don't, don't, don't you, forget about...
FORGOTTEN WORLDS
Did you find these guys back in the day?
If you did, chances are you didn't find them in the arcade. I lived by the seaside back in the 80's and 90's with access to arcades many and varied, at least 20+ venues, and not a single one of them had a Forgotten Worlds machine.
Heck, i only ever saw a Strider machine once in the wild, and never saw a single Ghouls n ghosts grazing on the fertile plains of mass seaside tourism.
The Megadrive version title screen.
If you're like me, you were probably more familiar with the home conversions of the game. Indeed i bought the Amiga version - one of only around five Amiga games i actually paid for (to be fair i owned the A500 for less than six months) but buy it i did, I found myself sucked in by the big box artwork and screenshots which promised action aplenty shooting Dragons and Gods in the face with lasers.
I had no idea the Amiga version was severely cut down from the arcade, i don't remember the A500 conversion vividly to be fair, it was 30 years ago, cut me some slack.
I do know I enjoyed the entertainment provided on that non-floppy diskette, and felt no buyers remorse at parting with the £19.99 (RRP) the shop keep charged me.
We will never know the truth of whether the Amiga version was actually any good or not. My memory is that it was good. Ignorance in this instance is my rose tinted friend.
Anyway...there's not anyway i could check - no download, ROM or video footage of the A500 conversion exists anywhere in the world. NONE. Walk away son. Leave it.
Then, in 1989 Sega's Megadrive, with the promise of an arcade machine in the home, hove into view.
The Amiga was immediately sold with the five original games i'd paid for (including my big box F.W.) to pay for this sleek little black box of power. it was a good decision. It's fair to say I was very happy with the Megadrive, it satisfied me in ways the A500 could not.
It wasn't long before this little gem arrived on my doorstep and slipped neatly into the MD's alluring, curved, flap-lined slot:
I fricken' love the box art on this game.
I have no idea how i could afford to buy carts for the MD back then, this game was £35 (one of the cheap ones ironically) - this in 1989! i was earning about £4 a week from a paper round... and they say games are expensive today! (they are). However, I'd seen the screen shots of this game in Mean Machines magazine and knew i had to have it, so somehow scraped the coinage together.
To be fair, i played the hell out of it back then and got my moneys worth. So, what is it about the Megadrive version that means i still play it to this day?
Megadrive longplay of FORGOTTEN WORLDS by me.
Lets break it down.
1) Theme.
Did i mention there are Gods and Dragons in this game? i did? Good. I missed discussing destroyed cities, Spider Robots, odd stacking robots, glowing space coins as big as your face, flying lizard men, subterranean shops staffed by weapon dealing anime faced brides, industrial pipework spewing Toxic Gas, sentient cogs and gargantuan even-more-sentient-than-cogs angry Bacteria.
All of those thing i just described poorly only make up the content of the first level. The game is simultaneously all over the place bat-shit crazy, but somehow consistent (only just about, mind).
The over-arcing theme is lost civilizations and Gods, which actually allows for a lot of variety and just, well, cool shit to kill. So, it gets a pass.
2) Genre and gameplay.
It's a horizontal shooter, my favourite shooter flavour. You have full movement around the screen, and a full 360 degree firing arc. Enemies come into play from all corners. You have an energy bar, so no one hit kills, and the drone you have helping you can absorb small bullets which gives it tactical usage. Through deft use of the controller you can position the drone at a specific location relative to your character - enemies coming mainly from the left? Position the drone to the left for some cover. Nice.
You can power up and change your load-out by spending money you collect in the item shops. The weapons you can obtain are all satisfying to use and look great in action.
Two player mode puts the icing on a lovely shoot-em-up cake. Electricity flows between the boys when they get in close proximity. i have no idea why, maybe the tips touch?
3) Feel.
This game is a slick mover, control is tight. Rotational controls are handled effectively. The game very rarely slows down, so its 60 FPS all the way. A pleasure to pick up the pad and play where a lesser development team could've made the controls very cumbersome.
4) Difficulty.
Its pretty damn easy and doable (A: insert 'just like your Mum' joke here) which for me at least, means i'll take a crack at it at the drop of a hat (A) and it's always satisfying to finish it off in one go (A) - its just the right length...or so your Mum says. Apologies, That last comment was crass and disappointing. (A)
* thankfully, there are no 'just like your mum' jokes in the game.
**This section was sponsored by Jimmy Carr circa 2006.
5) AV.
It has a strident soundtrack rendered in the standard early Megadrive tones, Its no competition to Revenge of Shinobi audio quality wise, but trumps Space Harrier 2 nicely.
Essentially the Tunes are memorable and hum-able with some acceptable but overly loud sound effects, there's not a lot of bass - but we do get nice reverb on some elements. The sound effects sometimes cut off a channel of music, rather annoyingly this is usually the (admittedly tinny) percussion, leaving only high pitched horns and other squeaks.
Visuals range from average to awesome, with the boss at the end of level 3 being a visual high point. Everything is pleasantly animated where it needs to be. Using space year 2021 goggles, its easy to see this game is brutally cut down from the beautiful arcade version, a combination of the MD's hardware colour limit, tiny cart ROM size (i'd love to see an 8 or 16 megabit conversion of the game) and the date the game was developed - later Megadrive / Capcom conversions were handled better and much closer to the source material.
But....
It still looks good, and sounds fine.
6) Nostalgia.
i played this when i was a teenager. Anything you like as a teenager is the best thing ever. As an adult, this type of stuff reminds you of carefree times, before the dark times, before the empire.
You overlook inherent issues, because this stuff (whatever it is you like) stirs up positive feelings, you are invested in it - it has meaning to you. Yes, everyone else sees a washed out looking game with scrappy sprites and repetitive game play, I see a world of pure imagination ((C) Wonka )- For me its somewhere to escape after a long day filling in excel sheets.
7) Free time.
I don't have a lot of free time to play game anymore, and this game is short. I use this game as a release when i get the urge to unload heavy weaponry into a Dragons face and only have 20 minutes spare. Insert your own dirty joke somewhere here.
In conclusion
So anyway, yeah it's not as good looking as the (now easily obtainable) arcade version, but it is less punishing. Forgotten Worlds just does 'it' for me. I still love this game.
Thank you Capcom, thank you Sega. Thanks for the feels and the memories.
Megadrive Forgotten Worlds, i salute you!
Comments
Post a Comment