SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
Since Hamster decided to throw more older-than-gramps Namco stuff, let's check a different classic game, shall we?
How 'bout Nichibutsu's Magmax?
Here comes a shmup where you can build your very own robot!
Magmax is not like your early-mid 80's shmups, this is a groundbreaking title which introduces some of the most exciting features in an horizontal shooter. Being the warp gates one of them. These allow you to change from surface to underground where things change, but before talking about it, let's talk about the main feature of Magmax: Robot Construction. The main premise of Magmax is the concept of powering your ship up by picking parts that grant you unique combat capabilities. In this case is by assembling a robot with enough offensive power to break through the enemy defense lines. While your ship is a frontal firing ship, adding one part will change the function of another. This includes the ship.
HEAD/TORSO + SHIP: The head part will fire down on a diagonal angle while the ship retains its frontal firing.
SHIP + LEGS: The ship will become the diagonal firing part while the legs do the frontal fire.
HEAD/TORSO + SHIP + LEGS: The full combination of parts. Both Head and Ship are diagonal firing while the legs are the full frontal fire.
HEAD/TORSO + SHIP + LEGS + WAVE GUN: The Head and Legs will continue to fire like the previous setting, but the ship replaces its diagonal air-to-ground firing with a lightsaber-like cutter beam that cuts through everything, including the bulletproof blockades.
With these features learned and mastered, you've might think the gameplay of Magmax will be as easy as possible, but the game is ready to bring some surprises on the battlefield that you will not expect. Like I said before, the first obstacle will be the blockades which are immune to your regular shots, and some enemies aren't just the basic right-to-left moving enemies while firing. There's the waving pattern enemies that move in curved trajectories making them unpredictable and prone to collide with your ship, enemies that will emerge from the water trying to ambush you, mines that split into 6 way bullets and your basic 3 bullet firing enemies. Collisions with enemies can be avoided by learning the movement, but the basic spread shots will innevitably result in the loss of parts since the robot is quite tall and an easy target due to its height. Fortunately, the game's terrain is on your side because you can move freely regardless if there's water or grass you can hover across the place and walk as the robot or the ship with legs. There's plenty of challenges when you're fighting on the surface, but also, there is danger when the battle takes place down below...
Monstruous threats lurk below the surface.
That's right, this game has another feature to throw at us, and its the "Underground" segment. Warping under the surface not just chance the level, but also how the game behaves. First off, your weaponry will be completely Air-to-Air, giving you a wide frontal fire for the combined Magmax and changes the Wave Gun's cutting laser with a fireball that goes on a straight direction like the other bullets. Also, this is where the game plays more like a traditional, then-standard horizontal shooter where it focuses more on obstacle dodging than the surface itself where its based on enemy placement. However, this could be quite tricky due to the height of the combined Magmax. For instance, in the underwater levels there's what I think they are flocks of fishes that paralyzes you temporally and the underground caverns have destructible stalagmites and volcanic fires on the surface capable of killing you. Fortunately, in both instances, the game is generous enough with the robot parts if you lose one or all of them you can get a torso or legs to regain some of your offensive capabilities. It is also an experiment ground for bonus mechanics. For instance in the undeground cavern, you can get 1000 points by hitting enemies with the ceiling stalagmites if you shoot at them at the right time.
Only one will emerge victorious.
Occasionally you'll be facing a boss, the mechanical entity known as Babylon who is in command of the Dragonia Fleet. Its attack patterns will vary depending on which segment of the game you are. For instance, the "Aerial" mode in the underground segment is more multi-directional than the land-based form. But its weakness remains the same: Take down the three heads, then shoot the main body until it retreats. You will be facing Babylon twice: Before the sea/underwater section and at the end of the base/tunnel area. After that the game will loop back to the forest/cavern, repeating the pattern until you finally run out of lives. Since this is one of those games that lack of a continue option losing all your lives is the end of your run. Thus, the true objective is racking the highest score possible as you cross the three combat zones non-stop.
The latest re-release only features one single mode.
The visual innovation and the build-a-robot premise gave this game its well deserved home ports being 1 console and 3 computers the lucky ones despite they're obviously uncapable of fully recreating the visual effects of the arcade. The most common is the Famicom/NES version developed by Nichibutsu themselves. While it butchers the terrain scrolling effect into a fixed layout and due to the NES limitations, it omits the surface form of Babylon replacing it with the underground version and the soundtrack was completely different from the Arcade version. Despite its sacrifices, it makes gameplay a bit easier by making bullets easier to dodge. The Commodore 64 goes astray with the game concept. Starting off with the title screen which depicts the combined Magmax as a superhero of some sorts, and the synth soundtrack by Fred Gray which sounds good for C64 standards, doesn't sound like the arcade, going off-track on the concept of home conversion. But the worst problem is the hit detection which is pretty bad and combined with bullets that go faster than the arcade it means problems. Graphically it looks more like a "Magmax Clone" than an official coin-up conversion of the game. The Sinclair ZX got a port too, and like in the Commodore version, it features the superhero-like character instead of a robot in the title screen and calls it "Robo Centurion", but GOD DAMN THE COLORS ARE AWFUL!!, Who on its right mind thought the ZX was arcade capable with its very limited color palette and hardware capability? What were they thinking? If that's a Centurion, then there's no "Power Xtreme" in this port, and it just gets worse. If the bad graphics were a warning, then prepare for the worse as the animation is choppy, the sound department is the absolute hell for your ears with horrible music and ear-hurting sounds and what's worse, the bullets blend with the background resulting in unfair deaths. Remember what the Angry Video Game Nerd said on his Silver Surfer review? "Look at that. That's not fair! I couldn't see that tiny bullet coming through the trees. It's like camouflage!" But the best way to describe this port of Magmax is with a quote from Project Wingman.
Few words that describes the worst of the Sinclair ZX.
Finally there's the Amstrad CPC release, which like the Commodore and Sinclair, it uses the superhero-esque Robo-Centurion. This port improves the sound department but it makes a greater sacrifice on almost every aspect. The playing screen is very small, sprites are barely recognizable as those from Magmax and the difficulty is ramped up as it has enemies hidden behind blockades right out of the start resulting in cheap deaths because their bullets can pass through the blockade while yours don't. Combine that with bad controls and terrible hit detecting and you have a "Must Avoid" terrible home port of the game. As time passed by, the glory days of Magmax passed away as arcade games evolved and the mighty Magmax couldn't take a stand to the pass of time, being forgotten until 2015. It took 30 years for Magmax to return to the console scene as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives for the PlayStations 4 & 5 and Nintendo Switch. As one of the first Arcade Archives titles, it lacks of the Hi-Score and Caravan Modes. Strangefully, there's no "Back to Title Screen" option to close the game, so you have to exit to the PlayStation or Switch dashboard and then close the game. The achievement progression requires to check all the menus, reset the game, watch the Leaderboards, break the default high score and submit your score to the server. Nothing short of poetry, but the main part is the game itself which retains the original graphics and sound effects from the arcade game, and in this case, that's what it truly counts of this release.
*"Rising Blue Lightning" plays in the background*
Magmax has the glorious honor of being the first 16-Bit game in history and the graphic aspect is what it helps this game to earn that title. Being the "Surface" section of the game which takes all the key aspects of the graphics. If the pseudo-3D perspective effect of Seicross was an innovation, then the scrolling of Magmax was the perfection of that idea. A major accomplishment for a game made in 1985 since this is not just scrolling, its zoom out, in-depth perspective and to make it better, the game makes "textures" and gradient-like effects on the surface adding a deeper sense of perspective and motion. The three way shot from the enemies feels like if it was subject to the perspective effect but actually it behaves like a standard shmup enemy fire, resulting in parts loss or death thinking you'll pass between them as if it was a beat'em up game, and that was before Final Fight and Double Dragon. In the eyes of a kid, the graphics were like something that came from the future. Something that went way beyond any other retro arcade you've played. While playing the game on the surface is visually stunning, the underground segments are the weakest part. They're detailed, yeah, but without the in-depth and in motion effect, it feels slow and boring. The soundtrack is quite catchy and fulfills its purpose quite well as it gives you something more and nice to hear along with the traditional silence and laser firing. The only problem is that the music changes when you warp from surface to underground and back
TRIVIAMAX
The Lawnmower 'Bot
- The "68000 Based Conversion Kit" refers to the Sharp X68000 computer, one of the arcade powerhouses of home computers. The game used its hardware as the "engine".
- Babylon's name comes from the ancient city located on the Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia. Its name means "Gate of the Gods".
- It is unknown if Babylon and the Dragonia Fleet are related to Mandler and Mega Zofer from the Cresta series.
- In a cross-reference detail, some of the enemy characters from Seicross make a second appearance on Magmax.
- The game's title is alternatively written as Mag Max, probably to pun the 1979 film Mad Max.
- After clearing three loops without dying in the NES version, the score will be replaced with the word "MEIGETSU" which means "Full Moon".
- Magmax has the dubious honor to be among the list of common "Bootleg Fodder" titles for Famiclone carts along with Macross, Contra, Exerion and Super Mario Bros.
- The boss Three Head from Taito's Megablast resembles the underground form of Babylon.
- The Arcade Archives port of Magmax is the second port of the game on a Nintendo console and first on the PlayStation.
Just another retro arcade experience.
With now 39 years passing by, Magmax is the testimony of how innovative ideas were the major player back in the early-mid 80's. While the gameplay retains the simplicity with additional features, it was the graphics what gave an arcade game a huge step forward in audiovisual terms where no other Pre-Sega game had gone before.
This game assembled a positive result in the "Eda Scale".