NES Shmups #5

Burai Fighter (1990)
By: KID / Taxan Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Nintendo NES First Day Score: 121,120
Also Available For: Game Boy

There are an absolute ton of NES games that I've heard of but know bugger all about. This is due to a combination of buying multi-format games mags back in the day such as Mean Machines, and not having an NES and therefore paying little attention to reviews of said games. One of them, you may be shocked to hear, is Burai Fighter. I've known of the name for over 30 years but I wasn't even sure what genre it was until my interest in it was recently piqued by its soundtrack - its most derided aspect, I've subsequently discovered (not sure why though). It turned out to be a (mostly) horizontal shooter in the same vein of Side Arms and Forgotten Worlds, and that's no bad thing since both are at least decent games. It's also a game that, much like the recently-reviewed Dragon Ninja, is named after its bad guys rather than the hero. Indeed, the Burai are apparently a 'race of super-brains' who, for thousands of years, have used their intellectual gifts to conquer the universe. Can't accuse them of lacking ambition, I guess!

Being 'super-brains', they are of course too smart to get their hands (or membranes?) dirty themselves, so they have created an army of 'robo-mutants' to take care of that inconvenient conquering for them. But wait... what's this? A saviour? Emerging dramatically from some conveniently-spooky mist is a hero, about whom nothing is seemingly revealed, not even a gender or name. For review purposes, we'll assume this courageous soul is a Scandinavian female called Helga, and she has been charged with crippling the Burai by destroying their 'seven manufacturing bases producing thousands of robo-mutants each day'. Seven bases doesn't seem like many considering how big the universe is but never mind, I'm sure Helga will do us proud anyway, for she brings with her a 'proton pack' (no, not like the Ghostbusters one) and a laser cannon! I assume the 'pack' is either part or all of the metallic suit she is wearing which allows her to fly around, but it sounds pretty cool in any case.

As any particularly gifted among you may have realised, the seven bases means seven stages. Oddly, the third and sixth examples are overhead, multi-directional affairs where you simply have to find the large base somewhere on the stage and destroy it, somewhat akin to the odd-numbered stages of MD classic, Thunder Force 2. Besides those two, however, the stages are almost completely side-scrolling ones. I say 'almost' as there are some parts that move diagonally or vertically for short periods but it's still a horizontal-scroller (except stages three and six, of course!). Helga flies though them facing whichever direction you press on the d-pad which means she can move and shoot in all eight directions, though the game continues to auto-scroll regardless of which way you're facing. This is handy as most parts of most normal stages are filled with lots of scenery/obstacles around which you must fly. Enemy craft can fly through this stuff but Helga can't, so she needs to be able to shoot forward, backwards, up, down or diagonally at a moment's notice.

There are quite a few flying enemy craft buzzing around but even more guns dotted around the stages, and it's more for these you'll need to be able to shoot at all angles as they are nestled in all the nooks and crannies. Luckily, there's more than just her laser cannon available for Helga to use. Look out for 'S' icons which are speed-ups, but more numerous are 'M', 'L', or 'R' icons which offer missiles, lasers or ring shots respectively. You can only have one at a time but they are in addition to the basic pea-shooter, and they can all be powered-up too. As you can see on the stats panel in the screenshots (no, it wasn't me who cut the bottom off - the game does that), each time you collect an icon, the number increases up to a maximum of ten. Upon reaching level five, the weapon will power-up once giving you two-way fire (front and rear), and if you reach level ten, it will power-up again giving you four-way fire. If you lose a life (which is very easy), you'll go back down to level zero!

But only with the weapon you were using when you died which is a good way of making a very tough game a little fairer. There are two more gadgets that will make your life a bit easier too - a Defence Pod (circling drone thing) which can take out enemies (collect additional icons to increase its orbital speed) and Cobalt Bombs which are smart bombs. To acquire these, you need to collect the 'cobalt fragments' that are often dropped by downed enemies craft or guns. Collect four fragments and you'll have a bomb available, and you can have up to seven at once. If you already have a full bomb bay, collecting four fragments gives you an extra life, although you'll lose your bomb stockpile too, so it might not be an acceptable trade-off for some (each bomb can potentially save a life by itself, after all) and, as I said, it's a very tough game, or I thought so at any rate. I don't think it is just me though, since KID (the developer) saw fit to give each stage a password which isn't something I've seen in a shooter often (or maybe at all - my memory isn't great these days).

There are several reasons for this toughness too. First is the control method. Forgotten Worlds did the whole 'eight-directional fire' thing well - left button rotates your guy left, middle button fires, right button rotates your guy right. The NES only has two buttons though, which here are used for shots and bombs, with the d-pad determining which direction you fire. You can 'lock' a direction by holding down the fire button which helps, but I still found this a bit awkward due to the often-tight spaces in which you are required to manoeuvre Helga. Trying to change your direction of fire in a narrow corridor or something, for example, can result in you hitting the wall by accident. Even if you are careful to avoid this, faffing around with your direction of fire can still distract you from enemies, guns or bullets which are plentiful. I often use 'save states' while playing games for reviews (so I can let enemies build up for more interesting shots, etc) and I don't think I've ever used more save states in such a short space of time than I did with this game!

Something else that doesn't help is the aforementioned ability of the enemies to fly through the scenery. Since Helga does not share this ability, if you are in a tight space, enemies can pass through a wall right in front of you! One way to alleviate this problem is to use the 'ring' weapon which is the only one that can shoot through walls. It's also, typically, the weakest of the three weapons, however. There are a few other smaller things that make the game tough such as the height of the Helga sprite making it easy to get hit and some slightly inconsistent collision-detection, and also that stage design. I've always liked shooters that give you actual landscape or obstructions to steer around, but it does of course mean you have less space to avoid enemy craft and bullets, and you can get trapped behind scenery too, which is an easy way to lose a life. It can also mean there can be situations where it's impossible to avoid oncoming bullets. I guess that's what Cobalt Bombs are for though! Despite all this, it's still definitely the kind of game where you'll get further each time.

When you come to learn where the most troublesome enemies and/or clusters of guns are, you can grab the best weapon beforehand, for example. Ironically the bosses, who have ultra-excellent names like Giganticrab, Jawsipede, Fangskull, and Slimedragon, aren't all that difficult compared to the stages that lead up to them. Those stages are definitely the game's strongest point too - their design can almost be maze-like at times and always keeps you on the move. They are all distinctive in both layout and appearance as well, with some nice colours used and some decent, if mostly small sprites. The scrolling is nice and smooth too, and the audio is also good; I don't really get why it received so much criticism. It includes some nice arcadey effects and several catchy choons which is good enough for me! I'm not really the biggest fan of the NES's audio/visual styles but my eyes and ears appreciated the sights and sounds on offer here. Or most of them, at least.

I guess the big question, though, is how enjoyable the game is to play. There are three difficulty levels and I played on the middle one for this review (you can also unlock an even harder fourth one), so there is an easier option, but I did find it a considerable challenge. It's not even a long game - it takes around 20 minutes if you are good enough to play straight through - but it will seem like a marathon to mortals! But despite all the issues I've mentioned, I was surprised to find I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the heavily landscape/obstruction-strewn style of the stages, even if it can cause some problems, and I liked the variety too, and even after my struggles, I kept going, and I persevered all the way to the end as I was enjoying it and I wanted to see what else the game would throw at me. It was a blow to find you don't get the proper ending unless you play on hard difficulty though! Not sure that's a nut I'll ever be able to crack, even with the ultra-handy passwords and infinite continues, but this is still a rare case of a tough game that I like, music and all.

RKS Score: 7/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the whole game being played by one of the talented fellows at World of Longplays (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!