LO1: Analysis/Review #5 - Bio-hazard Battle

Platform: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive

Genre
- Bio-hazard Battle is an auto side scrolling Shoot 'em up game that takes a different spin on a genre that was extremely popular at the time, combining both action and science fiction to create a fresh little concept for a fun but challenging game. Much like other games in the genre the entire game revolves around the idea that you'll go through various levels and take down as many enemies as you can, hence the name, whilst trying to accumulate as many points as possible and ultimately stay alive. You can collect power ups and extra lives if you're lucky enough to find them, but the meat of the game will always boil down to how good you are with your reaction times, whether it be to gun down an approaching enemy or to dodge incoming projectiles. It's well known that these games were ruthless and unforgiving, so the only way to beat this game is through sheer perseverance alone. To be honest it stands out pretty well from the other games of this genre, it has an interesting storyline which obviously had a lot of thought put into it, and whilst the level designs aren't exactly anything new with how most of them are linear, the backgrounds, the enemies and everything else are imaginative enough to get your attention and the action is great and the controls are tight. It's also a refreshing change to play as something living within a Shoot 'em up rather than taking control of a machine instead, fighting fire with fire, if you will, to take back your home world. It has a certain charm about it, but that may only apply to me because this game was... well, my childhood, really. Me and my brothers used to play this game for hours when we were younger, and even today I get all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about it.

Narrative
- There's no in-game explanation of the story, so you better have the manual on hand if you want to know why the hell you're playing as a living ship gunning down numerous alien critters that are out for blood. Turns out during the very first bio-war one of these sides used a retro virus in retaliation which in turn unleashed waves of biological weapons which couldn't be stopped, and now your planet, Avaron, is inhabited by monsters of all shape and sizes, but all of them are equally as deadly. The space station O.P Odysseus remains in orbit around the planet which houses the very last of the survivors, frozen in cyrogenic tanks for hundreds of years, until finally they are awakened after so long of being inanimate. Avaron is dangerous, but certainly not uninhabitable. You will now take control of one of the crew members who descends down to the planets surface and through various locations and habitats on Avalon to cleanse them of any creatures living there in order to make it a new, safe home for the remaining survivors. According to the manual this mission takes place in the year 2116, or at least close to that. The only interaction you'll get with the 'characters' in regards to this story is controlling whichever ship you decided to pick through each of these levels, though I suppose if you consider the enemies prominent enough to be classified as characters within this game then your interaction with them would be to blast every single last one of them into smithereens. It also helps that the target audience probably expected that coming from a game like this, I don't think many people would buy it without knowing what they were getting themselves into. Those unfortunate enough to make that mistake... well, the odds were against you from the very start.

Production Process
- It's pretty common by now to know that when a game is ported over to a different console there's going to be some changes, but the same can also be said for games which aren't ported over to different consoles and are instead changed depending on what country they're released in. Regional differences are nothing new when it comes to video games and it turns out this particular one wasn't left out, either. Crying: Aseimei Sensou is the title that the Japanese version of this game holds. Aside from the obvious name change the differences between the two games are minimal at best, yet they're noticeable if you pay close attention to them. I went through and tried to pick out the details and changes that stood out the most to me whilst playing through the game, it's entirely possible that I missed a few things along the way but, hey, I tried my best. Just to note with these pictorial lists the Bio-hazard screenshot will be on the left of the Crying screenshot which will be on the right. With that being said, let's get on with it.

Nothing extremely major to report here, other than the fact that the TM perched at the end of SEGA there is absent from Crying. The entire SEGA entry has it's own animation, too, where it curves in off screen, so it makes you wonder why they even bothered to remove it/add it in there. I'm not sure why this was changed but, it's there all right.

Probably the most major change that this game is given is the title screen to correspond with the name of the game. Crying certainly cranked it up a notch in terms of design, even as the title fades in we get a little animation of the bio-hazard symbol fading in from black and moving over to the left before the rest of the title comes into view, with the blue background being slightly wavy before it settles down. Bio-hazard Battle's title screen simply fades in, and that's that. The copyright and release date are still in the exact same place and the font style is the same, too. Let's also not forget the box art, shall we?

I had to go lurking around the menus for any differences, just so I could be sure I didn't miss anything. All of the ship graphics are the same on one player mode as well as the two player mode, even the red and blue cursor highlights are there. The font is the same as well. In the options mode both games have the five difficulty settings even though the difficulty in game is still different and there's no alteration in the number of lives either, having three, four or five to start with. One thing that has changed is that Lives has been replaced with Player in Crying. There's also the sound test. The maximum that Bio-hazard Battle goes up to is 48, whereas the maximum that Crying goes up to is 191.

It's not exactly noticeable at first glance, and trust me, I missed it my first time through, but Crying added the letters P, T and S at the end of your point total. You can probably guess what it stands for. A small change, yeah, but it's still a difference nonetheless. It may also be worth mentioning that in the first level in particular I noticed that the background scrolled an awful lot slower in Crying than it did in Bio-hazard Battle as you go down from space to enter the planet's atmosphere. Again, I'm not sure why this is, but it's just another to add to the list.

Full stops after the clarification that you beat a stage. Why not?

Enemy projectiles. I noticed this one straight away and you'll more than likely notice it too with how many there are this time around. Think it's bad in Bio-hazard Battle? Try Crying. It's a fitting name, because that's exactly what you'll be doing by the time you're done with this game. Even on normal difficulty the projectiles seem to have increased, not to mention I'm pretty sure some enemies have doubled in number as well. Enemies that don't seem to fire off any sort of projectile in Bio-hazard Battle do so in Crying. A lot. Have fun.

Characterisation

- Considering the genre of the game players would most probably like to have a character which can at least take a few hits, but this game is not one of said games. At least they make up for it with enemies that take one hit to kill and are sparing with most enemies that do take multiple shots to obliterate, though you'll see more of them along the way with bosses and with how the game progressively gets harder, as if it isn't hard enough. At least your character can dispatch of enemies quickly with your normal projectiles or a charged up shot, as well as the numerous power ups you can collect, so it's nice to know you're not being thrown into this without a fighting chance. Fans of Shoot 'em ups may even like the new abilities that these bio-ships have that they can play around with. With most of these sorts of games the character is mainly just an avatar in which you can place yourself into their shoes, especially in this game when no other detail of the pilot is mentioned apart from the storyline and the manual consistently refers to the player in a way which makes it seem like you're the one taking control of the ship, and you're the one who everyone is counting on to save the day. There's no actual development with these characters that I know of, they're certainly strong in their offense (maybe not so much defense) but personality wise there's nothing considering it's basically you in the drivers seat and these ships are nothing more than that, despite the fact that they're actual living things mixed with machine, which could be an excuse as to why they're void of any personification. They seem adequately equipped to deal with the atmosphere of the planet too, and the manual even says that the reason why you're constantly under attack is because the energy given off by your ship is what attracts them to you. If you do play this game to the extent that I did you may find yourself choosing a certain ship every time you boot it up to play. Every ship is different in it's own way and it gives a little bit of variety and experimentation before you figure out which one is best for you. The red and blue saw-shark like ship is called Orestes, being one of the fastest ships in the game along with Hecuba, modelled after a giant green insect. The other two ships, Electra, the red and green plated creature and Polyxena, my favourite, a gold and purple dolphin like being, are more easy to control, but in return it's harder to get out of the way and react to everything that's coming your way. Upon picking up a yellow energy seed both Orestes and Electra will equip what's known as a Fire Petal, a stream of white-hot fireballs, whereas Hecuba and Polyxena will equip a Spin Laser, twin lasers that rotate. An orange energy seed will give Orestes and Hecuba a Plasma Ring, which bounces off inert matter before exploding upon contact with living tissue, and Electra and Polyxena will gain a Seeker Laser, a red beam that homes in on enemies. Bond (globes of plasma which latch onto creatures and detonate) will be given to Electra and Hecuba upon picking up a blue energy seed and Nova (bursts of energy that travel all over) will be passed onto Orestes and Polyxena. Lastly there's green energy seeds, where all four ships will gain a power up known as Pods, which happens to be the default weapon for the Power Star, that little thing that follows your ship around. These seeds apparently change the genetic structure of the bio-ship, allowing it to fire off all these crazy projectiles.

Gameplay

- In typical Shoot 'em up style your ship will auto scroll through any and all the levels whilst you shoot down various enemies that attempt to destroy you. It sounds extremely simple, and it is, but staying alive... not so much. These creatures are ruthless and come from all directions, stopping for a split second is basically the equivalent of saying 'kill me' and you have to stay on your toes. The challenge in this game is insane. You start off with a default of three lives and ten continues but you'll go through them in the blink of an eye, considering this is one of those games that uses the one hit kill rule and the enemy placement is so clever in the sense that if you dodge something that would surely kill you, chances are you'll run into something else you didn't even see. This game honestly forces you to multitask and you better get used to it if you have any intention of beating this game, me and my brother have only ever managed to beat this game once and that was a long, long time ago. In terms of attacking you can manually fire, auto fire or build up your charge to unleash it as a plasma wall. There are also energy seeds which act as your secondary fire and collecting more of the same colour boosts it up, and the weapons slightly vary for each character you can play as, from homing lasers to projectiles fired off in a star like pattern. The gameplay doesn't exactly change in any way but the game always throws something your way to keep your attention. Extra lives are gained when a select number of points are obtained and you can also find them scattered around some levels, but don't expect there to be a lot of them. Did I forget to mention you can bring in a second player to help you? Nothing like sitting down with a friend or a family member and torturing yourself with a tough-as-nails game that makes you want to claw out your eyes after seeing that death animation a hundred times. Ahh, memories. Do also note that playing on Practice difficulty does not let you play the last three levels, so you're gonna have to get better at this game before you attempt to finish it fully.

As your selected ship is launched from the O.P Odysseus you will now have to guide them through eight levels in order to restore peace to Avaron, the very first of them being your re-entry into the planet's atmosphere. Don't worry, the incredible heat generated by this has no adverse effect on your ship. Flying creatures from flies to squids will attempt you fend you away from their current home planet, so watch out. The second stage is set in the ruins of a once bustling metropolis, now reduced to rubble, but the computers within the city are still active and many robotic obstacles will stand in your way to take you down. This stage introduces the first boss of the game, a giant slug like creature with a mirrored pillar on it's back. Yeah. Bosses. As if you didn't get the shit kicked out of you enough during the stage, now you have to go up against some massive monstrosity that'll go through your remaining lives faster than you could throw the game cartridge out the window in a blind rage. The third stage takes place within the humid jungles that the manual refers to as being in Asia... either Avaron is a renamed earth or this planet so happens to have a country with the same name, but in either case you'll have to get through this mess of insects and other beasties that fly all over the screen to reach the end, where you'll face off against a serpent-like being covered in flesh and bone. Moving on to stage four it seems that this particular cave, or Bauxite Mine as it's called, isn't one of the places spared from the nasty creatures that dwell within. You'll have room to maneuvor but you're not going to get out of there unscathed. The boss of this level is a rather strange looking shrimp which uses the slime on the walls of the overrun mine to cover itself in armour, and only by destroying it will you be able to harm it's occupant. Stage five drops us down deep into the ocean, with fish, urchins, mantis shrimps, jellyfish and whole other variety of sea enemies attempting to send you to a watery grave. To finish off this stage you'll have to take on a hybrid of manta ray, barracuda and angler fish all rolled into one big ball of oceanic rage that can apparently fire lasers out of it's mouth. Awesome. Stage six? Even more awesome. This has to be my favourite level of the entire game because it makes a huge difference from the cluttered mess of the other levels with the open sky and the clouds whizzing past your ship. It turns out that an automated warjet, once used in the first biowar, has seemingly reactivated, and is now patrolling the sky, capable of destroying any colony that you've now cleared the way for back in the earlier levels with it's immense power. The whole stage is now based around taking down this massive ship and once you destroy the first part of it's defenses you'll realise why this retired ship has risen once more as the wreckage breaks away: the entire interior of the ship has been taken over by a biological growth. It's actually quite terrifying that this problem has got to the point where these creatures are smart enough to control a huge warjet but at least it makes for an amazing boss fight as you chip away at the outer shell to expose the core. Inside the very lab that created these hazards (of the biological kind) is where stage seven will take place. It won't be easy as the defense mechanisms are still in place, and trust me, there are monsters everywhere. To say the least the boss of this stage is... interesting? I think? I can't even make out what they are, they seem to be grey shapes of some unknown entity that swarm around you and... that's pretty much it. It's one of the weaker bosses in the game, honestly, but the weakest one is the final boss. Yeah. After going through the toughest level possible, sacrificing your remaining lives to get to the end of the stage and finally see the last boss they throw some... orb like thing at you. Granted it is pretty cool that when you defeat it it's shell breaks open and a ton of creatures pour of out it, plus it's also pretty neat to see it have a second form which is even harder, but in a game that's entitled Bio-hazard Battle I was expecting something living for the final boss. I can't gripe too much considering it's still a good final fight but, it's a tiny bit underwhelming in my opinion. The ending probably doesn't make up for all the cheap deaths and rage-quits but, when you take into account you just beat one of the hardest games you'll probably play in your life, it makes it a whole lot better. The ending also leaves it ambiguously open for a sequel, but one was never made.

Target Audience

- I'd say the target audience for this game would mainly be boys, more than likely young ones too who would have had an awful lot of time to spare in order to beat this game. I'm pretty sure the only reason as to why I played this game initially was because it was bought for my brothers, and since I was constantly around them when I was younger we ended up playing this a ton, sparking my love for it. It may very well be the one game that got me into gaming itself, knowing I played games a ton back then and I still do now, it really wouldn't surprise me. Let's also not forget that this game was obviously intended for those who are fans of the Shoot 'em up genre, if you know what those games are like and you do enjoy playing them chances are you're going to be pretty good at them. This games offers a huge variety of weapons to mess around with and different ships to play as with multiple difficulty options as well, so there's a ton of combinations to try out which will make any fan satisfied. It's appealing because it's both old and new at the same time. The gameplay isn't any different from others in the same genre. Move right and shoot. Wow. However, the premise, the story, the ships, the enemies, the levels, the power ups, the actual lore carried through the manual and everything else makes this stand out so much more from it's competitors, and it does compare pretty well to others, but sadly it was under the radar, so to speak. It was overshadowed by a ton of games and it seems pretty unknown to most people, but that's alright. It'll always have a special little place in my heart.

Platform

- The game was originally made on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1992 but was ported over to the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console in 2007. It was also released on Steam in 2010, leading the total platforms that this game can be played on up to three, but none of them would ever live up to the feeling of playing the game on that old Sega console, the one it was best suited to. You can control whichever ship you chose by pressing the D-Pad in any of the eight directions available, the A button is used for firing off projectiles and the B button is used for charging up one huge, powerful shot should you hold it down for long enough before letting go. Pressing Start will allow you to pause the game. A also is used for selecting options on the menu and B is used for going back or cancelling things. The D-Pad in this menu state is used to move and highlight what you want to alter, as well as pressing left or right respectively will change the options available should you end up selecting it. You also use the D-Pad to highlight your character. There is no way to configure your controls in the options menu, but you can change things such as the difficulty, the number of starting lives you have or, interestingly enough, you can mess around with the sound test. Normally sound tests are things you have to unlock or use a code to get to, but here it's just sitting there for you to mess about with. Most of them are just normal sounds you hear through the game, but if you've ever wanted to sit there and listen to the music in a stage without the constant sound of you dying distracting from it all, you can do so here. Unless you're totally masochistic I advise you to turn your difficulty down to Practice or Easy and pump up the number of lives until you eventually get used to how evil this shoot 'em up can be. Good look beating the game. You'll need it.