Metal Storm (NES, 1991)

North American cover art

Release: 1991
Developer: Tamtax
Publisher: Irem
Genres: platformer, action, run n' gun, mecha, Nintendo


This is the first non-Playstation game I'll be covering! And what a treat we have today. Good old Metal Storm for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1991, it's a side-scroller action platformer where you play as a cute little mech! In the 26th century, humans have built a giant laser gun operated by robots to protect Earth from any alien invaders. However, the gun has malfunctioned and has begun blowing up entire planets! Any attempts to shut down the weapon have failed and now humanity has resorted to sending in a fighter, the M-308 Gunner, to manually activate the system's self destruct switch. That is where the player comes in, as they must travel through 7 challenging stages to save the human race!

The box art show's a mech in white,  however in the game it is actually a pinkish tone instead.
It was changed to white for the Japanese release, though.

As already mentioned, Metal Storm is a platformer action run n' gun. Your mech is equipped with a trusty pea shooter gun, and can shoot in all cardinal directions, as well as jump and crouch to avoid enemies and enemy fire. There's several power-ups that can be found throughout the game, such as items that powerup your weapon, shields, and even bombs that when touched kill all enemies on screen. However, the most interesting thing about Metal Storm's gameplay is the gravity switching mechanic. Essentially, by pressing up on the d-pad and jump at the same time, the M-308 can reverse it's gravity, and essentially walk on the ceiling. The mech still moves and behaves the same way, and can move back and forth at will. Simultaneously though some enemies also switch gravity so you have to be careful. This is the draw of the game, and it's essential to master it in order to get anywhere.

Because of this, the levels are all designed to create new challenges or obstacles to work around this mechanic. Stage 2 for example "loops" indefinitely scrolling up and down, confusing the player, so some serious thinking is required to figure out exactly which way to proceed. Other common obstacles throughout are lasers or switches that can only be deactivated while standing upright or upside down. Because of these, the game is practically a pseudo-puzzle game. Stage 4 is quite interesting; the M-308 is stuck in a small box that scrolls throughout the level, and at the same time, enemies come flying at you, obstacles require you to move quickly, and force fields can severely limit the space you have. It's a tough stage to learn but it's probably the funnest stage in the whole game for this reason. Stage 6 is similar to stage 2, in that the screen infinitely loops up and down, and the gunner can go out one side of the screen and come out the other, all while trying to move forward and not die. It really confuses the player as you never truly know which way is "up". Naturally, each stage finishes with a boss fight. Like the scrolling stages, the bosses are well thought out. Some require to switch gravity back and forth and move across the screen, like the first stage boss, as it's only weak spots are at points that you can only access by reversing gravity. Some bosses are downright insane, such as one that involves destroying platforms while in a room with constantly rotating platforms (the same platforms you are trying to destroy!) with only spikes for a floor that insta-kill you. Another great battle is one that changes form and alters its attack for each formation, causing you to have to change your gravity on the fly. There is also a powerup that turns you invincible and does damage to any enemies whenever you are switching gravity, so that does help. The level design is arguably the highlight of the game, as each level regularly keeps you on your toes and throws a curveball at you everytime. Some games since then have used a similar mechanic, such as VVVVV, but Metal Storm's is so fun to use, especially because something that seems like it could be complicated is actually very easy to control. 

The "box" stage.

It can go without saying, but this game is still very tough. Irem is notorious for games that have brutal, unforgiving difficulties like R-Type or Holy Diver, but Metal Storm isn't quite as hard as those ones. Your gunner dies in only one hit, but you do get unlimited continues, and there's even a password system in case you need to shut off the game. Don't let that fool you though; it's still a bitch to master as most of the difficulty comes from learning the levels and patterns, or figuring out which path is the best to take.

Transforming boss.

As far as looks go, Metal Storm is gorgeous for an Nintendo game. Levels are usually pretty colorful and most even have parallax scrolling, which is very rare to see in a NES game. The M-308's animations are very smooth and advanced, and so are the enemies and bosses. Though due to too many things on screen sometimes, there can still be considerable slowdown and flickering. The music is about average; it sounds fine but nothing super memorable. The first stage music is actually pretty upbeat, for a game that has a rather serious, cold tone.  

There are 6 stages at first, and after beating these you move on to the final one, which is just a boss rush of all the bosses you've already beat. After this, you simply shoot at a gun without much threats while a countdown timer closes to 0. Destroy the core in time and you complete the game. Pretty anti-climatic for saving all of humanity. That's probably one of the downsides of the title, it's rather short and doesn't have a whole lot of replayability. Upon beating it the first time around, you are given a password that restarts the game on a higher difficulty; enemies are stronger and move much faster. Playing on the harder difficulty really makes it feel much more like a typical Irem game. 

Sadly, this gem faded into obscurity. The most coverage it ever got was appearing on the cover of Nintendo Power #22, which included a 12 page guide for the game. Despite this, the game recieved little attention and sold poorly, which is too bad, it's a very good game worth playing. I'm not super into NES anymore, but this is absolutely one of my favourites, definitely in my top 5 NES games. It's one I still go back to every once in a while. It might be best to emulate this one or play it off a flashcart; naturally, because it was a late release on the system and it sold poorly, original copies command a hefty pricetag. Be prepared to spend around $150 for just a loose copy of the game. However, the game does have a small following online and in 2019 Retro-bit officially re-released the game with reproduction copies of the game, coming in a cool white shell. So there is some hope for this little guy.

Nintendo Power #22 cover. 

Cool artwork inside. 

Retro-bit re-release cartridge.

One little thing with this game: Here's a most excellent poster I have of the game from Nintendo Power. I believe it's from the same issue mentioned earlier. It would have been a foldout poster that used to come with every issue of the magazine. It measures about 11" x 23". I found this at AnimeNorth 2019 when I went. I caught a glimpse of the logo from the corner of my eye at a vendors booth, and was immediately tempted. The guy sold it to me half off too. Just like that, it was mine. It was the final day of the convention so I guess by this point he was desperate to sell anything. It's a great find because I was looking to get some sort of poster, anime, games, whatever but this was way too cool to pass up. It now hangs near our games shelf and makes for some nice little artwork. The gunner is in fact a real 3D model that was mocked up for the photo, (I don't think it's the same one as on the magazine cover, so they must have made at least 2) however it's not as detailed as it is in the official game artwork. I wonder if those models still exist somewhere, possibly stowed away in an employee's closet or attic. I would love to have one of those. Metal Storm model kit when???

Amazing Artwork: Guardian Legend

A new little segment I thought is one that covers any artwork that I think should be recognized for being amazing in a good way or amazing in a bad way. On the first one I'm starting off on an outstanding one. Nowadays, most cover arts look the same or similar because now games already have the real life graphics or stories to be able to sell you on the game. Back than, because they knew games were still limited with what could be displayed for graphics, (and there was also no internet yet so news of good or bad games couldn't spread around nearly as quick as it does today) publishers and developers often would employ artists to create some artwork to promote the game. The artwork often didn't depict exactly how the game worked or played, or how characters might have looked, but it was done to sell people on the game. And in a sort of retrospective side effect, they also made some classic cover arts that to this day still are never topped. Often artists were given screenshots or footage of gameplay, or told how the game plays by the developers. They would base their artworks off these tidbits. Some turned out great, and became classic and even iconic covers such as Doom and Castlevania, and some turned out abysmally like the original Mega Man NES cover. 

Above is the artwork for the 1988 Japanese release of The Guardian Legend, a classic NES/Famicom title by Compile that blended overhead adventure action exploration (similar to the original Zelda) with vertical scrolling shooter stages. In the game, you play as the Guardian, a female cyborg with wings who can transform into a ship for the shooter stages. Your goal of the game is to infiltrate Naju, an alien world headed straight toward Earth and deactivate it's self destruct program before it destroys the planet. The game was ambitious for the time, blending multiple genres together successfully and smoothly. It was a sleeper hit, but over time has attained a cult following and is considering one of the most successful games at combining multiple genres, especially back then. 

The art is short of fantastic. The artist, Naoyuki Kato, took inspiration from H.R. Giger's theme of mixing cold, technological steel with living organisms, an image that goes great with Guardian's title character. I like how detailed everything is and how it slowly morphs down to what might create a whole technological/biological being. 

The game actually got different cover art for each region it was released in. Europe got the 2nd best one, with a similar cyborg women in space. This cover is probably the most accurate because this looks much closer to how the Guardian actually appears in game. Still not bad art by any means.

And finally, the North American version. And wow, we really got the short end of the stick here....

It's pretty much a pair of reptilian looking eyes, with a what look like some sort snake or something in between, looking out over a landscape. That's about it. It would be hard to look at this cover and think that the game inside is about a controlling a cyborg who can turn into a ship. They should have kept the European art and it would have been much better. Again, it's much more representative of what's in the game. 

Guardian's Crusade (Playstation, 1999)

North American cover artwork

Release: 1999
Developer: Tamsoft
Publisher: Activision
Genres: rpg, j-rpg, role playing, turn based combat, virtual pet

Here's yet another Playstation title I've wanted to mention, and now I'm finally getting around to it. Three years later. Better late than never I suppose. 

If there was one (1) genre the Playstation is known for, back in the day and in retrospect, it's definitely rpg's. Specifically Japanese rpg's. With Nintendo and Sega dropping the ball with their respective consoles, pretty much all big developers hopped on board the Playstation train. Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VII was a massive success and became many people's first exposure to j-rpg's. It sold millions of copies and naturally, other companies wanted to cash in on this craze. We saw a glut of rpg's get brought over, like Suikoden, Saga Frontier, Front Mission, and King's Field, just to name a few. Basically every big developer under the sun tried their own take on the genre to different levels of success.  

Which brings us to Guardian's Crusade. Published by Activision and developed by Tamsoft, who are pretty much known for just the Battle Arena Toshinden fighters and nowadays Senran Kagura, it was developed with the intention of being a "beginner rpg" for children, but it's adult friendly also. This is a pretty accurate description of the game, but it's got a few twists. 

The story involves the player character, named Knight, who must deliver a letter to another town, shortly after being woken up. Pretty typical stuff so far. Upon venturing out, he runs across a cute, pink, pig looking creature named Baby. An ominous voice tells the hero that Baby must be brought to a faraway landmark called God's Tower, and that begins the main quest of the game. Don't let the God reference get you, this is not a religious game whatsoever. 

Baby, in all his late 90's FMV glory. 

The 2 main members of your party will be Knight, and Baby. You are also joined by a fairy type character named Nehani, who acts as a sort of Na'vi from LoZ, except much less annoying. Battles play in traditional turn-based combat, however there are no random encounters. Like in Chrono Trigger, enemies are seen on the field screen and can be avoided by moving around them. Combat begins when you touch them. You can use items, attack, defend, and run. Again, very typical. There isn't necessarily magic or spells to learn, but in place of this is "Living Toys". These are basically familiars that can be found throughout the game, and each have different effects. They are summoned in battle, and you can usually have up to 3 LT's out during battle. Some act as healers, attackers to provide additional damage, or can play buffs or de-buffs during combat. Some aren't usable in battle, such as a map toy that you find, and as it might sound, provides you with a world map. With around 70 toys to find in the game, a "gotta catch em all" theme is present, so be sure to check every nook and cranny in the game. The toys are a nice little substitution for traditional magic, and it certainly adds to the kid friendly image the game is going for. 

Yes, GC has Comic Sans in it, but only during combat. Long before it ever became a meme.

Likely capitalizing on the Tamagotchi craze of the late 90's, there is another gameplay element to this, and that's taking care of Baby. Yes, there is a virtual pet to take care of. For the most part, this entire portion is really down played. Baby must be fed regularly, and must be given attention and praise for finding items or obeying you. If this is ignored, Baby will not function well during battles; Baby might attack you instead of an enemy, or ignore your commands completely! Sometimes he might even flee from battle! What an asshole! However, this is only if you don't treat him well. As long as you feed him every once and a while and give him some praise, you should be fine. Baby also features a power to morph mid-battle to do extra damage. As he levels up, he can morph into more powerful creatures. The whole virtual pet aspect is neat to see in a game like this, but there isn't much depth to it and it doesn't seem to have much impact on the main game. 

The presentation is actually quite impressive for the time. When travelling along the world map and entering a town and vice versa, it is completely seemless, without any load times at all. Everything stays scaled the same, and without a single loading time to be seen. The only time it loads is when you enter a dungeon or house. Other rpgs at the time would use a miniature version of towns and characters when travelling on a world map, and upon entering a dungeon or town would have to load. The graphics are quite colourful and clean, and the characters, npcs, and enemies all have a cute look to them. The camera is always placed above Knight, and can be rotated 360 degrees with the shoulder buttons. However, it's zoomed in slightly so it leads to the screen feeling cramped, as if there is always something just outside of view. The game has a ton of flavor texts. If you don't know what those are, it's those text boxes that pop up when you search stuff in games. Every little thing can be "searched", and you always get a unique text for each house, item, or thing you check out. Nehani even comments on this at one point, saying something along the lines of "Do you really have to search every corner in this game?" The texts are a small touch, but it's fun to see. The dialogue in general is pretty funny and light-hearted. The game doesn't take itself too seriously.

The music is alright. It's mostly traditional rpg music. Sappy upbeat songs, but with a kiddy feel to them. The final boss music is pretty badass, and some of the town themes are catchy. The soundtrack isn't bad at all but it's nothing that you're going to want to download. 

There isn't much difficulty with the game, which shouldn't be surprising. During my entire playthrough, I think I died only 2 or 3 times, and these were all towards the end of the game. If you're looking for a challenging game you won't find it here. It will be about a 20 hour game, which is short for rpgs on Playstation, but works well in the context of being a introduction to the genre. 

Because of it's simplicity and it's kiddy look, it's a bit hard to recommend this game. If you are an experienced, hardcore rpg player, you'll probably think this game is a giant piece of shit. But if you're a little more open, I think you will get something out of this game. The way you approach this game will probably determine how much you like it.  It feels nice to play an rpg where there is no  "angsty, quiet teenage boy and group must team up to save the world from evil" trope. 

It's unique and a bit quirky, nowhere near as much as something like Earthbound. It's certainly not the best rpg on Playstation, it's certainly not the worst. It's intended goal was achieved, it's very suitable for beginners and kids; it has an easy to follow plot, the combat and mechanics are easy to understand, and it doesn't drag on too long. If you're looking for something different from traditional j-rpgs, it's at least worth a try. 

Guardian's Crusade sold poorly upon release, perhaps because of it's cutesy kid look on the cover, or getting overshadowed by bigger releases at the time. Naturally it entered obscurity soon after. The only recognition it ever got since then was being released on the Japanese PSN store in 2009 (under it's Japanese title, Knight and Baby, an objectively inferior name) The game disc is a hot pink colour which makes it stand out a bit. Because of it's poor sales, it's very uncommon, but can be found anywhere from $20-$40. Check it out if you want a very simple rpg.