Developer: Capcom Publisher: NEC Released: November 1992 Genre: Shooter
I count myself as fortunate to have been present for the Sega Genesis launch. Among the early titles for the system Forgotten Worlds was one of my favorites. I thought it was the coolest game in the world and was completely ignorant to the existence of the arcade version. That meant I was unaware of how much content was cut from the game despite Sega doing an awesome job stuffing the game in a four megabit cartridge. The later Turbo CD version for the longest time was the best port you could buy outside of the X68000 edition. Once you adapt to the controls this is a spectacular version of a great arcade game.
Genesis on the left, Turbo CD on the right.
The visual difference between the Genesis and Turbo CD game are immediately apparent. The sprites are larger and sport more detail. This is most noticeable in the game’s bosses which now frequently take up the entire screen like the infamous Dust Dragon. Everyone remembers the War God but now his entire upper torso is visible to be dismantled piece by piece. The overall color palette is brighter and retains the arcade game’s vibrant look. I would go so far as to say it makes the game look higher resolution than it actually is.
Many of the backgrounds were simplified on the Genesis. All of that missing background detail is present which really shows off the game’s excellent art direction. Forgotten Worlds was a varied game and the darker Genesis palette, while showing how ravaged the world had become, gave the game a uniform look that it did not have originally. Unfortunately the tradeoff is the absence of any parallax scrolling. The missing scrolling is immediately noticeable and one of two blemishes on the game’s visuals. The other is heavy flicker and slowdown past the game’s midpoint. They made an admirable attempt at retaining the arcade’s intensity but the performance suffers as a result.
To appreciate Forgotten Worlds you will have to get over the controls. In the arcade the game used a rotary button like a dual analog stick to control your fire. That setup is impossible with the Turbo Grafx two button controllers. But even with that in mind the setup they use is less than ideal. Button II will fire while Button 1 and the Run Button (!) will rotate your character. You can set it to auto fire but you still use 1 and Run for rotation while button II does nothing. I will come right out and say it, it’s awful. You can adapt to it but it makes enjoying the game a chore. Sadly even Hudson and Capcom realized this as they released a special three button controller for this game. No such luck in the US unfortunately. It would have made the infinitely more playable.
Once you adjust to the controls you can enjoy all of Forgotten Worlds content. Unlike the Sega game all nine levels are present and accounted for. This makes for a longer game although the levels are of medium length. The balance in this version is different. Zenny is harder to come by forcing you to make hard choices in the shop. You more than likely would end up with every possible upgrade in that version by the end. Here it isn’t possible as the larger enemies and objects that dropped massive zenny coins are gone. If you use a credit you restart the current level with whatever cash you had left. It is hard to come back from that, especially in the long and brutal final stage.
Forgotten Worlds was already a difficult game as is. The controls make this an even harder experience. No matter how well you manage to adapt the finger gymnastics needed to consistently hit the Run button to rotate mean you will take cheap hits constantly. What also hurts is the lack of two-player coop. Coop made an already fun game even better and made managing the enemy waves easier. But I can see why they did not bother; the necessity of the Turbo Tap for even basic multiplayer will forever go down in history as one of the dumbest design decisions of all time. With two credits you will have to put time into this one but at least it is worth it.
In Closing
The Turbo CD edition of Forgotten Worlds is generally solid but deficient in a few categories. It makes for a good addition to the system’s library however.
