Super FamiComplete #9: SD: The Great Battle (Redux)

Title: SD: The Great Battle

Release Date: 12/29/90 (JP)

Developer: Banpresto

Publisher: Banpresto

Our game this time, SD: The Great Battle, has two distinct pleasures: it is the first game on our list to be a Japanese exclusive title, and the last game released for the Super Famicom in 1990.

Background
This game, by Banpresto (no surprise if you haven't heard of them; they developed only a few series that made it to the US, such as Pocky & Rocky and the Super Robot Wars series), is a part of the Compati Hero series. This is a cross-over series from three well known (at least in Japan) properties: Ultraman, the Gundam series, and the Kamen Rider, though sometimes other licensed heroes would make appearances as well. The Compati Hero series is actually a very large series in Japan; there were three games before this in the main series for the Famicom, and then there were four more sequels for the Super Famicom after this game. This doesn't even count all the games that came out for other platforms, or their spin-off games, such as Compati Hero Sports or Compati Hero RPG. 

The "SD" in the title stands for "slightly deformed," since, as you can see above, each of the heroes and villains are shorter, more cartoony versions of their normal selves. They have been "chibi"-i-fied. Each of the main heroes, in their own right, have a huge following in Japan, and are the protagonists of their own brand of tokakatsu ("special effects" shows, like Power Rangers) films or shows (such as the Kamen Rider or Ultraman) or anime shows (such as Gundam).

Here's a quick intro for each of the playable characters...

This mamma-jamma is Ultraman. Ultraman was the "star" of his own television series, Ultraman (a spinoff of the show Ultra Q) where he defended Tokyo from the giant monsters and aliens that sought to destroy it. Ultraman is actually a human member of the Science Patrol, a branch of the UN whose job it is to investigate aliens and giant monsters. Whenever the world is threatened he uses a magical artifact in order to increase his size and grant himself the powers of telekinesis and the ability to use the "Ultra Ray" and "Ultra Slash." These last two abilities, in particular, are worth mentioning as they are the two attacks that Ultraman can use in the game.

The second playable character is the above gentleman, the Kamen (or Masked) Rider. He, as well, came from another popular Japanese television and manga series. He is supposed to be the product of cruel experiments by his mortal enemies, the terrorist group known as the Shocker, which resulted in him becoming a mutant cyborg.

The final character is the main Gundam mech suit from the Mobile Suit Gundam series. If you haven't seen this wildly popular series, it is a space opera anime series which focuses on a war for independence between the Earth Federation of planets and colonies and a principality known as Zeon. What makes this war interesting, though, is that it is fought between giant mech armors instead of just spaceships...Awesome. It became a wildly popular show in Japan, and certainly revolutionized the genre of "mech" anime. It is a pretty fantastic show and worth the time to check out.

Story
Of course, we have kind of forgotten to talk about the game itself. While the source material for these games each have pretty rich stories themselves, the story of this game is rather simple. The main villain is Dark Brain, an evil cloaked cyborg (he has a human brain) who has invaded the lands of the heroes with his army of minions, and is starting to perform cruel experiments on the people of the land.

In fact, one of these experiments whom you rescue becomes one of the playable characters in the next installment, Great Battle II.

Gameplay

 SD: The Great Battle is a top-down platformer with a psuedo-run-n-gun feel to it (if you remember or have played Pocky & Rocky then you know exactly what I am talking about). The goal is to make it through the level, platforming and shooting enemies, while defeating the certain mini-bosses to make it all the way to the end boss of the stage. There are platforms to jump on and from, sometimes a lot of enemies on the screen at once, and some environmental hazards in each level, but overall the game is simple gameplay-wise.

One of the nice features of the game is that you are not locked into any of the characters that you pick, but instead can switch through each of the characters whenever you like by just pressing "R." One of the neater touches of the game is one that I feel is a perk and a detractor. The game has well done music, and the game will play the popular theme of whatever hero you are playing as; the only problem with this is that the only music in each stage (aside from the boss music) is the theme of each character. This gets incredibly repetitive; it's the same problem that Kablooey had, except thankfully Great Battle is much quicker than that one.

Is this game good? Well...its okay. There are seven stages to get through, each with a different aesthetic theme. The concept for each stage seems really cool: the first stage is a series of floating islands overtop a forest (it is actually pretty)...

 ...and the fourth is this world of crystals that reminded me of the final dungeon of Final Fantasy IV.

While the idea of each stage is good, the execution of each stage, though, is mediocrely handled. Those floating islands, while pretty and show of the Mode 7 design once again, are just a series of grass platforms. The enemies in each stage just mill about aimlessly, either on the ground or in the air, and will every so often absentmindedly shoot a projectile at you. Most enemies take one or two hits to kill, so they are rarely ever a threat to you as a player.

The platforming in the game is rather abysmal as well. You only can move at one speed, which makes avoiding attacks rather difficult, and your jumps are rather stunted (especially with the Gundam). Every "platforming" part of a level usually consists of jumping onto a moving platform that will take you to the next main "island" of the level, and the jumps to get on to them are sometimes challenging, but in a poor controls kind of way, not in a satisfyingly constructed platforming challenge kind of way. You see, the game builds in invisible borders on the islands so that you can't fall off of them. Smart, but remember most games with platforming usually require you to run right up onto the edge in order to make a jump, and the invisible borders seem to be a bit larger than they should be. So what happens is you will be moving to make a jump, run right into this invisible border, hit the jump button...but your timing did not take into account the invisible wall, and you have already taken  your hand off the move button; so your jump only moves you half of what it was supposed to, causing you to fall to your death.

At first it isn't too bad, but in later levels you have to move down narrow platforms, and the invisible borders will actually lock your character into place sometimes, allowing him to get pinned down while enemies are attacking him.

The boss fights are the big highlight of this game though. They are pretty fun, though some are rather simple as far as bosses go. A lot of boss fights boil down to "shoot them as much as possible before they can kill you" but there are some that take a wee bit of strategy.

Overall, though, there is nothing too complex. Pocky and Rocky is a much better example of a game in this genre.

Let's hear some of those tasty Super Famicom jams...

Final Verdict
The game is definitely challenging, but not in a good way. It is a game that shifts variably in its difficulty. You can avoid damage in platforming if you take your time, but sometimes a whole bunch of enemies will swarm you and shoot in random bursts, making it rather difficult to avoid. You only get three lives per continue, and only two continues overall, so you can only afford to make so many mistakes. I will admit, I could only make it to the fifth world before I gamed over, then to the sixth out of seven on my second try, and I just couldn't muster up the interest to try to make a third attempt at it.

So there you have it, the first Japanese exclusive game for the Super Famicom. It is okay, and definitely worth playing once to see it as an oddity (it certainly is that). Personally, I am surprised that Banpresto actually released a game this early for the SNES. I thought they were a company that came along later in the systems history.