BLASTED OFF INTO THE ARCADE
Yeah, Hamster returned to release another game of "The Other Big 'N'", which means Namco.
Still no localization of Fighter & Attacker, so Bandai Namco moved on as if nothing happened leading us to the next shmup on Arcade Archives. This time is Blast Off.
Bosconian adapts and evolves.
For a sequel of the arena-like shmup Bosconian, Blast Off replaces that innovation in shooting for the classic vertical scrolling arcade shooter that follows the rule of "Go to Point A to Point B" rather than being confined on the arena, and it was nice to see how the basic aspects of Bosconian adapted to the new format, being the key aspect the Spy Ship which now appears in major numbers and takes more hits to destroy it increasing the challenge factor of the game. Unlike the previous game, you are given not one but four weapon configurations available right at the start and switchable in order to adapt to your strategy.
RED: Fires a "Twin Ring" straight shot that moves on a curved trajectory while crossing on its path similar to the Counter-Air Laser from R-Type. Its good for frontal enemies, but uneffective against enemies with small weakpoints (Missile firing Bosconian bases for example).
BLUE: The "Back Shot" type. This variation of the straight shot fires a ring from the front and from the rear of the ship in order to provide frontal fire on both sides of the screen.
ORANGE: Three Way. Fires an "Inverted T" three way fire (1 frontal ring, one on left and right), providing a basic multi-directional shooting.
GREEN: Side-Back shot. Fires two diagonal bullets while having a back shot. While the diagonal shots are uneffective against frontal attacks, they're useful to take down enemies on the sides without taking the risk while using the standard weapons.
Your weapons have one more surprise. If you hold the firing button, your ship will fire and energy ball instead of a ring. The energy ball can cut through multiple enemies within a formation at expense of reducing your firing rate.
The premise of destroying bases within the AO (Area of Operations) was ditched for the traditional vertical shooting, but this game carries the concept in a different way. Each Stage is divided in 3 phases. The first one is your basic vertical shooter where your objective is to destroy the enemies, survive their relentless fire and take down the Spy Ships before they leave the screen. This is where the key feature of Bosconian appears; if the Spy Ship escapes, the condition will turn to Red and you will be swarmed by enemies for a brief period of time. This is where switching weapons and even know when to use the charged fire come in hand.
Knock, knock...
The second phase of the stage consists on reaching the hatch of the enemy base so you can force your way in. But unlike the other segment which was based on destroying enemies and keeping the Spy Ship from sounding the alarm, your top priority is to evade and if possible destroy the missiles. As you advance on the later stages, the missiles will adapt different trajectories like changing directions based on your last position. After the missile barrage, you will be facing the defense line that protects the hatch, but destroying the hatch won't be enough to complete this segment.
Looks like things zoomed up for the sake of action.
Once you break your way in, its time for the third phase: Base Attack. This time the game will zoom the graphics of your ship and shots as the game will focus on navigation since you might be facing obstacles along with the enemy formations and Anti-Air Artillery stationed there.
Shoot the Core "Namco Style"
The "Base Attack" segment is also the part of the stage where you will fight the boss. While anyone will think shooting the central part of it will end the battle, the guys at Namco anticipated that move and made the boss fight more "take down all parts". That means you have to take down the turrets on the sides, then the pillars protecting the core and then you can finally take it down and complete the stage, repeating the mentioned process for the rest of the game.
With these interesting features included in ths game and knowing Namco's list of successful shooters, no one would imagine having problems with this game right? Sadly, that's not the case for Blast Off which had its crucial problems, being the ship's speed the worst of all, as it moves very slow compared with the speed of the enemies and even their shots, being a hardship in the Base sequences where your ship faces another problem: Super-sizeing as the ship's sprite is twice as big than normal and this makes bullet dodging troublesome along with the homing enemies that you will be facing even before the base attacks.
35 Years had to pass for a console port.
As a 1989 shmup anyone would expect to see this game being ported to competent hardware such as the Sharp X68000 or the then new FM Towns and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. In fact this would be a good title for Sega's 16-Bit console to back up their arcade graphics statement already backed up with the console bundled Altered Beast, but for some reason, Namco didn't bothered (or cared) to home port it. Probably they thought they messed up due to the reasons mentioned above. In fact this is one of the rare cases of Namco's "Misfires" and the lack of console ports or entries on Namco Museum are the mute testimonies of said failure. It was until September 26th of 2024 when Blast Off saw the light and made its way home as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives where we can make some progress with the emulation tools of save states and the operator-like setting adjustments, along with the additional Hi-Score and Caravan Modes with the respective trophies for the sake of trophy boosting in our PlayStations.
Graphically, the Bosconian universe gets more detailed and colored thanks to the Namco System I hardware, which gives us galaxies, space stations and even a few parallax scrolling segments on the Base segments of the game. The gradient color on the ship indicating the weapon selected looks smooth and fast despite being a small detail, the same thing of "fast" can be said for the explosion effects as it adds speed to the overall game along with the more animated sprites and the CG-Rendered like space stations in some of the stages. The sense of three dimensionality of the Bosconian base (missile launchers) is pretty damn good, even for a 1989 game. The only flaw here is precisely on the Base segments as your ship looks overpixelated compared with the enemies and the whole scene in this part of the game. In the later stages we can notice how Namco was playing with the idea of rotating sprites even before Assault. For example, on Stage 6-1 there's enemy ships that make a turn with a rotating effect.
The game makes a blatant reference to Star Wars in Stage 6 since the last base is a rip-off of the Death Star, and Stage 6-2 is clearly the Death Star Trench Run, and believe it or not, the Arcade Archives release kept the Death Star lookalike giving two shits about legal issues with "Discasfilm" (Portmanteau of "Disney" and "Lucasfilm") considering how Namco decided to avoid an overseas release of Marvel Land due to the use of the "M-Word" on the title screen.
In terms of sound, the Namco System I adds electronic tunes combined with clear drumming in order to add an upbeat adventurous music for the first and third segments, and the suspenseful-like music on the second segment as you avoid the missiles and attack the base defenses. The return of Bosconian's "Blast Off" voice sample is well received along with the new ones, but the "Condition Red Condition Red" repeats way too often, especially in the boss battle at the point of becoming annoying, predating Blazing Star's "BONUS!" 9 years before. It was curious to hear how Namco pulled a Capcom during the escape music as it has U.N. Squadron like vibes.
FACTS OFF
- Second entry of the Bosconian trilogy, concluding in the PC Engine shmup Final Blaster.
- First Bosconian title to have music during the levels.
- Blast Off is sometimes known as Bosconian II.
- In the Strangereal/UGSF era, the events of the game take place in 2289.
- Unlike the Namco-developed Galaga or Bosconian, Blast Off was developed by N.H. System (Namco-Hayakawa System), who also developed Märchen Maze. When N.H. System went bankrupt, much of their staff formed Nova and worked on the PC Engine port of Märchen Maze, Final Blaster and the Gameboy port of Battle City.
- The Arcade Archives release is the first official port of the game.
- The Base segments share a parallelism with the NES Predator game and its "Big Mode" where the player's character is absurdely big compared with the rest of the game.
Just a blasted off arcade session.
Arcade Archives: Blast Off brings back an obscure title which while brings new life to an old shooter like Bosconian, it does it with questionable issues making this game a stalemate, something between a classic and a dud. It's not a bad game at all, only a vintage shooter with some flaws despite having good ideas within the gameplay. If you're a hardcore Namco fan you'll probably want to give it a try, but in my case, I'd suggest you to play another vintage shooter from the Arcade Archives library, let's say Raiden (Just give us Raiden II already, Hamster).
Certified "Neutral" on the Eda Scale.