Life Force

Hey there guys, this is MisterBo. After my last blog, I'm going to go back to what I love.

REVIEWING RETRO GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time I'll be reviewing one of the most under-rated shooters on the NES, Life Force.

Zero Wing  (Another under-rated shooter) - Natols

So I'll be talking about 5 categories and will rate them on a scale of one to ten. The categories I'll be rating this game on are gameplay, playabiliy (aka controls and replay value), stages, bosses, and music.

But first a little history lesson...

History:

The game Life Force was an arcade title created by Konami and was ported the NES in 1989. The game was created as spin-off and unofficial sequel to the popular shooter Gradius.

This makes sense.

The game Life Force was actually titled Salamander in Japan and Europe, but was retitled for the American audience because Nintendo of America thought that would appeal to an American audience better. This was also the case with games such as Illusion of Gaia and Dragon Warrior.

The original Salamander game, in comparison to the American market, was released 2 years prior in the arcades and 3 years prior on the home console market in both Japan and Europe. Those lucky bastards in Europe got the game in 1986. *Shakes fist towards the Atlantic Ocean.*

DAMN YOU EUROPE!!!

One of the possible reasons that Life Force didn't see release in America until 1989 was because of disappointing sales numbers in America on the release of Gradius, so they waited a while to release the game in America until Konami became more ofa household name with games like Castlevania and Contra. But one can only speculate as to why this is because there really isn't too much information on the subject.

NOW FOR THE ACTUAL REVIEW!!!

Gameplay:

The gameplay of Life Force is very average for a Konami shooter. It's almost identical to Gradius in every way possible. Let me show you an example. This is from Gradius...

*makes the not bad face* Not bad.

... and this is from Life Force.

Same ship, different game.

 So it's safe to assume that the the shooting, mobility, and power-ups for the ships are nearly identical. After all, Life Force is a spin-off of Gradius.

For those of you that have never played a shooter before either leave right now because you don't deserve to be here or just read along because you choose to ignore the previous part of the sentence. The ship in Life Force moves around the screen in a very smooth manner, but the movement can seem not fast enough at times when you really need it. That's when the almighty power-ups come in. There's the speed boost, missile launcher, ripple gun, laser, optional extra projectile shooter (AKA option), and force field. The most helpful are the speed boost, missile launcher, and the option. The laser is only good for one of the bosses.

Obtaining these power-ups at the beginning is fairly easy, but gets progressively harder to obtain. At the beginning at each level, if you beat a certain wave of enemies you are rewarded with a power-up . The power-up doesn't actually go into effect until you press the B-button when you've built up the amount of power-ups in order to achieve the desired power-up. This is a very nice feature because you always know what to expect and you get the option of choosing which power-ups you want.

When you get that first option...

Now, I can't emphasize this enough, YOU NEED THAT SPEED POWER-UP!!!! There are so many enemies and projectiles coming at you, some that are WAY faster than you, that a little boost of speed can save your life. In the first level, there are walls that close in on you pretty fast and that speed can come in handy in order to get to the other side.

This is when you're really screwed.

Because this is a Konami game, of course there is the Konami Code. Just do the up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start at the title screen and BOOM! Instant 30 lives. You can also do this at the continue screen and get the same result. And because there's 3  continues given to you, that's 120 lives you get. Even though you get 120 lives the rapid action and tough enemies and bosses make it nearly impossible to beat the game.

Playability:

 Since I've sort of smashed 2 categories into one with playability to shorten the length, this might be a little hard to do. I think I'll just start out with one and transition into the other.
The gameplay is fairly decent for your run-of-the-mill NES shooter. As I said before, it plays very smoothy. There aren't any delays when you press the buttons and there aren't any weird control schemes.

I still can't get used to that god damn robotic arm.

But the control scheme itself is very basic. Up goes up, down goes down, left goes left, right goes right, a-button chooses power-up, b-button shoots, start button pauses. So simple a caveman could figure it out. Anyone could pick this game up and figure out what to do without the need of any outside help in a matter of seconds.

The only problem I would sayis the lack of speed from the spaceship itself, but as I've seen from personal experiences that this is purposeful in order for you to waste your power-up upgrades on the speed option and to prolong the length of the game within the technical constraints of the NES. This is understandable because you needed the player to get their money's worth, but it's still very cheap.

Shame on you Konami. SHAME!!!!!

Now as for replay value, there is none. There are no alternate endings. There is no super hard mode unlocked after beating the game. We're talking about an NES game here, what were you expecting? You expecting DLC or something to just magically come in and give you a better selection of endings?

Also, if you do beat the game, why would you want to play it again? It is a good game, but I don't feel like pulling all my hair out for a second time. Anyway, let's talk about those hair-pulling stages. Shall we?

Stages:

What are these stages of which you speak of? *repressed memories start to rise up again* NO!!!!! NOT THOSE STAGES!!!!!!!!!!! SO MANY ENEMIES!!!!!!!

HA HA!!! MASS EFFECT REFERENCE!!!

As you can see, I was not a fan of the many stages of Life Force. But let's start out with I did like.
 I did like the transitions from the traditional left to right sidescrolling to an overhead perspective. It was pretty cool and provided more of a challenge for the player...

Imagine this picture as a metaphor for all the rewarding and good things about Life Force. The only thing in their is the cat and you don't even know if that is going to fuck you up or not.

That's basically it for the good parts if the levels. The rest of what is found in the levels, I'll continue to rant about.
Let's start with those enemies. As I said before...

...and I stand by that. I know that it's a shoot 'em up, hell it's a Konami shootn'em up, but seriously. Do you think you can lower the amount of enemies coming straight at me to destroy me in one hit? Let me show you a good example of the over-saturation of enemies.This is the second level, starfield...

Did you watch the whole thing? Good. DID YOU SEE THAT PART WITH WITH THE ROCK VOLCANOS!!!!! The rocks keep on fly at you nonstop and when you think getting past it is enough, NOPE!!! It launches backwards too!! Isn't that fantastic? Then not too soon before the boss, MORE ROCKS!!!! On top of that, they have the decency to throw in some more enemies to shoot at you while you're busy trying to avoid those heaping monstrosities. JUST GREAT!!!!! And if this is just level 2, imagine the obstacles on future levels that you have to get passed. Everything from fireballs that follow you that also take up around 1/16th of the screen and then the red blood cell-looking enemies that will go off-screen and will re-appear on-screen until you kill them.

On stage one you get your very standard enemies that will just fly around in a pattern and then there are walls that will close in on you or you have to shoot to get through.

Stage two gets more complex. Although the average, little enemies just fly around in their patterns, there are now dispensers that will bombard you with everything. There is also a small section where you have to shoot through walls in order to progress, but that's not too important.

The third stage is your token fire stage; it's filled with groups of firebirds, some that will give you power-ups some that turn into fire missiles, also there are dragons thatwill occasionally pop up on the level and try to shoot fireballs while following you around. In addition, there are the arc of fire that are nearly impossible to avoid without a speed boost.

OH JESUS!!!!!! I... I think I made pudding pops in my pants...

Stage four reminds me of the circulatory and nervous system of the body. You start out in a large canal being bombarded by large pulsating rocks and those red blood cell enemies mentioned earlier. There are also these persistent pink jello butterflies that are attached to the pulsating rock that will follow you around until you kill them. This is also the first time we see the speed maze in this game. Now the speed maze, at least that's what I call it, is the part of a level where there are obstacles that you need to avoid at high, increasing speeds.

Then there are the pods filled with discs that fly around randomly. After that is the bane of my existence, the nerve part. The nerve walls are parts that you NEVER expect coming and can't go too far ahead on-screen or else you'll get crushed from it closing in on you. Towards the end of that stage, there are "nerves" that will retract and regenerate these walls if shot at. Not fun.

(Huh, these stage descriptions seem to be getting longer and longer)

Stage five, during the first half, is a combo of stage 1 and 2. They have the random flying around enemies and the constant bombardment enemies that seem to never end. After that there's a mini-boss consisting of 3 VERY easy space ships that are easy to take down and avoid. After that, YOU'VE WON A TRIP TO ANCIENT EGYPT!!!

Hey now, don't get too excited

Yup, you get to go through tight corridors while trying to either avoid enemies or shoot through walls to get through.

Now time for stage 6. The final stage. It starts out with open space and just the fastest enemies you can ever imagine just coming right at you. There are also "borders" that look like insta-death walls but you can fly right over them if you wantedto. Then there's the Zaxxon-esque part of the stage with with slow moving enemies that barely appear and the occasional narrow corridor. Then there are the Easter Island heads that shoot hollow rave frisbees at you until you get to the end of the stage. Then comes... the final boss.

Bosses:

The bosses were a very nice transition from the stages. Surprisingly, the bosses are usually easier than the actual stages with the exception of the second and final boss.

Damn you, you robotic pinwheel. Also, this is the stage 2 boss.

Now let's move on to these bosses...

Giant one-eyed, rock tentacle, brain monster

This is the first boss of the whole game. He is very easy to beat once you figure out what to do. He moves around very slowly while simultaneously trying to attack you with his rock tentacles. the easiest way to avoid all of this is to fly around him in circles and start shooting at his eye once you get to that point.

As for the second boss, (seen at beginning of section) this boss comes after a giant blue wall that shoots orbs at you that is fairly easy to beat if you just avoid the balls. The boss itself is very hard without a speed boost or a laser because that pinwheel moves incredibly fast and will get you if you don't have the speed boost. You need the laser because it makes it easier to get the "sweet spot" that is very small. Also, the pinwheel will start to expand with a larger hit radius as the battle progresses so be careful. So just like the first boss, the best way not to get hit is to fly around it and hit the "sweet spot" when it comes along.

First, you must activate the dragonballs.

The boss of the third stage is the EASIEST boss out of all of them. The dragon head will only kill you if you're stupid enough to get close to it. The only attack it has is that fairly slow, giant fireball that will never hit you unless you're stupid enough to fly right into it. All you need to do is shoot it's mouth in between fire blasts and you're good to go.

Thank you for the nightmares.

This boss is quite a nice breath of fresh air in comparison to the stage from hell he comes from known as stage 4. He'll start out by just vomiting light orbs at you that are not too easy to avoid because there are so many. After shooting at the mouth, or sweet spot, for a while it will launch it's eyes at you as attack ships that will continue to follow you in addition to dodging everything else. Just make sure you keep a vigilant eye on everything going on and avoid whatever get's in your way. Then, you can just keep trucking.

How original! A SPHINX HEAD!!!!

So at the end of stage 5, you come across the sphinx head surrounded in a force field of balls. His main attack is launching a bombardmant of light orbs at you that will follow you slowly until they fly off the screen. The boss itself will also slow charge at you forcing you to move to the other side of the screen temporarily which is no big. As long as you keep on hitting the eye and do a relatively good job of avoiding the balls, you should have no problem.

Not seen is the large dragon circling the huge orb.

So the final boss is a two-parter. First, you need to destroy the dragon which will also shoot you with large orbs. This is next to impossible to do and time consuming without any power-ups or upgrades. Then after destroying the dragon, you slowly progress foward even though the orb hasn't been destroyed. Whether the orb is destoyed or not is your deal. After that is a speed maze.

Do you remember the pillars that would pop out of the sides of the screen and crush you to death in Quick Man's stage in Mega Man 2.

Nearly escaped death once again.

Well, it's sort of like that. The only difference is that it leaves a small opening for you to get through but you have to react at lightning speed or else you will die. There is a special trick though. If you stay at the top of the screen in the middle, you will be able to make it though them with minimal movement because you are moving so quickly that the pillars wont be able to close in on you in time. This allows you to make it to the end with minimal movement.

Now about that music...

Music:

Because there's only six stages in the whole game, there isn't too much music. Butthe music that is in the game is fantastic.

 Stage 1 - Life Force

The first stage's music really does set the mood for the game. Well, then again, every tune sort of sets the same tone. It's a very heroic and perseveering tone while at the same time embodying the dangers ahead in future stages.

Stage 2 - Life Force

The second stage's tone has a more optomistic feel to it; it very much reminds me of Blades of Steel. It's almost like, "Congratulations! You made it to the second stage! Now time to avoid even more enemies and DIE!!!!"

 Stage 3 - Life Force

The music in the third stage is more ominous. This stage's music really tunes into the feeling the player gets when the enemies and obstacles start attacking and getting in the way of the player. The player starts going "OH SHIT!" then avoids the obstacle while still being vigilant of every other possible obstacle.

Stage 4 - Life Force

Stage 4's music is similar to the music in the first stage because it sets the same tone - heroic, persevering, and a hint of ominous. There really isn't that much too than that.

 Stage 5 - Life Force

Now this stage's music reminds me of Guile's Theme and I don't know why. They both do have that theme of perseverance, but Guile's theme isn't as ominous. But forget Guile's theme for a moment, THIS SONG'S EPIC!

 Stage 6 - Life Force

This stage's theme is very reminiscent of the music from stage 2. It has that same optimistic tone that stage 2 had, but here it feels appropriate and it doesn't. The music is appropriate because it's the last stage and you've made it this far. It doesn't seem appropriate because there are so many enemies right before the boss that you need something more persevering to match the tone of the actual stage itself.

There are also some other tunes like the game over music and end game music but those are fairly standard tunes that I don't feel like they stand up to the likes of the music played in the stages. Go out and listen to them on your own if your curious.

Overall:

The game plays pretty well with a very nice selection of power-ups that are very helpful against the constant bombardment of enemies.

The controls are perfect, but there's little to no replay value. The stages have variety as far as enemies and provide afresh perspective with the alternating view points. The bosses are much easier than the stages themselves and are usually easy to beat. The music is fantabulous, which is pretty standard for Konami back in the day.

If I were to give this a score on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. It's a good game, but it can be forgettable among the many other shooters out there. It doesn't really pop-out.

So that's it for this review. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm MisterBo and I'm signing off.