ULTRAMAN: TOWARDS THE FUTURE (SNES)
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Publisher: Bandai.
Developer: BEC. Released: 1991. Genre: 2D Fighter. Posted 20th December 2012. By Chris Weatherley © 2012 |
A fair few years ago the big screen adaptation of Godzilla sprang up to moderate acclaim among moviegoers. I pondered at the time if young viewers really knew of the origins of this giant lizard. Of course, they came from Japan, where local actors dressed in poorly fitting rubber suits, staged badly conceived fights in a setting of miniature houses and mountains, giving the impression of giant all-conquering monsters. Since the early sixties, this has been a cult aspect of Japanese television, and Ultraman was one of the most popular. A giant alien day-glo humanoid, selflessly protecting the ignorant earthlings with a few of his archetypal know-it-all earth chums. Typical tacky sci-fi banter. Such was the popularity in Japan, the Ultraman series not only influenced the children’s hit show The Power Rangers, but can still be seen to have a say in modern kids’ cartoons. The excellent Ben 10 being a classic example. Jumping on the bandwagon, Nintendo foolishly licensed a game based on the character, and the result was just as bad as the original TV shows themselves. Unlike the 1986 arcade hit Rampage which had similar roots, Ultraman cannot be described as a classic or memorable in any shape or form. Read on if you dare, but be prepared for some serious chastising about one of the poorest games ever to grace/insult the Super Nintendo’s hardware.
From the moment the title screen displays, you know things are going to be far less than great. A blocky and untidy titling, an awful sliding background of brown/purple mess with a cheesy and poorly composed hero theme; desperately trying to give you that Superman quintessence but failing miserably. No instructions or options are available, just press start and it’s straight into the first fight. Up pops a mug shot of the monster you will be facing, which has the colour pallet of a C64 but seems to be drawn by the hand of a five-year-old. You get this before every battle, and it does not improve one iota. Taking control (for want of a better word!) of your alien hero wearing a fetching combo of silver and red, you are tasked with fighting nine monsters in hand-to-hand combat.
He's Gudis, but let's face it, he could have been a Hellofalotbetter!
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Even Kratos was someone's butler before becoming a God of War
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There’s no hint of a storyline, so why you are actually fighting these monsters is anyone’s guess. You also only get three minutes to defeat each foe, and can only kill them with your best special move after their energy bar displays the word ‘Finish’. Of course, you are not told this beforehand. There I was, monotonously kicking away at the first guy and he just simply would not die! Finally working out what to do, I got to the second fight, where the tedium continues in relentless earnest. For a hero who is supposed to be the protector of universal peace, his range of moves is laughable. Kick, punch, shoot a laser, that’s it. The majority of these moves are utterly useless anyway. Only the kick or flying-kick effectively work and using your laser is pointless because you need to save that up to end the fight. The jump action is totally crap and is incapable of avoiding any kind of attack unless you perform a super jump, where you normally get hit anyway upon landing, attacking or not. Controlling Ultraman himself can be compared to controlling an F1 car made of lard on a butter-coated circuit. There is a delay in all of the commands, the button configuration is stupid, and everything takes so long to move and play out. The game mechanics are just entirely appalling all round. By the time it takes Ultraperson to walk the length of the screen, you could go and make yourself a cup of tea and read a short novella.
There’s next to nothing on offer to give you a feeling of achievement or advancement. Once an enemy has been defeated, it’s on to the next bout whereas you embark on the same dull repetitive moves, and trying to hit the guy with your daft laser at the end. The opponents do get progressively tougher as they become harder to hit, but it always boils down to repeating the same moves, over and over, and over… again. Sometimes the monsters just knock you over if you appear to have connected with a move, and at other times disappear off-screen for no reason. There is just no excitement in the game, nothing to get the blood pumping with its slow pace and clunky controls. You certainly don’t feel like a hero; moving around like an arthritic granny, slapping away at the air like a punch-drunk old boxer. However, after you become tolerant enough to the boredom, each enemy can be dispatched with relative ease up until about level 6, where it becomes almost impossible to hit anything without being hit yourself threefold in the process. The only personal achievement getting to this point is that you have managed to stay conscious long enough to see it.
There’s next to nothing on offer to give you a feeling of achievement or advancement. Once an enemy has been defeated, it’s on to the next bout whereas you embark on the same dull repetitive moves, and trying to hit the guy with your daft laser at the end. The opponents do get progressively tougher as they become harder to hit, but it always boils down to repeating the same moves, over and over, and over… again. Sometimes the monsters just knock you over if you appear to have connected with a move, and at other times disappear off-screen for no reason. There is just no excitement in the game, nothing to get the blood pumping with its slow pace and clunky controls. You certainly don’t feel like a hero; moving around like an arthritic granny, slapping away at the air like a punch-drunk old boxer. However, after you become tolerant enough to the boredom, each enemy can be dispatched with relative ease up until about level 6, where it becomes almost impossible to hit anything without being hit yourself threefold in the process. The only personal achievement getting to this point is that you have managed to stay conscious long enough to see it.
Ultralingerie gets attacked by five giant gold staples
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Ultraman attacks another Comic Con fan unprovoked
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You may have noticed I have hardly mentioned anything about the graphics. I have a good reason for this, as they can be summed up with one word. Rubbish. The backgrounds are dull, the intro screens are dull and blocky, and the sprites are equally as dull save for a bit of neat animation (Ultrasocks’ backflip is pretty snazzy). The monsters appear to barely move at all with animation qualities almost redundant, they are like stills sliding back and forth, and the general rendering is pixelated and shoddy. To make things worse, colour clashing also occurs with some stages and the vertical movement is just hilariously bad. While jumping, the foreground bobs up and down annoyingly while the background remains somewhat static, therefore dispelling any illusion of depth and creating some very strange physics. Some small parts are just about acceptable, such as the intro sequences, but overall I think the graphic programmers must have been out to lunch while the office cleaners had a bash at drawing the visuals. There is a little bright light with the audio however. Although the tunes are cheesy, apart from the title track the backing music to the game is not all that awful. The SFX though are pretty lacklustre, again with repetitive groans and shouts from Ultrapants with the odd laser sound or thump chucked in. The monsters seem to be predominantly mute apart from sporadic growls or roars.
Poor presentation and under-par audio do contribute to this game’s poorness, but the dominating factor is the outright un-playability of it all. Those who devised the gameplay, and then thought it was passable should be committed. Slow, crude, impossible in parts, zero scope, no depth… no anything really. I grudgingly cannot give it a 1 out of 10 because of the tiny bits that do work to a degree, but it’s a very slight call. I could make endless idioms on the Ultra-something name (I may have done this already), but I feel it fair to give you the opportunity. Any slang alternative to the words ‘excrement’ or ‘underwear’ will suffice. Feel free to put your suggestions in the comments box; they’ll all prove a fitting description for this poorest-of-the-poor Super Nintendo titles. For example: Ultra-Shit or Ultra-Knickers. I cannot emphasise this enough; don’t soil your SNES’s cartridge slot with this utter drivel.
Poor presentation and under-par audio do contribute to this game’s poorness, but the dominating factor is the outright un-playability of it all. Those who devised the gameplay, and then thought it was passable should be committed. Slow, crude, impossible in parts, zero scope, no depth… no anything really. I grudgingly cannot give it a 1 out of 10 because of the tiny bits that do work to a degree, but it’s a very slight call. I could make endless idioms on the Ultra-something name (I may have done this already), but I feel it fair to give you the opportunity. Any slang alternative to the words ‘excrement’ or ‘underwear’ will suffice. Feel free to put your suggestions in the comments box; they’ll all prove a fitting description for this poorest-of-the-poor Super Nintendo titles. For example: Ultra-Shit or Ultra-Knickers. I cannot emphasise this enough; don’t soil your SNES’s cartridge slot with this utter drivel.
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VERDICT
Visual: 3/10
Audio: 4/10 Gameplay: 1/10 Longevity: 1/10 OVERALL: 2/10 |