Part 1 : Turrican
Koren Lesthe
Turrican, Terranigma and ESO lover
- Pronouns
- He/Him
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.
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
(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).
(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.
(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.
"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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