A long time ago, there was a little game company known as Game Freak, who around this time hadn’t really done anything too noteworthy in the industry. Sure, later down the road, they would make some absolute, guaranteed everybody-knows-them-by-heart hits, like HarmoKnight, Drill Dozer, and Tembo the Badass Elephant, but around this time, they made much smaller and more simple games, such as original titles like Mendel Palace, or even games based on already established franchises like Yoshi for the NES and Mario & Wario. All of these games were good in their own way (I assume anyway, because who the fuck actually played Mendel Palace), but none of them would be anything that most would consider to be spectacular, able to stand on their own and be beloved by many to this day. That would all change though when they would go onto making one game, one game that would launch them into a string of successes that are still going on to this very day, and this game would simply be known as…………. Pulseman.

For a good while now, I have been very curious about checking out some of Game Freak’s lesser-known titles, because I hadn’t really played that many of them. I have obviously played Yoshi, as you can see here, and I also played this other thing of theirs called Pokemon, but you probably don’t care too much about that, which wouldn’t be surprising, since clearly nobody knows what that game is, but aside from those two, I haven’t checked out anything else they have made. Pulseman is one that I have had my eye on for quite some time, not only because I love the design of Pulseman himself, but also because it looked like a lot of fun from the brief bits and pieces that I have seen of it. Not to mention, it was only released for us Americans through the Sega Channel, and as we all know, all of the best games were locked behind that service. So, I finally decided to try it out, and yeah, I did end up having a pretty great time with it, with the game managing to keep things fun and engaging pretty much all the way through, even if there were several issues that did pop up from time to time, although none of that stopped me from enjoying myself.

The story is……… quite something, to say the least, where the world is thrown into chaos by the evil Doc Waruyama and his Galaxy Gang, so it is up to Pulseman to set out to stop this mad man from getting away with his evil deeds, which isn’t really all that creative or interesting, but the weird and stupid stuff comes in when you learn about how Pulseman was created, which definitely caught me off guard. So, apparently, there was this scientist named Doc Yoshiyama, who created an artificial intelligence named C-Life, who was able to feel, think, and express complex emotions much like a human. After some time passes, he ends up falling in love with what he has created, and since he probably is a big fan of the movie Her, he uploads himself into his computer, where he and C-Life then proceed to have passionate sex, and from this sex, Pulseman is born…………………….. yes, that is actually part of the plot of this game, and I don’t know whether or not I should be impressed by the fact that they put that in this game, or concerned about someone at Game Freak wanting to fuck their computer.

But anyway, the graphics are, to me at least, fantastic, not only having wonderful designs for Pulseman and several of the other characters, but also having plenty of bright and colorful environments pleasant throughout the game that you travel through, even if they can be a little too much on the eyes at times, especially for those with epilepsy, the music is pretty decent, having plenty of great tunes to listen to while running through plenty of these stages, even if it doesn’t reach the same quality as other soundtracks from the Genesis, and the gameplay/control is pretty solid all around, being very simple on the surface level, but having plenty of gimmicks and challenges that keep you on your toes and have you experiment with what you can do, which kept things fun and engaging for me all throughout.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Pulseman, go through seven different stages through plenty of stand-out locations all across the globe, take out plenty of enemies along the way and conquer a handful of platforming challenges using your electrical powers for combat and transportation, gather plenty of different health items, extra lives, and temporary power-ups to help you along the way with whatever you are dealing with, take on several bonus stages to get extra lives by turning yourself into a game of Breakout, and take on plenty of bosses that will challenge you in plenty of ways, while still being pretty manageable to defeat. In many ways, it is just a standard platformer through and through, so anyone burnt out on the genre wouldn’t be able to get into it just from hearing a description like that, but like with several other games on this same system, the style and charm it has does most of the heavy lifting, while also still managing to keep the main gameplay fun, addicting, and, dare I say, electrifying.

Since this is a platformer that was made on the Genesis that was made after Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the key aspects of the gameplay is speed and momentum, which I think plays a huge part in why I was having such a good time with the game. Not only are there a lot of instances where there are plenty of narrow pathways for you to run down, gain plenty of speed, and blast your way through enemies and platforming challenges using proper jumps and attacks, but some of your more powerful attacks are charged up through running, where you can then launch a ball of lightning out of your hands to just obliterate your foes. This also manages to be a great way to aid you in proceeding through levels as well, as you can charge yourself up into being a ball of electricity that bounces around the screen for a good bit, which can not only allow you to reach higher places much easier, but also ride on electric currents that are pretty fun to grind along and jump to and from flawlessly.

Of course though, this game isn’t a Sonic the Hedgehog, so it doesn’t focus primarily on speed, and there are still plenty of different platforming challenges to take on, and for the most part, they were great to take on. Some of them can get pretty repetitive, such as having to constantly break these walls of bricks to proceed forward at plenty of moments, but thankfully, this is interrupted with plenty of other sequences throughout the game. They manage to keep the gameplay consistently exciting and engaging, while also being properly mixed with the more speedy sections of the game. Also, one other part I also really enjoyed is whenever you are fighting the Dark Pulseman boss, and you have to defeat him by stunning him by clashing with him in mid-air before hitting him, complete with slowdown and sparks flying to emphasize the impact. It isn’t much, but that shit makes my brain go brr in the best way possible, and made that entire boss fight much more enjoyable, even if it did get somewhat tedious after a bit.

I won’t lie though, this game is far from perfect, as despite how much fun I was having with the game, I can see plenty of its imperfections clear as day. The level design for some of the stages could definitely be improved on, such as with plenty of instances where you need to get through these very narrow gaps in order to proceed through the level, and it can take a little bit to get through them. Sure, you can always just turn into a ball of electricity to bypass these sections, but doing that can be pretty clunky at points, so it does slow things down to a halt, which I wasn’t a fan of whenever that kind of stuff popped up. Not to mention, there were several glitches that I ran into while I was playing the game, such as instances where I would walk through walls, get stuck in some parts of the ground, and even one or two instances where I was thrown to the other side of the screen for seemingly no reason. I’m not sure if that is just because of the fact that I was playing this on the NSO, but even then, it is clear that this game needed a little more polishing up before it was shipped out to the market.

Overall, despite some clunky level design here and there, as well as those few glitches that I did encounter, I ended up having a great time with Pulseman, being one of the most fun, fast, and engaging platformers on the system that doesn’t involve any blue rodents, and it is definitely one of the best late-release games for the system. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who are a big fan of old-school platformers, as well as those who only know Game Freak for Poke- I MEAN, uh, frantically looks through list… Little Town Hero (sure, why not), because if you think they are merely a one-trick pony and nothing more, this game can truly show just what kind of other games they are truly capable of. Just, you know, ignore that part about the story where the man fucked the computer, and it gave birth to a creature. Definitely wasn’t expecting to learn that myself today.

Game #554

Let me get this straight:
- when SEGA and Game Freak collaborate they deliver average but enjoyable platforms
- when TPC demands new mainline Pokémon games from Game Freak we get technical disasters

Seems fair.

It's OK. Nothing special. Did get a bit better once I realised you can instantly charge by double tapping a direction instead of having to run far enough.

The stages go through a lot of aesthetic variation, many of which are pretty cool, if a bit seizure-inducing. The actual layouts feel somewhat randomly generated at times.

The stages, despite having absolutely nothing to do with them, are all set in countries, such as Japan, USA, Thailand, Japan again and everyone's favourite country, Alaska.

I doubt the devs would find much success after this game unfortunately.

Pulseman is one of those cases where they came up with a neat and appealing character (as well as a gimmick) but stuck them in a painfully mediocre game. Being able to juice a platforming hero up with an electrical charge that can send him richocheting off walls and annihilating enemies is cool in theory, but the level design is often bland and uninteresting.

Stage 7, the finale, is a prime example of this. You would think chasing the bad guy down inside an arcade game would be awesome...but GameFreak decided to make the whole ordeal one long auto scroller where all you do is jump from platform to platform for five God damned minutes.

At least the game looks great and has all sorts of Treasure-like special effects (especially with the final boss- to my shock the game actually ends on a high note), but it is just not enough to carry a game. Especially not in 1994, when we had amazing platformers such as Sonic 3 and DKC coming out left and right. It's not a terrible game by any means, but you can do so much better when it comes to the Genesis.