Genocide 2

Developer: Bits Corporation    Publisher: Kemco    Released: August 5, 1994    Genre: Action

Thanks to magazines like Gamefan and EGM that would feature extensive import coverage I developed an interest in platforms that did not come to the US. The Sharp X68000 is one of these. This home PC was home to many perfect arcade ports from the likes of Capcom and Konami but was also host to plenty of original software. Some of it was bad like Lagoon but there were others that were far more interesting like Genocide 2. A brawler starring a ten foot tall robot should be awesome. And to an extent it is. The SNES port was once scheduled to come to the US but was cancelled. The game has little text and is in English anyway. But the question is should you buy it?

Earth has been ravaged by a massive war, leaving it in ruins. With the help of the CONEX Corporation the world begins to recover. However the CONEX Corporation is not as benevolent as they seem. In the planet’s time of need they take advantage of the situation for world domination using their series of robots. As a hero from the last war you pilot the mech Tracer to stop their plans.

On paper controlling a giant mech in a side scrolling brawler should be awesome. At its best moments playing Genocide 2 fulfills that promise. But it is not without its frustrations. Your main weapon is a plasma sword with terribly short reach. You can perform a flurry of attacks quickly and block but it is still annoying. If the sword were just a few meters longer most of my problems with the game would disappear. The Tracer unit is very mobile, able to dash, jump extremely high, and perform a useless side flip.

Your most interesting weapon however is Betty. Betty is a floating attack unit that is the basis for all of the secondary weapons. On its own Betty can be sent rushing into enemies from eight directions. It uses special weapon energy so long as it is active at which point it will recharge.  Using Betty to wreak havoc during the levels is fun. The only downside is that you manually have to direct it while moving at the same time. You only use three face buttons; dedicating one to Betty would have made the game infinitely more playable.

In the rare times you can explore you can find secondary powers for Betty. High power supposedly boosts your strength but I did not notice. Explode is a massive burst that deals major damage to all enemies, even bosses. Shield is just barely a notch away from being the best item. It makes you temporarily invincible for a decent amount of time. Mad Betty is far and away the best. Once activated Betty will aggressively seek out and attack anything on screen. You can easily take out some bosses using Mad Betty which is why it is not available in every level.

Genocide 2 follows the typical formula of the beat em up genre for the most part. Each level consists of tiny arenas where you must destroy primary targets to move on. Usually the main enemies are accompanied by fodder to pad the levels. Most brawlers stretch out their levels by featuring a large number of enemy waves before the end level boss. Genocide 2 is different in that its stages are short. There are five main stages with three parts. Most of the time you will face eight or nine enemies per part before moving on. In a way that is a god send as the genre is notorious for excessive padding. But between the bad hit detection and brain dead enemies combat is simply not interesting.

With combat being a slow slog Genocide 2 needs to fall back on its level design. Unfortunately it fails in that regard. Most of the levels are incredibly straightforward with no chance to wander off the set path. The few open levels are better in that you can do some light exploration and platforming. More of that and less of the focus on fighting obnoxious enemies and Genocide 2 would have been a much better game.

I do wonder how much of the game’s flaws come from the original or from it being a port. The SNES version of Genocide 2 features new levels compared to the original and less enemies. Whereas in the X68000 version you would face sometimes three or four enemies rarely will you fight two simultaneously. The initial city stage is missing the cool boss battle against a massive battleship. Instead you fight a generic robot that chucks cars at you. The stages that are missing featured cool mech battles and were replaced with platform heavy levels instead. The trade-off was not worth it in my opinion. They made what was an otherwise good game worse.

In Conclusion

I looked forward to Genocide 2 but ultimately we did not miss much. It has its good points but they are buried under bad execution. Genocide 2 could have been good. Instead it is merely above average. A little more time in the oven would have made it great.