Developer: BEC, Inc Publisher: Bandai Released: 1991 Genre: FIghting
Ultraman: Toward the Future was the first game in the series to reach the US. That should have been cause for celebration for those of us that grew up on badly dubbed Tokusatsu shows in the 80s. But trust me it is not. Although I was a dumb kid who bought many a bad game in the NES era by the time 16-bit rolled around I had developed taste. Even from the small footage I saw on the Gamepro TV show I knew it was bad. And I was right. Of all the imports to bring to the West Ultraman should have been left behind.
Ultraman is a one on one fighting game featuring an all-star cast from the series of the same name. Toward the Future was the first series in the franchise filmed outside of Japan and released in America too. I can see the synergy they were going for; Acclaim and LJN launched licensed games not long after their properties gained notoriety with some degree of success. Commercially, not critically, lets just put that out there. Ultraman also had the benefit of being a near SNES launch title. Unfortunately its awful quality made sure it was lost in the shuffle among the system’s Christmas rush.
Although I’ve mentioned the game’s bad quality multiple times it is not for lack of effort. I will give the game credit, Ultraman is armed with a decent array of attacks executed with simple button combinations. In addition to the various kicks, throws and punches you can erect a temporary shield and perform a defensive roll or backflip. While you are battling the special meter fills, granting access to four separate attacks. These inflict a great deal of damage and are the best way to deplete each boss’s regenerating life bar. To end each battle once the enemy is in the finished state you must hit them with the burning plasma, the strongest special attack. This becomes trickier as you progress, adding an extra (some would even say frustrating) element to the game.
If everything I just described sounds intriguing know that it completely falls apart in the execution. The controls are a sluggish mess at best. Ultraman is slow to respond to most commands as if there is input lag. Button inputs are frequently unrecognized, making combat awkward. The overall feel of the game screams clumsy. Watching Ultraman throw punches and kicks with no range while being pummeled by the AI is sheer comedy. The range of your attacks is the most frustrating. Every enemy can seemingly slap you around while you are effectively helpless. Hit and run tactics work somewhat but are weak, and with the time limit and regenerating health not effective long term. That means relying on special attacks, which defeats the purpose of arming you with so many moves in the first place.
Honestly I don’t know whether to classify Ultraman as difficult or frustrating. Maybe it is both. Regenerating health is a bad idea all around. The enemies seem to benefit from it the most. That is probably because you will take the majority of hits. Speaking of, there is a sharp difficulty spike around the fourth boss and it only gets worse from there. As they become more aggressive the regenerating health becomes useless on your end. Yet they have no such weakness. I also really don’t like being forced to use a level four special to finish a match. It’s a needless element that makes the game all the more frustrating because of its inclusion. The one thing that could have at least added some value to the game, multiplayer, is missing as well. Considering the sorry state of the mechanics that is probably for the best.
At first glance Ultraman looks impressive. The sprites are large and do a good job recreating the rubber monsters of the show. The environments feature many layer of parallax scrolling. Even Mode 7 use is kept to a minimum. On further inspection the façade crumbles. The animation is stiff and robotic and laughably bad. While the sprites are large they do a bad job of representing the scale of these monster battles. Ultraman and his enemies are supposed to be the size of four story buildings. Yet here they could easily fit in alongside the case of Street Fighter.
In Closing
Ultraman is bad from top to bottom. The only reason Ultraman is still remembered is because of its proximity to the SNES launch. Otherwise it is completely forgettable. No one talks about it for a reason. Let us keep it that way.
