SUPER TURRICAN 2
Published by: Ocean, developped by: Factor 5
Year: 1995
Console: SNES
Players: 1
Story:
In a peaceful galaxy, some mysterious evil guy (who looks a lot like a mix of Galactus and Stryfe, if you are Marvel comic book fans, you know what I mean) who likes to destroy civilisations on every planet. Civilisations are at their worst times and someone has to save them. They are all invaded by the aliens called: The Machine. So, some group of space terran army goes into that galaxy but they have to go through that big black hole to enter it. So you manage to go through it, but your ship is badly damaged. You land on a dune planet and you'll have to try to survive there...
You are a guy named Turrican, I think. You do have a turrican armor suit. It's got an AI of it's own. Kinda like the armor Iron Man has (if you know him, again).
This game is an action shooter. Kinda like Contra meets R-Type. You can have several weapon types for your gun. You start with a normal shot but you'll definetly want the other ones. You'll see some round shaped floating things with different colors for different types. The green sphere is the spread shot, pretty much the most common and useful shot for hitting enemies both in air and on the ground. The blue one is the laser shot. Very powerful and long range but it's a laser. You won't hit anything else than what's straight in front of you. The yellow one is the rebound shot. This shot shoots a couple of balls that bounces and sticks to grounds and walls. Very useful if you have to hit ennemies hanging on wall or under your platform. And you have the red one (my favorite), which is the flamethrower. Very limited in range but very powerful. It unleashes puffs of flammes. Animation is very cool.
You can also get some missiles to unleash with your weapon. Kinda like in R-type, you can have 1, 2 or 3 missles at the same time, if you get enough. Oh, and it's HOMING missles. Hehe. You can also unleash smart bombs, very much like in Contra. It spreads a big BANG and kills every enemy on your screen. Your Turrican also takes a page outta Samus' book. He can roll into a ball and lay small bombs! But you can't upgrade your suit like her. You don't upgrade anything. And you can do it for a limited time, or you'll loose energy. And finally, you can get some energy shields which gives you limited invincibility.
Your suit also have a cyberarm, which is pretty much like a hookshot or a grapple beam (but it's not a beam, it's your arm). You can get floating powerups with that and hang onto wall, ledges, anything you can hang on. You'll learn to use it... A LOT. It's gonna be important in some boss battles later in the game. You see that you can also use a big white laser. That's not really a weapon, it's a freeze laser. You can freeze enemies with that and it's useful to easily destroy weapon containers. But be sure to catch those weapons and power-ups before they're all gone. Finally, of course, your Turrican can (oh ho, a ryhme) jump and duck. Duh.
Normally, this game plays like a typical 2D side shooter but in some parts you'll be in some kind of vehicles. Sometimes in 2D and sometimes in this 3D like view. This part of the game might remind you of Spy Hunter or Battletoads (again, if you know what I mean, lol). It's very well executed. You'll see the enemies come at you. So this game is cool because it's not only on 2D straight stages.
There is over 10 stages in this game. And I gotta tell you... even if you set it on easy, you'll get a good challenge. It's HARD. Not CONTRA hard, or IKARI hard but it's still challenging. I never finished the game. I think the farthest I got is the 12th stage. There's like, 5 left... damn.
The graphics in this game are GREAT! Impressive for a SNES game. It uses mode 7 graphics, which gives some 3D kinda elements. Like some you see in games like Killer Instinct. It's really well done. The game is in Dolby Surround. I know, many games have this feature but doesn't fully use it. This game does. The sound is excellent! I know Factor 5 is skilled in sound and music. Music is great too. I heard there's some Turrican soundtracks available somewhere on the web. Sound of your weapons are good and your suit also talks to you. When you start the game, you'll hear: "I'm your thought suit." Well, that's what I understand. Your suit will say "Shield" when you get a shield. "Missles!" when you get missles, "Smart bombs" when... well, you get the picture. Your suit names all the powerups you get. It's cool! Factor 5 has done a great work. You know, they made the Rogue Squadron games, don't you? See their web site here. They have a cheats section for many of their games. Super Turrican 2 is there with some hints on the stages (you can see the full maps).
So, overall, this game is very fun. You should try to forget that it takes lots of elements in popular games (Contra, R-type, Metroid) but it's still an original game. It's fun because it's way more different than Contra. It's fun to hang, jump and shoot bad guys. You also do some stuff other games doesn't really do like Turrican.
I admit: I never owned the game. But I did rented it A LOT! This was one of my favorite games on SNES. But now, why this game didn't got much attention? Well, again, this game was released in 1995 and the SNES was getting old. But if you can find some reviews of this game on the web, you'll see that it got some very nice ratings. I think it didn't sold well due of poor publicity. But this game should have gotten recognition because it's that good. I'll always have some nice memories of this game. I think my father and my brother loved this game too, so this game is kinda for all ages. It's not too violent. In the end, Super Turrican 2 is a great game that you should try some day.
