Not too long ago, I wrote a review about one of my favorite childhood flight simulators: After Burner II. It was a memorable game that I can enjoy again and again. During my research on that game for my review, I discovered that there is actually a sequel made following this game: After Burner III on the SEGA CD. The reason why I've never heard of this game is because the arcade version was only available in Japan, and the United States didn't get a port version of this game till a year later. The only reason I was interested in trying this game is because how memorable After Burner II was and realizing that the third game can be played in cockpit mode made me curious on whether it would make the gameplay more realistic and more exciting.

      With this being on the SEGA CD, I had high hopes that it was going to be an advancement in how it looked and how it sounded, and at first I was really impressed with the beginning cinematic: the voice of the narrator, the better looking F-14 fighter jet...it all looked like it was going in the right direction. Then, I started playing the game and my idea of an upgraded immersion was crushed, crumbled up, and thrown away in the trash. The fighter jet didn't look like it has any texture at all. It looked like it was incompletely designed by a bad 3D graphics program. As my view moved into the cockpit, I see that a lot of effort was placed in the design of the cockpit, which looked decent. It has a forward radar, a damage counter, a speed gauge and a target window for missiles. This is probably the only part of the game where detail was apparent, because everything else looks either badly pixilated or generic. The choices of color for most of the stages are rather dull and bland and the design of the ground is simply one color with a random shape or object duplicated throughout the bottom. It doesn't pop out, which makes me feel less excited about playing this game. The graphics were good enough to tell what objects are, but not good enough to enjoy what you're seeing. I didn't think this was possible, but After Burner II looked better than After Burner III.

      The music in the game didn't help as much either. Compared to how catchy and upbeat the previous After Burner soundtrack was, this version had a less rock, more casual, orchestrated, or joy ride type of soundtrack, which was quite off-putting. As I was flying around my deadly aircraft of destruction, I didn't feel that intimidating when the music makes me feel like I'm in a hotel elevator. The sound effects themselves were decent, but most of them were recycled from the previous game, which is not impressive for what is suppose to be an upgrade.

      The game has the same concept as its predecessors, with the sole purpose of destroying as many enemies as possible with no real story behind it. However, the controls for this game are not as fluid as you would hope. Your mind is probably thinking of go one way, but the plane would go at a slightly different path. You can't tell if you are turning or how high you are ascending or descending unless you check the altitude gauge in the cockpit. Keep holding left or right would cause your plane to do a very slow rotation that can be used to evade missiles, but is less exciting than the previous rotating motion. So even though the controls are easy to understand, they are rather difficult to master, especially when it comes to avoiding missiles. There were so many instances where I knew the missile was coming this way, and I thought my direction was going to avoid it, but instead it lead me straight towards it. This could just be me, but the controls are definitely not as intuitive as its predecessors.


      On a positive note, SEGA did provide some new features that expanded the depth of this game. The big feature that this game was promoting is the cockpit view of the fighter, which is cool since the previous versions were from a third person point of view and it always seems like you are playing with a remote controlled toy. It also expanded on the types of enemies that you would be facing. In previous games, you only faced enemy aircrafts from the front and from behind. This version, however, has levels were you faceoff against enemy bases that can also destroy you if you are not careful. Finally, even though missiles are one-hit KOs, there are some fighters that would only attack you with their Vulcan guns. This is why there is a damage counter in the cockpit to record the damage accumulated from the attacks. This provides more variety on the dangers that the player may face instead of always expecting the enemy to be firing missiles.

      Sadly, with these new features, they removed some old ones from previous games, making the game simpler than it should be. First, the ability to multi-target enemies is gone, which means that your missiles need to hit one at a time instead of targeting more than one and fire that amount of missiles. This doesn't matter as much, because the feature that was added is unlimited ammo. Let me repeat, there is unlimited ammo!! This change didn't make much sense to me as the whole challenge in the previous game is to make sure that you are accurate when attacking enemies with missiles, with the risk of going into battle without your best weapon. Plus, this would encourage the player to just hold both the Vulcan gun and the missile button and just move around and aim. This makes the game easier than it already is and it ruins the feeling of excitement playing the game when you can just throw everything you got towards someone. Finally, the levels are not as distinctive as the previous games, which lose the feeling that the game is progressively harder and harder. When I played this game, it just...went. There was no sense of difference as the levels go on, enemies didn't feel any different, and the missiles didn't seem to go faster. This is not good for shoot 'em up players, for part of being good in a shoot 'em up game is through muscle memory or knowing your levels of the game. If the levels are not memorable, whether if it due to the dull environment or the incoming enemies, players would have no motivation in wanting to repeat this game or practice beating the game. 

      I cannot say that this game is necessarily difficult. With unlimited ammo and the game slightly slower than what it was perceived, it does feel like an easier game. Nevertheless, with how uncomfortable the controls are, I can easily get killed at even the most basic attacks. To get good at this game, one would need to be familiar with the controls till you get used to the logic behind the game controls. That isn't the biggest obstacle of the game though. With everything that I have described, this game does not motivate me to even want to play again. Even if someone were to challenge me on getting a better score in this game, I would not desire to do so. The features that SEGA promoted (flying in a cockpit, cool game cinematics, more variety in enemies) were overshadowed by the downgrades of the game. In having ugly graphics, sloppy controls, and decreased level of challenge due to unlimited ammo, I am not planning on playing this game again anytime soon and it will not be remembered as a good game. 

Awesome review man. I love flight sim games, and I had played this one at a friend's house. This game literally looks worse than a Gen game, though it is in 3D.

Again, nice review.

Since when do you do game reviews? Hold mess. I did not know. o.0 

But anyways, very nice. I am surprised that my format for game reviews is not used more often. But then again, originality is best.

idk