Post by wafflerevolution on Sept 11, 2013 18:05:55 GMT
Mercenary Force
Developer: Meldac
Publisher: Meldac
Platform: GameBoy
Release: October 1990
Mercenary Force is a fun little side scrolling shooter for the original GameBoy. But instead of piloting a spaceship through sci-fi themed levels as in Gradius or flying a World War II era fighter aircraft a la 1943, you find yourself on the ground, and on foot, marching forward against your enemies. In this respect, the game may share more in common with other shooter titles like Gun.Smoke or Ikari Warriors. However, Mercenary Force has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve that help to set it apart from its contemporaries.
First of all, the game is set in feudal Japan, and you will be facing off against samurai, ninja, undead skeletons, oni demons and other various creatures from Japanese mythology (and yes, even those crazy one legged cycloptic umbrella monsters are present and accounted for). Of course, the setting may be considered mostly cosmetic, so here is where it starts to get intriguing: at the start of the game you are given a sum of cash and must hire a troupe of four mercenaries from a set of five jobs. You may choose from servant, samurai, ninja, monk, and mystic. Each job type costs a different amount of cash to hire, has unique firing capabilities and special attacks, and also starts out with a different set of hit points. The servant, for example, costs only four hundred yen to hire, begins with six hit points, and fires long range rifle bullets straight ahead, but has a slow re-fire rate. The monk costs twelve hundred yen to hire, begins with nine hit points, and fires two lightning bolts out diagonally - very useful. Your choice of mercenaries does not have to be exclusive either; you can choose to have a group of four samurai if you like. Or, my favorite set up, two ninja, a monk and a mystic.
While advancing through a level, all four of your party members are present on the screen, move together as a unit, and each fire off their weaponry simultaneously when you attack. Each member of the party has their own hit points as well and they take damage individually. If one of your mercenaries takes too much damage, they will die, and you will be left with one less member in the group. And when the last mercenary dies off, it's game over.
. . .
You can also configure the formation of your troops on the fly; and the more members currently in the party, the more formations you have to choose from. A four member party can be set up in a straight vertical line, a tight square grouping, a diamond, or an arrowhead formation. Furthermore you can cycle the positions of the mercenaries in the formation, to optimize your "spray" of firepower. Considering the number of different mercenaries, formations, and positions, there are a wealth of possible setups to choose from and experiment with.
Furthermore, if things are starting to look bad, you can perform a powerful attack ability. The current formation leader of your party will transform into a larger being, unique to each job, and grant you invulnerability for a short duration of time. Although activating this ability comes at the cost of sacrificing the character that transformed. Clearly, it is a good idea to wait until the leader is down to his last few hit points before doing this.
Every enemy you kill will drop a yen coin which disappears after a few seconds. Picking up as many coins as possible is very worth while as you can hire more mercenaries between stages (if you happened to loose any). There are also a handful of shops placed in each stage where you can take a break and purchase food or medicine to replenish your party's health.
There are six levels total in the game and as with most shooters, a boss fight is waiting at the end of each one. There are also several mini-bosses to be found mid-way.
. . .
In the end, Mercenary Force is a fun scrolling shooter experience, although it plays and feels quite different from the direction the genre has evolved into. The challenge comes not from threading your way though an insane web work of enemy bullet spray, but from keeping your relatively large formation of troops away from the handful of enemies and bullets that do show up at a time. However, loosing members of your party doesn't necessarily make the game much easier either. Although your "hit area" may be considerably streamlined with fewer party members, your firepower becomes much weaker as well and you begin to lose the ability to take out all of the enemies that pop up. With fewer mercenaries on your side, your strategy changes from offensive to defensive.
(This monochrome edition of the CCU Game Spotlights was brought to you by Inkwolf.)
Developer: Meldac
Publisher: Meldac
Platform: GameBoy
Release: October 1990
Mercenary Force is a fun little side scrolling shooter for the original GameBoy. But instead of piloting a spaceship through sci-fi themed levels as in Gradius or flying a World War II era fighter aircraft a la 1943, you find yourself on the ground, and on foot, marching forward against your enemies. In this respect, the game may share more in common with other shooter titles like Gun.Smoke or Ikari Warriors. However, Mercenary Force has a few interesting tricks up its sleeve that help to set it apart from its contemporaries.
First of all, the game is set in feudal Japan, and you will be facing off against samurai, ninja, undead skeletons, oni demons and other various creatures from Japanese mythology (and yes, even those crazy one legged cycloptic umbrella monsters are present and accounted for). Of course, the setting may be considered mostly cosmetic, so here is where it starts to get intriguing: at the start of the game you are given a sum of cash and must hire a troupe of four mercenaries from a set of five jobs. You may choose from servant, samurai, ninja, monk, and mystic. Each job type costs a different amount of cash to hire, has unique firing capabilities and special attacks, and also starts out with a different set of hit points. The servant, for example, costs only four hundred yen to hire, begins with six hit points, and fires long range rifle bullets straight ahead, but has a slow re-fire rate. The monk costs twelve hundred yen to hire, begins with nine hit points, and fires two lightning bolts out diagonally - very useful. Your choice of mercenaries does not have to be exclusive either; you can choose to have a group of four samurai if you like. Or, my favorite set up, two ninja, a monk and a mystic.
While advancing through a level, all four of your party members are present on the screen, move together as a unit, and each fire off their weaponry simultaneously when you attack. Each member of the party has their own hit points as well and they take damage individually. If one of your mercenaries takes too much damage, they will die, and you will be left with one less member in the group. And when the last mercenary dies off, it's game over.
. . .
You can also configure the formation of your troops on the fly; and the more members currently in the party, the more formations you have to choose from. A four member party can be set up in a straight vertical line, a tight square grouping, a diamond, or an arrowhead formation. Furthermore you can cycle the positions of the mercenaries in the formation, to optimize your "spray" of firepower. Considering the number of different mercenaries, formations, and positions, there are a wealth of possible setups to choose from and experiment with.
Furthermore, if things are starting to look bad, you can perform a powerful attack ability. The current formation leader of your party will transform into a larger being, unique to each job, and grant you invulnerability for a short duration of time. Although activating this ability comes at the cost of sacrificing the character that transformed. Clearly, it is a good idea to wait until the leader is down to his last few hit points before doing this.
Every enemy you kill will drop a yen coin which disappears after a few seconds. Picking up as many coins as possible is very worth while as you can hire more mercenaries between stages (if you happened to loose any). There are also a handful of shops placed in each stage where you can take a break and purchase food or medicine to replenish your party's health.
There are six levels total in the game and as with most shooters, a boss fight is waiting at the end of each one. There are also several mini-bosses to be found mid-way.
. . .
In the end, Mercenary Force is a fun scrolling shooter experience, although it plays and feels quite different from the direction the genre has evolved into. The challenge comes not from threading your way though an insane web work of enemy bullet spray, but from keeping your relatively large formation of troops away from the handful of enemies and bullets that do show up at a time. However, loosing members of your party doesn't necessarily make the game much easier either. Although your "hit area" may be considerably streamlined with fewer party members, your firepower becomes much weaker as well and you begin to lose the ability to take out all of the enemies that pop up. With fewer mercenaries on your side, your strategy changes from offensive to defensive.
(This monochrome edition of the CCU Game Spotlights was brought to you by Inkwolf.)