Turrican: Simply one of the best lost classics of all time

[Krejlooc]

Thanks for the info, all.

I have Turrican on Sega Genesis, I'll admit that I haven't made it past the first level without Game Genie. There's two major problems. One is that up causes your character to jump even though jumping is also mapped to one of the buttons! Seems like they kept that in there as a "tribute" to the old C64 controls or something - I constantly find myself jumping by accident as I guess I sometimes subtly press up without realizing it. The other problem is that the life bar is useless as there's no recovery time, a single enemy can touch you and drain all your health in about one second. I'm not sure if this happens in the computer versions too.

Anyway, if I have a chance I will check out the Amiga CD32 ports. And I did get a chance to read the whole write-up just now. Nice work, Sonic.

Everything you mentioned is covered in my review -long story short, yeah, they're in the computer versions. You simply have to learn to deal with them. The lack of recovery time and hitback is initially infuriating, but you can adjust your playstyle to it. It's not insurmountable, it just has a very high difficulty floor. But once you elevate beyond that floor, you find that the difficulty ceiling isn't really that much higher. It just takes some getting used to.

The life bar isn't really useless, it's just old school. Simply put - you're not supposed to take damage. The life bar isn't a safety net. It's there to make the game manageable, but you should never lean on it. The trick to getting far in turrican is learning that exploration is linked to progress - exploring will yield extra lives, continues, and most importantly - life restoring power ups. They're pretty deliberately placed - you can always find a life restore nearby if you look hard enough.

Up to jump is just something you have to get used to. So long as I have up mapped to a button, it's no problem for me, but I can understand the frustration because I've heard it repeated enough. Zool 2 on the Atari Jaguar is the same way - despite having a jump button, up is also mapped to jump just like the A500/A1200 version. Just learn to only move your thumb left and right on the control pad, I guess.

Turrican 1 is also much harder than Turrican 2. I found Turrican 2 struck a better balance between difficulty and powerup placement, and I sort of touched on the ways Turrican 2 is more fair.

These are just minor quibbles, though. After a week or so of really playing the game, you should adjust. I did, at least. And once you get past these two (admittedly very archaic) design choices, you'll find that the rest of the game was well worth the learning curve. Don't let those two problems bog you down, there is an incredible game in there. It's simply unfamiliar to you. Think back to the first times you played contra - you probably died a lot. This is the same kind of game. You need to adjust.

[Hatta]

Sound advice! Similarly, you can invest in a CF Flash Kit if you have an Amiga.

If you're lucky enough to have an Amiga with an IDE port. There are some upcoming expansions for the A500 though that should make expansion a lot easier.

[Krejlooc]

Sound advice! Similarly, you can invest in a CF Flash Kit if you have an Amiga.

If you're lucky enough to have an Amiga with an IDE port. There are some upcoming expansions for the A500 though that should make expansion a lot easier.

Haha yeah, I should have specified. I have an A500 that I really never use - it's just sitting in its box for that very reason. My CF Kit is installed on my A1200. I use my CD32 most, however, because converting an Amiga game into something bootable on the CD32 with WHD32 is a breeze, and it's smaller. Just pick up an A4000->PS/2 keyboard adapter and you're good to go.

An SD Card reader for the C64 is required material today, IMO. I've gone through and backed up all my C64 stuff on SD cards because I'm deathly afraid of the tapes and disks dying (don't really have to worry about carts, I guess). I've gone through and backed up all my A1200/A500 games on CDs for the same reason (in addition to installing a CF Kit).

that's really the only draw back of these computer-gaming formats. The physical media is dying pretty quickly right now. You need to act fast to preserve that stuff if you're a retro gamer. I plan on putting a CF Kit in my x68000 next.

[marurun]

That's quite a detailed and loving write-up. Well done. I only wish I agreed with your opinion of Turrican. I have never played a version of Turrican I've liked. The gameplay just always feels weird to me, like something isn't quite right. Character jump motion and enemy and player hit reactions just don't feel good to me at all, for some reason.

[Nyukki]

Many thanks for the informative write up, your passion for the series really shone through and has made me want to give it another go.

I've previously emulated Super Turrican on NES, one thing that always bugged me was that when moving the screen would only scroll once you are quite far to the right, resulting in unforeseen enemies pouncing at you and draining your health quickly, meaning I had to inch forward which kind of took some of the enjoyment out. Super Turrican 2 on the SNES doesn't have this problem, do the computer versions by the original programmer have this problem?

[Krejlooc]

Yes, the older Turrican games don't scroll until you're quite a ways to the right or left of the screen. That generally adds to the slower pace I described in my OP. My general tactic when first starting out was to take a few steps then stop and wait for enemies to ambush me. After you sort of grow accustomed to the ways Turrican throws enemies at you, you can start to anticipate when and where they'll come from and the pacing gets a bit quicker. The thing with the Turrican games is that, much like Contra, the initial skill barrier is quite high. But, also like contra, the skill ceiling required to beat the game isn't that much higher than it's floor. That means that the first few levels during your initial plays are generally the hardest part of each game. by the time you get good enough to progress well into the second level, you're generally good enough to get very deep into the game. But getting good enough to get well into the second level could take well over a week of solid practice.

[Krejlooc]

That's quite a detailed and loving write-up. Well done. I only wish I agreed with your opinion of Turrican. I have never played a version of Turrican I've liked. The gameplay just always feels weird to me, like something isn't quite right. Character jump motion and enemy and player hit reactions just don't feel good to me at all, for some reason.

The kind words are appreciated! And you are certainly welcome to disagree. I personally don't understand your complaint with the jumping mechanics - it seems about the same as any other platformer I've played. I actually feel there is a good bit of weight to the player in the game - bouncing on the goomba-like enemies feels fun and falling down caverns only to go into ball mode feels smooth and responsive to me. If you're having problems with the jumping mechanic, it might be because you're not used to pressing up to jump. That is a wiring issue where you (and I) spent decades expecting jump to be mapped to a button that lays under the middle part of our thumb, not atop the directional pad. I would suggest playing a port where jump is mapped to a button press or (if you're using emulation) mapping up to a separate button. Or if you're using real hardware, picking up an Amiga Gravis Gamepad, which has 2 dedicated up and down buttons accompanying buttons 1 and 2. I found the Amiga Gravis Gamepad was ultimately what enabled me to really enjoy this series.

As for the hitback and invincibility timing issues, I have sort of a dirty confession to make. I did, in fact, play the original Genesis port of Turrican back when it was new. I remember renting it from Blockbuster Video and absolutely hating it, for the very same reasons. I gave the game an entire weekend to convince me it wasn't trash and, when it failed to do so, I wrote the series off for about 20 years. It wasn't until I began exploring Commodore's lineup of systems that I noticed there was a ton of love for this series. So much, in fact, that I felt compelled to give it another go.

Those faults you've listed definitely have contributed to the series obscurity outside of Europe. I don't think any Turrican fans would deny that. But, as I explained in my other post, while Turrican has an incredibly high initial difficulty barrier (and the the faults you've identified are a major component of that barrier), once you surmount them, the difficulty ceiling isn't much higher. If you can get around the faults with the game, you can get very far into the game, it's just that you'll spend quite a bit of time learning to adjust initially. Perhaps Europeans in the early 90's were already accustomed to these conventions (brutal difficulty, no hitback, up-to-jump... all conventions I've noted in many european action games and platformers) so getting into Turrican wasn't as difficult for them initially. For western and japanese gamers, though, these conventions fly in the face of what we've spent decades programming our muscle memory for.

Trust me, however, if you can adjust, there is one hell of a game waiting for you. I generally don't like to post links to let's plays because they spoil a bit of the fun of experiencing something new in a game, but perhaps a peek into the playstyle of someone who can beat the game without trouble would give some general tips about how to approach and play turrican, as well as cluing you in to what later portions of the game hold (and why so many are in love with this series):

Complete Longplay for Turrican II (Amiga version)

If you can't get past the initial difficulty barrier or adjust to the conventions, at least check out portions of that longplay so you can understand why I am in so much love with these games.

One final tidbit before I go to bed - skillsets among the 8-bit turricans carry over. If you get good at one, you get good at all of them. So if you can put in the time to master the conventions of, say, Turrican 2, you have 3 more titles awaiting you should you find the experience fun enough.

EDIT: OOOOH one last MAJOR tidbit that I completely forgot to include in the OP, one that makes Turrican a manageable game and a fair game in my opinion - it remembers the state of every enemy in the game. Enemies don't respawn, ever. Not between deaths, not when you exit the screen, never. When you kill an enemy, it is dead for good. This makes taking your time and clearing the screen of enemies a generally great tactic to always employ. It makes retracing your steps should you die much easier, and gives you a good feeling of progress. It also is a handy way of keeping track of where you've been in the larger levels - if you've gotten lost, simply wander around a bit until you find an area with enemies, and you'll know you haven't been there yet.

[Nyukki]

One day I'll give the Turrican series a proper go.

[GSZX1337]

I'd say, if you're serious about the games but can't play with a computer, track down an Amiga CD32 and burn RGCD's Turrican Trilogy port. it contains Turrican 1 and 2, along with Turrican 3 (an Amiga port of Mega Turrican).

Is this it?
http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/turrican- ... -cd32.html

[Krejlooc]

I'd say, if you're serious about the games but can't play with a computer, track down an Amiga CD32 and burn RGCD's Turrican Trilogy port. it contains Turrican 1 and 2, along with Turrican 3 (an Amiga port of Mega Turrican).

Is this it?
http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/turrican- ... -cd32.html

yup!