Who Can do it? Turrican!
Despite being well old enough to have been around the original launch of these games, Turrican was a franchise I simply wasn’t aware of. I had a decent library of games across various platforms growing up, but it wasn’t until much later where I had become far more into gaming to the point of collecting and building a substantial library. Thankfully, every couple of years, collection packs of old games start to see re-releases on newer and more convenient hardware, introducing these games to either those like myself who never got around to playing them or diehard fans who are ready to jump back in. Turrican: Flashback is such a collection, featuring four games that excel in their gameplay, but are given a very bland and uninspiring presentation that does little to honor their legacy.
Turrican is a series that initially told the story of a soldier who has been bio-engineered to reclaim back the colony of Alterra that had been taken over by an A.I. called MORGUL, an ecosystem network that has taken over the life forms of its inhabitants and converted them to do his bidding. Within the colony, its five self-contained habitats were created by this network, and Turrican, the soldier, must eliminate these enemy forces and destroy MORGUL for good. The remainder of the collection; Turrican II, Mega Turrican, and Super Turrican, then tell the story of Bren McGuire, a man who takes on the Turrican armor to defeat a menacing force called The Machine as he attempts to take over the galaxy. It is these three games where the real fun of not just the story, but the gameplay really helps sell this package.
Turrican is a series that has been on various platforms across several years. You would find many of its games across the Commodore 64, Amiga, NES, SNES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and even the long-forgotten, TurboGrafx-16. The series throughout its history has had several installments, and it’s especially odd that not every game is featured here, with Super Turrican 2 being notably absent. This title, and others, are likely being held back for another hopeful collection down the road or possibly sold separately. Each game has its own feel of the console it was designed for, as Mega Turrican, made originally for the Mega Drive/Genesis, feels more fluid and more visually impressive than Super Turrican, which was designed for the Super Nintendo, as indicated by each of the title’s tag. While games are naturally going to advance in key areas from sequel to sequel, you can certainly feel the era of that console in each of included four games.
Turrican is certainly a game marked by its time, an action-adventure title that plays like the offspring of Metroid and Contra. You’ll have a few key abilities that feel right at home in Metroid, such as rolling into a ball and dropping mines, to the widespread gun types of Contra. Given the era that this game came out in and the popularity of those titles at the time, it wasn’t uncommon for games to borrow ideas and playstyles from one another, something Turrican does in ways that certainly works for it. Turrican does have a bit of the run-and-gun systems at play, but rushing into battles is a quick way to get killed, especially with all the environmental hazards and pitfalls that await you. Exploring in Turrican will reward you with tracking down additional lives and health, something that becomes almost a requirement as a few levels across each game certainly demands some trial and error.
Thankfully, the game has a rewind feature to backtrack to a safer moment, and honestly, there is a section in one of the final missions in Super Turrican where you are jumping from train to train, hopping atop floating objects between train cars that honestly, would have been a nightmare without the rewind system. This is because, across each of the games, you’ll have jumps that require you to leap from the last possible pixel of the platform, something that can lead to hundreds of death if you don’t perform it exactly how the game wants. Oddly enough, in Mega Turrican, it has an almost identical level, theme, and all, that doesn’t have this problem with its platforms at all, making for a vastly more enjoyable version of that level.
Each game also tacks on various cheats that grant you a variety of assists. These vary from title to title instead of having a unified cheat system across each game. From diving into the cheat menus, the Switch is apparently a direct port of the PS4 version, as is indicated that “trophies” won’t work if you use the cheats. I found the cheats to actually turn off periodically, especially in Super Turrican’s “Alien” inspired level’s where despite having invincibility, the alien face-huggers would latch onto my face and kill me. The game also supports save states, so you can save constantly and reload the game should you fail what lies ahead.
Included across the collection are a selection of visual filters such as changing the display ratio, scaling, wallpaper if playing in 4:3, scan-line quality, sharpness, curvature, and various CRT options that allow you to customize the game’s presentation. Each game also has a write up of the central story, but in regards to anything present here to honor the legacy of what these games meant to a lot of people, there really isn’t anything here. There is no art gallery or character viewer, developer interview, or anything that you often find in legacy collections. I mentioned at the start of the review that the presentation is overly bland, and that’s what I mean. The games are well enough as they are, featuring gameplay from the era, but the collection itself feels very barebones in how they are presented. If you’re simply just wanting a collection of screens that guide you to the game of your choosing, then that’s about all you get here apart from the visual filters.
Turrican: Flashback as it is, allows new and old players to experience these games on new hardware in a way that allows the authentic experience to shine with a few modern fixes like save states and the ability to rewind a bad jump, or when you’ve pushed into enemy territory a bit too hastily. Unfortunately, the lack of it being a complete collection of the entire series or anything to honor its legacy does hurt the overall package, especially at the $29.99 USD price. The games are certainly fun for what they are, but as it is designed in a way to attract those who have been likely waiting years for a collection of these games, they might be a tad disappointed in the overall package.
Developer - Factor 5, Ratalaika Games. Publisher - ININ Games. Released - January 29th, 2021. Available On - Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5. Rated - (E 10+) - Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.