It also doesn’t help that you have such limited range of motion to dodge missiles. By that point if you aren’t target locking them immediately chances are you will die. Enemy jets come in groups of four or five frequently by stage 5 as well as missiles from behind. You only have a few levels to get the hang of the game’s mechanics (such as they are) before the game goes nuts. The arcade game was no slouch but the NES version takes it to another level. You can lobby the same complaint at the arcade game but at least it was quick and very intense at all times.Ībove all else After Burner is brutally difficult. And because this version’s pacing is screwed you notice it more. Aside from the changing landscape every level is near identical. While it can be intense the biggest criticism of the game is that it lacks variety. This doesn’t have the speed of the arcade game so it can be very boring at times, especially as the levels become longer. Because of the system’s limits you will rarely see more than four enemies and the waves are more spread apart. For the most part you’ll spend your time shooting down ships that come from behind and auto targeting distant enemies. At its core this is a very simple game and this port even more so. Its effectiveness at dodging incoming fire is also questionable.Īnd that is more or less it. In a pinch you can perform a barrel roll although doing it consistently is tough. Mostly just up and down and banking a little to the left and right to dodge incoming missiles. Your ship is centered in the middle of the screen and you only have a limited amount of room to move. Missiles can only be used when you have target locked an enemy, up to a maximum of five at once. You have a machine gun with infinite ammo and a finite number of missiles. It’s far from ideal but is still playable. This is most prevalent toward the end of the game and unfortunately makes the game a lot more difficult. When the action becomes too hectic there is some heavy sprite flickering. Obviously the background detail had to be reduced but Tengen did an admirable job mimicking the game’s look. All of the levels are present and the scrolling is pretty smooth for the system. Stuffing the game within the NES’s limitations was no small task but somehow Tengen did it. Unlike the stuffy flight sims of the day it was very much a shooter and replicated the wild flight battles of Top Gun better than its own terrible licensed games. Aside from its graphics what made it so popular was its speed and mechanics. It made use of Sega’s super scaler technology to enable smooth scrolling effects at a fast framerate. After Burner is one of the better flight simulators for the NES and a damn good arcade port all things considered.Īfter Burner was a technical marvel at release in 1987. The one game in the bunch that should have turned out the worst is actually a good conversion. Unfortunately they were almost all terrible. This indisputable fact made the presence of the unlicensed Tengen games that much more intriguing. I owned a NES but somehow knew that Sega didn’t make games for Nintendo and vice versa. It’s surprising but as early as the mid-80s I was aware of console exclusives.
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