celerystalker
06-18-2016, 12:03 AM
94869487948894899490949194929493
If you poke around in Arcade Alley, you probably know that I love the hell out of Time Soldiers. It is a vertical monitor overhead run 'n gun that pits two warriors, Ben and Yohan, against the evil Gylend, who has captured their comrades and scattered them throughout time. They must defeat Gylend's evil creatures and bosses throughout the primitive age, the age of Rome, the world wars, the age of wars (feudal Japan), and the future world to save their five missing compatriots and enter Gylend's final battle.
Time Soldiers is often described as Ikari Warriors with time travel, and while there is some structural truth in that take, it is a tremendously better-designed game. It employs the LS-30 rotary joysticks to offer 12 different firing positions as opposed to the 8 most games of its ilk use, and I'll explain the importance of the difference momentarily. You begin randomly at the age of Rome, the primitive age, or the world wars, and must warp through time to the correct era by defeating a mini-boss and entering a portal. Once in the correct time period, you stay there, traversing its perils and skipping portals until you encounter the enormous boss of the area. Defeating the boss will free one of your pals, and then it's off to find the next correct era. Clearing the initial three will cause you to randomly be dumped in the age of wars or future world, where the cycle continues. The final stage with Gylend allows no continues, contains no power-ups, and is chock-full of mini-bosses, making for a harrowing endgame.
Power-ups, though, are where the elegance of design rears its head. There are three secondary weapons to pick up, each with its own useful application. Picking up multiples of the same will power it up even further up to three, and each pick up fills a weapon meter that is depleted with each shot of the special weapon. Sounds simple enough, but the big wrinkle is the P power-up, which transforms you into a muscular hulk with rapid fire regular shots while retaining your secondary weapon. While big, you can absorb more than one hit at the cost of some of your weapon meter instead of a life. This is where the rotary controls become important.
Moving while big will slowly deplete your weapon meter, which can only be refilled by picking up a weapon power-up or another P icon. This means you are rewarded by mastering the controls to minimize movement while maximizing destructive efficiency. It also adds a risk-reward layer to weapons, as powered up guns will tear bosses to shreds in seconds, but passing up a different gun may well cause your weapon meter to run dry, leaving you vulnerable. This all perfectly intertwines to create an intense, fun ride that truly makes embracing the intended design rewarding and entertaining.
The graphics in Time Soldiers are very good, with nicely varied backgrounds and different enemies for each time period. The music is very fitting for each era, lending a cool atmosphere that really punctuates those brief moments when you stop shooting for a second. The controls are spot on, and the implementation of the rotary sticks with the power up system is ingenious, and really gives you that "Aha!" moment when it all starts to click for you.
Time Soldiers is probably my favorite arcade game, and one that is easy to write about on a night where I really don't have the time. I love to kick back and blast through it when I get home from work and am off the next day, and it was the first arcade cabinet I ever bought... I even went so far as to get the first and third revision pcbs to see about any minor changes, I dig it so much. There is a vastly inferior Master System port, which is a good game for the system, but just can't replicate the arcade experience at all with no rotary controls, a horizontal playfield, and a broken power up system.
Played it? If you're someone who's participated in the thread about it in Arcade Alley, thanks for sharing your enthusiasm there. Any good memories? Anyone actually prefer the Master System port, or try to do the busted controls on the PSP Mini release?
If you poke around in Arcade Alley, you probably know that I love the hell out of Time Soldiers. It is a vertical monitor overhead run 'n gun that pits two warriors, Ben and Yohan, against the evil Gylend, who has captured their comrades and scattered them throughout time. They must defeat Gylend's evil creatures and bosses throughout the primitive age, the age of Rome, the world wars, the age of wars (feudal Japan), and the future world to save their five missing compatriots and enter Gylend's final battle.
Time Soldiers is often described as Ikari Warriors with time travel, and while there is some structural truth in that take, it is a tremendously better-designed game. It employs the LS-30 rotary joysticks to offer 12 different firing positions as opposed to the 8 most games of its ilk use, and I'll explain the importance of the difference momentarily. You begin randomly at the age of Rome, the primitive age, or the world wars, and must warp through time to the correct era by defeating a mini-boss and entering a portal. Once in the correct time period, you stay there, traversing its perils and skipping portals until you encounter the enormous boss of the area. Defeating the boss will free one of your pals, and then it's off to find the next correct era. Clearing the initial three will cause you to randomly be dumped in the age of wars or future world, where the cycle continues. The final stage with Gylend allows no continues, contains no power-ups, and is chock-full of mini-bosses, making for a harrowing endgame.
Power-ups, though, are where the elegance of design rears its head. There are three secondary weapons to pick up, each with its own useful application. Picking up multiples of the same will power it up even further up to three, and each pick up fills a weapon meter that is depleted with each shot of the special weapon. Sounds simple enough, but the big wrinkle is the P power-up, which transforms you into a muscular hulk with rapid fire regular shots while retaining your secondary weapon. While big, you can absorb more than one hit at the cost of some of your weapon meter instead of a life. This is where the rotary controls become important.
Moving while big will slowly deplete your weapon meter, which can only be refilled by picking up a weapon power-up or another P icon. This means you are rewarded by mastering the controls to minimize movement while maximizing destructive efficiency. It also adds a risk-reward layer to weapons, as powered up guns will tear bosses to shreds in seconds, but passing up a different gun may well cause your weapon meter to run dry, leaving you vulnerable. This all perfectly intertwines to create an intense, fun ride that truly makes embracing the intended design rewarding and entertaining.
The graphics in Time Soldiers are very good, with nicely varied backgrounds and different enemies for each time period. The music is very fitting for each era, lending a cool atmosphere that really punctuates those brief moments when you stop shooting for a second. The controls are spot on, and the implementation of the rotary sticks with the power up system is ingenious, and really gives you that "Aha!" moment when it all starts to click for you.
Time Soldiers is probably my favorite arcade game, and one that is easy to write about on a night where I really don't have the time. I love to kick back and blast through it when I get home from work and am off the next day, and it was the first arcade cabinet I ever bought... I even went so far as to get the first and third revision pcbs to see about any minor changes, I dig it so much. There is a vastly inferior Master System port, which is a good game for the system, but just can't replicate the arcade experience at all with no rotary controls, a horizontal playfield, and a broken power up system.
Played it? If you're someone who's participated in the thread about it in Arcade Alley, thanks for sharing your enthusiasm there. Any good memories? Anyone actually prefer the Master System port, or try to do the busted controls on the PSP Mini release?