42| Lords of Thunder

Released: 1993 (Exact date unknown)

Definitive Version: PC Engine; Also on: Virtual Console for Wii, Mega CD

Despite the PC Engine's strength in its native country of Japan, it was struggling everywhere else. It turns out that a Japanese competing console did manage to shake up Nintendo's iron grip on the North American market, but it wasn't NEC, but SEGA. In a last ditch effort, Hudson heavily pushed the game "Lords of Thunder" to the North America market in an effort to revitalize their Turbo Grafx CD platform. The game wasn't anything special at a glance, it was your standard horizontal shoot-em-up. What made it stand out was the godly CD quality soundtrack and tight game design. While the game garnered a lot of buzz amongst the hardcore market, it was relatively unknown to the mass market. As the Turbografx faded in to obscurity, Lords of Thunder is forever known as not only one of its finest and defining titles for the platform, but also of the entire generation.

Let's get this out of the way. The music in the game is fucking incredible. Despite being made in the '90s, the game has an '80s hair metal (power metal more specifically) soundtrack. As a metal head myself, I often cringe when games use metal soundtracks, as it almost always leads to disastrous results. I'm sure many hip-hop fans can relate. But with Lords of Thunder the music is actually legitimately good. If one of my friends were to play this music to me, I would have praised it and never would have imagined that it would belong to a video game.Stereotypically, this type of music often involves vocalists singing about high fantasy themed heroes, gods, and battlefields. It turns out that this is the entire theme of Lords of Thunder, hence the music fits in perfectly.

Luckily, Lords of Thunder is not a Sunsoft game, so it has the gameplay to match its quality music. The game begins with some light RPG elements. The player can choose between four different types of "armor". This includes earth, wind, fire, and water. Each piece of armor has different types of attacks and advantages. All you need to know is that the water armor is by far the best one, as it focuses on shooting projectile beams and waves in both in front and behind the player. After that there is a shop screen where one can purchase health, bomb attacks, and various upgrades. When that is finished there is a stage selection screen that the player can chose to go to each stage in any order.

The objective of the game is simple, defeat all stages on the screen selection. The game involves controlling a "lord" that wears powerful armor that fire projectiles at enemies. The enemies obviously fire back in great quantities. Occasionally power up items will appear which, as one could guess, powerup the character's weapon. Each weapon has three different levels to powerup to which usually results in the protagonist's projectiles becoming bigger, faster, and stronger. The player scrolls across to the right side of the screen defeating as many enemies as possible to rack up the highest score. There is more benefit to this than the usual dick measuring contest at the high score screen. The more enemies one kills, the more money one gets, which can be used to buy valuable items from the shop. At the end of each stage is a "Dark General", who is basically also a lord who acts as the final boss of each level. Defeat the Dark General and complete the level.

As one can see, the game isn't that unique. Again, what makes the game stand out is that it is so good. The protagonist feels very good to control, the enemy placement is seemingly perfect, and the speed of the game is fast enough to be intense, but not reasonable enough to be draining. The bosses earn their title and are very intense to play and are very ambitious in general. In short, the game is just an all around great package.

Of course, Lords of Thunder isn't perfect. The main gripe I have about the game is that it is far too difficult for its own good. I have no problem beating a stage or two, but I find it very difficult to tackle three or more stages in one sitting. Essentially, if one dies enough times, they then have to restart all the way back to the beginning. Unlike most shoot-em-ups there is not even a password system in place. If you fail at the game, you don't get another chance, you go all the way back. While there is some admiration to the "git gud" philosophy of this, it is a bit overwhelming. While diehard shoot-em-up fans won't be bothered by this, it will certainly affect the less hardcore players. That said, the difficulty isn't to the point of being game breaking like say in the infamous Mortal Kombat Advance.

Lords of Thunder was the PC Engine's last big push. It was the last major exclusive game on the platform to be heavily featured on major magazines and storefronts. Unfortunately, despite the game's quality, it was in the wrong genre and the wrong lifespan of the generation. 1993 was the year of Star Fox, Mortal Kombat II, Street Fighter II Turbo, NBA Jam, and Shinobi III. Not only did the game have a tough hill to climb by being in a niche genre on a niche console, but it was also fighting off the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis when they were at their very strongest. Due to the growing popularity of emulation (both legal and illegal), the game has gotten a second look. Even major websites have revisited the game and given it a huge amount of praise. It is said to be one of the best shoot-em-ups ever made by the genre enthusiasts, and they may be right.