Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Release: Genre: Rail Shooter
I have a fondness for Lethal Enforcers as it was one of the first light gun games I played in the arcade. Mind you I was not good at it and it cost .50 cents so I did not play it much. But it sparked a love for the genre that carried over in to other games. I never saw Lethal Enforcers II in the arcade and only played it years after the fact. While the home port of the first game was serviceable on the Genesis the sequel is not as strong despite being a better game. The console is showing its age with this one.
Lethal Enforcers II takes the setting back to the Wild West in 1873. You are an outlaw set on eradicating crime in a small frontier town and must deal with bandits, hoodlums, and all manner of malcontent. While it seems odd to go back in time for a sequel the setting makes for a nice fit. It is like a cartridge version of Mad Dog McCree minus the cheesy FMV.
For your control options you can use a Genesis controller or the Justifier. Unlike the first game the Justifier does not come packaged with the game which is flat out stupid in my opinion. Lethal Enforcers II also does not support the Sega Menacer but that is understandable. With the Justifier the control is about as perfect as you would want. The accuracy is uncanny; if you do not hit your target in the dead zone they will only stagger for a second before firing back. The game is surprisingly playable with a stock controller up until a point. The cursor moves fast and your targets are not that aggressive at first. But when the game spikes it does so hard and becomes nigh unplayable without a light gun.
The gameplay is near identical to the first title. However the change in setting does wonders for the making the game feel fresh. Lethal Enforcers II hits all the Wild West tropes, from fighting a saloon showdown to stopping a bank robbery. My favorite level is the Train Robbery. Here you are on horseback as you hit targets from the train windows and such. The enemy placement is strategic and at times hilarious and even the end boss battle is not as bad as some of the previous. I will say though while the setting is cool there is not much enemy variety, something the original had in spades because it took place in the modern day. That being said the game ends on a…..very strange note. That is all I will say. Certainly did not see that one coming.
Light gun games are typically very difficult and Lethal Enforcers II is no exception. Although there are only five levels they have multiple segments. Each section is very long and tends to drag on longer than it should in my opinion. The pacing starts off slow initially but by the middle of stage three the game spikes hard. The outlaws are quick on the draw at that point to the point you will need to replay levels and memorize their spawn points to survive even with a Justifier. There is nothing wrong with that of course, that comes with the genre. But it does feel a little bad here. I would have preferred shorter but more plentiful levels over this.
The worst of the pacing issues has to be the monotonous boss battles. Each boss is not only a massive bullet sponge but their rapid fire attacks almost never stop. The first boss fires cannonballs in rapid succession and you’ll mash the fire button 100 times in a minute. What should be a test of accuracy becomes an exercise in tedium as you fight to deal with their attacks and find a window to whittle their ridiculous life bar down. And it only gets worse from there! If you make it to the final battle……man. That is all I’ll say. This is the worse of arcade style design and the game desperately needed an adjustment to smooth it out.
Konami were able to do a decent approximation of the first arcade game on the Genesis even if it was grainy. Sadly Lethal Enforcers II suffers heavily under the Genesis’ limitations. The system’s color palette makes the already dusky environments of the Wild West even more brown and dull. The entire game is grainy and so washed out it is hard to make out details. It robs the cool set pieces of their impact when you can barely make out what you are looking at. The sound is sadly annoying; in an attempt to add atmosphere every enemy has a sound bite. But they are repetitive and you’ll tire of hearing “You ain’t gonna get me sheriff!” within minutes. There is a Sega CD version of this game but the only difference is more voice clips which is a god send but not worth a whole ass CD version for.
In Closing
I am torn with this one. While Lethal Enforcers II is ugly as sin at its core it is still a fun game. But at this point there are perfect home ports out there like the collection for PlayStation which is a far better value proposition. The Genesis cannot do this game justice overall.
