Turrican is a saga of several video games and have been on both SEGA and Nintendo platforms, even I think there was a version that compiles several games of the saga for PS4 (although I'm not sure, I have not investigated well). This saga I have played some games, but I have never completed them, I always played them a few minutes and left them, but I wanted to play what is considered one of its best versions, which is the MegaDrive one. Being a game of the run and gun genre, it is the perfect game to entertain me for a good time and so it was.
Today's Retro Review is about: Mega Turrican.
I'm not very familiar with the storyline of the Turrican saga, but in this specific game, it tells us that Bren (the protagonist of the game), years ago fought against The Machine and after defeating him there was peace and harmony in the world and in the galaxy. Many years have passed and again The Machine has returned to sow chaos and destruction in the universe, has managed to destroy a large number of planets and has enslaved many interplanetary beings. So once again, our protagonist must equip himself with his powerful suit to put an end to the threat of his greatest enemy once and for all. The typical story of salvation, but in this case of universal salvation. Bren must enter and travel through several worlds in order to finish with all the forces of The Machine and The Machina itself, of course, of the most typical stories of video games, but they are still entertaining.
Graphically it is quite decent, with a very retro style and that in comparison to the SNES version is superior. With a variety of elements and details in the scenarios quite successful, which makes it visually looks very good. There are several scenarios to go through, each with its characteristic atmosphere and elements that make it unique and very distinctive from each other. The colors are accurate and fit very well with the space theme and with the different planets and places to which we will venture with our main character. In the scenarios there are even details in the backgrounds such as lights or drops falling from the ceiling, which give depth and personality to the game. Among other details such as certain movements of objects or something else that make the scenarios do not look completely "flat". Many of the scenarios, have a very "industrial" and "futuristic" design very well designed.
And since I mention the main character, Bren has a very good design, he is not so big but with a well-defined sprite, he does not have a very varied animation, much less fluid, but he is pretty good despite that. The design of the enemies in general are equally very good and there is a great variety of enemy sprites, of different shapes and colors, they stand out a lot in the scenario, but especially the final bosses, as their designs, by far, are the best of the whole game. There is a certain enemy design that is a clear inspiration to Alien that looks quite good, imposing and grotesque.
This is one of the best soundtracks I've heard of the most recent games I've played, it's really incredible and the music of the first stage took me completely by surprise, because it's simply spectacular. The first soundtrack is the classic melody that conveys action and space adventure (so to speak). It is one of those soundtracks that after you finish the game you go and listen to it separately because of how good it is, few words I have to say about the soundtrack of Mega Turrican, because it is enough to listen to it to be able to witness its high and good quality.
With simple and easy to learn mechanics in general, but with a relatively high difficulty, Mega Turrican is an excellent game of the run and gun genre that will be a great challenge to complete throughout its 15 stages, which will be full of enemies, with different attack mechanics and ways to destroy them. The stages are relatively long and some of them very difficult due to the amount of enemies waiting to kill us.
To counter the enemy attack throughout the scenarios, we will find different weapons that we can equip to make our mission for the salvation of the universe a little easier. In the same way, we will also find the classic items that will recover our life bar, which are very useful in a game of such a high difficulty as Mega Turrican. Our protagonist will also have a hook that we can use to hold on to certain places, it is very useful to overcome certain areas of difficult access or platforming areas.
Mega Turrican is not entirely linear and has a certain aspect of verticality by offering us different alternative routes, in which we can find another emergent exit to the stage or hidden areas, which adds a rather fun exploration factor to this game. In addition to the fact that certain scenarios are not entirely horizontal scrolling and some will have vertical scrolling sections, where the hook is very useful.
Mega Turrican is simply a marvel of retro games, with which I was pleasantly surprised to play it, since, as I said before, I had played other games of this saga, but never completed them and had never played this one specifically. A highly recommended game.