ThunderCross II

ThunderCross II

Manufacturer	Konami
Year	1991
Emulated	MAME

1991 saw this, the follow-up to Konami's ThunderCross. This was around the time when arcades were being taken over by wretched beat-em-ups and uninspired driving games. I believe this game to be the last decent arcade shooter, certainly the last I could be bothered to play right to the end. The few shoot-em-ups that did appear were usually unreasonably hard, hoping that punters would just 'continue' & keep shovelling money in. Of course, the opposite happened and the shoot-em-up died a lonely death.

I find it intensely irritating the way shooters are often dismissed as being 'retro', especially as beat-em-ups have evolved so little. Take the much vaunted Soul Calibur - it might look pretty, but its gameplay is the same as thousands before it. There have been recent signs that people have begun to get fed up with Capcom's policy of constantly re-releasing Street Fighter 2 with a couple of new features, but there's some way to go until the curse of the beat-em-up is lifted.

But enough ranting, back to the plot. In stark contrast to its contemporaries, ThunderCross II is actually quite easy. However, I would much rather play it than something like Gradius III.

Controls

The controls are the same as the Japanese & European versions of ThunderCross. A joystick moves the craft, the first button fires and the second button adjusts the spacing of your multiples. If you have one of the three 'super weapons', the second button fires these instead.

Weapons

Again, these are similar to the first game. Shooting red aliens reveals a power pod. The first is always speed, followed by a multiple. The next one is a weapons pod, cycling through the main weapons (normal, vulcan, bounce & tail gun). After that, multiples and weapons alternate until you have four multiples. The next pod cycles through the super weapons (flame, laser & crush), before turning into a normal weapons pod.

Speedup	One is all you need.
Multiple	You can have up to four of these.
Normal	Pick this up repeatedly for super-powerful shots.
Vulcan	Rapid fire, but not very powerful.
Bounce	Bounce all around the screen. Lovely.
Tail Gun	Fires backward and forward. Rather nice.
Flame	Flaming birds of death.
Laser	Large beams of doom.
Crush	Huge explosions of tragedy.

The super weapons have limited ammo and are capable of firing through the scenery. Also, each of the main weapons can be powered up by collecting their pickup again.

Variants

I am not aware of any ThunderCross II variants, although you would expect the usual Western / Japanese ones.

Emulation

ThunderCross II's emulation is pretty solid. All graphics & sound appear to be present and correct.

Level Guide (soon)