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(c)1992 NEC Avenue,Ltd.
LICENSED BY CAPCOM
Release : 1992-3-27 (¥7980)
SuperCDRom2 NAPR-1025
Shooter / Horizontal
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Released in America as
FORGOTTEN WORLDS
( TGXCD1030 )
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Forgotten Worlds is a multi-scrolling shooter by NEC Avenue and conversion
of Capcom's arcade hit originally released in 1988.
The mysterious and powerful Bios has created powerful war gods
and their waging battle is now raging and spilling over into the world.
Two jet-packed warriors go on a desperate quest to defeat them and
their armies, flying deep within the realms of the
gods' underworlds and taking them out one at the time.
The player takes control of a flying commando-marine
helped by a floating satellite. The unlikely machine constitutes
the primary weapon system in the game -
it can smoothly rotate around the player and consequently fire in any direction.
Two buttons on the controller rotate the satellite and
one fires it (the Avenue Pad 3 controller was actually created
to play this game (see the Info section), but a standard
controller may be used with some success).
Various enemies drop blue crystals when killed - these
Zennies (as they are called) can be later used in
shops scattered throughout the game (usually located
half-way through each level). There, the player can
purchase satellite upgrades (such as Missiles, Multi-Ways,
Laser Beams, Bound, V-Cannon, Balkan Cannon
and so forth...), health potions, armors or continues. The game's structure becomes
a lot more complex in later stages and some levels split into
two and feature multiple routes. Finally, the two simultaneous players option
was omitted from this conversion (only a second player 'satellite only' option is
available in debug mode).
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The original arcade game was called Lost Worlds in Japan and was
released by Capcom in 1988 (picture on the left). This shooter was a kind of
logical evolution after Section Z and Side Arms, two
side-scrolling shooters also featuring flying humanoid avatars.
The original arcade game had an analogue rotary
dial to control the satellite. It was converted for several consoles
of the time : Master System (1991), Megadrive (1989) and
for many computers such as the Amiga (1988),
C64 (1989), ZX Spectrum (1989) and Amstrad CPC (1989).
The PC Engine version tested here came packaged with the
Avenue Pad 3 in Japan, supposed to help "emulating" the rotary dial
controller from the arcade.
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Teaser text from the american version:
Dust World, a city reduced to rubble by the evil god Bios. It was in this
hellscape that the Supper Warrior was born - destined to answer the
people's prayer.
"Today he dies."
Weapon in hand, the Super Warrior stands up - the tremendous battle is
about to begin.
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O
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
O
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s
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This PC Engine conversion of Forgotten Worlds is
outstanding and Nec Avenue created a technical marvel and
brought the impossible to
life - in my opinion. I don't really
know why, but I have always loved
Forgotten Worlds - maybe because of the mysterious and
attractive level design which is unlike
anything else. But beware, the game's difficulty level
is on the high side and
the control system just doesn't respond as fast as it needs to.
At the halfway mark, things get really intense and your
credits will rapidly melt away. The two simultaneous player
mode is also missing but we can easily understand why, the
hardware probably wouldn't have cut it, I guess.
All in all, Forgotten Worlds is a remarkable game and
an ambitious conversion - an excellent reminder of
how well Nec Avenue mastered the PC Engine hardware.
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