Broken Thunder (PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Broken Thunder (PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

Ah, the infamous Broken Thunder, considered as a poor attempt of a doujin Thunder Force game, it all started as a rumor claiming that Tecno Soft was working on a Thunder Force VI for released it in 2006, later that rumor turned out to be the Doujin game Broken Thunder by Factory Noise & AG, they released a teaser CD with the Opening, 20 wallpapers and 3 MP3 tracks, some time later they released the game in a regular version and a Collector's Edition, the only problem the game was very "Incomplete", according to a text file in the game the producer said "the game doesn't have 1/3 of the designed elements", but they planned to released all the contents as a free patch, unfortunately all the shops stopped selling the game and pulled them out of their shelves (and also pulling out the patch too).

For pull a game out of the shelves it has to be a real disaster, let's check if this game is really bad.


Gameplay: 3/10
To begin with in this game you can select two ships: the RVR-03G Bracer or the Fire LEO-05VC Syrex, unlike the Thunder Force games, you can't select your starting stage and that was kinda disappointing because it reduces the fun factor in the game, we have all the TF trademark weapons and items: The CRAW, the Twin Shot, Back Shot, Wave, Freeway, and Hunter, let me give you a hint: the most powerful weapon in the game is the Freeway, you should consider it a vital weapon in the game.
You can also use the Over Weapon like in TFV which can be good, but unlike TFV you can't use it in a "Controlled" blast, instead we have a forced full blast in the typical "bomb format": first you can shoot 3 Over Weapon per CRAW, so this means you have 9 Over Weapons to burn. The only problem, when you use it against a boss, it'll move away of the blast turning out into a waste of power, but the game is very easy at the point that 90% of the boss battles you'll not need the Over Weapon, and i'm serious, the only time that i needed the Over Weapon was in Stage 3 and the Final Boss.
Another letdown is the lack of the Score Multiplier like "x16" in Thunder Force V, that was the challenge/fun factor of the game, try to kill an enemy in no time just for achieve a high score.
The only way for obtain a 1up in this game is getting 100,000 points, here's another hint for obtain 1ups fast: in Stage 4 the boss second attack pattern is shooting missiles, don't hit the boss, just destroy the missiles until you get all the extra ships that you want, it'll take you some time, but it will increase your chances of survive.
The enemy attack patters are another letdown, from the single bullet to a 5 bullet spread pattern to a simple curtain, there's some enemies that shoot CRAW Paralyzers, they don't kill you, but they immobilize your CRAW's firepower for a few seconds.
Once you complete the 4th stage, your RVR-03G will be damaged and it'll became the RVR-03G2 "Broken Thunder", but if you play as Syrex your ship will not get damaged, so you expect to continue the game as the Syrex, right? but no, YOU ARE FORCED to play as the RVR-03G2, when you play as the Bracer that's fine, but when you play as Syrex, change my ship makes no sense.
Stage 5 is the worst stage of the game, first off the stage consist of fighting the previous 4 bosses again, then you can fight the Final Boss, and this is an insanely hard bastard, because most of his attack patterns never fail, so what's gonna happen is your going to die, over and over and over again until you ran out of continues, if you have lost 1 or 2 continues before fighting the final boss, you're already screwed, the only good side is everytime you continue you can have a shield and CRAWs, if you have the Freeway, use it against the boss, that will give you a small chance to survive, but if you miss it and it's your last continue, consider yourself dead.



Graphics: 5/10
Let's start with the good parts of the game's graphics: First off the animated cutscenes, for be a doujin game they look excellent, the video quality is very high, almost like a DVD. The ship and the ship select screen are a complete reference to Thunder Force V, Bracer and Syrex look like successors of the RVR-02 and Rynex, the ending CG's are also nicely made, and that's all the positive things that i can say about the graphics of Broken Thunder.
Now the bad points: First, the ship is a little bit small and that could be a problem in the black background stages. The backgrounds look very simple and give the impression of a mediocre and rushed job, most of them are plain textures, kinda like bitmaps.
Most of the enemies (specially the bosses) are unanimated objects that look like they're floating around, and that's really lame (even for a prototype), this notorious with the bosses of stage 1 and 4, a clearly visible proof of what happens when you make everything in a very rushed way.


Music: 10/10
If the gameplay and the game graphics were bad, the music is the clear opposite of it. Because since we start the game until we quit, we will hear a soundtrack that feels like Thunder Force, specially in the style of Thunder Force V, and that's because Tsukumo Hyakutaro worked in this game, to be exact the songs are re-arrangements from the CD "Broken Thunder - Project Thunder Force VI", along with some new original songs for the game, there's also an excerpt of "Steel Of Destiny" in the Pre-Stage 5 Cutscene, so this (along with the cutscenes) is probably the best part of the whole game.


Pro's
- The Opening and Stage 4 Cutscene are very well made for Doujin standards.
- The Thunder Force V style Graphic and ship design.
- The Music screams "Thunder Force" in every way.

Con's
- Simple Bullet Patterns.
- Over Weapon turned into a Bomb-like Attack.
- No Score Multipliers
- 100,000 points for a 1up, too high for a game without Score Multipliers
- If you play as Syrex they FORCE YOU to play as the RVR-03G2 for the final stage.
- 5 Stages long, that's quite short.
- Mediocre Graphics.
- Final Boss is Next To Impossible.

Curiosities
- In this game, the RVR acronym stands for Rebellion Vector Reproduction (for the RVR-03G) and Rebellion Vector Reincarnation (For the RVR-03G2)
- The "G2" on RVR-03G2 stands for "Guardian Gemini"
- The "VC" on Fire LEO-05VC stands for "Variable Construction"
- The yellow Syrex's that appear on the opening are the Fire LEO-05 Syrex MP (Mass Production)

Conclusion:
Overall, Broken Thunder could have a lot of problems, it feels more like a beta or a prototype rather than a full commercial game, it could be bad, but at least it didn't had the same ill fate than Big Rigs Over The Road Racing which was considered as the Worst PC Game of all time.
I'd recommend this game only for the cutscenes and the music, but the gameplay is just like the name of this game: Broken.


Broken Thunder's Final Score: 6/10
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