Necromancing my Library 3: Robowarrior

Robowarrior, or Bomber King in Japan, is a spin-off of Hudson Soft’s popular Bomberman series. I consider the use of “King” as being a bit pretentious, but the cyborg can survive a single blast from its own explosives, which is still one more than Bomberman could endure back in the 80s. Sunsoft released a sequel called Blaster Master Jr. that, again, is a title worth more than the game deserves. It was brought to the states by Jaleco, a company best known for the Bases Loaded franchise, but I'll always remember them because of this:

Watch out, we got a couple of bad asses over here!

As the story goes, overpopulation of our planet has resulted in the need for scientists to create a new world for future generations to live upon. The antagonist is the Xantho empire, an alien race from another dimension, led by Xur (A The Last Starfighter reference, I'm assuming) that takes control of the man-made planet called Altile and changes the climate to suit their own needs. Meanwhile, the former inhabitants now hide underground in fear. In response, Earth sends a single Gort look-a-like to handle the matter, because all the other cyborgs resembling robots from old films were dismantled once worldwide peace had been obtained. No worries! This is the strongest robot warrior ever created… I think, which is why he was given the most colorful laser gun Toys "R" Us had to offer and sent into space riding a ship whose design appears to be loosely based upon the Millennium Falcon, which was inspired by a hamburger.

Basically, the story here is something any fan of sci-fi could have written during the commercial breaks of a Battlestar Galactica episode.

You control ZED, an acronym for Z-type Earth Defense, but since this is the American-given name, I’m going to make a wild guess and believe that it was inspired by David Zed, which none of you reading this may know is a mime from the 70s whose shtick was to get on stage and act like a cyborg. In 1980, he was also recognized for his song R.O.B.O.T. at the Sanremo Music Festival. 

ZED is dropped off in a cleared area surrounded by a forest that seems to be unaffected by the climate change and is welcomed by the survivors with a couple of goodies sprawled out on the ground. You won’t meet any of these people, because no one in their right state of mind would stand around a monster-infested area waiting for a guy whose idea of a greeting includes gunfire, explosions, and, worst of all, a pie plate salad he made during the trip.

No thank you. I already had a big helping of Scrapple right before you arrived.

Once you leave the screen, you have a significantly smaller bit of room and enemies will start flying across the screen to help chip away what little amount of health you are provided.

“…but Jerod (probably pronounced as “Jer-ROD” just to spite me), I’ve played Bomberman before, and it’s only the first level, so why should I read anything you have to type about the matter?”

First of all, no one reads this blog, so that question is moot. Second, the game forcibly causes ZED to move backwards a space whenever a bomb is planted, and you’re given minimal time to escape the blast. That smooth, bomb-dropping movement fans are accustomed to from the original series is removed. I don’t recommend ever using more than one bomb at a time unless ZED is properly shielded. Without recharging his batteries, two hits from his own weapon will end the game, and the explosion doesn’t appropriately blow the body to bits, either. Instead, it causes ZED to fall flat on the dirt while an annoying tune plays you off to the title screen. I can only hope you enjoy that piece of music more than I did. You’ll hear it quite a few times.

That's it? No boom?

The enemies you face don’t seem to follow any particular theme.

These are all the basic enemies throughout the game.

This may seem odd at first, but imagine if our planet invaded another and we released an assortment of dangerous beings to infest their ecosystem. Sharks, mosquitoes, honey badgers, airborne viruses, anyone from Japan, tree frogs, non-tree frogs, tree frogs that feel like non-tree frogs in tree frog bodies, tapeworms, lions, tigers, bears, Bronies, seals, salamanders, penguins, jellyfish, candles, vultures, elephants, snails, gorillas, protozoa, lawyers, owls, snowmen, platypuses, paper airplanes, Raggedy Ann, cats, bats, rats, the cast of All That, spiders, lemurs, boars, waffles, hawks, bass, Necco Wafers, Ford Pintos, and, if we have the technology to cross dimensions, then we probably have the ability to mass produce ZEDs that might actually be able to fight… or, at least, be turned into walking bombs offering hugs to the locals while being set to explode at the push of a shiny red button with a smiley face on it.

"Don't run! We are your friends!"

Since no one cares that a plant can feel pain, ZED’s strategy is to clear his own path through the trees, leaving a trail of craters in his wake. In retaliation, some of the alien wildlife will fire at your fragile fighter from all directions, regardless of what’s between you and them, while the more dangerous enemies, the tanks and dittos, will wait patiently for you to reach them before launching missiles and turning into flying balls of fire. Your energy might be slowly diminishing as you try to find the exit, but these creatures are your main concern, so remember that.

Leading this bunch are seven bosses, three of whom are pretty much the same thing.

Another wonderful example of the "Recurring Boss Template" Trope

They can be defeated using only your basic weapon, and it’s a fine idea for the first one, Globula the giant blue blob of gaming unoriginality, but this tactic takes a while and will burn through your precious “extra” supply when used later against the other six.

A blue slime! Rarely see one of those in a video game.

Bombs are only an effective tool if you can avoid hurting yourself in the process, and everything else in your arsenal is limited to what you've collected. Here is why creatures take priority over reaching the end of each stage. With exception to the few left for him at the landing zone, all your power-ups will be hidden randomly under various breakable objects and scattered about in pitch black tunnels that ZED must also uncover. Since the key is always located in the same spot of each period, it’s tempting to head straight for it and move on to the next level, but I strongly advise against this. A similar situation presents itself in Super Mario Bros. 3. Two of the three warp whistles can be found very early in the game, but using them to quickly reach the final world will leave Mario grossly unprepared for the final stages leading up to Koopa’s castle. In both games, it’s better to collect a bunch of power-ups early in the game before heading into darker territory.

When ZED inevitably falls, continuing will merely result in restarting the period without your points. You get to keep all the junk collected, but, believe it or not, those points do serve a purpose in this game. The higher your score, the less damage you take. Still, after getting defeated a dozen times, I had a nice supply of stuff in my inventory, made better by a secret within the stage that not only cleared the screen of enemies, but also doubled the amount of most of the items I had. In moments like that one, it felt like Hudson realized how this was going to play out for a first-timer and provided that treat as a reward for not giving up and smashing the cartridge into multiple choke hazards. On the other hand, to access the bonus, one had to know to bomb the same bit of wall five times and then stand in the water. Some quickly learn at the start of period 1-1 that ZED doesn’t swim, so while it seems suspicious that a square of water is surrounded by a rock wall in the middle of the area, most are not going to think to use at least five bombs at each part of the wall to find the right one to get inside. There are other spots like this one, as well as bonus rooms, but this game isn't really  that much fun to explore. Thankfully, we now have walkthroughs! Wonderful, glorious walkthroughs!

Thank you, Strategywiki!

Taking this a step further, using a walkthrough makes Robowarrior a significantly better game to play. The real fun and challenge lies in trying to survive. Back in the 80s, this felt more like an Easter egg hunt with only one egg and you had to search an entire neighborhood to find it. Making a game “Nintendo hard” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It worked well with Contra and Ghosts’n Goblins. The problem with Robowarrior was that its developers based their work around the phrase “finding a needle in a haystack” and thought that was a good idea. Again, just use a walkthrough. It’ll allow you to skip all the stupid searching bullshit that no one enjoyed and focus upon keeping your cyborg from getting killed. Actually, just go play a real Bomberman game, instead. It’s pretty much the same thing at that point.