Aquapolis SOS (MSX)

When you first start playing Aquapolis SOS, it seems like nothing more than a much easier knock-off of Taito's 1979 arcade game Lunar Rescue, but it's actually more than that: it's a much easier knock-off of Lunar Resuce with some added elements of Missile Command! Anyway, the premise is that the underwater city of Aquapolis is under seige, from missiles and floating mines, and you're charged with the task of helping evacuate the place, as well as operating the city's forcefield to protect the buildings. You can probably work out most of how this works from the screenshots, but basically, you pilot your submarine down to the city, land on top of one of the buildings to pick up an evacuee, and then go back up to the surface ship. On your way back up, you can shoot the mines for extra points, though your score actually goes down if one of your missiles hits the surface ship. I can't think of many other arcade-style games where you can actually lose points like that, the only one that immediately comes to mind is Dynamite Deka 2, in which you lose points when you lose health (and gain points when you get it back). As well as mines, there's also a seahorse, that will try to drag you around if you get too close, though it can't hurt you itself, and you can't hurt it.

As for the missiles and the force field, that's just something you have to manage as you play. At the push of a button, you can open or close a forcefield above the city which destroys anything it touches (except for that indestructible seahorse), the opening and closing is pretty slow, so once you get a few stages in, and there's more mines for you to avoid, you've really got to be skillful in balancing the tasks of avoiding mines, protecting the city and not smashing into the field yourself. Missiles that get through will destroy one of the buildings, permanenly taking away one landing spot in the city, and if all of them get destroyed, it's an instant game over (though, I had to deliberately not use the forcefield and play through several stages to confirm that this happens).

There's some other little quirks in the game too, like the end-of-stage bonus, based on how many successful rescues you get during a stage. This is interesting because a stage ends once five evacuees have left the city, and the only way to lose one is by losing a life on your way back up the screen after picking them up. I would have preferred a time bonus, but I guess the random appearence of the missiles would have added to large an element of luck to scoring.

Aquapolis SOS is a game that I can't really say is particularly good or bad. It's not very exciting or interesting, but it passes the time in a fairly unpleasant manner. The most significant thing to say about it is that it's a very early game from the team that would go on to become MSX stalwarts and Puyo Puyo creators Compile.

Chaos Heat (Arcade)

If you think way back, you might remember when I wrote about a terrible Playstation survival horror game named Chaos Break, and how I mentioned that it was a vastly inferior "adaptation" of an arcade game called Chaos Heat. This is that very game. Obviously. Before I start, I should also mention that the emulation of this game isn't totally perfect yet, but it's definitely good enough to play.

Anyway, it's a 3D action game, that's structured like a beat em up, but you mostly shoot stuff, rather than punch it. I guess kind of like the later Capcom game Cannon Spike? It's got the same plot as a million other 90s videogames: you're a member of an elite military team, and you've been sent to some remote lab full of genetically-engineered monsters. There's three characters to pick from, and they're different not just in movement speed and attack power, but in the weapons they carry.

To elaborate, the weapons can be shot normally, by tapping the fire button, or they can be charged by holding it down. So different are the characters' weapons, that even the way charging works is different for each of them. For example, one character's charge attack is a powerful laser that fires continuously for however long you held the button before releasing, while another character's charge attack only works if it's charged all the way, and it increases the power of their normal shots for a short time. The third character doesn't have a charge weapon, instead firing a powerful flamethrower that uses up ammo at a much higher rate than their normal gun when the button is held.

As you play the game more, you'll encounter various other interesting things about it, like how there are branching paths through levels, that diverge based on your ability to perform timed tasks, like protect an NPC teammate for 30 seconds while they hack an electronic lock, and so on. Different paths through stages can even lead to entirely different boss fights, too, which is more impressive than the "same boss fight, different background" offered by the likes of House of the Dead 2!

The most interesting thing from a historical standpoint, though, is a mechanic that's way ahead of its time for a game released in 1998: the player has an invincible dodge roll move. I know Chaos Heat probably isn't the first game to have such a thing, but it's still something I associate with more modern action games, like Dark Souls or Bayonetta (actually, is the DS roll even invincible? It's been years since I played it). Once you know that this move is there, it totally changes the flow of the game, as it does in most games where it exists. The only downside to it is that it's performed with a double direction tap, rather than a single button press, which does feel slightly unwieldy.

Chaos Heat isn't a great all-time classic, but it is a bit of a hidden gem, and it's a crying shame that Taito decided to make that horrible survival horror game rather than give this one the home port it deserved. As it is, though, if you can tolerate playing a game in less-than-perfect emulation (or if you somehow gain access to a real cabinet), Chaos Heat is definitely worth a look.