Target Leynos

The 16 bit era had a bunch of games that came over from Japan that had anime stylings and were “toned down” to meet the tastes in the West. The cover of Shining in the Darkness traded anime characters to some that may have been designed by someone in Disney’s third string. I had a game on Sega Genesis that somehow made it through that process relatively intact. Today we fight waves of robots targeting Earth!

Wait, what the!?!?!

That is the US re release of Target Earth on PS4. I walked into a well-known national video game chain and it was sitting on the shelf. $20. Sold. I am completely nostalgic for this game and to see a physical release on the shelf just blows my mind. It’s not a kickstarter or special project, just a regular localized release. It was developed by Extreme and published in Japan by Dracue while being brought over by Rising Star games. I am happy to report it is faithful to the original and the localization kept the extras that were added in the remake.

Assault Suit Leynos always looked good. In 1990 you could make out what each of the robots on screen were and there were several locales to fight in; including moon base, city, and space. The redesign thankfully kept everything 2D, no awkward 3D models on a 2D plane here. They used high resolution sprites with heavy rotation to animate movement. It looks good, it’s obvious that they didn’t have the timeline to create Guilty Gear level sprite work.

I was kind of disappointed that they didn’t reuse the Genesis music for the remake. Then again, how can you expect that 26 year old chip tunes to show up on your PS4? BUT, there is a sound test that has music from the original. Hot Damn. Perfectly emulated sound from the old game, the bonus options can even switch new sound effects for the old ones in the case of gun fire. They kept the Japanese with English subtitles the way it should be when controlling 80’s style mecha. All in all, great work.

That leaves us with gameplay. They captured the original and made it more accessible to modern audiences. Target Earth is hard as balls. The only reason I beat it is because when you press start on the second Genesis controller when you see the first enemy of level 1 it lets it control the enemies and also makes you never die. Assault Suit Leynos gives you the blessing of regenerating health, when you play the main mode. If you select classic mode you get all of the difficulty, and less bells and whistles, of the original. I was able to finish the main mode in an afternoon, it wasn’t easy but I progressed at a rate that was not frustrating.

Controlling Leynos is pretty simple. You move left and right with the D-pad (or left stick) and raise/lower your angle of fire with up and down. Jump with the jump button and hold it to boost with the B.Pack equipped. Shoot the weapon you selected with the shoot button and hold L1 to keep shooting at the same angle while you move. The L1 is crucial for the zero G missions that also use up and down for movement. A lot of things are zipping around on screen and you will get flustered, good thing the levels are straight to the point affairs that don’t feel like you have lost too much ground if you die.

Pick your loadout prior to each mission. You have six slots. Do you put six different weapons in there to take care of any threat? Load several of one weapon you like to use to double your ammo? Use a slot for the boost pack to improve your mobility or extra armor that gives you another life bar? The base machine gun reloads but never runs out of ammo so you should take that to deal with smaller threats, other than that I liked the shotgun weapons because you are likely to be very close to your enemies in most situations. There are also arcing grenade launchers, multi-shot weapons, homing missiles, and a hand held shield to help reduce damage. Play how you like, they even added a punch.

Assault Suit Leynos being released again really caught me off guard. I never met anyone else who had heard of the game aside from those I introduced to it so it couldn’t have been a runaway hit in America. It looks like it is remembered a lot more favorably than it was reviewed at the time, with 1990 reviews from MobyGames between 50 and 60 and more contemporary reviews being much more forgiving. I’m obviously a big fan of it and a 20+ year younger version of myself is also a big fan of it, that’s a pretty good endorsement. Give it a try, and hopefully Rising Star Games will bring over more worthwhile titles the bigger companies overlook.