The original Turrican is a fucking piece of shit game that I’m surprised ever managed to spawn an entire series that ran 5 years or so back in the day………. but, thanks to re-releases adding features that made the game more tolerable as a result, I ended up liking it by the end. Not only that, but the game had plenty of other elements going for it as well if you ignore all of its flaws, such as Turrican’s overabundance of weapons and tools he uses to defeat his foes and proceed through the levels, the way that the levels progress that don’t make the game feel too linear and boring (for a bit, anyway), as well as plenty of other small bits and pieces that caused me to have a good time with the game despite all of its faults. And hey, even back in the day, it managed to get positive review scores all around, because every single video game critic back then were naive and didn’t know any better, so of course, it managed to get a sequel, which would be released just one year later under the name of Turrican II: The Final Fight, even though this would not be the last Turrican game, so that title is pretty dumb.

Honestly, I was actually looking forward to jumping back into this series again after the month or so it has been since I played through that original game. Yeah, I figured it wasn’t gonna be that much better, since most sequels from this point in time didn’t really like to change that much about the original formula to improve upon anything, but with the added help of what the Turrican Flashback collection gives us once again, I’m sure I was gonna have a solid time with it all around regardless. And hey, thankfully, I was right, because thanks to those things I just mentioned a second ago, Turrican II manages to be yet another good game in this series, and a slight improvement over what we got in the original Turrican. It doesn’t do that much to make it stand out in comparison to the previous game, but the small changes that can be seen here and there, both subtly or otherwise, make the game much more playable and bearable as a result, making it so that I had a much better time with it as a whole.

The story is actually somewhat of a change of pace compared to the last game, where in the distant future of 3025, the space colony ship known as Avalon 1 is drifting through the far reaches of space, where seemingly nothing bad could possibly go wrong, when suddenly, a mysterious battle-cruiser shows up and attacks the ship, with the soldiers on said cruiser killing everyone on board the Avalon 1 all under the order of a mysterious entity known as “The Machine”. After these attackers leave, one sole survivor named Bren McGuire gets up and heads to a room that houses several Turrican suits, which are built from some of the most advanced technology ever known to mankind. He dons one of the suits and sets out to not only stop The Machine and his crew from wiping out the rest of the galaxy, but to also exact revenge for all of his fallen comrades. It is a pretty detailed plot for this kind of game, even giving us an opening intro to show it all to us, and it is pretty neat, even if the plot itself is, once again, pretty generic, but who cares at this point.

The graphics are…. pretty much the same as the original, not looking too different from the original in too many ways, but there are some improvements in terms of the animations seen for Turrican and others, the music is alright, having plenty of decent tracks to listen to, as well as some other ones that are pretty forgettable, but in the end, nothing really stuck with me too much, which does suck, but what can ya do, and the gameplay/control is exactly the same as it was in the original game (for the most part), so if you are one who is an expert on what the original game had to offer, then you will feel right at home when it comes to this sequel.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Bren McGuire, go through a set of eleven different levels that will take you all of the same exact worlds that we had seen in the previous game (with some left out here or there), fight your way through many different foes using one of the MANY different weapons that you have at your disposal, gather MANY different power ups that will help you along the way in plenty of ways, such as healing yourself, providing temporary invincibility, and changing up your weapon type, and take on plenty of bosses that will test your might and skill, not being quite as bullshit as what we got beforehand, but still providing quite a challenge that you will need to be ready to take on at all costs. In many respects, this is a pretty typical sequel, keeping a lot of the same elements and quirks about that original game in tact, which could make this seem like a whatever game at the end of the day, but, when you compare the two back to back, you realize that a lot has changed from the original, which was definitely for the best.

Make no mistake though, as this is, for the most part, still very much like the original game: you run through non-linear levels, taking down plenty of baddies big or small, using your tools to help you get through the levels, and so on and so forth. However, there were changes made all over the place that make doing this all the more bearable, such as the fact that you no longer have limited ammunition for your weapons, and the levels were made a HELL of a lot better. In the previous game, a lot of these levels felt like a bunch of huge, overly complicated mazes, with you being given little time to explore everything to see where to go and what you can get before reaching the end of the stage, making some stages feel pretty frustrating and last a hell of a lot longer then they should. Here on the other hand, while a lot of the levels still have a maze-like aspect to them, it is made way less complicated here, with you being able to find where you need to go not through obvious implications, but just through naturally exploring around, and not having to rely on bullshit time limits to not screw you over. This also applies to the amount of enemies you will fight and the overall difficulty of the game, which isn’t completely gone here unfortunately, but it does feel MUCH more manageable, making for a relatively smooth experience all the way through.

What also helps make the game a lot more fun and interesting then the original is that they actually put in a bit of variety when it comes to the gameplay. Again, like I mentioned before, most of the original game stuck to the same format of these side-scrolling maze-like levels, with maybe an auto-scrolling section here or there, but it was nothing too different or more fun than what we had before. Here though, not only are some other gimmicks implemented into these levels to make them feel more unique, but they also sometimes change up the gameplay entirely, with three levels of the game putting you inside of a spaceship and having you take on a horizontal shmup, which was definitely a very pleasant surprise to be sure…….. it doesn’t change up how the game feels too much, but it was still fun regardless, especially as someone who is a big fan of shmups.

Unfortunately though, sometimes old habits die hard, as for all of the good changes that can be seen within this game all the way through, the problems from the original game, while toned down here, aren’t completely gone, and if you are someone who was really frustrated with these issues from the last game, you will still find yourself frustrated here. The game is still very hard, the enemies and bosses can still be a pain in the ass to deal with, you still have no invincibility frames, and there are also still plenty of bullshit moments that can get you killed. One such instance I remember quite vividly would be with the case of Stage 3-2, which is one of the shmup stages I mentioned earlier, where while you are flying through the stage and taking out all of the enemies, the game decides randomly to veer you towards the right of the screen, where you need to hide in the EXACT CENTER of this very small corner, and if you are just a LIIIIIIIIITLE bit off, you will either die, or lose a large portion of your health, causing you to die. That is just bullshit, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, so thanks for that developers. Trust me, I have two middle fingers going straight towards you for that one. Yeah, trust me, those save states and rewinding features I mentioned in the last review are also kind of mandatory here if you want to get any enjoyment out of this game, because trust me, you will NEED them for some of these sequences.

Overall, despite the problems from the previous game still liking to rear their ugly heads around the corner every now and then, Turrican II managed to be just that little bit of an improvement over the original game to where I would say I ended up liking it more than the original, and I would consider it a good game, giving players plenty of what they did love about that original title and slightly expanding on it to make it that much more memorable and enjoyable as a result. I would recommend it for those who loved the original game, but once again, just like the original game, you would probably be best off using either the collection or some kind of emulator for this game, because without it, you could potentially end up having a pretty bad time, and nobody wants that. Let’s just hope that the next games in the series manage to tone down on some of the BS a little bit, and I will have an easier time with them. I mean, hey, the next game in the series was released on the NES, which is my territory, so I feel like I could- AAAAAAAAAND it was only released in Europe. sigh....... welp, off to my pirate ship I go!

Game #623