrations, a boss is a literal cluster of eyes even!
OVERALL
(Small head canon, I prefer to think the powerups that resemble the blue and red aliens are the aliens themselves, with you saving them from exploding in the game’s ending)
The game has a great idea, mixing two genres that while equally compatible, did so in a time where those games were still uncommon and unheard, unfortunately the received negative reviews, while some people did defend the game, mostly people saw a boring game, one review declaring the overworld parts lame and repetitive, and once again the whole password system was seen as awkward
Mercifully, the last word was given by both time and the audience, nowadays with its biggest gripe, the password conquered by emulation tech, the game is now appreciated and seen as a great game with nice application to both formulas, resulting in a unique game
Personally? I used to play this game as a kid, per usual I never understood it and dropped it, it wasn’t until I got my own PC and was able to use walkthroughs, I managed to play it to its full potential… and I found a great game, granted it can get cheap with its challenge, but otherwise a great game to play, if you actually only want the shupmp sections, use as password TGL and you will unlock a full Boss rush with only the corridor battles
At the end of the day, the game is a little rough around the edges, but it is still a great game you should give a go, kind of sad not even a Spiritual succesor is in sight, but hey, Overworld feels like Blaster Master, so maybe The guardian will shine again in a DLC or future game, all we can do is hope...
Guardian: Well, that was a fun chase, thanks for the challenge
Bakuma: You welcome, anit… wait my traps were simple fun?
Guardian: Well, I don’t exactly need the money for food, those jobs are small jobs to wait until my next missions
Bakuma: Oh, that’s cold…anyway where’s my fortune cookie?
Guardian: It’s… here *Hands him a bunch of crumbs* sorry, it guess I crushed it while chasing you
Bakuma: Oh crumbs
THE END
Bakuma: *To himself* Maybe the next time I will order burritos hidden in the Hallownest
THE END?
BAKUMA OUT
Pros
- + Interesting puzzles
- + Powerful array of weapons
- + Fum addition of score as a sort of EXP points
- + Memorable bosses
- + Guardian best girl!!! <3
- + Controls are responsive
- + Surprising lack of slowdown for all the rubbish literally thrown at you
Cons
- - Enemy hitboxes are as inconsistent as continuity in old cartoons
- - Lack of mercy invulnerability makes some parts unfair unintentionally
- - Some puzzles truly need guides
- - You can mess your upgrade plan for picking a wrong upgrade item
- - No Strafe option for Overworld parts
8
Gameplay
Some holes in gameplay and Overworld sections feeling slow at times aside, a fun unique genre merging
10
Graphics
Stunning and lonely, making NAJU truly alien, the transition from ship to robot is just *chef kiss*
6
Story
Some snippets in the screens aside, not that complex, more stakes than the usual of the time, still no Metroid or Ninja Gaiden
8
Sound
Music is fire, but the SFX can get annoying, at times they can even silence each other, making knowing if you ttuly are hitting enemies harder
6
Replayability
Once you know what to do, the game can be beaten in two hours, maybe you can fight for a hi score, or as mentioned use the TGL password if you only want the shooting part
8
out of 10
Overall
Far obscurer than the usual hidden gem of the NES, is still a great time waster if you already beat Gradius too many times
