Publisher: Rainbow Arts, ININ Games
Developer: Factor 5, Manfred Trenz
Genre: Arcade Action Platformer
Price/s: €34.99(Physical Strictly Limited Store), $34.99
Where to buy: Anthology 1 – Strictly Limited Store, Switch , Anthology 2 – Strictly Limited Store, Switch
Covering Turrican is like uncovering a modern wonder to most gamers whom never heard of the cult classic. Turrican was a track record of proving PC gaming/computers can hang with the console boys in the platforming department. However we could not go into this without speaking about the legend in the commadore programing world without talking about: Manfred Trenz, a renowned figure in the Commodore programming community and a worker at Rainbow Arts at the time, developed Turrican in 1990. The Great Giana Sisters, a Super Mario Bros. ripoff so brilliant Nintendo took legal action to have the game taken off store shelves, and Katakis are the works he is credited with creating (one of the best R-Type clones ever, equally involved in legal troubles, but later led to Trenz programming the official port of R-Type). In addition to idea and character design, he directly coded both Turrican games for the Commodore C64. Even though its replacement, the Amiga, was gaining popularity quickly at the time, it was the most popular home computer in Europe (outside of Britain) at the time. Each Turrican game had an Amiga counterpart, which developed at the same time, by now-famous team Factor 5.
Gameplay is as you would expect from a Contra inspired series. With Turrican is a bit more deeper then that. There is chaos every where. Tons of enemies and insanity just splashed across the screen. Done in a way where it is not impossible to play, just one that requires a little more skill. With these editions one thing I noticed you can access cheat codes, which in the original games did not require you to even really need to beat the game, just punch in a command. Which I found odd. The games(all) include their own save state profiles luckily, so getting through the games is not impossible to get this said cheat mode unlocked. I own Mega Turrican so it felt weird in general that I could not just punch in the invisibility cheat code out of the gate. However before I get ahead of myself with cheat engines let us go over what you actually get with the whole package Anthology 1: Turrican, Turrican II Super Turrican, Super Turrican Director’s Cut. Anthology 2: Turrican 3(Mega Turrican basically), Mega Turrican, Mega Turrican Director’s Cut, Super Turrican 2, and Super Turrican Score Attack.
The package itself seemingly makes it so without the one, you will miss the other. Super Turrican’s Score attack on another volume as apposed to match the one the original game is packed in with. Making your OCD scream into fright and chaos. This was merely a minor complaint for myself. Or also a subtle suggestion from the developers/publishers to make sure if you wanted the games fully complete you needed to buy both collections to fulfill the set.
Everything that stood out about Turrican starting on the Amiga was its depth of color, music, and sound effects. Even starting off into this, and most of the games the games balance was just “enjoy this frying pan!” Then repeatedly bop you on the head. There is a ton of secrets in this game. Every nook an cranny you can find score boosters, power ups, and simply more groups of enemies. As you played the other games they leaned less into the exploeration and a little more into the refinement of gameplay. This did not weaken lets say Mega or Super Turrican, just help focus the complexity of the level design. This genius hallmark is that of Manfred Trenz. Who was a solo developer who turned this set of games into a forever iconic item to have in any Amiga collection.
In Closing,
This complete two part collection is something a lot of fans wanted. I my major complaint with this was the fact one set, had Mega Turrican. Then the Mega Turrican Score attack was on another bundle as apposed to the same pack as the core game. I suppose they wanted to have both bundles packing five items a piece, however then it could have just been a single bungle with every bell and whistle. Alias I get it. For the price you effectively get a solid set(the best of the best) of all of the Turrican games released. The other bundle that came out before was fine, but this one is the one to get if you were looking for what to grab. Specially with the infamously amazing Super Turrican 2.
The Turrican Flashback bundle lacked what these two bundles include, just with a slightly heftier price. Overall if you are a person interested in the series, this one is absolutely worth the price, the games will last you a while.
