Developer: Hot.B
Format: Megadrive
Year of Release: 1992
Japanese Version Reviewed
Koutetsu Teikoku is one of those games that reels you in before you’ve opened the box. On the cover a bloated metallic Zeppelin soars above the clouds, bristling with gun emplacements, smothered in the graffiti tones of a rainy back alley. Another salient example of Japanese design work, it's something to behold.
Developer Hot.B were previously known for Play Girls, a hentai arcade puzzle game similar to Gals Panic, and an awful beat-em-up called Schmeiser Robo. In the year prior to Koutetsu Teikoku they released the excellent Over Horizon for Nintendo's Famicom, showcasing a nascent shmup talent.
Heavily influenced by Jules Verne, Koutetsu Teikoku takes the author’s ideas of winged, steam powered technology and translates them to similar in-game fodder. It's a fusion that, at least stylistically, makes it something of a spiritual precursor to Cave’s Progear no Arashi. Presented as if it were a b-movie classic, Koutetsu Teikoku's introduction sequence rattles like a sepia reel of yesteryear and infuses plenty of artistic license in the game’s end credits.
Two playable ships are on offer: a small, zippy bird shaped bi-plane or the larger Zeppelin airship, each with a life-bar that can absorb several hits. Although the option to switch between craft is available at the start of each stage, the Zeppelin is far superior despite the handicap of its bulky frame, making the game a breeze once you become accustomed to its characteristics.
Power-ups appear regularly during a stage, raising the level of your weapon from zero to twenty over the game's course. Unfortunately the benefit of powering up is nullified by the ever increasing resilience of your enemies, rendering the idea rather pointless.
The Megadrive's muddy colour palette is well suited to the aesthetic; and while not pushing the boat out, it's graphically accomplished enough to remain consistent in its themes.
Despite its creativity, Koutetsu Teikoku sadly falls short of establishing itself as a shoot-em-up of note. Firstly, it's just too easy. Ignoring the three continues, it won't take long for seasoned genre aficionados to clear it in only a few attempts. Although bullet patterns can get fairly busy, the game suffers from crippling slowdown that you can’t help but abuse, and, because the pace rarely changes, you’ll hardly bat an eyelid at the more adventurous level design. Some of the bolder sections fall flat, particularly the end of stage two where you're fired down a speeding cave that's nigh on impossible to navigate without crashing, only for the programmer to cop out and apply an in-game patch that feeds you a string of energy icons to make up for its clumsy design.
Things pick up toward the end, featuring some lively aural accompaniments and a giant flying battleship in the fifth stage, but somehow it all feels a little unsure of itself. Certain enemies and emplacements require too many hits to destroy, or are awkwardly positioned for the range of your guns. The feature of being able to fire both forwards and backwards is underused, and a number of design decisions, including not being able to enter a name on the high score table and not having your bomb stock replenished with each new life, are unfavourable. Bosses aren’t recycled enough to become annoying, but having to battle some of them up to three times does smack of laziness, especially as their attacks remain largely unchanged.
Strangely, you're catapulted into deep space for a hyper-kitsch finale, a musical theme straight out fifties Twilight Zone accompanying your flight through surrounding green planets.
What Koutetsu Teikoku has, despite its shortcomings, is serious novelty value; enough to warrant the attention of gamers who slaver at the mouth for shmup oddities. Although Hot.B didn’t have the aptitude to pull off a game of truly epic scale, and as such it leaves you with a sense of uncapitalised potential, it’s still pretty good fun to barrel through once or twice. The premise is unique, the bosses imaginative, and the world intriguing. As a shoot-em-up it rarely thinks outside the box, but has enough decent attack patterns to hold its own in the genre. Sadly its replay value, seriously affected by energy bars, slowdown, and plenty of easy to grab extends, is an issue it doesn't have the strength to shake off.
It’s certainly a collectors piece, and can be wholeheartedly recommended to those with a penchant for retro curiosities: just maybe not to those wanting an article of great depth.
It is, as its beguiling cover suggests, one for the shelf.
Six out of Ten
Sources of information and many thanks to:
Wikipedia
Want to try the game out for yourself?:
Steel Empire was released in both the UK and US, and is readily available for under £5/$10 from Ebay (Japanese version approx £45/$80
How's my reviewing?
Drop me a PM and let me know!
ADDENDUM:
Steel Empire was re-released for Nintendo's Gameboy Advance handheld in Japan only (2004)
