Review: Turrican II

Mendel

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AmiBayer
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It has been over 20 years since the release of this game and I was still totally blown away by the quality of this one. The production values are out of the world of games of that era. This doesn´t even need AGA or any of that Amiga 1200 or accelerator nonsense to play and still this is the most graphically impressive Amiga game I have yet played. Music and sounds complete the production values as a great overall package. I keep humming the tunes even now as I´m writing this.

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Did you find this boss? You want to, it drops 2x1 ups.

Controls are really top notch. Specially so with a decent joystick. I never really got around to getting very far at all at this game with emulators and keyboard or joypad. I always got stuck in the first few levels. But with a good joystick, once I got the hang with it, I was blasting away with great precision. The control scheme is the golden standard of how good it can get for an Amiga platformer/shooter.

I would say this is the ultimate game of the genre but I do love my Metroids. This one is shorter and more to the point with little or no puzzle elements, if you don´t count finding secret areas that is. Luckily though, the level design isn´t just a narrow pipe (except for one world but it has a good excuse), rather most the levels are more open labyrinths where you have to find your way, find some powerups, kill the bad guys and deal with the boss of the level.


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Nope, this is not a screenshot from wrong game :)

I had managed not to spoil myself about this game so suffice it to say, I was really, utterly blown away about what happens in world 3. I could not believe they would do that and do it so well! And the mood change in the last world also actually worked! I was really kind of spooked about it. (the alien/predator the kind of always made me uneasy). More so because I had worked so hard to get all the way there and it would hurt so bad if all the lives of my last continue were to be depleted. Then of course, on level 5-1, the game would crash back to classicwb desktop with a memory error.

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Didn´t bother with the camera so I stole some screenshots off from mobygames as they seem to have nice ones. So I guess the netiquette declares I should link to their page for more screenshots: here!

I bit my lips for a while. Had a cup of coffee. Found a lot more of those 1 ups on my following playthrough attempt (including the six pack up by the elevator, warm rewarding feeling there) and by 3 am I had finished the game. (All be it with a physical autofire switch on my joystick helping from time to time, no trainers though). This one, unlike some other games, had a proper ending too.

I´ll give this 99 points by retro standards... and if this was released today as a downloadable xbox arcade game or whatever, I´d still give this a solid 95 out of 100. I honestly can´t think of a better side scrolling action game (but Super Metroid is on the same level and longer but not as intense.) If you haven´t given this game a real chance like I had not and you still like your action shoot em up games, give this one a go! It´s hard, you will die, fail, feel frustrated, but stop the run and gun and try slow methodical approach, it becomes beatable! Time out! You´re dead!
 
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Very nice review of a great game.

I still play all 3 of the Turricans and also the snes and megadrive games.(y)
 
Excellent game, on its day I was quite obsessed with it and have spent countless hours playing it, needless to say that this is one of my top all time favourite games.:)
 
My best ever game on the Amiga. (y)
 
Probably one of the best games ever made - even today.

I remember managing to finish this back in the day. (y)
 
Indeed one of the best in any platforms (pun intended).

Win peecee have a improved freeware version called Hurrican (Google for it!).

This game is the best of the best! A bit better music (not the music was lousy!) and we will ear it to this very day in the radio!
 
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