Developer: Data East Publisher: Data East Release: 11/87 Genre: Action
I have never been particularly fond of Breakthru. My dislike is surprising as Breakthru came at a time where any new video game was cause for celebration. I honestly cannot explain why the game rubs me the wrong way. At its core it is not dreadful like most of LJN’s dreadful releases. Breakthru is a competent game that I am sure many will find fun. But for me I just do not like it. I didn’t like it back in the day and I don’t like it now. Separating my dislike of the game it does have interesting mechanics but is over far too soon.
Breakthru was originally released in the arcade in 1986. That year was pretty strong for classic arcade releases so it was one of many that easily slipped through the cracks. Compared to most games at the time its premise is actually pretty cool. An experimental fighter plane dubbed PK30 has been stolen and it is your job to “break through” (get it?) enemy lines to retrieve it. Presumably you are in a foreign land and so the entire nation and its army stand in your way. The NES port is a pretty faithful recreation, warts and all. Now whether that is something you will want to experience is another matter entirely.
It is a little hard to describe Breakthru. The game plays like a side scrolling action title like Contra except you are behind the wheels of a car. This is not your standard car however. Your car can leap pretty far depending on your speed, a feature the game takes full advantage of. There are very few power-ups; there is a wide beam, invincibility and that is it. Oddly enough you have to catch the damn power-ups before they fall and depending on your speed the items move faster, like they do not want to be caught!
Right away you will notice Breakthru does the one thing no NES game should do, reverse the buttons. A shoots and B jumps, It makes no sense and I will never understand why developers do this but I digress. Breakthru is a combination platformer, shooter, and racing game but does none of them exceptionally well. The levels are densely packed with enemies so the action quota is high. But in most cases you are better off jumping over enemies to avoid their shots. With so few weapons combat is not interesting. Your speed heavily affects the platforming. The game tries the elaborate platforming you would find in a Mario game at times but it simply does not work. The density of enemies and obstacles make it hard to build speed. You need to memorize the level layouts in advance to time jumps perfectly and even then it never feels natural.
Breakthru is not difficult so much as it is frustrating. You need to go fast to make the jumps but there are too many enemies to do that. The game relies heavily on gotcha style moments for cheap deaths. Sudden missile drops, enemies that spawn from behind, invincible helicopters, the game packs them in. Any time you have a moment to breathe and might start to enjoy yourself Breakthru cannot help but ruin the moment through bad design. Its arcade roots show in these moments and I can kind of see why. Most arcade games are cheap to get you to drop quarters in the machine. Breakthru is cheap to hide the fact that it is incredibly short.
Even by arcade standards Breakthru is short.Incredibly short. There are only four levels that are of median length. With skill you can run through the game in ten minutes or less. That is almost unheard of for an arcade game. Usually brief games like this have an unbelievable difficulty curve like Ghosts ‘n Goblins. Yet Breakthru bucks that trend and even gives unlimited continues. The game’s short length is probably why I dislike it so much. When you are young and new games are not so frequent you want to spend as much time with them as possible since god only knows when you will get another. So to reach the ending in less than an hour was incredibly disappointing. Breakthru does not have the coop fun of a Contra that entices you to play it over and over. This is a one and done affair.
In Closing
Breakthru is a solid port of the arcade game. Too bad it was never that good to begin with. There are plenty of other titles to spend your money on, no need to bother with this mediocre one.
