Lords of Thunder should simply put, be one of the most metal games ever. The name alone sounds like it could be a Metallica album and the opening title screen is this crazy dark parallax scrolling sky with lightning striking as the title appears to an over the top 30 second guitar solo sounding like Slash from Guns n' Roses just noodling that got recorded. Hell the music for this whole game is just top to bottom intense and for fans of this kind of music is simply glorious. Top it off with legendary manga artist Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the shell) doing the cover art and this game should be extremely special.
Unfortunately for this shoot 'em up the actual gameplay just doesn't go anywhere near as hard as the aesthetics it initially gives off would indicate it should. If anything actually it's kind of tame and by that I don't mean in difficulty though it does lean on the easy side but more the feeling, the whole vibe the game gives actually playing is just so static. I mean that almost literally in a sense, there is almost no parallax scrolling after the title screen and your character the Knight Landis has no animations at all, he literally glide hovers across the screen slowly while weapon pulses or sword swings come out of him. It just kind of feels unfinished, levels are short, slow and drab and a little uninspiring. There are 7 total and I barely really remember them or any stand out bosses. It's perfectly playable, but it's just not interesting. I expected a pretty intense experience like the opening sequence of Thunder Force IV to match the music but it sort of deflates a bit like a balloon.
It's not without it's own unique ideas though as it blends some RPG aspects with the shooting allowing characters to collect crystals as currency from fallen enemies to buy power, health and special upgrades in between levels from a shop. Unique ideas from the dev team but no real surprise as they would go on to create the Sakura Wars series 3 years later. The issue is that it takes the in level decisions away a bit as you choose your knight type prior to the level out of 4 elements that have different attack patterns and collecting crystals is, I'll be honest, kind of boring.
By the time I finished Lords of Thunder I did feel a bit let down because I feel it just didn't hit the heights I expected of it. Is that the games fault for lifting the expectations in the introduction to high in it's over the top metal coolness or mine for just expecting too much? Either way this soundtrack is getting added to my walkman at least.
Edit: On a side note the soundtracks for the Sega CD and Turbografix versions are slightly different and both are fantastic, listen to this much deeper sounding track for example.
Unfortunately for this shoot 'em up the actual gameplay just doesn't go anywhere near as hard as the aesthetics it initially gives off would indicate it should. If anything actually it's kind of tame and by that I don't mean in difficulty though it does lean on the easy side but more the feeling, the whole vibe the game gives actually playing is just so static. I mean that almost literally in a sense, there is almost no parallax scrolling after the title screen and your character the Knight Landis has no animations at all, he literally glide hovers across the screen slowly while weapon pulses or sword swings come out of him. It just kind of feels unfinished, levels are short, slow and drab and a little uninspiring. There are 7 total and I barely really remember them or any stand out bosses. It's perfectly playable, but it's just not interesting. I expected a pretty intense experience like the opening sequence of Thunder Force IV to match the music but it sort of deflates a bit like a balloon.
It's not without it's own unique ideas though as it blends some RPG aspects with the shooting allowing characters to collect crystals as currency from fallen enemies to buy power, health and special upgrades in between levels from a shop. Unique ideas from the dev team but no real surprise as they would go on to create the Sakura Wars series 3 years later. The issue is that it takes the in level decisions away a bit as you choose your knight type prior to the level out of 4 elements that have different attack patterns and collecting crystals is, I'll be honest, kind of boring.
By the time I finished Lords of Thunder I did feel a bit let down because I feel it just didn't hit the heights I expected of it. Is that the games fault for lifting the expectations in the introduction to high in it's over the top metal coolness or mine for just expecting too much? Either way this soundtrack is getting added to my walkman at least.
Edit: On a side note the soundtracks for the Sega CD and Turbografix versions are slightly different and both are fantastic, listen to this much deeper sounding track for example.
3 Comments
@Merkur_Schroeder - That's a great track!
@FallenGrace Isn't it? We had great parties with it, I've always had it in my metal DJ set back in the day and when I had a band we covered it. I'm really connected to that.
Merkur_Schroeder
11 months ago