Super Thunder Blade Review

Game: Super Thunder Blade
Version: SEGA Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection Xbox 360
Year: 1989

The second game I have decided to feature is Super Thunder Blade. I really wish I hadn’t bothered. For those of you who haven’t played this before Super Thunder Blade is a Third person helicopter shoot ‘em up, but does swap to a top down view for boss fight. This really is one of the worst games I have ever played and trust me I have played some very bad games! I mean just look at the title screen image below, I expected the helicopter silhouette to fill in when I pressed start, but nope that’s it in all its glory, so not only one of the worst games ever but easily a contender for worst title screen ever too! Now I know a lot of the joy of playing retro games is the feeling of nostalgia and reminiscing but having never played this game before I really didn’t know what to expect… God was I in for a shock! I love old games, they are the innovators, game controls were super important, graphics although not up to today’s standard were still awesome in their own way (personally I prefer the old style 2D graphics) and new genres and ideas were born. But Super Thunder Blade disappoints on every count. 

Now that is just terrible!

So I booted up the game and jumped straight into the game without reading the controls or instructions and proceeded to die within about 10 seconds. There was a barrage of bullets coming from tanks on the ground and enemy helicopters from above. The main problem with enemy bullets is you have no real way accessing where they are headed, mainly because it’s incredibly difficult to work out the perspective. The other problem is the enemy bullets are quite large so they can be quite hard to dodge. On the other hand the players bullets seem to auto aim onto enemies so it just a matter of holding down fire to kill enemies whilst moving around the screen dodging bullets. Graphics are pretty bad looking back, but for the time they were probably pretty good. I’m not a huge fan of the old 3D style pixel art as I much prefer the 2D stuff. I think it’s just too confusing for players to get the right perspective. Gameplay as with all games in this era is bloody difficult, one hit and you’re dead! When you die you slowly fall to the ground and crash. When you use your next life you spawn on the ground where you died and you get to take off which is quite a nice touch. Controls are simply pull down to take off, then once in the air you use the control pad to move around. There is also a fire button and “hover” button. The hover button makes you slow down and eventually stop, but I found this of no use at all as the slower you go the more likely you are to get hit. 

A few seconds in and I'd already lost a life!

Half way through level one you encounter the first boss of the game. A rather huge tank. I did quite enjoy this sequence of play as you could get a better sense of perspective because your bullets aim in relation to your ship position. This was probably the only highlight of the game for me. Once defeated play continues until you reach the end of the level where there is a surprisingly nice screen transition, this changes the camera view from third person to a top down view. Once again I think this view point is far better as you can actually see what you are doing. The boss involves shooting planes and gun turrets on an enemy ship and once completed the ship blows up and the level ends.

Top down is just as bad! 

Finally once the game is over you realise that the title art might not be the worst piece of artwork in the game. Once you die you are presented with the most garish congratulations screen ever, I mean just look at it!!! You can also select a panda as your initials...?  

WTF??!?!?

Oddly the more I write about this game the more positives I seem to unearth… Maybe the totally shocking title screen made me hate everything else about this game?!?  Level 2 plays the same as the first level but instead of a city scape it’s in a desert, or maybe a beach? Quite hard to tell really! Unfortunately this is where I will have to end this review because the combination of the crappy game play, the disturbingly bad SFX (they will make your ears bleed) and horrific music meant I couldn’t take anymore! It is my plan to complete each game I review 100%, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception…. 

Gameplay - 2/10 Horrible controls, bad perspective and repetitive.

Graphics - 4/10 Graphics are poor, not for me thanks. 

Sound - 2/10 One word; nasty!  

Overall - 2/10 A truly horrible experience. I would recommend forgetting this game ever existed.