BLAEO — Backlog Assassins Extraordinaire

This post is dedicated to all the wallets affected by the recent Steam summer sale. Stay strong!

Anyway, I’ve had a surprisingly productive day regarding getting games out of my backlog because I beat not one, not two, but

Plus, I’m fairly close to beating three other games, too (maybe four). Anyway, since this is one arcade cabinet that contains three different games (the only similarities are that they’re all 2 player and they’re all rather short), I’ll be talking about them individually, starting with:

This game is a run and gun platformer, and is also the only one I was able to see the backstory for (the others just showed game-play demos). Basically, there was a battle between good and evil, and it ended with the Chariot being sealed in the antagonist’s lair. Personally, I think that’s just asking for trouble, and sure enough, the world is being threatened again. Suddenly, someone visits the Midnight Wanderers and gives them the item that can release the Chariot from its seal, and thus it’s up to them to save the day.

Anyway, on to the game-play. Something I’ve noticed about arcade platformers is that they tend to downplay the whole “platforming” part in favor of “here’s a bunch of enemies, now figure out how to kill/avoid them.” That’s not to say that platforming in these game are super rare, but this game is no exception. As with most run and guns, you can find different guns as you play the game, like spinning blades that will shoot forward and backward. You also have the ability to shoot up (not sure if that’s a staple of the run and gun genre, so I thought I’d mention it). Plus, it’s possible to find “options”; they’ll follow you around until you die and attack when you attack (different options have different shots). The health system is similar to Ghouls and Ghosts and Goblins: one hit removes your armor, and the second hit will kill you (it is possible to get your armor back via an item, though). Also, as you play the game, you’ll collect cards (usually found inside chests and bosses), and if you get 100, you get a free credit. There will even be a chest that arrives in the level via faries, who fly it around the top of the screen until you shoot it. Lastly, if you die, you have to insert another coin to continue, but you continue right where you died.

The first stage begins outside of the protagonists’ house, and the stage is designed very simple with a top path and a bottom path separated by a long platform that makes up the floor of the top path, and the road itself rarely deviates from being flat or a simple slope. Of course, you also encounter the main cannon fodder in this stage, along with a fat, fire-breathing slightly-stronger enemy. The mini-boss isn’t that noteworthy aside from that it’ll make the ground move in a sine curve pattern, and when you beat it, the ground will disappear and you’ll fall to the next part of the level, which takes place underground.

The second stage takes place on a river and has some moving platforms you need to jump across (though they don’t move that far, so you never have to wait on them too much). This stage also introduces pods that will shoot out fireballs in a /I\ pattern (and, of course, the fire is immune to the water). After this level, you see some more of the story: the antagonist is turning everyone into wood, and you’re the only one(s) left who can save the world.

The third stage takes place on the outer wall of a castle (you can see the main castle in the background) and the enemies are fairy-tale themed: the cannon fodder are literal puppets and the mini-boss is named “DUMPTY”; DUMPTY is two walls with a face on them, and you have to attack the side with the face on it to damage the mini-boss. The second half of the stage will have platforms crumble without much warning (it killed me a couple times) and you have to outrun the crumbling and get to the next platform to reach safety.

Stage four has you invading the antagonist’s hideout, and this is where the difficulty really starts to pick up. It introduces jack-in-the-box enemies that will shoot out the head, and the heads proceed to throw fireballs downward before going back into the box. You have to destroy the box to get rid of them for good; destroying the head will only temporarily stun it before it shoots out another head. Not long into the stage, you have to do some platforming while a bunch of the jack-in-the-boxes move left below you like they’re on a conveyor belt (they’re actually just on a bed of spikes), and since you can’t really attack the boxes for this part, you have to destroy the heads that they shoot out and run forward before they shoot another one. There are also witches that will fly around the top of the screen and toss fireballs down at you. Near the end of the level, you’ll encounter moon-like enemies that will bounce toward you, and as you damage them, they wane just like actual moons. The boss of this level is a sun-robot-thing with spikes protruding out from all around it. It’ll bounce around the boss arena and occasionally stop to shoot out its spikes, and since shooting its spikes won’t damage it, this is the part when its most vulnerable (it’s possible to land a few shots between the spikes while they’re still on the boss, though).

The fifth and final level takes place further inside the villain’s lair and introduces spinning platforms (each of these platforms has spikes on one edge, too). You have to re-fight some of the earlier bosses, but some, like DUMPTY, appear as regular stage hazards and can be skipped. The final boss can best be described as a quarter-muncher. It has two attacks: it will fly above you and shoot lighting down, and it will come in from the left side of the arena and shoot lasers and sine-curve flames at you. The lighting is nearly impossible to dodge: if you run right, you’ll get hit since you can’t outrun the boss that way, but there also isn’t enough room to avoid both lightning shots by running left. Presumably, after the first lighting strike, you have to run right again, then turn back, but I could never avoid both attacks. Also, when the boss moves in from the left, it moves faster than you can run, so you don’t even have time to throw some shots back while you’re running away. When it stops moving and begins shooting projectiles, the battle becomes much easier since you can actually react to the hazards and dodge them. When you beat the final boss, you see the protagonist(s) unsealing the Chariot and flying across the land, restoring everyone to normal, and it ends with an esoteric quote about hope and happiness (at least, I think that’s what the quote is about).

Overall, this is a solid albeit unmemorable run and gun. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll have fun playing this game.

Okay, two games left to write about…this is gonna take a while. Next game:

This game is a horizontally-scrolling SHMUP and the sequel to Midnight Wanderers. You play as the same character(s) from the last game, but now you’re flying on the chariot, and you have to fight constellations in order to save…someone (like I said, I don’t think this one has an opening story, or at least, I didn’t see one). You can switch between a spread shot and a focused shot by collecting red and green spheres, respectively, and both shots can be powered up. You also have a “tail,” so to speak, of orbs; these orbs can be used to attack enemies behind you, but they also act as your meter for your more powerful attack (it’s not a screen-clearing bomb; just a more powerful shot, and it’s different depending on which weapon you have). I found this game to be more difficult than its prequel, but that might be because I didn’t realize that the tail would regenerate by itself, essentially acting as a cool-down meter for the more powerful shots rather than having a limited amount per life like other SHMUPs. There are also items that will extend the tail until you die. Lastly, it should be noted that, unlike the prequel, you die in one hit (you can still pick up right were you left off as long as you have another credit), but there is an item that will give you an extra hit.

This is the game where you really start to see the corners the devs cut in order to get all three games to fit in the arcade board, especially if you’ve beaten Midnight Wanderers first. The same space background is reused in multiple stages, and a castle background is reused in two stages (but the second appearance made its palette darker). Also, on top of a bunch of normal enemy sprites being reused from Midnight Wanderers, the sun from that game reappears as a boss in this game, although its name and AI are different (it still has the shot-blocking spikes, they just move differently).

The first level has you flying through space, shooting down waves of cannon fodder and avoiding the occasional space-hill. The mini-boss is a giant robot with a gun that moves up and down while shooting waves of bullets. After beating him, you’ll come across cloud enemies that shoot lighting between themselves. The boss is a giant cloud thing that will spawn little cloud things to protect it from your bullets while also shooting out bullets of their own.

The second stage takes place…inside?? It’s hard to tell; the background has craters, implying that the player is over a planet or moon, but the ceiling and floor are covered with tiles, implying that the player is in some kind of building. Some of the tiles turn into enemies and will move around the stage. The latter part of the level will transition back into space and send those moon enemies from the previous game at you, but I think they have more frames of waning animation here. The boss is a metal crescent moon that shoots lasers and crescent blades. Something neat about the game is that most bosses will show battle damage as you attack them (the only bosses that don’t do this are the first one and the reused sun); for example, parts of the moon’s armor will break until its eye is completely exposed before you defeat it.

The third stage is space again, but it also has the witches from the first game attack you. You’ll also fight little one-person blimps that come in and shoot waves of bullets at you, as well as some cannon fodder coming in from the left instead of the right. The mini-boss from the first level makes a reappearance as a palette swap, and after him, you have to face a swarm of slowly-moving DUMPTYs. The boss is named “GEMENI,” and as the name suggests, there’s two of them. They look kinda like harpies and get more demonic as you damage them. Their pattern has them orbiting the center of the screen shooting bullets at you (occasionally, they’ll stop and bob up and down, then resume orbiting).

The fourth stage is a castle level, and it has falling spikes, turrets, and a unique enemy that is attached to a wall via a metal coil but tries to aim for you anyway. The stage will also occasionally scroll up or down along with the usual right. The jack-in-the-boxes also reappear in this level, with the main difference being that they’re sometimes on the ceiling. The boss is a giant crab that can be damaged in certain areas even when it’s using its pincers to shield its face (though it still takes a while to take it down).

Can you guess where the fifth stage takes place? Nope, it’s in space yet again. This stage has a part where you get barraged by comets, and it introduces + formation enemies (take out the one in the center and the rest scatter). The boss is a centaur in armor, and as its health drops, the horse part will be completely eliminated with the rest of it still attacking you. Stage six is another castle; it has the same enemies as earlier stages, but you have to navigate around walls, so there’s some actual level design going on. The boss is the sun, as mentioned earlier: it can charge you and send its spikes out as guided shots or a rain of spikes.

The last stage is space, but with a different background. You have to re-fight all the bosses here, and they’re separated by a few waves of enemies. The final boss is…hard to describe. It has a sun mask for a face, fireballs for arms, and an upside-down white magician’s cone hat for a body. It attacks by shooting flames and symbols at you. When you defeat it, you rescue the prisoner, are greeted with the same cheering crowd sprites you saw at the end of the first game, and you see the protagonists fly off into space to go on more adventures. I like to imagine their future experience was something akin to No Man’s Sky, but with sprites reused from these two games.

Overall, this is a pretty good SHMUP with an interesting mechanic I haven’t seen done in another SHMUP, but like its predecessor, it’s rather unmemorable (only partly due to its reuse of assets). You’ll have fun playing this game if you’re a fan of SHMUPs, though.

All right, one left! Here goes:

First off: what’s up with that title? I know it’s referencing “push, don’t pull,” but, like, is it supposed to be funny? I don’t get it.

Anyway, this game calls itself a puzzle game, but it’s more action oriented than “sit down and think about how to solve the puzzle” oriented. Oh, and don’t let the cutesy graphics fool you; this is the hardest game of the three. You play as a bunny (or a squirrel if 2-player) who presumably woke up one day and decided to drive slimes and fire-breathing alligators (crocodiles?) to extinction just ‘cause. The stages consist of single screen rooms filled with blocks and manholes (the enemies will come out of manholes) with the goal being to kill all the enemies in the level (there’s a counter at the top of the screen to let you know how many are left). If there’s only one or two enemies left, they’ll try to escape, and regardless of whether or not they’re successful, you clear the stage as long as you don’t get yourself killed.

There are different types of blocks: all blocks can be pushed, but normal blocks can be destroyed if pushed against another block. Bomb blocks will explode, stunning all enemies in its blast radius (you’re not affected by the explosion). Heart blocks can’t be destroyed. Lastly, star blocks will be destroyed on impact with another block, spawning a fruit or vegetable that, when ten are collected, give you a free credit.

Also, the outer border of most stages will be made of a different floor tile than the main level, and fireballs will orbit this area. You can walk out there, but risk getting hit by a fireball (although enemies can also get killed by the fireballs). You also can’t push a block into the designated fireball area.

The main game consists of 16 screens, each with different block formations (and some of them will have the fireball zone cut into what is normally the main playing field, so watch out for that). The difficulty comes from simply having so many enemies that you get overwhelmed and can’t keep track of them all. The best part is that, since this is an arcade game, you can’t pause it to get your bearings (maybe I should’ve played the PS1 or Saturn port instead?). Plus, just like Chariot, this game has one hit kills. Luckily, when you continue, the game remembers how many enemies were left when you died and only spawns that many into the stage.

Every two levels, there will be a Pac-Man-esque “intermission” where something silly happens. When you clear the last screen, you get a message that says “ALL ROUNDS CLEAR,” then you get a bunch of points and the game tells you to try the “professional” levels. Then you get to play the second half of the game (another 16 screens). Not only do these levels have more complex level designs, but the enemies also move faster. They’re not quite as fast as you, but if you’re not both moving in the same direction, they can kill you before you can react or avoid them (and this is exacerbated by the swarms of them you need to kill to beat the stages). There were times where I wasn’t even able to kill one enemy before a slime flanked me and I had to spend another credit.

If you’re patient/rich enough to beat all of the “professional” levels, you get the same “ALL ROUNDS CLEAR” message as before, a bunch more points, and finally, the staff roll.

Overall, this game is hard to recommend. It’s pretty good at first, but the later stages just have you chipping away at the swarms rather than doing any puzzle solving.

Now, do I recommend all three games as a bundle? Well, that depends. If you like all three genres, I say check it out, but pass if you’re only interested in one (especially if that one is Don’t Pull). Oh, and don’t forget that all the games are fairly short, so don’t pay too much for it.