Irem Collection Volume 2

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Retro collections are all the rage these days, and it’s not hard to see why. With so many huge budget blockbusters failing to grab the zeitgeist, micro-transactions galore, and an shocking lack of memorable new franchises being created it’s no wonder many gamers – including many who never stepped foot in a real arcade – would be turning to classic games from a bygone era. After a few delays Irem Collection Volume 2 is here, the second of five planned releases and another small collection that represents a bittersweet transition for the Japanese developer, one with a certain legacy that signals the end of one era yet the beginning of another.

Unlike last year’s Irem Collection Volume 1, which focused on classic shmups Image Fight and X-Multiply, Volume 2 contains only a single shooter and two run ‘n game platformers: Air Duel, GunForce, and its unbelievably improved sequel, GunForce II. That’s three games (with their American / Japanese and Nintendo home console variants, when applicable), and not much else.

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Air Duel, released only in Japanese arcades back in 1990, is a fairly unexceptional vertically scrolling shooter with chunky visuals, a catchy soundtrack, and not much else. This isn’t a bad game by any stretch, but even for the time there was little to distinguish it from nearly any other shooter at the time. These days it’s known mostly for its melodic connections to another game in this collection (hint: they share the same composer). It’s still worth a playthrough, and I’m glad to finally see it ported outside of Japan.

Players choose between a jet fighter and attack helicopter, each with different attacks (the jet fires straightforward shots, the copter has a slight spray attack), and each can deploy massive bombs that obliterate anything in their path. Attack shots can be powered up and additional bombs can be picked up, but there’s not much variety in weapons or how they’re utilized. It’s always fun being able to pilot attack copters in shooters from this era (one can only take so many spaceships).

GunForce, released in both American and Japanese arcades back in 1991, is a run ‘n gun action platformer that feels like a hybrid of Contra and Rush ‘n Attack, with side-scrolling mayhem that includes blasting waves of enemies with guns and vehicles. The gimmick here is that your attack can be “fixed” in a specific direction, meaning you can keep gunning while running. This was an improvement over Contra-style controls that forced you to spam jump-attacks to attack certain enemies. Eventually, run ‘n game games would perfect this style with the ability to ‘hold’ your attack in a fixed direction by holding a button, but at the time the approach GunForce took was still novel and appreciated.

Admittedly, GunForce isn’t a great game, or even that good an example of a run ‘n gun game, but the original arcade version is still worth a playthrough, if for no other reason than to see the genesis of the Metal Slug series in its earliest, most primitive form.

What can I say about the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom port of GunForce, other than it’s a wretched, shoddy version of the game? The graphics are poor, the audio muted, the controls sluggish, the slowdown annoying, and the reduction of action makes a game that was fairly dull almost boring. Worst, the camera fails to keep centered while your character runs across the screen, making the game nearly unplayable at times (how can you run ‘n gun when the running screws up the gunning?). The only nice things I can say about this otherwise irredeemable mess of a port is how it sometimes manages to approximate the look and sound of the arcade game, and the screams are hilarious.

You can’t blame the console, given this is the same 16-bit hardware that delivered Konami’s superior Contra III: The Alien Wars just a year prior. Once again, bad programming makes a bad game.

Now we’re talking! GunForce II (aka Geostorm in Japan) is the 1994 follow up to GunForce that’s basically a sequel in name only, taking only the most basic run ‘n gun premise and ability to ‘fix’ your attacks in a specific direction but massively improving on every other aspect. It also has the ignominious distinction of being the final game developed and published by Irem, but even this has a happy ending as much of its development staff would reform under a new name, Nazca Corporation, and bless the world with the Metal Slug franchise before being acquired by SNK a few years later.

There are sequels which showcase such a dramatic leap in quality and innovation that it’s difficult to recommend their predecessors as anything other than curiosities. Examples include Capcom’s Street Fighter II, Mega Man 2, and possibly Streets of Rage 2. GunForce II is such a game. Practically everything we love about the Metal Slug games is present in GunForce II; huge and hyper-animated sprites, insane action, screen-filling bosses, a catchy soundtrack, rescuing hostages (bikini babes instead of bearded dudes), medal collecting, commandeering vehicles, and more.

Sadly, even the slowdown is here, demonstrating how hardware-pushing the developers were at the time. There’s a reason why diehard fans call this one Metal Slug Zero. About the only thing missing is Metal Slug’s trademark humor, minus the hilariously omnipresent babes. Seriously, the babes are everywhere, sometimes falling from the sky, just waiting to be rescued. What a game!

Apart from the actual games there isn’t any additional content or anything to put them in any historical context whatsoever. There are, however, an expected suite of options to enhance (or simplify) playing them if you choose Casual or Classic, like the ability to rewind play, save states, cheats, online rankings, shader settings (CRT, Vengeful CRT, Arcade Glow, Sameboy LCD), scaling filters, wallpaper, and credits. It’s not much, but some bones are better than completely barebones.

Conclusion

Irem Collection Volume 2 doesn’t offer much to those unfamiliar with the iconic Japanese publisher, and even a moderately skilled gamer can probably complete all three included games in less than an hour, to say nothing of the utter lack of bonus content. But considering how rarely, if ever, some of these titles have been ported outside of their arcade (or country) of origin does take some of the sting from the asking price. There’s no question GunForce II is the main attraction here, especially for diehard Metal Slug fans looking to see where it all began.