Game of the Day 2/22/2016: Tiger Road

[celerystalker]

Tiger Road is a Capcom action/platformer that originated in the arcades, but only received one console port at the time on the Turbografx 16. You play as a monk who is master of the Tiger technique who must recover his scrolls so that he csn use his ultimate technique to defeat the Dragon God. While largely a horizontal scroller, there are stages with a good amount of vertical platforming and even some flying through treacherous spike chambers. Each stage culminates in a boss fight, and after some levels there are mini-games that can increase your strength and lengthen your life bar.

The arcade game uses fairly realistic character designs and fairly traditional Shaolin wardrobe, whereas the Turbografx port uses more anime-inspired designs and more action hero-esque wardrobe (i.e. pants). In each version, you can grab different weapons, which have differing range and radius, and powerups to improve their range and strength. I prefer the spiked ball staff, but the axe and spear aren't useless. The stages are varied in theme, such as temples, forests, caverns, and more, and the enemies are a mix of chinese soldiers and monsters like fish men and goblins. While I am an arcade nut, I actually prefer the look and feel of the Turbo version, which moves at a pace I like better, and the anime style and color scheme just pops off-screen better to me. The arcade game is actually more accessible these days, as Capcom included it on Capcom Classics vol. 2 for Xbox and PS2. There are a bunch of computer ports out there, but I haven't played them to be able to comment.

The music is pretty strong in both versions, but they are both pretty difficult. I mean, yeah, it's super easy to blow through the minigames on Turbografx with a flip of the turbo switch, but continues are limited, and the game is not afraid to catch you with off-screen enemies flying toward you as you're trying to cross bottomless pits, and if you don't maintain a powered up weapon, the few hits it will take to kill your foes can get you surrounded in a hurry. Still, by taking the time to learn the stages and their hazards, it does get pretty good, but requires that sort of old fashioned patience it takes to beat the Ninja Gaidens and Castlevanias of the world for the first time.

Played Tiger Road? Have some input on the many PC versions? Like the arcade game?

[Edmond Dantes]

My first experience with this one was on Capcom Classics volume 2 (PS2 version). Damn this thing is hard.

In general, I find the difficulty of arcade games tend to be of two kinds: Some (like R-Type) hurt you but they're gently encouraging, like they don't want to hurt your feelings. Others (like 1943) are difficult in a sense only slightly less than a Kaizo romhack, delighting in your failures and doing everything possible to discourage you. If I remember correctly, Tiger Road was the latter type (as almost all Capcom games are).

[shadowman]

I was playing around on the PC Engine version of this last month. I still don't like it even after all this time. It looks nice and at first glance is a nice fast paced action title but I encountered a few really frustrating problems - Firstly the collision detection. Only the tip of your weapon hurts enemies, so if you have the staff weapon you can be right next to enemies and do no damage what so ever. Plus when your doing certain levels (1-2 is the best example) its really hard to see enemies coming. The game forces you to blindly leap up to platforms above/drop down to platforms below not being able to see what is above/below you. Cue lots of health lost!

Personally its not one of my favourites from Capcom's back catalogue.

[Tron 2.0]

I was playing around on the PC Engine version of this last month. I still don't like it even after all this time. It looks nice and at first glance is a nice fast paced action title but I encountered a few really frustrating problems - Firstly the collision detection. Only the tip of your weapon hurts enemies, so if you have the staff weapon you can be right next to enemies and do no damage what so ever. Plus when your doing certain levels (1-2 is the best example) its really hard to see enemies coming. The game forces you to blindly leap up to platforms above/drop down to platforms below not being able to see what is above/below you. Cue lots of health lost!

Personally its not one of my favourites from Capcom's back catalogue.

This far as what i think of tiger road as well on the TG16.