Well, it's yet another little-known PC-Engine CD game from later in the system's life. It's time to give it a nice review, eh? (Oh... well how about an average review, then?)
Metamor Jupiter is a fun shoot-em-up that comes off as slightly above-average. For a game made in 1993, it has some good graphics and some nice effects, but also a lot of below-average graphics and recycled game ideas. One can see clearly where the game borrowed from Gate of Thunder, Salamander, R-Type, and so on. So, it's kind of a shame this game is so low on originality.
Your ship controls well enough. Button 2 shoots, while 1 flips your ship around to face the opposite direction. Pausing the game and pressing Up or Down changes the speed of your ship, but if you hadn't known about this from the instruction manual, you might have complained about the sluggish speed of your ship, or its mysterious speed-changing mid-level (if you pause a lot). Pressing Select switches your weapons between 3 different types: the standard shot, a powerful laser, and a rather useless spread shot. Picking up orange power-up crystals replenishes your life meter a bit, and powers up your main weapon. If you manage to pick up little ship-like icons, you can use them as "options" in a special attack. Hold down the fire button until the 3 balls near your life meter start flashing, then release the button for a powerful attack. With the standard shot, the option ships just shoot forward to damage enemies, but with the laser shot, the options home in on enemies for a more damaging attack. (I'd stick with the laser during boss fights.)
Fortunately, you do have a life meter in this game, though it isn't very easy to gauge your remaining life at first glance (although it isn't as bad as in Deep Blue.) It's best to look at the colour of the little bars to the right of the confusing wavy-bar thing -- when you sustain damage, it changes from green to yellow, to orange, and then down to red. No more life means Game Over -- you'll have to play the stage all over again. This game does have quite a few difficult sections, with enemies hiding in the distracting backgrounds or shooting out of nowhere to encircle your ship and give you a few cheap shots. Some stages also have enemies that can destroy your option ships with their weapons - à la Gradius II's option-eaters.
Metamor Jupiter's music is decent, with some cool sci-fi dance or ambient tunes coming from the CD. The only downside is that all the music tracks are between 30 seconds and a minute in length, meaning they loop a bit too much during the stages. The game lets you save your progress to backup RAM whenever your game is over, so it's a good thing you don't have to try to finish this all in one sitting. With at least 10 stages and plenty of frustrating areas to get stuck at, Metamor Jupiter's longevity is good value for money. It doesn't feel as precise or fair as Gate of Thunder, and it doesn't come close to GoT's feverish level of intensity, but it's a decent game to work your way through.
| The Introduction |
| In typical sci-fi fashion, the ship and hero are introduced, a resolute (just look at the pictures!) young man named Jupiter with his fragile-looking ship, and his love interest, Io. |
| Intro (continued) |
| The globular main baddy having been introduced, Io covers up her chest for protection, and Jupiter sinks into a nice, relaxing lava bath... |
| Stage 1 |
| And the game begins! It's a typical first level in space, with comets zooming by. As a special visual treat, the programmers have had the boss scale and rotate in from the distance. But the problem with doing a SNES-calibre effect with the PCE's 8-bit CPU is painfully clear here: it is sloooow, about 1 second per frame! |
| Stage 2 |
| This stage is really awfully typical: fly around huge battleships and take out their turrets, battle a mid-boss, then go down into an underground factory, where you fight the requisite ED-209 type boss. This one's a real pushover. |
| Stage 3 |
| Now it gets more interesting as you fly into a space station through its laser blast chamber (!) (?). As soon as you're in, a warning alarm sounds, and a huge laser blasts your friends (and you if you don't dodge it) as the screen goes white. Then the whole stage starts to rotate and roll around the central axis -- a rather nice effect. The boss at the end traps you with some columns of electricity, then when its four pistons are destroyed, it sends a large lightning blast around the screen. |
| Stage 4 |
| This stage takes place in a cave with several vertical drops. The walls of the cave have oil oozing out of them, and then come along some enemies belching flames to set all the oil alight. The boss is a menacing drill contraption that traps you in with its drills and spiked wheels. |
| Stage 5 |
| Your ship descends onto the planet from its mothership above. Then some laser beams blast the planet, revealing a mechanical base, into which you descend. It gradually gets more "biological" later on, reminding me of X-Multiply (and countless awful Euro-Shmups.) |
| Stage 5 Boss |
| This guy has 3 different forms, the first two of which are relatively easy. The first form attacks you with long blue tentacles from out of its three mound-like openings, while enemies drip down from the ceiling. At the same time, it launches a blue bomb at you which detonates with quite large and damaging spirals of electricity. The second form is the bad guy we saw in the game's intro, so I thought this would be the final boss, what with all his forms. But no, after dealing enough damage to this orb as he launches small sparks in your direction and warps around the screen, the boss goes "splat" on the ground, and a final form emerges. It's tough to avoid getting hit, as you have to destroy the four weak spots, all the while dodging its flailing tentacles which shoot out rapidly from three points on its body. With the boss dispatched, you get a nice blocky explosion for your troubles. |
