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LTTP Welcome to Turrican ! Another day, another thread but remember : Shoot or Yeah !

(Late to the party)
Part 1 : Turrican

Koren Lesthe

Turrican, Terranigma and ESO lover
Pronouns
He/Him
maxresdefault.jpg

Genre : Plateform Action.

EDIT :
Games reviewed so far (use threadmarks to navigate) :
Turrican (C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, PC-Engine, Genesis, GameBoy)
Turrican II: The Final Fight (C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga)
Universal Soldier (Genesis, GameBoy, Super Nintendo)
Super Turrican (NES, Super Nintendo)
Turrican 3: Payment Day / Mega Turrican (Amiga, Genesis)

Remaining :
Super Turrican 2 (Super Nintendo)
Turrican II '95 (PC MS-DOS)
Rendering Ranger R² (Super Famicom)
Hurrican (PC, Switch*)
Turrican 3 (C64 by Smash Design)

* : Coming soon

I just love this series. I first played it on my Amstrad CPC then on my half-brother's Amiga 500 and I've been a fan since.

I bought every single album made by Chris Huelsbeck on the franchise and since 1995, I've been waiting for the next game, witch have been cancelled numerous times.
Then, at GamesCom 2020, for the 30th anniverary of Turrican, the Factor 5 team at Epic Games Cologne (lead by Julian Eggebrecht) announced the comeback of the series on modern consoles with a kinda weird release of the old games. In a stream during GamesCom, Julian stated that while he don't ever want to try a 3D Turrican (more on that later), he would love to make a new 2D Turrican based on Turrican II's gameplay (exploration) with pixel art style and... a level editor inspired by Super Mario Maker (Julian always loved Nintendo & Mario).

What's Turrican ? Well... let me introduce you to the franchise !


Turrican I : The name's Mario. Samus Nics Mario.

iu


Released on : Commodore 64, Amiga (Factor 5), ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC (Probe Software), GameBoy, Genesis & PC-Engine (The CodeMonkeys), Switch & PS4 (Ratalaika Games, Factor 5 & ININ Games)
Year of release : 1990 / 1991 (First console ports) / January 2021 (Switch & PS4)
Created by : Manfred Trenz
Composer : Stefan Hartwig, Ramiro Vaca (The famous Transformer Movie - Escape "cover"), Michael Hendriks, Chris Huelsbeck
Voice : Jeroen Tel

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(Commodore 64) The title screen of Man-O-Wa- I mean Turrican. On the second screen, the very first boss, a giant mechanical hand who will come back in most of the games.

Turrican is a plateform / action game where you control the character inside the Turrican Assault Suit to explore linear yet massive levels. The controls are perfect, especially for the time and the support (C64 first) with a fluid multidirectional scrolling. The player have two main weapons with infinite ammo : a Spreadshot that can be upgraded twice and an horizontal Laser. He also have a limited amount of Powerlines that wipes most of the ennemies on screen (as long as the terrain doesn't block the lines), Mines and Grenades who completly destroys everything on screen. The player can transform into a spike ball three times per live. While he can't jump in that form, he can still uses his weapons and is almost invincible (some bosses can still hurt you). Finally, you have the Surround wicth can also be upgraded to extand its size. You can't move while using it but you can aim it at 360°. Extremly usefull against bosses and to find secrets or destroy some walls.

The game have been inspired by Psycho Nics Oscar for the upgrade system (and maybe for having a robot / assault suit as the main character), Metroid for the massive levels and the ability to turn into a ball and finally, Mario for the fluid gameplay.

You can find secret ammo stashs floating in the air (you need to shoot to reveal them) and sometimes, it can also lead you to a secret place with 1-Ups and even more ammo stashs to replenish your health, secondary weapons or upgrade / change your main weapon. The very first level gives a good lesson that will work for Turrican II, Super Turrican 1 and even some fangames : going left right at the start shows that you can explore a bit and might found a secret ammo box and a 1-Up or even diamonds that can give you a Continue. So, unlike Contra & Metal Slug, you don't always go right : you sometimes need to explore and boi oh boi will you explore in T1 ! The levels are enormous, especially near the end and full of secrets to reward exploration. That's one of the key in the series : always giving a bonus to players who dares going off the path. Since no ennemy ever respawn, you have a lot of freedom to explore (despite a timer).

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(Amiga) The first level with some lovely waterfall and on the right, an annoying ennemy that can be easily killed with a well placed grenade.

How's the shooting action ? Pretty good, since the controls respond perfectly. The C64 version isn't the best about this but on Amiga, it is much more improved and you get to listen to Chris Huelsbeck's outstanding soundtrack for the Amiga version. Speaking of Mister Huelsbeck, his work is fantastic. Nothing against Ramiro Vaca (aside for his -excellent- ripoff of the Transformers movie theme "Escape"), Michael Hendriks and Stefan Hartwig who made most of the C64 tracks, but it is simply amazing. In the GamesCom Stream, Julian told how Chris responded when he asked him to make one different track for each level. While reluctant, he agreed to do it and I don't think anyone thought it was a bad idea ^^.

So everything's perfect ? Well... not exactly.

While the game is still pretty impressive nowadays, its game design and level design can also be its weak points. In T1, the difficulty is extremely high and the second half of the game (literraly level 3-2) is where things gets a lot harder and where you can get lost. It's a point that subsequent games will fix by adding a few "Exit" sign in the levels (witch can also indicate that not following them could lead to a secret). There's also the problem of the ports.

I don't have much to say about the ZX Spectrum one and I loved the CPC version (witch wasn't a ZX Speccy port, thank God). The console versions were all made by The Code Monkeys & Accolade, a decision from Rainbow Arts that the Factor 5 team hated with all their heart.

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(Amstrad CPC) Not so bad for a weak 8-bit micro with no hardware scrolling. A bit slow, but still nice. The (GameBoy) port is still impressive for the size of the game.

The Genesis port of Turrican is glitched and makes every ennemy hurt twice or even thrice much more than in any other port, making it almost impossible to finish. They also removed the Jetpack levels. The PC-Engine, while not bad, don't have the Jetpack levels either and features only one track per world instead of one per level. The GameBoy port is... impressive (also missing the flying levels). It is clearly not the best and have some visiblity problems but I still like it for what it is.


Turrican 1 was acclaimed and got amazing reviews. All was set for a sequel, better, stronger, faster.

See you soon for the Turrican 2 post, Universal Soldiers.

Universal_Soldier.jpg

"What if instead of porting this stupid game on consoles, we used the rights of the movie we just bought, add Jean Claude Van Damme, change his skin color to black and change all the alien monsters for a giant Dolph Lundgren ? What could possibly go wrong ?"
-The Code Monkeys.


EDIT :
Images from : Mobygames.com
Universal Soldier image from : faispasgenre.com
 
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You can't have a Turrican thread without embedding at least one piece of music from it! 🎸

Yes, off course ^^.

Here’s the famous Turrican Transformers Movie theme that was used as the title screen for the Commodore 64 version :


I really like this theme (never watched Transformers nor the movie), this chiptune rendition is pretty good IMO.

I’ll talk about Super Turrican on the NES a bit later.
 
Part 2 : Turrican II: The Final Fight
Turrican II: The Final Fight (until the next one) :

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Released on : Commodore 64, Amiga & Atari ST (Factor 5), ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC (Probe Software), MS-DOS (Sun Project), Switch & PS4 (Ratalaika Games, Factor 5 & ININ Games)
Year of release : 1991 / 1995 (MS-DOS) / January 2021 (Switch & PS4)
Created by : Manfred Trenz
Composer : Chris Huelsbeck, Markus Siebold

Manfred Trenz's magnum opus on the C64 but not his last game (despite his own claim in the credits). The genius German coder pushed the limits of the Commodore 64 : bigger levels (with better level design), better animation, better controls, 3 shoot'em up levels with various gimmicks and super fast scrolling... it's simple, Turrican II on the C64 is incredible. And the Amiga version ? Just like the first game, it is a wonderful port. To think that Manfred had to rush the C64 version in time because Rainbow Arts demanded both Amiga & C64 versions to be released at the same time !

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(Amiga) The title screen, proudly showing the Factor 5 logo before the funny little cutscene. Don't sleep on the 1-Ups, you'll need every single one of them !

If you stay on the title screen long enough, there's even a story cutscene ! In the year 3025, the young Bren McGuire (our new hero for the rest of the franchise) is on board of the USS Avalon 1 explores the limits of the galaxy. Suddenly, a giant spaceship appears out of nowhere and board the USS Avalon. The invaders, some ugly alien soldiers, are lead by what appears to be a mix between a human and a machine... who calls himself "The Machine". The entire crew of the Avalon is slaughtered and Bren is left for dead. When the ennemy leaves the ship, Bren goes to the equipment bay and gets the new version of the Turrican Assault Suit. One last cry can be heard : REVENGE !

The Amiga version of the title screen also provide a nice little cutscene right at the start that shows most of the gameplay mechanics. This time, Bren can jump on the Walker ennemies head, gets infinite morph ball time but loses the grenades and mines. A new weapon is introduced : the Bounce. While weaker than the rest, it can bounces multiple times on any surface and can be extremly useful in tight spaces.

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(Commodore 64) Never underestimate the Surround beam. It's ability to aim all arround you will save your life. On the right, the very start of the game with the lovely Walkers.

A point I forgot to mention in the Turrican 1 post is that the levels have some sort of continuity and it's much improved in Turrican 2 : often at the end of the level, you can see the tiles & scenery at the exit foreshadowing what's next (or sometimes there's an easter egg to R-Type because the next level is a shoot'em up !). It was a nice touch that the console ports will completly destroy but we're not at this point yet. The visuals have also imprved a lot, especially on Amiga, with the multiple colored sky, the HUD also takes a lot less space, leaving more space to see the scenery and the camera allows the player to have a better view of his surrounding (still not perfect but at least much better than the previous game).

The soundtrack is, without any doubt, one of the most beloved soundtrack done by Chris Huelsbeck, a formidable achievement. There's not a single track that doesn't fit. Not even the underwater segment sucks, in fact it is beautiful and the orchestral versions are even better. Rarely an underwater felt so good to explore. My favorites are Traps (Level 1-2), The Great Bath (Level 2-1), Concerto For Laser And Enemies (3-1), The Final Challenge (Level 5-2) and finally Freedom (Ending). How about Markus Siebold's work on the C64 version ? It's is pretty good but I feel like it is not as good as the first one on C64. That being said, it is still an enjoyable soundtrack. Using his own made TFMX sound engine, Chris Huelsbeck could this time use up to four voices instead of two to compose. The same engine will be reused for Turrican III.

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(Amiga) One of the three shoot'em up level, this one features an excellent theme and is quite fun. On the right, one of the Alien levels (something I forgot to mention), a tradition in the series with a very, very obvious wink to H.R. Giger and the Alien movies. If that little mouth touch you, it's an instant death !

What about the ports on the 8-bit micros and the Atari ST ? Well, this time, the ZX Spectrum took quite the hit. The devs wanted to use color for every single sprites and multiple colored tiles, witch is a terrible idea for this system because of the color clashing problem : it looks terrible. The Amstrad CPC port runs a LOT faster than the first game, is very colorful but sadly have some colision detection issues. It's not too problematic but it's here. For this game to happen on the CPC, the devs ported the Atari ST source code to the CPC and had to compress everything to make it fit. This version should've been impossible but it's here and there's nothing missing, aside for the intro.

The Atari ST port is interresting because while it runs at half the framerate of the Amiga version (so 25 FPS), it is still playable and features a completly redone soundtrack with chiptunes that definity have a charm ! The 8-bit micro versions are good... so how about the consoles ?


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(Amstrad CPC) I still have fond memories of this version, despite its flaws. (ZX Spectrum) This is what happen when you forces the ZX to have color everywhere. Color clash galore. Even worse : the main character sprite almost doesn't move at all.


"Guntentag, Accolade ! Are you available for the console ports of Turrican 2 ? Yes ? And you want to take the C64 sourcecode and the Amiga graphics ? Great ! I think this time you'll get it right ! What could possibly go wrong ?!"
- Bubsy the Bobcat, president of Rainbow Arts (sources needed)

See you soon for Universal Soldier : The unofficial official port and a quick addon for the MS-DOS version of Turrican 2 !


Bonus :






Did you know (Gaming) ? Chris Huelsbeck published the entire remastered soundtrack and the Anthology OST on his Youtube account (you can also buy them on his Bandcamp).

EDIT : Fixed a few typos.
 
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I had a complete Universal Soldier post ready last week but I apparently haven't saved my draft, so... I'll rewrite it from scratch ^^, sorry !
 
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Dayum, I was just thinking about Turrican earlier today.
I've been interested in the Switch version purely for nostalgia, but €30 is a bit rich. Especially when I'm 90% sure I'll play it for twenty minutes, realise I still suck, and never play it again, lol.
 
Dayum, I was just thinking about Turrican earlier today.
I've been interested in the Switch version purely for nostalgia, but €30 is a bit rich. Especially when I'm 90% sure I'll play it for twenty minutes, realise I still suck, and never play it again, lol.
There was a discount early in October in the EU eShop & EU PS Store, around 20 € instead of 30 €
I completely agree that the prices are too high and it is missing two games (Turrican 3 -Amiga- and Super Turrican 2) plus there's no Director's Cut versions for Super Turrican 1 and Mega Turrican, meaning that to this day, the only way to play ST 1 DC is to buy a SNES NT from Analogue.

I love Turrican but not that much. Still waiting for the Anthologies...

Awesome thread. I love this series (and Gunlord). More people should check out Turrican Flashback.
Thanks ! I love talking about this franchise and if I can add a bit of humor / info I gathered over the years, I'll gladly do so !
 
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Part 3 : Universal Soldier
Universal Soldier (The official game of the unofficial port of Turrican II) :

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(Free poster ! The game must be great !)

Released on : Genesis, GameBoy (The Code Monkeys), Super Nintendo (Unreleased)
Year of release : 1992
Created by : Manfred Tre- I mean Chris W. Bankston
Composer : Chris Huelsb- I mean J. Dave Rogers, Paul Kenny

We all have something we dislike with passion. For me it's Universal Soldier, the game.

After ruining Turrican 1 for the consoles, Accolade was once again chosen by Rainbow Arts to port Turrican II on Genesis, Super Nintendo and GameBoy, despite Factor 5's loud complains. It was probably at this moment that Factor 5 and Rainbow Arts started to enter a war, with the publisher taking more and more wrong decisions, like forcing lower cartdrige storage for Super Turrican on NES and SNES, witch forced in turn both games to be reduced in size and have stuff removed. They also never cared about what Accolade & The Code Monkeys worked on the consoles ports. BUT ! For Turrican II, The Code Monkeys actually gave hope : they used the Commodore 64 source code and the Amiga sprites to work on the consoles ports, witch was actually quite reassuring. At least, a spread shot in the right direction.

Meanwile, Accolade purchased the rights of the upcoming movie from Carolco Studios : Universal Soldier by Roland Emmerich, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Luc Devreau and Dolph Lundgren as Andrew Scott. The movie was about soldiers who died in the Vietnam war being resurrected as half human, half Roboc- cyborg to become the most powerful threat : the Universal Soldier. Hmmm... wait a moment... cyborg = robot... but...


10 If Turrican = Robot, Then Turrican = Universal Soldier
20 Make game
Run
Syntax Error
Exclusive look at the conception of Universal Soldier (sources needed)

So, to quote Matt McMuscles : "Wha happun ?". Well this is quite simple. Accolade asked The Code Monkeys to rebrand Turrican II for Universal Soldier, changing the characters, story, levels, sprites... even if that doesn't make sense. Oh boi, you're in for a ride.

Say goodbye to the opening story, the Turrican armor, 90% of the boss sprites have been changed and the three space ship levels have been replaced with three on foot levels entirely designed by TCM. The new levels are : Jungle (witch is now the new first level), a Motel and a Junkyard. If you watched the movie back then, thoses places might feel familiar : the movie opened in the jungle, the midpoint was at a motel and ended in a... farm, not a junkyard. Oops. Also, for some unknown reason (time constraint ?), the team left the Alien levels from the original game, witch doesn't make any sense since there was no alien in the movie. Also, when I say that the bosses were changed... they were actually redesign to become giant Dolph Lundgren, almost all of them. They even redesigned some ennemies like the weird Eye with four legs in the alien levels from Turrican II : it's now a miniature Dolph Lundgren in a mini-tank that looks absolutely ridiculous and can't even move properly in the level. Genius !

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(Genesis) Behold ! The not at all ridiculous tank ennemy in the totally not alien level ! (Genesis) Ah yes, the deadly alien spears in the spaceship, my favorite part of the movie.


Surprisingly, one of the actually nice idea to the roster is having Universal Soldier clones as ennemies ! In some levels, mostly the new ones, you will face other Universal Soldiers who can follow you, jump and fire. Sadly their AI is quite stupid and deal almost no damage ! Oh and about thoses new levels... they are horrible. I know it can be quite hard to pass after Manfred Trenz and create three whole new levels in a short time when you never worked on the original game and have no way to be in touch with the designer of Turrican II but wow, it is so bad ! If the jungle is very straight forward, the motel starts to get quite annoying with its hard to see plateforms and traps, and the junkyard hits the bottom of the toilet with lots of non sensical paths that leads nowhere, multiple easy to miss jumps that instantly kills you...

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(Genesis) The first level of Turrican II is now the second one. The beautiful colors of the sky are here quit blocky and the dithering doesn't help. (Genesis) One of the rare nice addition to this game : the detailed backgrounds. Now if they could've made the HUD less bigger... I don't get it, the one in the Amiga version was very small !


And if that wasn't enough, TCM went above and beyond and changed some parts of the original levels too, like adding 1-Ups in places you can't reach, lots of diamands in very badly designed secret places. If ain't broke, broke it anyway. Something I didn't liked too was the level continuity. In every Turrican game, there's is sometimes a subtile hint at the end of a level that foreshadow what the next level will be about. In Unviersal Soldier, you can kiss it goodbye, the level continuity doesn't make any sense and it is even worse on the GameBoy version because they removed another level.

Speaking of the different versions :
The GameBoy version isn't bad, for a handheld. Much more readable than Turrican 1 with a bigger sprite. It's still Universal Soldier but I actually played this one A LOT back then. The Genesis port is pretty good, despite the soundtrack being very badly composed (Chris Huelsbeck wasn't involved at all). The controls feels good and the game runs like a charm at 60 FPS instead of the 50 FPS of the Amiga & C64 versions (thanks, PAL...). How about the SNES, then ? Well, this one was never released. You can find a ROM of an unfinished version of the game with horrible sound mixing issues and lots of glitches.


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(GameBoy) This version isn't too bad. It's an improvement from Turrican I. (Genesis) Here they are ! The clones attacking the player ! Weirdly, Jean-Claude Van Damme's skin is black in the game.


Sadly The Code Monkeys have a terrible track record of games in the late 90s and 2000's and one of the former employee and co-founder, Elliot Gay, went to work on one of the worst rated game of all time : Little Britain for the PS2, I really believe that the team was more than capable to do at least something decent, and even if I hate this game, I have to recognize that somethings aren't bad at all like the controls and some visual effects. What did The Code Monkeys became after this ?

Well, they did put the Dingo Pictures cartoons on PS1 and PS2 with Phenix Games and Midas Interactive. And you know what ? They never had any rights to do so. The new owners of Dingo Picture Studios (YEE ! They're back !) actually stated that The Code Monkeys stole the cartoons and published them without any authorisation. Oh and speaking of stealing things, remember when I said that Chris Huelsbeck wasn't involved in the soundtrack of Universal Soldier ? Well, despite this, all of his work were used in the ports, but he wasn't credited. In fact, none of the original team was credited, despite at least 70% of their work being INTACT in Universal Soldier. The only people credited are the TCM team.

One weird coincidence is that Elliot Gay also worked on CT: Special Forces 3 on Game Boy Advance, a game made with... Manfred Trenz, creator of Turrican. And about Mr. Trenz... After THQ ruining his Turrican 3D project, he too worked on some of the worst games ever made, especially Crazy Frog Racer (with Xavier Dang on the soundtrack, who is also a french speedrunner known as MisterMV). During a 2020 GamesCom Live Stream, Julian Eggebrecht explained that Manfred Trenz had a burnout and left the gaming industry. I actually had a few mail exhange with him years ago (only one mail remains) because I started working on a book witch shared a name from a game he worked on. Already back then, I could tell that it was difficult for him to talk about games or even the Factor 5 team, despite having no problem with them.


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(Genesis) The dreaded Motel level with its invisible traps and falling debris, its "ammunition explosive barrels that you have to hit for five seconds just to get one bonus" and in the second screenshot, the Junkyard. Have fun finding the exit.


During the early 2000's, I had the chance to exchange a few mails with Mr. Chris Huelsbeck, talking about the "Thornado" project (the spiritual successor of Turrican since Factor 5 lost the rights to THQ) and his work with the team. In one of our exchanges (that I sadly lost), he explained me that the team hated with all their guts what became Universal Soldier (you can actually read something similar from Julian Eggebrecht from the amazing Retro Gamer Turrican special).


EnqcxVXXYAAMrWs.jpg

If I could tell my younger self that Turrican would come back 26 years after the last game...

Images used :
Mobygames.com (screenshots of the game).
RetroGamer website.
 
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I just updated some misc info and releases dates to include Turrican Flashback ^^"

The next post will be about Super Turrican on NES, then Turrican 3 & Mega Turrican in the same one.

EDIT :
Also added threadmarks to each game reviewed.
 
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Before adding Super Turrican NES, here's an update for the Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & Vol 2 :

WE HAVE A RELEASE DATE !
For people who preordered the Ultra Collector's Edition, there's a choice :
You can choose to get the XCE early (April 2022) but without the Figurine witch will be shipped in July 2022, or get all in one set in July 2022.
  • The Retro Cartridges (Super Turrican 1, 2 & Mega Turrican) start shipping end of DECEMBER 2021
  • Limprint Standards start shipping in MARCH 2022
  • Turrican Anthology COLLECTOR'S EDITION starts shipping in APRIL 2022
  • Turrican Anthology ULTRA COLLECTOR'S EDITION ALT.1 - w/o Figurine starts shipping in APRIL 2022 if you'd want it sooner, while the figurine will be shipped separately in July at no extra cost.
  • Turrican Anthology ULTRA COLLECTOR'S EDITION ALT.2 - /w Figurine will be shipped in JULY 2022

Now for some bonus features :
The "DK Rollin' Jump" Option

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You will be able to activate the Wheel Jump, witch allow you to jump in mid-air when you are in the Wheel form. This feature was only present in Turrican 3, Mega Turrican and Super Turrican 2. You can also disable this mode in theses games if you want some extra challenge.

Maps !
5d37fe27-2027-036f-3e90-9fe46e65b416.jpg

Yep, all the games have received a map feature with an optional fog of war and you can also put a "always visible" map while playing. As you can see, it features a lot of options. This feature had to be hard coded in each games via Rom-Hacking.

Music, make some people, come together... Yeah !
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So, this is even better than what I expected : you will be able to choose between the original game soundtrack, the newly recorded and remastered tracks from the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology : Original Sound Version... AND the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology. The mail also state that you can apparently choose between Turrican 3 Amiga soundtrack in Mega Turrican & Mega Turrican Director's Cut and vice versa, but I might be wrong.

Strictly Limited Games also said that you will be able to unlock new tracks from a secret jukebox.

But wait, there's more !
  • Unlockable cheats for every game
  • Virtual trophies for Switch
  • Full localization in English/Deutch/French/Italian/Spanish/Japaense !
  • A huge media gallery
  • Turrican I, II and 3 for the Amiga will all be playable at 60 FPS for the first time ! PAL 50 Hz begone !
Only three little month to wait !
 
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I almost finished my Super Turrican NES review and started the SNES one.

I also forgot one point in my previous post :
All three of the Amiga Turrican will be fully playable at 60 Hz / FPS for the first time instead of the PAL 50 Hz (in the Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & 2, no words for Turrican Flashback right now) !

During the 2020 GamesCom stream with Chris Huelsbeck and Julian Eggebrecht, the later said that the games were hardcoded in PAL 50 FPS so putting it to 60 FPS often ended with glitches and the music getting much faster (you can actually try this with WinUAE by forcing NTSC mode) and they would have to hack the three games and check a lot of things in order to make sure it runs flawlessly at 60 FPS.

So they did.
 
Part 4 : Super Turrican NES & SNES
Super Turrican Part 1:
The One-Man Show

cover-euro1.jpg


Released on: NES
Year of release: 1993
Composer: Manfred Trenz
Created by: Manfred Trenz
Published by: Imagineer

Manfred Trenz wanted to make a full on Turrican 1 remake all by himself for the Nintendo Entertainment System, maybe to show Accolade and The Code Monkeys how it’s done. Sadly, Rainbow Arts, who was starting to act more and more weirdly with Factor 5 and co, decided to allow Mr. Trenz a low storage capacity cartridge and no enhanced chip support. So, you can guess things did not went how he wished.

Super Turrican on the NES and on the SNES are two different games. The NES game is a sort of a remix / remake of Turrican 1 on the Commodore 64, but with new features like being able to sprint, the removal of the timer, using the power lines to access new fire modes and even activate a semi-invincibility! You can even reuse the power as long as you have power lines, you just need to wait for your energy metter starts blinking. The only major problem with this game is that losing a life... makes you restart the entire level. Yep. In an already pretty difficult game!

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In every story, there is a lighthouse a rocky desert (left). The first level is an almost 1:1 reproduction of the Amiga / C64 level (right). Notice how the HUD is clean and doesn't eat up spoce, allowing for a much clearer view of the game.

You keep what you found but still, since the levels are more or less the same from the original game, you can guess that it can be extremely depressing to restart a level from scratch. The game offers four difficulty modes that changes how fast the enemies moves and the speed of their bullets, with « 1 » being quite easy and « 4 » almost impossible. Thankfully, some of the gameplay elements have been taken from Turrican II and even the SNES Super Turrican, like every time you are hit, you have a short invincibility time instead of losing energy constantly. Borrowed from the second game is the infinite Wheel mode and the removal of the grenades and mines.

The music is a bit strange, especially since… it is a NES rendition of Chris Huelsbeck music, redone by Manfred Trenz (with few original tracks). Most of them sound nice but you can tell that the expert is missing. At least the new tracks are good, like the Ending theme.

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What would be a Turrican game without its alien world ? Well, that would be Super Turrican 2 (left). How about some water with killer fishes ? (right)

Visually, there is nothing bad nor great. The colors are a bit muted but at least it is readable. The clean HUD is quite refreshing and allows for a better view. While the levels are coming from the first game, several ones have been changed a bit and had new secrets to be uncovered. Sadly, no jetpack this time, probably due to memory limitation. The famous 3-1 and 3-3 levels are still there though, but with a new twist and a lot of jumping around.

I am a bit sad that the incredible « Base Invader » theme from Turrican 1 Amiga is missing for that same level (3-2) in Super Turrican NES, very curious of how it would have sounded on the chip.




I just love this theme from Turrican 1.


I personally like NES Super Turrican. It is far from being perfect, but a nice curiosity done by a single man. With save states and emulator, you can already have a bit more fun with it. There is even a ROM hack called Super Turrican+ which fixes a few things like having a better centered camera & scrolling and also an improved sprite for the main character.

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The much improved sprite of the ROM Hack ! (left) Here's the new level 3-1, quite difficult since you lack a jetpack and have to jump from an elevator to another while tons of flying enemies are coming at you (right)


Speaking of ROM Hacks, here's a few links :

Super Turrican Plus (NES, credits to the jabu):

Turrican Fixed (Genesis, credits to Linkuei)

Images used :
Romhacking.net (Super Turrican Plus)
Mobygames.com
paderetro.com

Super Turrican Part 2:
16-bit mode activated.


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Japanese boxart ! (NintendoLife.com)

Released on: SNES
Year of release: 1993 (SNES), 02/29/2008 (Wii Virtual Console), 02/
Composer: Chris Huelsbeck
Created by: Manfred Trenz
Published by: Tonkin House (Japan), Seika (USA), Hudson Soft (Europe)


Just like its 8–bit counterpart, the SNES game is a bit strange. Unlike Turrican 3 / Mega Turrican, it does not feature a grappling beam and does not allow to mid-jump while in Wheel, with but maintain all other features like a limited time Wheel that does not provide a complete invulnerability anymore, more linear levels and the same hit reaction to damage.

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Not as cool as the one in Turrican 3 / Mega Turrican, the opening at least sets the tone quite fast. Sadly, while The Machine (on the left) is in the intro, they are nowhere to find in the entire game! Not even in the Director's Cut!


So, no grappling beam but the Surround can now freeze every non-boss enemy for a few seconds (and you can still aim it at 360°). Just like in the Amiga games, it is very useful to find hidden ammo boxes in the air. The game feels like a mix of Turrican 1 and 2 with gameplay elements and the entire soundtrack coming from Turrican 3 with a few arrangements. This time, Bren McGuire will explore a rocky desert (aside for the third game, all Turrican started with a desert / rock level), then a weird factory with green slime, then… a snowy level with ice physics and finally, the three alien levels from Turrican 3.

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The Fist is always back for more and so is the Wind Guardian from Turrican II ! You can still jump on his gun to spray some love at point blank. You will see these bosses in the next review, with one of them quite damaged.


The soundtrack is excellent. As said before, most of the soundtrack comes from Turrican 3 on the Amiga and sounds exquisite. Chris Huelsbeck explained recently how much he loved to compose on the system compared to the Genesis and Amiga. There's also a bunch of new tracks for the factory world and for the first time, the alien world actually features real tracks and not just ambiant sounds ! It does provide quite a different mood to these levels but it's also refreshing to hear.

Regarding the controls, everything feels good, except for the jump. Bren McGuire doesn't jump as high as before and a lot of jumps requires almost pixel perfect precision (the rewind feature in Turrican Flashback is a blessing), making the Alien Train level a new nightmare for newcomers. Sadly, Super Turrican on SNES is infamous for being another victim of an editor medling with the team about storage space. Factor 5 planned a game with at least 6 Megabytes of data available, but had to fit it in a 4 Megabytes instead at the last minute.

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The gorgeous yet very hard ice level will test your nerves with its many traps and "easy to lose a life plateforming" (left). Facehuggers, H.R. Geiger Alien faces, no doubts, you are playing Turrican! (right)


What has been lost :
A level, new enemies and a new use of the Surround beam for this level. While the Director's Cut restored this content, The Machine is still nowhere to be found, meaning that Factor 5 probably had to cut the stuff just before coding the real final boss and had to use the Alien Queen instead.

Super Turrican remains one of my least favorite console Turrican. The levels are quite short despite having numerous secrets, some enemies are real bullet sponges right in the first level, there's a lot of cheap deaths (wind + thunder strikes right in the first level and the ice world is Game Over 101), in some sections, the jumping precision can be very frustrating. The game is also very, very short despite all this and feels incomplete (well, it is). Also, until the Turrican Anthologies are released, the only legal way to play the Director's Cut is to buy a $199 SNES console (to this day, the ROM is still unavailable). I wished it would've been included in the Flashback collection.

Not a bad game in any way, but it could have needed a few more weeks / months to polish.

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The alien train level from Turrican 3 / Mega Turrican is back and harder than ever with the lower jump and extreme precision now required. Prepare to die edition! (left). The levels are shorter but not devoid of secrets. Never hesitate to use the wheel and Surround beam to explore fake walls or find hidden ammo boxes to jump on.

Images used :
Mobygames.com


Next time, on Famiboards:
The Machine is back once again and... enslaved the peaceful planet Katakis again?! How will Bren McGuire defeat his nemesis? Comeback next time, same fami-board, same fami-time! It's Turrican 3: Mega Payback time !


NOTE:
English is not my first language, so I would like to thank everyone of you for your patience. Do not hesitate to warn me if there's something wrong with my text (like something that doesn't make any sense).
 
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I was speaking of deserts and desert rocks being present in (almost) all Turrican first level.

Well, Chris Huelsbeck just posted a new video & song on his Youtube account :




Mega Turrican / Turrican 3 review will be coming soon.
 
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This is a series I consider a bit of a blank spot in my ludography since it's a German-made series (and one of the few that isn't a sim, strategy or shovelware), but its heyday was over by the time I got into video games. Maybe it's time I look into it, now that it's more accessible.
 
Hm, finally my Turrican Anthology Collector has been paid (ouch my bank account).
It's coming...
 
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Part 5: Mega Turrican (Genesis) & Turrican 3 (Amiga)
Turrican 3: The Mega Factor
Part I: Mega Turrican

Here we are, almost done !

Turrican 3 & Mega Turrican ! This time, Manfred Trenz was not involved in the making of the game (in the credits of Turrican 2, he even claimed that this would be his last C64 game -until Enforcer-). Factor 5 wanted to change things a bit and give a try at the 16-bit consoles, because the Amiga was near his death bed. The german company secured a contract with Konami to work on a Megadrive / Genesis new Turrican game. Knowing that the Amiga would not get the new game, the fans got very angry and sent lots of messages to Factor 5 until they decided to port the game to the aging 16-bit computer.

Despite being released first, Turrican 3 was in fact completed after Mega Turrican, and there's a lot of little things that differentiate both games and also some weird things surrounding the Amiga port, like a whole unreleased Genesis game being stuck inside. Let's see !

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The 2022 boxart of the re-release (design by : Tom Dubois who also designed A LOT of Konami boxarts for the Genesis) !


Mega Turrican

Released on: Megadrive / Genesis
Year of release: June 1994
Composer: Chris Huelsbeck
Created by: Factor 5
Published by: Data East (USA), Sony Imagesoft (Europe)

MT & T3 are often looked like the black sheep of the franchise, leaving the open exploration of the levels for a much more linear full on action type of game, more like Contra. In the Retro Gamer magazine dedicated to Turrican, Julian Eggebrecht explained that they were worried of a potential burnout on the formula and wanted to make a more action packed game, to avoid repetition. Even if that wasn't what people wanted, if they went for a more "Turrican 2" approach, Konami would’ve refused to publish the game at all.

You see, Konami wanted F5 to make short and linear levels because, according to them, console players don't like to be lost in vast, massive worlds. They even forced the team to remove access to an entire level because it was "too big" for console players. Despite doing so, Factor 5 left a little easter egg to still allow players to find and explore the entire level in the final release. Sadly, the game ended up not released by Konami and forced F5 to search for another publisher. Data East lend their hand and finally, Mega Turrican could be published.


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(Left) The very first boss with the uses of the Grappling Beam ! Lure the shooting mouth, hide behind a platform until the eyes appear on the other side, then "Tarzan" your way to have the best shoot at the eyes ! (Right) The water level isn't bad, in fact it's quite short and features some lovely effects.


The game introduces some changes and new features : firstly, the Wheel power isn't infinite anymore and have its own energy bar and in this form, the player can still be hurted by some bosses. The main novelty is a grappling beam that allows the player to reach higher places and use it like a rope. Contrary to Super Turrican 2's grappling beam, you have to be still to use it. The Genesis controls are excellent ; with a dediicated button for the grappling beam that always shoots at a 45° angle (you can also shoot straight up by holding Up before pushing the Grapple button). You can also jump in mid-air while being in the Wheel, allowing you to get further if you don’t want to use the grapple.

Comparing Mega Turrican to Contra isn’t a fair comparaison, especially for Contra because while levels are shorter than before and much more linear, there’s still lots of secrets to find with the usuals 1-Ups and diamonds to collect. This time, the game even shows you how many you missed at the end of each worlds.


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(Left) The infamous Alien Train level (4-2) ! Probably the hardest level in anyone's first playthrough. With its forced scrolling and many fire walls and aliens jumping and the one hit kill rails... you'll die a lot here. (Right) Some traps can kill you in a single hit, even with the Wheel activated, so beware (level 5-1)


Regarding weapons, all of them from Turrican 2 comes back but with a spin for both the Laser and Bounce : the first one can now shoots three times in a row instead of just one and have been quite nerfed. The Bounce now shoots like the R-Type Yellow weapon : two balls of light go up and down and then bounce on the ground and rooftop. You still fire a little horizontal bullet. Fun fact : while it was the weakest gun in Turrican II, the Bounce is now the most powerful weapon. Bren McGuire also exchanged the Power lines for Smart bombs that wipes the entire screen and deals tons of damage to every bosses. Unlike Turrican II tho, you cannot refill it! The only way to get new Wheel energy and smart bombs is to either finish a level or lose a life.

Regarding the level design, most levels make use of the Grappling beam, but it is not really necessary all the time, aside for the unavoidable Alien world and the last level. It is quite funny that Konami forced F5 to remove a « big » level while two of the alien worlds and the Industry one are gigantic and could fit multiples levels of the game, like they never really took a look at what Factor 5 was doing (a beta version of the game exists and features a credit to Konami as a publisher at the end, all the levels are present, even the one removed who is still available without cheating). The game can be quite nervous and full of explosions here and there and thankfully, being hit finally gives the player a short invincibility period (like Super Turrican on NES and SNES).



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The bosses aren’t very difficult, some requires a bit of patience (the giant squid for eg), others asks you to uses the Grapple to lure a weakpoint), there’s also some previous ennemies who get to say hello during a funny cameo in the Junkyard level ! Some people just want to give you a Hand. Others want to crush you to death ! Yes, the very first boss of Turrican 1 and II are back but one of them suffered quite a lot since his last encounter with Bren McGuire !


The graphics of the game a excellent. Factor 5 did wonders with the Genesis and slowdowns are almost non existant. Everything explode at a lovely 60 FPS with lots of beautiful effects. The soundtrack is also amazing (who could’ve guessed with Mr. Huelsbeck ? :eek: ) and make great use of what the console was capable, even if I largely prefer the Turrican 3 soundtrack (we will get there in a bit).

Mega Turrican is actually Factor 5’s favorite of the console games. While it’s not my favorite, it’s pacing is clearly excellent, the platforming much more pleasant (the grapple even adds a bit of fun and can help players), controls are perfect, the music is on point with the pacing of the action and motivates a lot to shoot everything that moves (or not). Obviously the game is much longer than the SNES Super Turrican (witch was unfinished when released).

But will this stay true for the Amiga version ?


Third time’s the charm
Part II: Turrican 3: Payment’s Day (Amiga)


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No, there’s no T-Rex in the game, sadly. Then why is he here ? The world may never know…

Released on: Amiga
Year of release: December 1993
Composer: Chris Huelsbeck
Created by: Factor 5, Neon Studio
Published by: Renegade Software, Rainbow Arts (Germany)

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It quickly appears that the Amiga port is missing quite a lot of details and background effects. Even the title screen seems a bit stale, with no animations at all (not even some sparkles on the letters). The game also runs at 50 FPS (European Amiga).


There it is. The game lots of Amiga owners begged Factor 5 to make. Well, the game have been ported mostly by Neon Studio who also worked on Mr. Nutz on Amiga (and used some samples of Turrican 1‘s soundtrack in their game, along with the entire source code of the Genesis port of the Amiga Mr. Nutz, but that’s a story for another time). Did you also know that the source code of Turrican 3 is Neon Studios’s property ? For this, I have to talk about Peter Thierolf.

Peter is the founder of Kaiko, who already published GemX and Apidya (both games witch soundtrack was composed by Chris Huelsbeck), who contacted Rainbow Arts (Factor 5’s usual publisher at the time) to start working on Turrican 3 for the Amiga… without having permission from F5. As you can guess, the Factor 5 wasn’t very happy about that because they owned the rights for an Amiga port (and they also started to get very, very annoyed with Rainbow Arts behavior).

But the german studio quickly found out that Amiga gamers actually wanted a piece of the upcoming console Turrican and after lots of people complaining, at the end of 1992, Factor 5 finally agreed to port the game on the aging 16-bit computer… with Kaiko directing the port. But during the short six months of developpment, some personal problems led Peter to leave Kaiko (who then closed a few months after) and then created Neon Studios, witch made him own the rights of the source code.

In the mean time, Neon Studios also worked on a new Mr. Nutz game on the Amiga (witch is a different game than the one released by Ocean on consoles) witch sharesd Turrican 3’s engine and as mentioned earlier, some of Turrican 1 samples. This is part of why the source code of the Genesis port of the Amiga Mr. Nutz ended up on the Turrican 3 floppy disks for decades, until it was found by (p1pkin, if I'm not wrong) who then,managed to compile the code and release Mr. Nutz: Hoppin’ Mad for the Genesis !


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Hey Mr. ! Going nuts over Turrican ? Hoppin’ Mad like a Hurrican ! At the very least, Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad shows that the engine used for Turrican 3 was much more capable than what we got. The game is indeed fast, shows lots of beautiful effects, transparency and parallax scrolling.


Here’s a little comparaison of Turrican 1 level 2-1 and Mr. Nutz world map music :






At least, Mr Huelsbeck worked on the Amiga soundtrack with his own TFMX format and managed to deliver, In My Opininon, his magnum opus for the support. I really, really love this soundtrack a lot more than the Genesis one. For starters, Chris composed new tracks for some levels, the introduction and even the last form of the final boss. Then, the Amiga, helped with the TFMX capabilities, offers a much better sound than the Genesis. Sure, Mega Turrican’s soundtrack is pretty good, but it really cannot compare. Sounds effects are also improved a lot.

A bit of an audio comparaison :

Turrican 3: Credits


Mega Turrican: Credits



Sadly, this is where the Amiga superiority stops. Unlike the Genesis, most of this computer’s controllers only have one or two buttons, meaning that you have to sacrifice something to jump or use secondary weapons or accessory. To use the Grappling beam, you now have to hold the fire button to then aim where you want to shoot the grapple. This is the same on Genesis (despite having a dedicated button) but the problem with this is that your aim starts right in front of you instead of the 45° angle in Mega Turrican, forcing you to constantly adjust your aim every single time (reminder : you are totally vulnerable while aiming).


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(Left) The gigantic and difficult first Alien level, with its weird palette used for sprites and plateforms but not for the main character. (Right) The screen results at the end of each world.


The Amiga port also have its own share of bugs, with the Air Combat level (3-1) having sometimes issues with the collision detection and making you lose a life for no reason. The load times are thankfully quite short and won’t pose a problem. Visually, the game took a big hit especially in the backgrounds, but what got hit the most are the Junkyard and Alien Worlds, both uses some sort of weird monochrome filter on the sprites that doesn’t really work. To this day I still don’t understand why Neon Studios choose to do this.

But… there’s still a few things that are only present in the Amiga version. First of all, the famous « removed level » (1-2) is normally accessible without using a cheat. Second, there is a new armor to find in the 2-1 level, witch grants Bren to not lose a weapon level if he dies. Lastly, a new difficulty setting is available and exclusive to the Amiga : Mania. In this mode, every single 1-Up have been removed and you only have 3 lives to get to the ending while every ennemies have their Hard mode HP. Good luck !

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(Left) Air Combat, a very popular level just because it's a very popular track in most of Chris Huelsbeck's own arrangements and fan covers. A very short and deadly level witch was a lot easier in Mega Turrican. (Right) Behold ! The Rise of Mr. Walker (©️ Disney ?). After years of being shoot at and used like a bumper since Turrican II, the Walkers had enough !


In conclusion, Turrican 3 can be seen as some sort of « Director’s Cut » of Mega Turrican despite partly being made by another studio with some shady moves. The improved soundtrack might not be enough to suffer the terrible controls and aiming with the grapple. What’s funny is that the Beta version of Mega Turrican actually have the exact same problem with the grappling aim. Since Turrican 3 was completed AFTER Mega Turrican, I wonder why Neon Studios didn’t got this right.

Of all the Turrican games, this is definitely the one I’m the most curious of how Factor 5 improved the controls for the Anthology, especially after what a great job they did for Turrican 1 and II.


I’m willing to talk about other games inspired by Turrican, especially two major ones : Rendering Ranger r2, developped by Manfred Trenz (the father of the series !) and Hurrican, done by Poke5280.

Images used : MobyGames, Turrican SETA, RetroPlace


Next time in Famiboards :
It's time to say goodbye to Bren McGuire, we won't be seeing him until 26 years. It's Super Turrican 2 time !
 
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Oh yeah, baby !

Ziggurat Games acquired the games from Rainbow Arts, witch includes Rendering Ranger R² ! The last Turrican game from Manfred Trenz, witch was only released on the Super Famicom (Did you know ? In the mid-90s, Rainbow Arts took a lot of terrible decisions).

Ziggurat apparently plan to talk about Rendering Ranger R² this spring !

I absolutly plan to review this game after Super Turrican 2 so stay tunned.


If you never played R² : it's Manfred Trenz's (the man who created Turrican in the first place) answer to Factor 5's Super Turrican 2 (there's even a cameo from ST2). A game made by a very, very small team witch pushes the SFC to its absolute limits.
 
🎶 Neverending stooooory... 🎵


NOTE : The release dates in this post are now obsolete, please look at the next post.


New releases dates for the Turrican Anthologies... (at this point it will be released after the Amico)

Turrican Standard Edition (PS4) : Shipping starts mid April.
Turrican Standard Edition (SWITCH) : Shipping starts beginning of May.

Turrican Collector's Edition (PS4 / SWITCH) : Shipping starts in Q2.
Turrican Ultra Collector's Edition without the Figurine : Shipping starts in Q2.
Turrican Ultra Collector's Edition with the Figurine : Shipping starts in Q2 (why did they split if they release at the same time now ?).

Soundtrack LP: Starts shipping in Q3 2022


I don't get it anymore. They spent a whole mail explaining why they decided to push back the Ultra CE with the figurine to allow getting the games first in April / May and the figurine later but now it's the same page for everyone... except the PS4 standard games with are releasing next month.

This is getting tiring, especially after a one year delay.
 
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Strictly Limited Games finally gave a new major update regarding Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & 2 and gave A LOT of information.

Before showing the video, let me put the new releases dates (yes, new ones, my previous post is now oudated) :

Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & 2 (PS4) : End of April 2022.
Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & 2 (SWITCH) : May 2022.

Turrican Anthology Collector's Edition (PS4 / SWITCH) : Early July 2022 (argh), SLG indicate in the mail that this should be considered a definitive date.

Turrican Anthology Ultra Collector's Edition (figurine & BluRay doc later) : Early July 2022.
Turrican Anthology Ultra Collector's Edition (figurine & BluRay doc at the same time) : August 2022.

Vinyl Box Collection : November 2022

Note :
I just put a lenghy thread in french on another retro gaming website and I'm sorry if I don't feel like translating it back to english here but as most of you speak / read english even better than I, here's the video SLG made with actual footage of the Anthology, AND showing the new features like the famous map, which includes A LOT of functions like a colision mode, logic mode, scripts etc.

There's also a lot of sweet things to look at, like the fact that the Jukebox will include a track from the cancelled GameCube Thornado (previously known as Turrican 64 for the... err... Nintendo 64 ?). And some of the questions left me with more questions than before :

What is Turrican 5 ? A new game ? The cancelled Turrican 3D ? The cancelled Turrican 64 / Thornado N64 ? Or Thornado on GameCube ? Turrican Cyclone ? Turrican 2008 ?

Here's the video anyway :
 
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NG-DEV Team has announced working on GUNLORD 2 !

The sequel to Gunlord / Gunlord X have been revealed and to help getting some funds, NG-DEV will restock the Gunlord X Collector's Edition starting 8th of May 2022.

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Final (?) update from Strictly Limited Games :
The Standard Retail PS4 versions of Turrican Anthology Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 will start shipping tomorrow, on the 6th of May.
Thhe Standard Retail Switch versions will start shipping early June 2022.

Both PS4 & Switch Collectors & Ultra Collectors Editions will start shipping late July.
 
The YT channel World of Longplays have uploaded two streams of full gameplay of both PS4 Turrican Anthologies and showcased numerous secrets. Like a secret from Turrican 3 (Amiga) so well hidden that no one remembered it until ScHIAuChi showed it during the making of the maps (because yes, ScHIAuChi actually worked on the mapping system for the Anthologies !).

Something I never knew ever existed and blew my mind, 28 years after !

Some notes :
- You can use 50 Hz or 60 Hz for the Amiga games, but :
At 60 Hz, the three games obviously run faster. The music is set at the correct pacing (witch was almost always an issue if you forced it before on emulators) but sadly the voices and some sound effect end up a little high pitched in result. A little loss to a much more fluid experience IMO.

- You can play Mega Turrican (Megadrive / Genesis) with the Turrican III Amiga OST ! And not only that but each game allows you to play with the original soundtrack, the remastered version in studios (witch was a stretch goal for the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology) and the Soundtrack Anthology version !

Note : a few small tracks haven’t been remastered for the Anthology version in Super Turrican 2, so they don’t have a replacement for the missing tracks.

- Like in Gunlord X, you can now aim the Surround beam AND the grappling beam of Turrican 3 & Mega Turrican instantly with the left stick (just hold he Surround / Grappling button).
 
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IT'S HAPPENING !

The flippin' Turrican Anthology Collector Editions for both PS4 and Switch are being shipped ! FINALLY ! RHA !

I'm so happy I could enjoy a terrible game like Final Fantasy VII Remake (it's a joke, please don't be angry).



It's been 84 years 23 months since my preorder.
 
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I seriously need to try Turrican. It's flown under my radar for decades.

Looking at Gunlord 2 screenshots give me a mighty need.

Thanks for this awesome thread, I love chronicles of gaming history!
 
I seriously need to try Turrican. It's flown under my radar for decades.

Looking at Gunlord 2 screenshots give me a mighty need.

Thanks for this awesome thread, I love chronicles of gaming history!
Awww thank you so much ! 👨‍❤️‍👨

Yep, I'm really looking forward Gunlord 2 ! I was amazed to discover that every single thing NGDEV fixed in Gunlord X was actually everything I hoped it would fix ^o^. i managed to preorder their new Collector edition of Gunlord X, just wanted to support them (the digital game only costs $9,99 on Switch & PS4...).

I hope I can write both Super Turrican 2 and Rendering Ranger R² reviews soon :)
 
So, I finally received my Turrican Anthology Collector Edition and I'm loving it (aside for a bug in Super Turrican 2 which I'll cover in my review of ST2).

The Collector comes with a BluRay documentary of Factor 5 and the story behind every Turrican game and the unreleased ones, featuring gameplay for the first time of most of the cancelled games ! I'll speak about it more when I'll unlocked the gallery and unlocked all the achievements for both volumes (almost done).
 
So, I'll return soon to this thread, as soon as the Turrican Anthologies receive their patch (due for december according to Strictly Limited Games CM).
I'll redo my Super Turrican 2 full play & review it, then I'll start reviewing the fan games.

I watched the Turrican Documentary and it was a blessing. Lots of info for each titles, but obviously the best part was about the numerous cancelled games.

Seeing actual footage of Thornado and Turrican Cyclone for the very first time after decades (~25 years for Thornado) of nothing except concept art and very early prototype (for Turrican Cyclone) probably made my heart skip a beat or two.
 
What a stunning thread and a great read, so comprehensive!

I played some of the earlier Turrican games on C64/Amiga I think. I remember it being really big at the time, often getting magazine covers.
 
In my head I associate the earlier Turrican games with home computer games like James Pond 2: Robocod. Not in terms of gameplay, graphics or anything like that, but in terms of the ‘the levels are huge, where do I go?’ factor! I just used to feel lost a lot, and there was an element of frustration in dying without knowing where to go when you only had limited lives/continues before you had to start again. It was a really experimental time when so many major games had platforming elements even if they were also run-and-gun. Thing is, once you knew where to go, the games then become a lot more fun in hunting down every last secret and power-up.
 
These games all seem so appealing to me: the incredible music, cool 90s aesthetic, pure gameplay focused experience... But the times I've tried them through emulation the small field of view gets on my nerves very quickly :( The enemies gang up on you very easily and the almost inexistent recovery frames makes it worse
 
These games all seem so appealing to me: the incredible music, cool 90s aesthetic, pure gameplay focused experience... But the times I've tried them through emulation the small field of view gets on my nerves very quickly :( The enemies gang up on you very easily and the almost inexistent recovery frames makes it worse
The non existant recovery frames thing only goes for Turrican I & II on the Amiga. All the others games have invincibility frames.
You can play with rewind & save states in the Anthologies to help getting better before doing the "Challenge mode" which is without save states & rewind :).

There's also much better controls options, configuration and QoL features (like a whole map of each levels).
 
So, I asked SLG about the upcoming Turrican Anthology patch and I got this answer :


Hopefully the wait is almost over.
 
Soooo...
Where were we ? Ah yes, waiting for the Turrican Anthology patch ! Well, I'm still waiting.

I don't know how much work Ratalaika Games / Stritcly Limited Games have on their shoulders with the amount of games they are re-releasing but seeing the Wonderboy Anniversary Collection using pretty much the exact same features from the Turrican Anthology (aka the interactive map for every single game), I feel like the patch will never come.

So to this day, it is still impossible to complete the first volume of the Anthology and unlock all the bonus content on both Switch & PS4. SLG still told me last month that the patch is coming "soon".

Meanwhile, I came back to the second volume to watch all the artworks & concept arts for Mega Turrican & Super Turrican, but also Turrican Cyclone and I love to think what this one could've been.




Keep in mind that this is footage from the "Turrican 2008" prototype, apparently started in 2007, so between 1 to 2 years before Grin & Capcom's 3D reboot of Bionic Commando.

I wish I could upload some footage of Thornado from the BluRay documentary but I don't have a BluRay player on my PC (I used the one on my Series X).

The Super Turrican 2 review will come "soon", just need some motivation after some personal problem hit quite hard in the middle of February.
 
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Wouhou, the patches are up !
Can't believe it finally happened.

I guess I'll go back to write, then ^^;
 
So I'm halfway for my Super Turrican 2 review and I've been thinking how the franchise could make a small impact if it ever comes back.

Wether or not they implement the level editor "à la Mario Maker" Julian Eggebrecht teased in the Turrican Documentary bluray, I would love to see something that approaches Metroid even more than before. Like, a real Metroidvania.

Even the most linear Turrican game (ST 2) levels had secret 1-Ups and weapon upgrades here and there. And yeah, you can also morph into a spike wheel and some secrets requires you to morph to access it. So why not embrace it whole ? Metroidvanias are still very popular and since the Queen is back in both 2D (Dread) & 3D (Prime Remaster & Prime 4), the time is now.

(and yes I would love a Metroid x Turrican crossover ^^).
 
I'm totally not insane but since I got my PS5, both Turrican Anthology were on sale on the PS Store so I got them just before the sale ended.

Guess what ? It crashes as soon as you finish Super Turrican Director's Cut in Vol. 1, just before the credits appears (you can see the Diamonds & 1-Up results and then, black screen and crash). I did three runs, one 100% to get the diamonds and 1-Up trophies and tried different things but it still crashes no matter what (three times already).

Thankfully, as soon as I talked about it and tagged Strictly Limited Games, they came back in my DMs just like they did for the Switch glitches and we exhanged a bit, also send them a clip of the crash.

Really hope this compilation will be fixed once and for all.
 
Small update, except if you like music and retrospectives !


On the Turrican subreddit, BadHairlineProductions posted a lot of great his superb covers of the game :
YouTube Channel : BadHairlineProductions

Turrican I : World 1, Level 1


Turrican II : The Wall


Turrican II : Final Challenge



Chris Huelsbeck and Patrick Nevian released Piano Collection Volume II, which features some very nice piano covers of Turrican 1 to 3.
Physical edition available on The Piano Collection website and digital on Chris' Bandcamp account


I also strongly recommand both Kim Justice's and Luna Morley Turrican retrospective.

Luna Morley's Factor 5 second part retrospective (all Turrican games are covered, including the THQ mobile games !)



Kim Justice's Turrican retrospective :
 
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I wanted to make a test stream so I can do another run of Turrican 3 : Maniac mode, but live.

And guess what ? I encountered a new glitch that seems to only occur on PS5 (and probably PS4) because I haven't got this one on Switch.

Content Warning : French UI (oh la la !).


I sent this to Stritcly Limited Games support and still waiting for the Volume 1 patch so I can finally complete Super Turrican 1 & Director's Cut in Challenge mode. Can't say I'm a massive fan of how this compilation turned out...
 
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