Welcome back to The Mephisto Mini-Review, however, this time it's a much longer review. I'm going to review an arcade game that in my opinion should be added to the Wii Virtual Console and compare it with it's ports for Sega Genesis and SNES, anyway, let's begin shall we:
Sunset Riders (Arcade):
Sunset Riders is an arcade classic made by Konami released in 1991. Taking place in the wild west, you play as a bounty hunter who goes after wanted
criminals to make a good fortune for yourself. The game has 2 ports, one for the SNES and the Sega Genesis/Megadrive
I'm going to compare all 3 versions of the game and rate them accordingly.
Let's kick things off with the arcade version.
You start with a character select screen of 4 playable characters. Steve, Billy, Bob, and Cormano (who is a favorite among most players,
there's just something about a pink sumbrero, pancho, and a shotgun that easily attracts people.) The characters are divided based on weapons.
Steve and Billy are revolver users while Bob and Cormano are shotgun/rifle users. Although the shotgun/rifle isn't as fast of a shot, it does have a wider
spread, making it a good weapon for killing without the bother of precise aiming. In the arcade version of the game, characters are selected based on where
you put the quarter from left to right. Player 1 is Steve, Player 2 is Billy, Player 3 is Bob and Player 4 is Cormano.
There are 8 stages (2 of which are horseback), each with their own boss, and a bonus game.
After you select your character, a wanted poster will tell you how much money (points) you will recieve for beating each boss.
Once the level begins you can see that it is bright, colorful, and generally is very nice to look at. The music also accompanies the levels very well,
each track fits each stage, the music is definitely a highlight of the game overall.
2nd boss theme:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vaxmKDgf1GgThe controls are basic, and too the point. You have a button to shoot, a button to jump, and a joystick to move. The controls are very responsive, and
you don't feel that you have to force a movement. When pressing up and jump you can move to a top floor of some buildings, the game demonstrates this
in the first level of the arcade version, however, this is missing in the SNES and Genesis versions of the game. Holding down, left/right and jump will cause your character
to either slide across the ground, which is good for dodging, and down and jump cause your character to jump down to the group if on top of a balcony or
higher level.
The 8 bosses are as follows:
Simon Greedwell
Hawkeye Hank Hatfield
Dark Horse
The Smith Brothers
El Greco
Chief Scalpem
Paco Loco and finally
Richard Rose
The first four stages are the early/easy bosses while the last four are supposed to be the tougher, more serious bosses of the game although the difficulty
of these bosses is always debatable. The only boss that is a real pain in the a** is the final boss Richard Rose, who you have to fight twice because he
reveals that he had a mirror protecting him from bullets during the first fight.
The bonus game is basically a shooter version of whack a mole. A cowboy will come out with a gun, you have to shoot him before he moves off of the screen.
There are 50 overall, and whoever shoots the most wins the points.
There are different types of enemies throughout the game. You have your basic bandits who try to shoot you, people who throw dynamite, Indians who shoot
flaming arrows and throw big rocks in Chief Scalpem's level, bandits on horseback or throw logs out of a wagon in the horseback levels, and small thieves who
have powerups or money bonuses. The powerups are Auto fire, or duel weapon, you can also obtain these powerups by walking through doors in the town levels.
Normal enemies take 1 hit to kill, while bosses take more time and shots to take down. Although the normal enemies are pretty easy, you should avoid being
too wreckless because your character only has a 1 hit death as well and you only have limited lives depending on how many quarters you put into the machine.
Overall I give this game a 9 out of 10. Good controls, good music, good visual, very addictive gameplay, moderate difficulty for some.
The SNES version of the game is definitely the most true to the original out of the 2 ports. There were some changes in the game however due to
Nintendo's stance on censorship.
Changes include:
Dynamite throwers are now male (as opposed to female in the arcade version
most likely due to the possibility of backlash based on claims of violence towards women)
All of the Indian enemies (except for Scalpem) are removed and replaced with regular cowboys which changes the level slightly.
Scalpem's name is changed to Wigwam to avoid racial tensions
The text in which Scalpem (Wigwam) speaks is now in perfect English, though the voice clip was not changed
The Saloons are now called Taverns
When entering one of the buildings, the player doesn't come out with a woman kissing him, but instead does a pose by himself
The women in the "tavern" after defeating the smith brothers now have long dresses instead of wearing corsettes or being in their underwear.
Although most of these changes have no real effect on the gameplay, the Arcade version is simply superior because it is the true version of the game,
however, by no means would I say the SNES version is bad.
I give the SNES version an 8 out of 10.
Last, and definitely least, is the Sega Genesis version of the game.
The genesis version of this game is just watered down miserably. You now only have 2 playable characters, the levels are cut into 2 parts
however, not all of the bosses return, and there are only half of the levels from the original game and the bonus level is completely different.
There are no soundbites for the bosses, only boring text in small quote boxes. This game is okay at best, definitely inferior to the original arcade and the
SNES port. Because this game suffers from so many faults I give this one a 6 out of 10. It's playable, but when compared to the other two, it's barely
playable. I've always wanted to know why Sega decided to release such an inferior version of the game, when they could have made the game at least equal to the SNES port. Oh well.
I totally recommend that you check all 3 of these games out for yourself. This review is merely based on my personal opinion and should be treated as such.
There may be someone out there who completely disagrees with me and thinks the Sega version is better, I'd be surprised, and I'd like to meet them. Anyway, I think
it's pretty clear that my stance is that the arcade version is definitely the best. If you ever get a chance to play it, do so. If it's not on the Wii VC
or Xbox Live Arcade, it should be. Well, that's it for my review,
