|
Poor, poor Nihon Bussan.
They've wasted so much time designing nudie mahjong
simulations for horny salarymen that they've completely
forgotten how to make REAL video games. Want
proof? Just look at Terra Cresta 3D. This was
intended as a sequel to the clever vertically scrolling
shooter released by Nichibutsu in the mid 1980's. While
there are few games that deserve a sequel more than Terra
Cresta, you won't find a sequel that's a bigger letdown than
Terra Cresta 3D.
 Any
way you look at it, this game is a failure. It's not a
worthy Terra Cresta sequel because the gameplay is so boring
and uninspired. It's got to be one of the least intense
shooters on the Saturn, with a sluggish pace and a small
amount of onscreen enemies. These foes aren't nearly as
crafty as they were in the real Terra Cresta either, flying in
predictable formations which make them easy targets.
Finally, your ship is less versatile... it can only dock with
two escort ships rather than the four available in Terra
Cresta, and it can no longer transform into an unstoppable
phoenix when all the pieces of the ship have been
assembled. This blazing bird does make a brief cameo
appearance, filling the screen with its flaming tail feathers
when both escorts have been collected, but it's just not as
rewarding as taking the reigns of the mythological beast
yourself.
Terra Cresta 3D doesn't work as a
next generation gaming experience either because it isn't
truly three dimensional, despite the polygonal graphics.
You can't control your altitude, and you can't target enemies
flying above or below you like you could in Soukyugurentai or
Layer Section. The polygonal graphics are there just for
show, and to be perfectly frank, it's not much of a
show. You'll spend a lot of time flying over flat,
repetitive terrain with the occasional building or bridge
jutting out of it. After every second round, you'll take
a detour through a black hole which leads to the boss of that
stage. During these battles, the perspective changes to
a behind-the-ship view of the action, making the gameplay more
awkward and the bullets much tougher to avoid.
If Nihon Busson had kept making
video games rather than softcore pornography, they may have
been able to catch and fix flaws like these, and Terra Cresta
3D could have been a respectable sequel to the arcade
game. Unfortunately, all those years of nudie mahjong
have turned Nichibutsu into a hollow shell of its former self,
incapable of understanding what made the first Terra Cresta
great. This game didn't stand a chance. |
|
Terra Cresta
3D
Nichibutsu
Shooter
 
This game makes an excellent
alternative to sleep aids. Best of all, you can rest
assured that it's not habit-forming!
The game is entirely in
English. Even if it weren't, Terra Cresta 3D is so
straightforward that all the confusing Kanji in the world
wouldn't have made it more difficult to play.
It takes about four or five
seconds to load each stage... giving you just enough time to
put a better shooter into your Saturn. Take your pick...
most of them are!
The first Terra Cresta was
released for a multitude of systems, including the NES.
The sequel was released exclusively for the PC Engine, Japan's
answer to our own Turbografx-16.
|
