Curse ReviewOne of the earliest releases for the Sega Genesis was Curse, a Japan release only. The Sega Genesis was known as the Sega mega Drive in Japan and in the UK, despite it being called the Sega Genesis in America. This was most likely due to some name copyright thingy, like with Star Wing not being called Star Fox back in the SNES days. Curse was one of those games. Hard, unforgiving, overly epic and a lot of fun. This is a game that won't be completed by everyone, but it'll be enjoyed by many that love side scrollin' shooters with different laser settings.
Since the entire game is in Japaneses, I had a hard time knowing what the story was. The game itself doesn't start with a story dialogue, and the instruction booklet is, indeed, covered in symbols that have no meaning to me. However a quick look on the internet got me a quick summery. Apparently, far far away, in a completely different universe, lived two planet living in peace and harmony, the planet Parceria and Seneca. However, Parceria had a little problem. For unknown reasons, they seemed to have all forms of communication shut off from Seneca. Parceria's world died down and soon became a barren wide terrain. Over the course of many years the Senecains saw Parceria less and less of a planet, but more and more of some useless, floating rock. Then, out of the blue, the Parcerians started to attack Seneca. Using a strange power, the Parcerian's were able to control the life on Seneca to do their own bidding. Seneca looked doomed, until they uncovered an ancient super fighting robotic warrior abandoned by the Parcerians known as, The Baldanders. Your mission, is to take down the Parceria fleet single-handily, and it's main battleship, "Mother".
You start this mission in a dense forest, move across to the skies of a city, and even underneath a volcano. There are five levels in total, which seems kinda short for a Mega Drive game. However, these levels are deviously tricky. The hit system is very well done. You can get hit by bullets up to three times and then die, or you can crash into an enemy or wall and die instantly. This means you can make a few mistakes to the several bullets being thrown at you, which is bound to happen, but if you crash into something, you're gonna burn en route. It's realistic and works well.
There are three different powers you can use for your main weapon. I don't know the names but my imagination can kick in. The "W" is the Wide Spread. It can shot through walls and covers a wide area. is probably weak and is an attractive yellow colour. The "C" is the Collider. It fires a blue ball. When it hits something, it explodes into several small blue triangles to hit other enemies. Is a slow firing rate and I mistaken it for enemy fire a few times. And then there is the "L", the Lazer. It fires sonic slices at your enemies at a fast rate. The more of one weapon you collect, the strong it'll become. Your default is some pea shooter that does the job if you spread it over a distance. Along the way, you'll also get some auto-firing missiles from "S", which I mistaken for Spread Gun, thanks to Contra. These missiles home in on the enemy, but are fired from under you, and often hit a wall befre doing any good. Then if you're lucky enough, you'll come across what I like to call a Companion Sphere. It'll shot while you blast away at on-coming foes. You can even change what direction it shoots in by pressing the C button. This is amazing, and if you collect two, they'll work back-to-back, so you can fire up, down and straight forward. Collect more and they increase their fire power to a wider spread. I love these little guys. And what side scrolling shooter like this would be complete without a bomb that destroys all enemies on the screen?
However, if your not careful (and sometimes when you are), you'll die. Dying is bad in this game, as you lose all your Companion Spheres and any powers you collected. What's more, you don't even get a single continue. When you lose all your lives and see that game over screen, you'll be taken back to the title screen. That's right, you go all the way back. Although this seems annoying, it increases the length of the game. It is only five levels long. Top that with the intense difficulty this game offers, and you're not going to see the final boss any time soon, unless you are one of those naturally amazing pros at these sorts of games. Even though it's tough, it's the nicely done sort of tough.
The graphics were fairly good. It was one of the first release of the Sega Mega Drive, so they did a good job for a first time game. The background is nice and bright, with distinctions of the sky and the trees, or whatever setting you're in. Your little ship just barely "pops" out, though, and sometimes you can lose track of things when too many sprites get on the screen and flicker. The animations are also a mix between almost smooth and jumpy. It's sometimes best to over exaggerate what something will do just in case the sprite over does it and kills you.
The music on the other hand is different. It's pretty cool, although the music on the first level seems a bit too cheery and calm to set everything in motion. It doesn't seem urgent enough. I always feel that the first level and the second level got mixed up. It would make more sense if you did level 2 first, then found your way into a jungle, which lead to a cavern to a volcano. Also, the music in level 2 is just amazing in setting the mood. The controls are fine. They handle well and are responsive enough to suit the needs of this game.#
Overall, i give this game a 8.4/10 This game is pretty fine in the terms of entertaining a player. The graphics were nice and colourful for the most part, the music was fun and the game play was compelling, until I got one too many game overs. Anyone looking for a challenge should check out this game. It was a shame that this game wasn't released in NTCS and PAL format. It would have been great to have this game in my collection without having to get an adapter.
Graphics
7 Sound
8 Addictive
8 Depth
7 Story
7 Difficulty
10
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