Halley's Comet (Arcade, PS4/5, other formats, Taito, 1986)

[Randorama]

Welcome to another review of now old and obscure 1980s' shumps: Halley's Comet Halley’s Comet. BareKnuckleRoo’s excellent ST can be an ideal companion guide to this review, and SturmVogel Prime ’s review concentrates on the Hamster port. Here I mostly focus on the arcade version and on a thorough review of the game. Readers who want to read some personal if sappy experiences can read the squib version of this review here. The review is 1472 words long, or 3.7 pages in times new roman, size 12, single space; the usual disclaimers apply. Without much further ado:

Halley’s Comet ( Taito, 1986) is a wave-based (ro)TATE/vertical shmup centered on the arrival of the eponymous comet in the solar system. Players must guide a valiant spaceship against the many waves of threatening invaders that seem to arrive with the comet. If successful, they literally enter the comet, an alien mothership in disguise, and destroy the main central AI. The game features a wave-based approach to the action (i.e. enemies come in rhythmically paced waves), interesting mid-bosses and several innovative mechanics for the time. The audio-visual department is not exactly sterling, even for the time of release, but the fast-paced and intriguing gameplay compensates for these aesthetic deficiencies brilliantly. The remainder of this squib argues this case in some detail.

A bit of Zeitgeist and plot will help us situate the game. In 1986, Capcom released Side Arms as an HORI(zontal) mecha-themed game, and Taito released Tokyo/Scramble Formation, a dieselpunk-themed game. Several other shmups emerged on that year (e.g. Toaplan’s Slap Fight/Alcon, Konami’s Salamander), as the genre was (relatively) thriving. Taito was going to publish the legendary Darius the subsequent year, but for 1986, Halley’s Comet offered a novel take on the genre with some twists. The plot is simple: the aforementioned comet is in reality a huge mothership, and aliens are trying to invade each of the nine solar system planets (yes, including Pluto) plus the Sun. It is up to the valiant Earh forces to repel the alien forces by destroying the comet each time it tries to invade one of these celestial bodies, then. Perhaps, in this game world humans have colonized the whole solar system.

Plot holes aside, the game has relatively simple and yet interesting, sometimes innovative mechanics for the time. The joystick controls ship’s movement in eight directions. The A button is the main shot button, which has a complex upgrade system. The ship starts with a central pea shot, adds a left and side stream, and can then add two further streams at a 30 degrees angle. Each sub-shot can increase in power four times before maxing out; the jet power up increases the ship’s speed up to level five, too. Players can also collect a “formation” power-up: eight small side helper ships will appear behind the ship, in a reverse V/wing formation. When players shoot via the A button, the side helpers will each shoot one bullet in a straight line. Thus, the V formation adds considerable firepower to the ship’s attack.

When players press the B button, a side helper sacrifices itself to clear the screen of bullets and have the ship and the other helpers “rewind” the action. Players thus start again from approximately 10 seconds before, in the stages’ structure, and work their way ahead a second time. Though apparently a drawback (players may run in the same trap(s) as before), this type of “bomb attack” can also prevent sudden deaths from which players may struggle to recover. The system thus works in a manner partly reminiscent of Tokyo/Scramble Formation’s helpers and their function as kamikaze attackers. Players can thus use helpers as an attacking weapon and as a last resort defensive bomb, with a limit of eight helpers at a time. Helpers can bite the dust easily, especially when they are at their full formation, so be sure to always have some on stock.

The game mechanics appear quite linear and yet innovative for the time. The stage design also follows a simple and yet interesting formula. Players must save the nine planets plus the Sun, and can achieve this result by clearing 10 triplets of three stages, hence 30 stages. For each planet, the first stage is the “take off’ stage, the second is the “approaching the comet/mothership” stage, and the third is the “destroy the core” stage, Gradius style. Players must destroy all enemies, who appear in fixed waves, and must avoid that enemies shoot bullets as well. Each enemy reaching the bottom of the screen (i.e. advancing to a planet) increases the planet’s destruction rate by 1%: bullets increase this ratio, after a few planets. At 100% destruction rate, it is immediate “game over”: aliens invade and conquer humans’ space, Space Invaders style.

Players must thus be as destructive as they can: a 0% clearance rate awards an extra life that adds up to the extends obtained at 100k points, and at every 200k points. Recovering from death is never easy, as befits this type of old school games: enemy waves can be overwhelming when armed with only a pea shooter. Players who survive long enough, usually a minute or so, may receive a full power-up upgrade as a prize and max out all weapons at once. Stages have a highly rhythmic pace: different waves of enemies appear for 30 seconds or so, and then a mid-boss appears, boss fights being potentially 10 seconds long. After 80 to 90 seconds, players fight the stage’s boss (e.g. various bigger ships), and then the nameless AI core at the end of the mothership/comet core stages. Though long, Halley’s Comet has a brisk, frenetic pace.

As readers may have guessed, the game is indeed a child of its time: simple, fast-paced but long, and with some interesting mechanics. Visually and musically, however, Halley’s Comet appears a bit “weak”, for a lack of a better term. The graphics tend to be rather simple and perhaps worth of 1985 titles (e.g. Taito’s Return of the Invaders, given their bland colour palette and under-detailed though decently animated sprites. Once players seen the dozen or so wave types of enemies and types of mid-bosses, they will have experienced all the game’s design variety. Comet/mothership stages tend to look identical, and the AI indeed always appears in the same form. For every planet, a theme colour tinges stages and enemies (e.g. Red for Mars). I admit that this chromatic choice is hardly exciting, and the ship’s design as a giant coffeepot is hardly thrilling either.

The OST is similarly basic, if at least unobtrusive. The first and second stage feature a rather corny military fanfare with a distinctive bitmap sound. Bosses have their own rather jingle-like themes, and the phase in which the ship invades the comet features an embarrassing attempt at a menacing theme. The third stages inside the comet have their specific dramatic theme, with the fight with the AI switching to a faster tempo. Sound effects are also as basic, bitmap-ish and corny as possible. Enemies make improbable sounds when shooting, and so does the main ship. In general, the game sounds even more dated than it looks, for its year of publication. It thus seems unbelievable to discover that Zuntata’s OGR/Hisayoshi Ogura is credited with the game’s OST. The game ultimately gives the impression that Taito wanted to recycle then-old hardware to produce a new and rather interesting shmup.

As our discussion should have outlined so far, the game looks plain but seems to have interesting mechanics. A further source of interest is the game’s difficulty. In my view, the game is possibly one of easiest shmups and games that can be counter-stopped, barring perhaps Toaplan’s Batsugun Special Edition. Players who also want a 1-CC and have good stamina can clear one loop in roughly one hour, if they wish. This is the case because the main Facet of difficulty in this game is stage design, in the guise of enemies’ waves and their order of appearance. For the first two planets (i.e. six stages: Earth, Venus), players should have an easy time surviving as long as they quickly destroy enemies. Waves appear at a relatively sedated pace and bosses are easy to handle; getting 0% planetary destruction rates should be easy, too.

From the third to the eighth planet (i.e. Mercury to Saturn), players must memorise when kamikaze enemies releasing revenge bullets appear. These enemies develop very angled trajectory when crossing the screen and can easily corner players. The last two planets (Jupiter, Mars) and six stages require strong rote learning, as enemies’ waves overlap and kamikaze attacks abound. Each of these last stages offers a good challenge, unless once players know exactly what waves are approaching and when to bomb/rewind attack. I would thus assign zero points to the first two planets, one points to each planet until the eighth, and one point to each of the final six stages: the total is 12/50 difficulty points. Players can continue into the second loop and counter-stop the score once clearing this loop: difficulty doubles at 24/50 points. Mid-range expert players can certainly seize this counter-stop, I believe.

Xenny is now telling me to move on to the personal memories part of the squib, as time is tyrant, and those annoying Weyland-Yutani guys are up to no good again. So, let us dwell on past experiences of mine, once again. I am not sure about the year. However, I do remember that the first time I play Halley’s Comet at my uncle arcade is already when the game goes through a second cycle. I notice one day that my uncle has prepared a cab with this board in the “old glories/100 Lire room”, and that a few people seem to enjoy the game. No wonder: they seem to know the game already from its first release, and they are breezing through the first loop with gusto. Once the cab is free, though, I can finally enjoy a quick credit.

The game seems easy, even if by this point I have already 1-CC’ed a few games, including shmups like Thundercade. My first credit ends around Stage 11 or 12, trying to save the Sun (…OK, I feel already perplexed about this matter at a young age). For the next three weeks, progression is smooth; once I start reaching the final two planets, I switch to “rote memorization” mode, use stock lives to trudge through stages when losing lives, and memorise the enemy waves. The game suddenly offers a decent challenge, and I relish committing myself to this challenge. The day I 1-CC the first loop, my uncle, and a friend of his are behind me clapping and commenting something like “This game’s too easy, even the runt can clear it!”. Welcome to the hard school of tough love, kids: do not expect motivational speeches, ever.

I admit that after repeating the feat a few more times, my interest in the game nosedives. I see my uncle’s friend counter-stopping the game once, shortly after clearing the second loop. He then turns off the cab, turns it back on, and goes away. The feeling is that for the true experts, this game is almost a warmup exercise. I admit that the game seldom features in my MAME periods: over the decades, I focus on more stringent grudges and missed 1-CC opportunities. It was only recently, as I explained in the 1-CC thread, that I decided to go for the counter-stop. A few weeks of energy-sapping attempts see me reaching this mildly entertaining result, after only 30 years or so. I close one more page in the big book of trivial pursuits in my gaming life and promise myself to write up a squib about the experience.

Time to wrap up, folks. Halley’s Comet is a shmup by Taito released in 1986 that pits a valiant Earh ship against the eponymous comet, an alien mothership in disguise. Players must clear 30 stages divided into 10 waves of aliens attack again the solar system’s planets and, for some mysterious reason, the sun. The game features modest graphics and music but has a fast-paced and highly entertaining game system. Players who can summon enough stamina levels and doge bullets for more than two hours can manage to achieve one of the easiest counter-stop scores in an arcade game. As a zany but solid time capsule of the 1980s, it is highly suggested to all shmup players who have access to Hamster releases. Go and play it: history lessons are important, and Halley’s comet will not be back until 2044 or so.