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.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1994) - Zombie Videogame Review (Virtual Console)

I had a copy of this on the Megadrive soon after it was released, even back in the early 90's I loved my horror. The frankly shocking and horrifically scary title was reduced to merely 'Zombies' in Europe which I am glad of as I am sure it would have led to a crime wave of violent proportions had the far better name stayed.

You play as either Zeke or Julie; two teenage kids whose neighbourhood has been over run by monsters created by the evil Dr. Tongue. Your goal in each of the 55 levels is to rescue your neighbours before they are killed by the many creatures. Each level has it's own B-Movie style title card to it and takes place in a whole range of locations.

Played at an elevated perspective each level is set out like a maze in which up to ten neighbours are hidden, rescuing them is merely a case of walking into them, but should an enemy do the same they will die with a cartoon angel floating up to heaven. Once all the neighbours are rescued an exit door appears to take you on your way. Starting off in neighbourhoods levels soon take you to many varied locations. You get super markets, hedge mazes, castles, pyramids and much more each one populated with specific enemy types.

Zombies are the most frequent enemy type but there are a large variety of other monsters taken from the best B-movies have to offer. There are Jason Vorhees inspired hockey mask wearing brutes armed with axes (chainsaws in America, but censored for Europe), Chucky inspired evil knife wielding dolls, martians, blobs, giant ants, werewolves, vampires, building sized babies and countless others. The one thing you cannot complain about is lack of variety. To battle these creatures you have access to a lot of power ups and weapons. Rather than guns you have household items. Water pistols, tomatoes, cutlery, plates, soda cans. These all work best against specific enemy types so constantly changing up your weapon is needed to succeed. power ups include a potion that turns you into a hulking monster or a ghost, inflatable clowns that act as decoys and first aid kits to restore lost health.

Special mention has to go to the music, since I first heard it in the early 90's the level 1 music has permanently been scarred into my brain, all the music is pretty damn good but with 50 levels and only a handful of tunes they can get a bit samey after a while.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a damn tough game! You have 3 lives and your energy bar does not replenish between levels. Starting off with 10 people to rescue if one dies they stay dead which on the plus side makes the level that little bit shorter but on the flip side there is more chance of losing the game as it is game over should all 10 be killed. I admit I did not complete this, I never have been able to but after the first 20 levels I am always a bit bored. I wouldn't usually complain about the length of a game but this is just too long due to the repetitive nature of what you are doing. The weapons don't feel like they have much impact and are fiddly to switch between, and many enemies are too tough meaning you get swarmed by creatures you simply don't have the fire power to beat without taking massive damage.

While I do like this game and the sheer amount of variety you get given it is just too hard for it's own good. A password system every five levels helps with this but I just wish you were given more of a fighting chance when it comes to fighting the monsters. Also occasionally you have no chance to save neighbours before they are killed which is always frustrating. So a rough diamond but the graphics and music still hold up today and I imagine it is less boring in two player mode.

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Bram Stoker's Dracula (1993) - Megadrive/Genesis Horror Videogame Review

I have quite the backlog of games to be playing, today I chose Bram Stoker's Dracula based on the film of the same name from 1992. You play as Keanu Reeves' character Jonathan Harker, not surprisingly the bland depiction of this character injects 100% more emotion and pathos into the character than the cardboard cutout character Reeves played in the movie could ever do!

The game doesn't really explain what's going on, there are titchy level introductions that are quite vague such as 'journey back to civilisation' or something that opened one level, these introductions are shown in a digital book titled 'Vampyres' that is a fun touch. Anyway from what I can gather (and going by the game, not my knowledge of the Dracula tale) Jonny Harker starts off in a pub somewhere, where some bloke with a hat tells him via a dream bubble to retrieve a...tooth? Stick? something or other. So Harker leaves and battles a ten foot tall man with a whip. Later on he finds himself in Dracula's castle, battles a fire breathing dragon, and a ten foot tall Dracula who flings fireballs Castlevania style, and then gets chased by Dracula's brides out into the countryside. Eventually he gets home to a mansion in London...then I died by a low flying bat.

Hey! You may say, you did not complete this! Well no, I didn't but I did complete it on Trainer mode which gives you the first and fourth level to play through only. Like most movie tie ins of the early nineties this is a platformer. Harker is armed with a sword and can pick up limited use guns. Levels are open ended, an arrow kinda points where you need to go. Enemies mostly consist of bats, rats, spiders, and wolves. Every now and again a human opponent will appear, later levels see the appearance of skeletons, ghosts and zombies. 

Six levels make up the game, each broken into two acts. The first act has you exploring an area to locate what I assume is Van Helsing who thinks an item at you, then with this thought you must then locate the exit (not an exit per se, just a hovering arrow titled 'Exit'). The next stage is a more straightforward left to right jobby that ends in a boss battle with a usually unexplained giant boss. My favourite boss was a monstrous 'Flash' style character who zoomed around the screen in a blur before stopping to throw knives at you. The bosses all explode when defeated for some reason, maybe that is explained in the film?

Dracula has the feel of an old Amiga game. It has a nice retro feel to it and the music isn't actually that bad. Graphics wise it is ok, no animation to speak of really, a lot of the levels are grey and brown, not good looking. Hit detection is quite terrible, bats float through solid objects and you take damage if you so much as look at an enemy. Annoyingly enemies respawn if you go off screen. You character is patchy in his attacks, and enemies are patchy in when it will register your hits as affecting them.

I remember at the time Bram Stoker's Dracula got bad reviews, playing it now it does have a nice old school feel to it, it is not terrible, but it is a bad game that could have done with more care and attention done to it. Aside from one level where you are being chased there is no variety and as a side note zombies kinda just sink into the floor when defeated which is funny. Worse than average.

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