Thunder FOrce II
Crazy One-Shot #7
Type of game
A step to the side, and a step uh-up! A step up, and a step to the other si-ide! Except that we’re replacing the steps with laser beams, obviously.
Release Date on our machines
I saw some information saying it was one of the games available at the launch of the Mega Drive in Europe. So, um… September 1990? November?
Developer
Technosoft Co., Ltd., which operated for two long decades before ceasing to exist in 2001.
Publisher
SEGA Enterprises Ltd. – and there are times when I really don’t know how to describe this sort of company anymore.
Thunder Force II: available on Switch via the Virtual Mega Drive download. Is that all? That’s all, but we’ve seen worse for more well-known titles.
I consider Nelson and Mortimer Paprika, my ultra-trendy neighbours, to be the world’s finest teachers when it comes to the in-depth analysis of the exhilarating and ecstatic aspects of video games. They already got their master’s degree in administrative and social geekery by the age of eleven or twelve. But my cousin Walter Valise still outdid them, of course. However, they had one undeniable advantage over him, an advantage called the Mega Drive. And another, even cooler one: they lent me cartridges. They also finished the games they borrowed from me, or agreed to give me a bit of a hand if I got stuck. While Dragon’s Fury will forever remain the ultimate killer game I managed to snatch from them for a few months, I still got to try out other really cool stuff, like Kid Chameleon, Toejam & Earl, or Thunder Force II. I found this one at least as stylish as the Super NES’s Super R-Type (perhaps I lacked a bit of perspective), but at least as difficult (perhaps I lacked a bit of skill). I did try to cut my teeth on it by taking it home, but I gave up fairly quickly, despite my strong attraction to its avalanche of colours and explosions. I preferred to watch my neighbours, who were far better than me, coaxing their little ship as they rained a thousand billion kilotons of missiles down on its enemies.
First two-persons shooter
And then I’d head home, play a quick round of that virtual gothic arcade game (Dragon’s Fury, that is, for the greenhorns among you), and convince myself that Thunder Force II would be out of my head in five minutes. I was wrong, as I’m still thinking about it today. Still, it would have made for a better shmup CV if I’d stuck with it. R-Type Delta, U.N. Squadron, Bomber Raid and little else – that’s a bit thin on the ground.
Mental Nova
Thunder Force II is unlike any other futuristic spaceship shooter. To be precise, it’s like two games in one: one with a top-down view and one with a side-scrolling view, alternating between them at each level. It’s a sort of bridge connecting the first game in the series, which was exclusively top-down, and the third, which was exclusively side-scrolling. There’s a fine line between masterfully evolving a concept and throwing everything up in the air because you couldn’t make up your mind. Actually, this double standard didn’t really strike me that much. When I wanted to write about Thunder Force, I couldn’t for the life of me remember which one I’d played. I eventually figured it out thanks to the metallic (and rather rusty) voice that announces the weapon you pick up by dashing into a capsule. Well, all three titles on the Mega Drive share this handy feature. But I remember one word in particular: Nova. I loved that word as a kid.
Perhaps it was because of the stars exploding as supernovae, which fascinated me in astronomy books, but more likely it was because of the yoghurts (Mamie Nova is a popular yoghurt brand in France). I was completely stumped by that word when I heard it in the game. And as it happens, it only appears in Thunder Force II. It’s a shame, I’d have preferred to talk about the fourth instalment, but I promised not to make anything up, so never mind. Anyway, what’s going on in Thunder Force II? An evil empire has built a massive, dangerous spaceship that’s destroying the good guys’ planets. So the good guys build a tiny little spaceship to take it down. Illogical and absurd? Well, no. Don’t you know David and Goliath? You must have seen that whingeing Frodo on the mega-long, uncut director’s cut collector’s edition DVD, or perhaps read that awful, hair-raising Chninkel comic?
And in any shooter, or indeed any video game for that matter, that’s pretty much how it always goes. What would we look like, piloting a massive cruiser that can’t even make a turn without crashing into an entire mountain range? Although… if you worked on a suitable concept, it could look pretty cool. Right, um, back to our scenario. Rubbish? Yeah. Do we give a single damn on the cockpit? Absolutely not. As for the graphics, hmmmmpfuuh. Not exactly mind-blowing, are they? OK, the game dates back to 1988, the poor thing. It was already two years old by the time the console invaded our European bedrooms. It’s even more of a cringe-fest during the top-down sections. Not only has it aged badly in terms of polish, but it doesn’t offer much variety either. I feel like I’m passing through variations of the same scenery, give or take a few details, and in the same shades of ochre, burgundy, khaki brown and muddy yellow-green.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
That color is called goose poo in french. I actually learnt around 2016 that you don’t spell ’caca doigt' (finger poo) but 'caca d'oie' (goose poo) which sounds exactly the same – that was a real blow to my morale, honestly. On the other hand, I thought I spotted some minor graphical similarities with other things I already knew. Technosoft also developed Dragon’s Fury, mind you. That’s where my impression comes from. An example that’s both incredibly specific and utterly pointless? The red gem embedded in the first boss of the horizontal stage in Thunder Force II and those in Special Stage 3 of Dragon’s Fury? The SAME ONES! Well, you have to look hard to find any animations for certain ships or enemy bosses; most just move in a straight line without really moving at all. And still, during those endless top-down sections, our fighter turns ninety degrees in a single frame, without even being able to slow down or anything! I can’t even imagine the G-forces the pilot is taking. Even for 1988, an animation with no transition at all is a bit of a let-down.
Oh come on, no big deal – there are still loads of mind-blowing features to mention! Admittedly, the vertical perspective sections can sometimes feel like tedious wanderings, where finding your way out can lead to some serious hair-pulling. But as well as offering a fair bit of originality thanks to the alternation with the horizontal shooting sections, they focus more on exploration than simply blasting enemies. Well, they add a bit of exploration to the blasting. And they give us a different range of weapons to choose from. I actually think the management of this arsenal is well done. Once you unlock a new type of ammunition, you keep it for good – as long as you don’t lose a life, that is – and you can use it as much as you like. No more bonus capsules that you pick up by accident and which replace your favourite laser beam with a scatter shot.
Apparently, sticking to the Hunter weapon – which fires glowing blue discs that home in on targets – remains the best option if you want to make any headway in this game; anyhow, that’s what the three or four players I’ve been watching on YouTube have been doing. But at least we’re allowed to choose; it’s up to us if we want to use other ammunition and lose even faster, after all. Add to that a system for upgrading these weapons, the ability to spin two protective spheres around you, and a pace that strikes me as wildly frenetic—not to say completely over-the-top—and well, there’s certainly enough to have a bit of fun. In any case, it suited me down to the ground when I was six or seven. I’d be wiped out in two minutes and leave it to Nelson or Mortimer to clean up the mess, but that was enough to convince me I was having a good time.
Screamer Forge 2
Suffice to say that if I couldn’t remember anything about this game other than the word “Nova”, I’ve forgotten everything about the soundtrack too. It’s by Tomomi Otani, who composed the music for none other than Thunderforce III on the Mega Drive, the Herzog games, and the Thunderforce titles on the Saturn – all for Technosoft, all shoot ’em ups. Well, hats off to him! You can tell he’s really exploring the Mega Drive and its capricious sounds for the first time, or nearly so. Squealing metal and rough objects scraping against other rough objects – there’s plenty of that! And yet… well, I reckon it works. In this specific case, it remains perfectly consistent with the game’s hyper-revved-up universe, which takes us through several worlds saturated with tubes, plates, platforms, barriers… giant caterpillars? You’ll encounter plenty of corrupted steel and diseased titanium; the raw, primally effective compositions couldn’t be a better fit for this rather unique experience, even for a futuristic space shooter. In fact, Tomomi Otani has somehow managed, by some miracle, to make all these sounds—so often mocked by the console’s detractors—sound cool. I swear, there’s one track I really, really love. Without the help of melancholy, without the support of childhood memories. I still think it’s brilliant. A feat achieved by only a handful of games to date, such as Chrono Trigger or Streets of Rage 3. With those, it’s fairly easy to understand the appeal their soundtracks hold for people. Although that’s debatable when it comes to Streets of Rage 3. But with Thunder Force II, it was far from being so obvious. And yet… well, yeah, my mate Tomoni. Matomomi? There you go.
Novastalgia
Obviously, now that Thunder Force III and IV exist, it’s hard to hold a candle to them. Why on earth isn’t the Nova in the sequels, for heaven’s sake? It would have allowed me to write about one of them instead. There must be a few die-hards on Earth who rave about the erratic camera in the II, but in my opinion, a good number of them are just trying to have a competition to see who’s got the biggest dose of nostalgia. People to avoid at all costs. Boo! Stop acting as if your childhood was cooler than everyone else’s! Nobody cares! I know that all too well; I’ve written dozens of articles screaming that my childhood gaming experiences are worth their weight in gold. And who cares, eh? Three people even more bonkers than me, that’s all! Right, playing the victim and blaming others works even less.
Here too, I’d say I know a thing or two about the subject. Still, judging by the tiny fragments of memory I still have of Thunder Force II, I loved it. Perhaps because it reminds me of other really cool moments with my neighbours, like when we’d watch films and Mortimer would cover my eyes during every scene that was too scary or too tantalizing for me (watching Elvira at six years old was a bit much). Or when he’d draw Fido Dido in chalk on the ground outside his house, or when Nelson would open the door to the garden shed, looking dead serious, a stick in his hand to fight the ghosts inside… the best neighbours on Earth, really. Apart from those few game sessions that had me biting the dust, I never played any shoot ’em ups on the Mega Drive. It’s incredible, really – some people juste deserve a good nova in the face.
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