STRATO FIGHTER: THE (OUT OF THIS) WORLD WARRIOR
Hamster's Arcade Archives series brings us a surprising entry from the company whose slogan was "100% Games".
I'm talking Tecmo, and the game to review is Strato Fighter.
From the squadron who brought you Ninja Gaiden and Tecmo Bowl.
Strato Fighter, known in Japan as Raiga: Strato Fighter is an horizontal scrolling shooter where the game mechanic seems to be the same as any other shmup you've played out there. In fact, the upgrading structure is similar to R-Type in terms of separating Speed, Missiles, and Weapons as unique weapons rather than relying on a more Darius-esque mechanic or the use of a Power Bar like Gradius and A-Jax/Typhoon. Strato Fighter gives you an assortment of three weapons for your ship.
ION LAUNCHER (ION.L): Your initial weapon, but the strongest of all. Fires a frontal projectile which causes great damages and has a button-tapping based firing rate, but you can hold the fire button and let the slow autofiring take control of the battle.
SHOTGUN (S.GUN): The Spread fire of the game. Shoots three bullets in upper and lower diagonal along with the frontal shot, While its firing rate is slightly slow than the Ion Launcher, it is good enough to keep the pace of the situation.
VERTICAL: The Air-to-Ground type. This is another three bullet shooter where the frontal fire is backed with vertical shots that go up and down in order to take enemies on the ceiling and the ground. Good as a defensive weapon, but here's the catch: It has the slowest firing rate of the game.
Along with your weaponry, there's Support Weapons, missiles to provide you extra fire in both Anti-Air and Anti-Ground situations.
HOMING MISSILE: This missile is your Joint Strike Missile utilized to intercept both Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground targets. One single shot will fire two missiles.
BOMBER: The Air-to-Ground ordnance. Drops bombs on a diagonal path pretty much like the Vic Viper's Missile in Gradius, which means it will destroy ground based targets.
This sound basic already, but things change with the new feature: The "Guards". Mechanical soldiers that increase the Raiga's support much further. Your ship can carry two of these small companions providing unique weapons.
BEAM RIFLE (BEAM.R): Your Guards will be placed and locked in front of Raiga. These Guards are equipped with auto-aiming rifles that will aim automatically to any enemy nearby.
SOLID SHOOTER (SOLID.S): The Guards will be firing powerful grenade-type projectiles that go on full frontal trajectory and exploding on contact with an enemy or obstacle. Like the Beam Rifle, the Guards are placed and locked in front of the ship. It also adds an extra ability: A Beam Saber used against enemies closer to the Guards.
BLASTER: This upgrade will change the Guards weaponry giving them frontal fire similar to the Ion Launcher, and also removes the restriction of the Beam Rifle and Solid Shooter, allowing them to move following the Raiga's movements, making their use more strategic.
You are also given a Shield, but unlike most shooters where picking the Item means immediate activation, you have to pick 3 Shield Items to activate it and provide you protection against 3 projectiles since a single collsion with an enemy means instant death. Also, if the Shield takes a hit, you can't replenish it by picking a Shield Item. Like in Gradius, you have to lose your Shield completely in order to use it again.
For an horizontal shooter, this is a shmup which exploits the concept of testing multiple weapons and trying combinations because most of the times you'll be forced to switch to a different weapon depending on the situation. For instance switching from frontal/spread fire to vertical firing in order to take most of a large battleship (Stage 2) or break your way through destructible blocks in the maze-like Stage 4. My best strategy is to switch the main weapons if necessary, but this is mostly important: Keep the Solid Shooter Guards. This strategy will give you a good frontal offensive while dealing with enemies on the ceiling and ground until you can switch to the Ion Launcher or the Shotgun again.
All these aspects of the game are pretty similar to any other shooter out there, but there's one thing that changes everything at the press of the second button...
Side-switcher with table-turning solutions.
...While lacking of a bomb attack, the second button is used for something new and unique: Flip sides. We've already saw this feature in Darius II/Sagaia and U.N. Squadron during boss battles, but never for the whole game, making this a new, experimental feature that greatly enhances the gameplay since this is no longer the "oh, shit. I've lost the enemy". Now the thing is "I've lost it from the right, but I can flip and shoot it from the left" changing the traditional pace of being "one side only" and this game will make sure you'll take advantage of this technique as much as possible like in Stage 3 where the game will toss you a lot of pop-corn esque bubbles and embryonary creatures, not to mention the large mothership in Stage 2 which requires you to face left. Of all the 6 battles, the first 5 of them will require you to utilize the side-flip since the final boss is the stationary enemy waiting to be hit until it dies.
Killing the final boss won't end the game at all. Instead, it will send you to the Professional Stage which is the second loop of the game where you'll be facing more enemies and even some of later stages will join to the stages (Example: Stage 4 enemies in Stage 1). Dying in this game has more tolerance than Gradius since you'll respawn immediately rather than being pushed back. Rollback will only happen when you die and continue the game, sending you back to the beginning of the stage, unless you're playing a co-op 2 player game. Anyway, ending the second loop will finally end the game. On a curious note, it was interesting to see how the ending takes "Screenshots" of your gameplay in the background, making each game session unique.
Old foes get new upgrades.
While the final stage was a "Go straight to the boss", in the Professional Stage it will become a large level where you'll be fighting the former bosses of the game, but in upgraded forms. As you navigate the level, each boss will appear until you are finally allowed to fight Gan Gan Gee again (yeah, that's the final boss' name. No joke) and finally complete the game.
Shoot or be smashed.
It was strange that Tecmo didn't brought the war at home by porting Strato Fighter to the SNES or the Genesis, considering how several titles made its way to consoles and build up sequels (Ninja Gaiden is a great example of what I mean). Since its release in 1991, it had to wait 14 years for a home port as part of Tecmo Classic Arcade on the XBOX in 2005 where the game was emulated perfectly. After this release, we would had to wait again for another home port until 2023 when Hamster decided to release it as part of Arcade Archives. The game only has one Original Mode since its based on the "World" version. While Hi-Score Mode is the same as the Original Mode minus the continue option, Caravan Mode has two settings: The traditional "Start from Level 1" and "Start in Level 6". Picking the last one will send your ship fully equipped with the Shotgun at level 3, the Beam Rifle Guards, 3 Lives and 1 Speed Up since you'll defeat the final boss and start from the first stage in Professional Mode.
Stunning backgrounds, this is Tecmo doing a surprising work here.
Graphically starts with an average space scenery but it greatly improves in specific stages, and those are Stages 2, 4 and 5 with amazing details and extraordinary backgrounds, especially in Stage 4 where the technological pillars are simply breathtaking implying a well spent amount of time and effort on the graphic aspect. It is always great to see how Raiga and the Guards leave the exploding enemy/facility during the results screen with the fast pounding music playing fulfilling the sense of action you are looking from arcade shmups.
The soundtrack is quite good with a mix between energetic, upbeat and even rocking tunes that provide the sense of action, adventure and intrigue to the game all at once. The voice samples are barely understandable due to the robotic reverbering and muffled quality, especially on the boss warning. One detail that I've noticed is that some of the percussion notes in the music are similar to those of Konami's arcade titles (you can call it the "Konami drumming") like the TMNT games and Super Contra. On a curious observation, the first 15 seconds or so of the first level theme are eeriely similar to the theme of Space Harrier, they've just jumped to an original pace after the intro and there's a theme on the soundtrack. Speaking of similarities, Level 3's theme is very "Progressive Rock", and that's because the level theme is actually a cover of the song "Tarkus (Eruption)" from Emmerson, Lake & Palmer's 1971 album "Tarkus". In fact, the in-game song is called "Kartus". For an Arcade Archives release, anyone would think it would be removed just like it happened with the stage 2 boss theme "I am Man" from Ninja Gaiden due to its similarity with Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" (but not with "Pat" which was based on Michael Jackson's "Bad"), and Bomb Jack with the ending theme "Kittens of the Apple Forest" from Spoon Oba-san/Mrs. Pepperpot and "Lady Madonna" from the Beatles, but believe it or not, Koei-Tecmo and Hamster kept "Kartus" in Strato Fighter regardless of the potential copyright issues, but it was nice they kept the theme in an old arcade game at least once for the sake of preserving arcade history (Learn from that Konami, Namco and Taito!).
STRATO TRIVIA
You have earned the distinction of "King of the Hill".
But remember, you have no time to rest on your glory,
for there is always someone waiting in line to knock you off the top.
Be prepared to be challenged.
- Raiga (雷牙) means "Thunder Fang".
- There's an instance of Engrish in the game and is the Beam Rifle Guard whose icon is named "BEEM.R".
- The Blaster Guards behave exactly like the Options in Gradius. First they will move following the players movements. Second, they will gradually separate from the ship based on how much Speed Ups you've pick and third, you're limited to only two like in the NES version of Gradius.
- This "Follow along" movement and "Two only" is also similar to the "Body Split" from Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos where Ryu can summon two red clones (blue in the DOS version) that replicate his moves.
- The side flipping feature of the ship was reutilized by Taito in the Dariusburst series.
- Like R-Type, the game has an organic-themed level and a large ship as the stage.
- The premise of taking screenshots of your gameplay was repurposed in Blazing Star where one of the demo gameplays is actually a replay of the player's playthrough.
- The technological pillars from Stage 4 are similar to those of Stage 4 from Thunder Force V.
- The Arcade Archives release is the second Arcade Perfect and overall home port of the game.
- The Pro Ending hints a sequel that never came, unless we consider 1992's Final Star Force as the continuation or something like that.
Just another arcade shoot out. Nothing I couldn't handle.
Strato Fighter gives players full control and advantage of the combat situation with its side switching ability, improving where no other retro shmup went before and fortunately, it was a great hit back then.
If only modern indie games were more like this, it would be great for me 'cos I've just got tired of dealing with trash indie shmups.
Wherever you make a turn, it is a positive in the "Eda Scale".