TAKEDA SHINGEN
Original Release: Jaleco, 1988, Arcade
Other Releases: Turbografx 16 (1989)
A Japan-only set of weapons-based brawlers that came out around the time of Golden Axe but don't even come close to meeting its standard
Takeda Shingen (Turbografx, Aicom, 1989)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
Takeda Shingen is the story of a famous Sengoku period warlord by the same name, famous for his crazy "devil walrus" armor. The game does him no honor, though, making him look like a muppet who only knows one repetitive overhand chop yet tries to fight entire enemy armies alone like he's in Dynasty Warriors.
With duder's severe lack of moves, the gameplay basically revolves around timing enemies so that they walk into your repetitive sword swing from above or below. You can't really square up with them because all but the crappiest mooks have longer range than you, and they constantly dance backwards just out of your swing range or just enter an endless parry mode that is impregnable. By far the most annoying thing is their extremely generous hitboxes though, coming anywhere near them beyond the reach of your sword gets you automatically bounced back with damage.
So the action is real clunky, really feeling more like something from an 80s computer game than the smoother action that was a main selling point of consoles of the time. On top of that, it has a very poorly designed "experience" system. Apparently you actually acquire more moves as you fill your experience bar, but good luck getting to that point. You get a fixed amount of enemies per screen, and you can't backtrack to prior screens. If you kill every single enemy in the first level, it doesn't even fill up 1/5 of your starting EXP bar. And you get absolutely no experience for killing bosses!
So it seems like the best strategy is actually to run through the levels avoiding as many enemies as possible, then just try to deal with the boss with your overhand chop, since leveling takes so long and will likely cost you too much in health from all the chip damage (mostly from accidentally brushing the force fields surrounding the enemies) ... oh did I mention you get kicked allll the way back to the beginning of the game when you die?
This is also a port of an arcade game made the prior year by Jaleco, but cuts quite a few features (such as two player action and occasional horse-riding segments) to the point it almost feels like an entirely different game.
Comments
Post a Comment