For today’s review, I am gonna spare you all from my usual terrible intros, because before playing this game, I had absolutely no clue that this thing even existed. I was just casually scrolling around on the internet, looking for a game to play before I had to go back to the hellscape I call my own life, and I found this game called Hagane - The Final Conflict, and it sounded like it was gonna be the most generic thing ever. I mean, that is the impression that I got just from looking at both the name and cover of the game, which look like something most people would potentially pass up on renting whenever they would be strolling through their local Blockbuster. But hey, it was probably gonna be better then the next two games that I am gonna be reviewing after this, so I figured I would go ahead and give it a shot to see how it was.

When I did start up the game though, I then realized just from taking one look at the stage screen and listening to the music that I had actually seen this game before, but it had been a very long time since I had seen it. All I remember from seeing it is that it was apparently incredibly difficult, which did make me somewhat nervous to continue going, but not only did I find that the difficulty wasn’t really all that bad, but also that this game… actually kinda fucking rules. It was definitely lacking in several areas, which may or may not have contributed to it not being commonly known, but even ignoring those few factors, I had a great time playing this game, and I would easily say it is one of the best hidden gems that I have played from the SNES line-up.

The story is fairly simple for a game that has this setting and title, where a ninja clan known as the Fuma clan is attacked by the evil Koma clan, with them killing most of their members and stealing their most sacred treasure, the Holy Grail. However, in the depths of the chaos, one man by the name of Hagane survived the attack, and seeing this, a mysterious figure known as Momochi took him and brought him back to full strength, transforming his body to that of a cyborg with superior strength, speed, and intelligence, while still keeping his brain intact. With these new enhancements at his disposal, Hagane then vows to take revenge on the Koma clan, setting out to destroy them all and to reclaim the Holy Grail. It is a pretty basic revenge plot, and one that you won’t be getting if you just rely on the game’s cinematics, but it is good enough for those that are wanting to know a little more about what is going on and why your main character is so cool.

The graphics are… good enough, not looking too different from plenty of other games of the era that share a similar setting and premise, but it is impressive enough for the time, especially with the cutscenes, the music is… also good enough, having plenty of decent tracks for when you will be running through these levels and slicing down everyone you see, but nothing stuck out to me as being really great or memorable, the control is incredible, feeling just as snappy, responsive, and fast as you would want a game like this to be, even if the jumping can take a little getting used to at points, and the gameplay is also just as fun, fast, and snappy, while also making sure to challenge you in plenty of areas to encourage you to keep going.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Hagane, go through a set of five different stages, each having multiple sections that will have you going through several different locations to reach your goal, slash through plenty of different enemies, big or small, using whatever different weapons you wish to use while swapping out between them at any point, gather plenty of ammunition for said weapons, health pickups, 1-ups, and items that can expand how much health you have to help you out for the journey ahead, and take on plenty of big bad bosses, who were actually not that hard to take on, while still providing a decent enough challenge to where it didn’t feel like I was kicking around a toddler for a minute or so before moving on to kicking around the next toddler. For those of you who have played other similar action platformers in the past, such as Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi, then this kind of gameplay style should be very familiar to you, and also for those of you who have played those two games, you would know exactly what makes one of these games work, and let me tell you, Hagane: The Final Conflict works REALLY well, and was great to play from start to finish.

If you couldn’t tell already at this point, this game is an action platformer themed around ninjas, and if you are asking me, one of the most important things about a platformer surrounding ninjas is that the movement must be quick, and the combat must be fast and satisfying. I mean, that’s what ninjas are all about, right? Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi both managed to accomplish this by giving the player plenty of speed to work with and a satisfying basic attack to use to slice down your enemies, while making sure to kick your teeth in every once in a while just to remind you what game you’re playing, ya idiot. This game manages to do all of that and then some, providing very fast combat, a vast arrangement of weapons for you to choose from, plenty of different platforming challenges to face using different kinds of abilities, and different types of gameplay segments to make sure that the gameplay feels fresh and interesting the more you go through it.

Not to mention, the weapons that do get to use throughout the journey are very helpful. I mainly just stuck with the sword for most of the journey, because my inner Ninja Gaiden and Strider wouldn’t let me switch to anything else for a fraction of a second, but at points, it was nice to see what other weapons could do, such as a shuriken that you can throw at enemies and grenades that can deal some pretty explosive damage. In addition, there was also the chain, a weapon that could not only be used to hurt enemies from a distance, but also allows you to reach higher areas when simple jumps just won’t do the trick, which I used towards my advantage a total of… one time, but hey, it was neat to see it there. Mix all that with a special screen-nuke attack that can come in handy when you are in a pinch, and you have an arsenal that is both versatile and entertaining to mess around with, which is the best possible kind of arsenal that you can have in any game like this.

So nothing about the gameplay or difficulty stood out to me as anything to complain about, because while it was challenging in many areas and some of the platforming could’ve been handled a bit better, it wasn’t enough to where I ended up getting mad or too aggravated, and I managed to have a good time with it. My one major gripe with the game, ultimately, would have to be with its presentation. Now, if you have been reading these reviews for a while, you would know that I prioritize gameplay over everything else, because in most circumstances, if the game isn’t fun to play, then that kinda defeats the whole purpose of me liking it or playing it at the end of the day. However, I still do think that presentation plays a big factor into how much one can enjoy a game, and when it comes to Hagane, it is one of the most generic looking and sounding games from this era. Yeah, it still looks and sounds pretty good for the era, but none of it stands out as being anything original or eye-catching, looking too much like any other ninja-themed game on the market, hence why most people probably didn’t own it back in the day, and why it now costs about an arm and a leg for a used copy on eBay. It isn’t enough to where it makes the gameplay any worse, but it is something to bring up nonetheless.

Overall, despite its bland visuals and soundtrack, this still remains as one of the best hidden gems that I have ever gotten to experience from the SNES library, giving the right amount of satisfying combat and platforming elements you could want from a ninja game, keeping the challenge high but not to the point of being unfair, and being short enough to where you can breeze through it in an hour or so and feel satisfied by what you had just experienced. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of other titles like Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi, as well as those who are looking for something new to play for your SNES system, because I would definitely say it is worth loading up on your SNES emulator and giving a shot… cause you probably won’t be buying an actual physical copy of it for yourself, unless you have hundreds of dollars just collecting dust somewhere. It does suck though that this game never did get any kind of continuation or follow-up, cause I would’ve definitely loved to see a sequel come along to expand on what this game does, or even a hack-’n-slash reboot in the same vein as what Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi did. But hey, a man can dream, I guess…

Game #560

Hagane is a side-scrolling action game developed by CAProductions, who probably most notably also developed the Saturn mecha game Bulk Slash, and now primarily work on the Mario Party series. This lineage seems odd at first glance, but on reflection makes a lot of sense. Hagane is brimming with ideas. There are five stages. Each stage is broken into different sub-stages—1-1, 1-2, and so on, ending with a boss battle. And each of these brief sequences is typically a succinct exploration into a particular idea or mechanic—in the same spiritual sense as Mario Party minigames, but tied beautifully together in a side-scrolling action game package. Some of these ideas are based in the level itself, like autoscrolling horizontal or vertical platforming sections, or working your way through a labyrinth where doors warp you to surprising places, or bursting through a level by destroying walls, or exploring a cave system to find the boss, or the STG-like autoscrolling level where Hagane drives a floating bike (?) through the Mode 7-powered warbling environment of a crashing space ship; some of the levels force you to use a certain move that Hagane can do to move through the level efficiently. And Hagane can do a lot of moves.

At its core, Hagane is a Shinobi-style action game, but there's a surprising amount of depth to your movement and attack options. Hagane, like a Rolling Thunder character, can walk left and right and duck. He can jump and vertically down kick onto enemies heads like Mario, bouncing off them. He can ground slide like Mega Man, and there is a Mega Man 4 Square Machine-style boss that requires sliding. With the respective shoulder buttons, he can somersault left or right, which speeds up movement and can dodge attacks. Holding down the somersault button will have Hagane somersault a second and third time, going higher and changing colors each time, indicating that a different special move can be done—a forward sliding ground attack on the first somersault, an upwards flipping jump kick at the second, and an area of effect attack at the third. When the attack button is pressed during a jump to the left or right, Hagane will do a side kick. When the jump button is pressed again just under the apex of Hagane's jump, Hagane will roll forward horizontally; there is an autoscrolling level where you have to use this exactly. When you roll horizontally into a wall, Hagane will bounce off; by continuing to hold down the jump button he will ping pong back and forth between the walls, traveling upward. Hagane can hang onto ceilings and moving platforms by jumping from underneath them and pressing the up button at the bottom surface; there's a level entirely based around this mechanic, at least if you want to make it through without taking too much damage. And there's a special move Hagane can trigger at any time, if he has ammo for it, that does damage to all enemies on screen and makes Hagane briefly invincible.

Hagane has multiple weapons, but he can only equip one of them at a time; you have a button to cycle through these. Most of them use ammo that drop from enemies, but I rarely found that I was out of ammo for any particular weapon. There's the short range, fast katana, that will be your bread and butter; there are grenades that Hagane throws in a short arc; there are long range, fast kunai; then finally there's a slightly slower, slightly shorter range grappling hook, that Hagane can also throw at ceiling surfaces to pull himself towards them while jumping.

This tendency of multiple possibilities extend to certain enemies as well, like the floating house robots that can, and sometimes must be, used as platforms. Most bosses are puzzle bosses that require one or two of these mechanics, and using a certain weapon or two to capitalize on openings.

The sheer amount of things you can do, and the levels being typically so different from each other, reminds me a lot of another one of my favorite side-scrolling action games—Gunstar Heroes. And like with that game, it can feel like these developers only got to scratch at the surface of possibilities. A Hagane playthrough is only half an hour, but on the bright side, it never feels stale. The character and enemy art designs are all by the legendary tokusatsu film director Keita Amemiya, who is in his Zëiram era, which mixes traditional Japanese theatre images with nasty, quasi-biological robot designs. This works well for a video game because he likes sticking little spooky faces on everything—so you know where you need to hit them. Amemiya's involvement is what got me to play this game in the first place. I was really happy to find such a rich, cool action game.

A very solid action platformer by CAProduction. Great movement, smart enemy placement and really good boss fights. The game rewards memorization and solid strategies for each section, and the more you have memorized, the faster you'll get through the game -- a thrilling combination.

My only criticisms are that bombs and health pickups, as well as 1-ups, are RNG drops from enemies, who all drop an item upon death. I feel this makes the game much easier than it should, and all those should instead be carefully placed items in certain stages. It didn't take me long to get a No-Death clear, around 8 - 12 hours, if I had to estimate. However, that was due to the hardest two stages in the game, which killed several runs, 1-4 and the Final Boss, which is a chase sequence involving good knowledge of the platforming tools you have. This would have been a far faster clear without those two run killers.

There's a large variety of interesting tools you can use for various situations, and I never felt any tool was just for show. I ignored the more overpowered super attacks and backflips, but you can easily find many different ways to approach stages and bosses.

Worth a play. It's no Shinobi, but it's still a great action platformer that's well worth your time.

Unmistakably Shinobi in its art, music and platforming philosophies, but its execution of combat has a robustness and snappiness more akin to Mega Man X and Zero. It's a great play during its many boss encounters, but most setpieces and platforming sections kill the experience. There's this air roll attack you have to use to get extra horizontal distance in most sections, but much like Shinobi's double jump, it can only be activated at a specific point of the jump arc; hit it before reaching your jump's apex or a ceiling, or else it cancels out. You need this for MULTIPLE do-or-die sections as early as stage 2, and it never feels somewhat reliable. At least in Shinobi (III specifically), the double jump usually isn't mandatory until the end-game, when you've already learned its specific rhythm. There's also weight and audible cues that help ease the stinginess of the timing. There's nothing of the sort in Hagane, and they make this strict design quirk worse by cutting your horizontal jump speed in half. Addressing this problem could easily bump this 1 or 2 points in my book, but it was too much of an issue for too often of the run.