Sengoku 2 (1993) - Horror Video Game Review (Nintendo Switch)

Discovering the Neo Geo port of Sengoku on the Nintendo Switch store earlier this month was a pleasant surprise, I loved the creepy vibe of ancient Japanese demons attacking a modern day city, it felt different to other scrolling beat-em-ups. I had heard many people complain about it though saying it was only with the release of Sengoku 2 that the series got good. While the graphics and sound effects are a lot better, and the game as a whole is more polished I felt a certain something was missing for me this time around, whether the surprise factor was gone, or if it just isn't as good a game I really am not sure. Much like the first game I bumped my lives right up to the maximum of 99 as I wanted to switch off my brain and relax rather than be stressed about dying.

I played through the game in both the Japanese and English versions, but didn't really see much difference. Annoyingly this time around there wasn't a story told before the game starts, I had to kind of piece it together from the cutscenes in between levels. I couldn't even tell if it was the same evil warlord from Sengoku or not. Playing as the two warriors from that one you have to fight your way to the enemy's stronghold and defeat him, that's about it. Something about him trying to alter time to make it so that he rules the world (possibly?).

There is a bit of a Turtles in Time vibe this time around with the warlord's floating fortress able to travel through time (at least it was nice to see that Technodrome like creation return, this time with added dragons!). Each of the four levels takes place in a different time zone, starting with the modern day characters in the 1500's (no explanation for that), you then go to the 1940's during World War II, the 1990's, then finally onto the floating fortress itself. To be honest I expected more levels this time around, not less. Sengoku's final level may have just been a boss battle but it still casts this in a bad light being a visibly game shorter than the previous one. The levels all have you just scrolling from left to right but they do go to some memorable places, the third level for instance takes place in a busy shopping district, so it is full of onlookers and civilians running around, level two features a section where you are fighting along the back of a huge bomber as planes fly around in the distance. The demon levels go more abstract, such as one background featuring gigantic ghostly warriors in mid fight, and another with a huge drum that a crazed drummer works at. There were three or four sections here that took place with you on horseback as well, helped to break up the relentless fighting a bit.

Sengoku (1991) - Horror Video Game Review (Nintendo Switch)

Back in the 90's my favourite type of video game was the scrolling beat-em up, and it was a golden age for those. Having recently purchased a Nintendo Switch I wanted to test the waters of the online store, and so seeing Sengoku there for a cheap price I decided to pick it up. Now the benefits of this port is that you can set how many lives you want to have. I decided right away I would bump up my lives to the maximum of 99, and with infinite continues it came down to not how hard an experience this would be, but more just how much fun is the game? As an aside; apologies for the wonky pictures used, I couldn't find any decent images online of the game so had to resort to taking my own!

A portal to an ancient Japanese version of Hell opens above an unnamed American city, and hordes of demons invade. It turns out that 400 years previously an evil Japanese warlord had been defeated by two warriors and that he had vowed to some day return. It turns out that the descendants of the warriors both live in the city and so they set out to defeat the warlord and close the portal to Hell...

Upon loading this up you are given two options; play the Japanese version of the game, or play the North American version. I played through the game on both these options and as far as I can tell aside from the subtitles changing language I found the North American version to be slightly easier. I guessed the story the first playthrough and was mostly correct in my assumptions. It was sad to see that the English translations are at one both terrible and lazy, so much so that I enjoyed the Japanese version just for the fact I couldn't tell what was being said in cutscenes.

The House of the Dead 4 (2012) - Zombie Horror Videogame Review (PS3)

Originally released in Arcades in 2005 The House of the Dead 4 was then ported to Playstation 3 in 2012. I did actually play this once in the wild, the gimmick for this game was that you had a machine gun as your weapon. While this is able to be played with the Move controller I don't actually own one so had to play with a controller which is hardly ideal.

Set in 2003 three years after the events of The House of the Dead 2 (an old badly written review that links to!) this is actually a prequel to the third game. AMS agent James Taylor was at the AMS European HQ as he believed the events of the second game (in which a nameless European city came under zombie attack) were not over. Disaster strikes and he ends up getting trapped underground along with Kate Green (another agent). Three days pass and eventually they free themselves only to find another zombie invasion has begun. Having an idea of just who is responsible James with Kate tagging along head out into the zombie infested streets to search for answers.

As always this is an on rails light gun game that sees you shooting your way past lots of undead. The machine gun weapon means the amount of zombies has been ramped up to high levels, most can be killed just by spray and praying, they seem to be far weaker to account for this increased amount. Zombies of various types are the main enemy though other creatures such as giant leeches, bat creatures and midgets also appear. I am never too sure of the lore but I suspect the zombies in this universe are all machine made rather than being what were once humans which explains away a lot of the repeated enemy types.

The bosses were the real highlight of The House of the Dead 2 for me but here they are nothing special at all seeming to be made up of various boss types already seen before. A lot of the bosses are just huge lumbering monsters with the weak spot usually being in roughly the same place each time. One giant fat boss was sort of fun as he was impervious to your attacks and your bullets sort of bounced off his flabby belly, and the final boss (like a technicolour fly-man giant) was well designed.

There are 6 stages in the main game that take in a series of dull locations such as a shopping district, subway, sewers and offices but also take you down memory lane by having you visit a couple of key locations from the second game. There are some alternate routes to take which provides some replay value. Completing the game opens up a new mode that is set after the events of the main game but only features two additional stages.

Previous games in the series have been quite gory (as gory as you can get with green blood anyway) with holes being shot through enemies and limbs shot off. This game though seems to dial back on the violence, enemies unsatisfyingly seem to kind of melt when shot and while the blood is now red it is so watery and hard to see that it may as well not be there. Everything in general seems more cartoon like. Another complaint with the graphic style is that reoccurring characters such as James and G look absolutely nothing like they did in the other games.

Being a Sega House of the Dead game the story is bananas and patchy at best. There is always a strange disconnect between the serious story and the jovial characters who make jokes and odd comments despite it looking like the end of the world. The voice acting as always is truly terrible and the plot just an excuse to get you fighting in various locations.

This is about as good as the third game which isn't really a compliment, nothing whatsoever to rival the brilliance of two. If you have a Move controller then add on an extra zombie head to my score, even then you will not be in for a thrill ride.

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